I really ought to find out who the bloke was who narrated the British Pathe News Reels of the 1950s. He embodied the optimistic spirit of the age. Here he is, telling us about the activities of some complete nutters.
And the winner is: A VW Beetle
Eh, lad. They don't make 'em like they used to.
In my post a few days ago, I touched on the subject of giving children bullshit answers to their questions. I saw this video featured on Pharyngula earlier, and felt the need to share it.
I like the style of this Thunderf00t video.
I had a dream last night. One that I remembered when I woke up, that is. It was enough of a curiosity that I made an effort to commit it to memory before going back to sleep. Perhaps I should add, in case you've pictured me as a lazy-bones who doesn't like to get out of bed of a morning, that it was part way through the night when I woke.
It being a normal sort of dream, on recollecting the storyline after waking, there were many inconsistencies, which, of course, did not seem inconsistent while the dream was happening. The gist of it was this:
I was talking with Richard Dawkins, who seemed very at home in the basement study I used to own and occupy several years ago. In fact, so much at home that it appeared to be his. Part of our conversation was about blogging, the details of which escape me, but in the course of our discussion he kindly gave me a roll of cling film.
I feel I should point out that this was no ordinary roll of cling film. This roll came in a cartridge, with a plastic gear wheel attached to each end of the core of the roll, obviously designed to go in a very hi-tech dispenser (of which I knew nothing). As is often the case with dreams, it didn't seem strange that he should give me such an odd artifact.
I don't know what I did with his gift. It went 'out of focus' and played no further part in the story, which had already moved on to me offering to make coffee. He accepted my offer, and in response to my enquiry "how do you like it", he replied "black, white, third and dill".
In the transission from basement study to kitchen, Richard morphed into a woman, who, it seemed, was my high-powered boss. I mentioned to her, as I began to prepare the coffee, that I understood what "black, white" meant (although the meaning is not at all clear to me now), but that I'd never heard the "third and dill" part, and would be grateful for enlightenment.
She explained that 'dill' meant 'very little milk', to which I said, "oh, I see, just a dash". She looked puzzled, and asked me what that meant, so I told her it meant 'very little milk'. She said, "oh, I see", after which we embarked on a discussion of the etymology of the word 'dash', and it's various meanings.
I woke up before finding out what "third" meant. Damn and blast!
I tend to think that dreams are what happens in our brains when we relax the stricter insistence on logic that we usually impose during our waking hours. Dreaming is just letting it all hang out, goin' with the flow, chillin', layin' back. Unless you can convince me otherwise?
No post yesterday because... well... here's a clue:
But now I have a nice, pristine Windows 7 installation up and running again, which is pleasing. All updated and ready to get back into the fray!
I featured Calamities of Nature yesterday, which tends to look at life from thoughtful perspectives, and occasionally offers something which some would consider controversial. Here's the latest from Jesus and Mo, another site I heartily recommend.
As you can see, J&M tends to be a bit more controversial, although the controversy often seems externally manufactured. There's some sort of delicious poetry in the fact that those externally manufactured controversies are often the subject of the 'controversial' cartoons.
When people make 'unwelcome' comments about Christianity, one often hears the response, from disgruntled Christians, that "you wouldn't say that about Islam!" It always strikes me as a particularly stupid comment. Perhaps those who make it hanker for the good old witch-burning days of yore?
One of the beauties of the Jesus and Mo cartoons is that the aforementioned criticism (if you can call it that) cannot be levelled at them. The are always well balanced!
I heartily recommend a visit to Calamities of Nature. Here's an example of the type of thing you'll see there.
I read this article on the BBC News website, about five 'killer' whales being named as plaintiffs in a court case, which raises some interesting questions.
Actually, the article itself doesn't raise many, if any, interesting questions, but reading it provoked some of my own. The gist of the article is that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) have brought a lawsuit, in San Diego, against Seaworld (the owners of the properties where the whales are located), on behalf of the whales. They are citing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the USA, which abolished "slavery or involuntary servitude".
PETA are claiming that the whales are enslaved, which, bearing in mind they are wild-captured animals being held in captivity, and 'forced' to perform 'unnatural' acts, seems a reasonable claim. But, as Seaworld's lawyer, Theodore Shaw, is reported to have said, "Neither orcas nor any other animal were included in the 'We the people...' when the Constitution was adopted."
He's got a point, and, consequently, it seems highly unlikely that PETA will win in court. But then, I think it highly unlikely that PETA's objective is to win, more likely to gain attention for their cause.
I'm all for the ethical treatment of animals, but I have some reservations about PETA. It is alleged that although they claim to eschew violence, they make large donations to the Animal Liberation Front, who apparently set fire to the Coulston Foundation primate-research facility some years ago.
I don't know about that. The issue I have is this: how do we, as humans, know what animals want and like? How do we know that those whales are not enjoying their lives? Just because I wouldn't want to spend my days doing what they do, and living like they do, doesn't mean that they feel the same way. Saying that 'if they were released they wouldn't stay there' is not proof that they are unhappy.
Claiming to know what animals want, and what's best for them, is not very dissimilar to claiming to know what gods want, and what they think is best for everyone. I wrote about what people think their god thinks, just the other day, and I suspect that a similar mechanism operates when we think about what animals think.
There is a difference, of course. We can observe animals' behaviours which can give us a clue to how they are feeling, or at least some of them at any rate. I'm just not very convinced that the whales in question have such a bad time. Their lifestyle is nowhere near on a par with battery hens, for example.
But whatever the pros and cons of PETA's actions, be kind to an animal whenever you get the opportunity.
While I was playing with the Shakespearean Insulter the other day, I clcked the Zenith Poetry link and found myself at the Heretical Rhyme Generator. Yeah! Another fun way to while away some idle moments. Here's one I did earlier:
Mendel's Serenade
What are these tiresome weasel words
Are they yours or hers or mine or his?
I ask only that you tell me, Lords
Was there ever spoken as true as this?
I edited it a little, but mostly to improve the cadence. Utter nonsense, but perhaps not entirely without merit.
Next up, mood music from k u: l i: (their latest offering, just released)
Melancholy, but mixed with optimism and peace.
And finally, why is the sky blue daddy?
Because the sun emits solar radiation, some of which is visible to the human eye. We see colors depending on the length of the light waves, from the longest (red) to the shortest (blue). When solar radiation passes through the earth's atmosphere, various molecules scatter the light waves (called diffusion). Blue waves, which are short and intense, get diffused more widely than other waves - so we see the sky as blue.
I suppose I can understand why some people say, because God made it that way. But boy, is that a cop out! Why not say, well, [insert child's name], you've asked me something which I don't know the answer to. How about you and me find out?
In days gone by perhaps there was an excuse in that finding out could be a major task, so the God did it answer was more excusable. But come on, it's much easier today, so there's really no excuse for fobbing off children with bullshit answers (and stifling their curiosity into the bargain).
On 28 August 1963, at a peaceful civil rights rally in Washington, D.C., USA, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream!" speech to more than 200,000 people.
Well, I have a suspicion!
Okay, I apologize to MLK for co-opting him, unwarranted, into this post, notwithstanding that he's dead and therefore can neither accept or reject it. And, it's true that I don't have an audience of 200,000. But why let mere trifles such as those get in my way? Back to my suspicion.
I suspect that most people's idea of Heaven (that is, those non-atheists who think that such a place exists, and it is their desired destination) is something like: "a place where everybody universally agrees with my point of view, including God."
I doubt that they would be comfortable with that description, and some would proabably rail against me for writing it (which those of you who have learned about logical fallacies will understand to be a possible ad hominem attack).
So let's rephrase it: "Heaven is a place where I agree with the point of view universally held by everyone else, including God."
Does that feel more comfortable?
How about: "Heaven is a place where everyone universally agrees with God's point of view, including me."
Better?
The thing is, research suggests that my first phrasing is probably nearest the mark, even if people don't like to admit it. Researchers at the University of Chicago did some experiments to see what people thought their god's opinion was about various issues. You can read their research paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by downloading this PDF entitled, Believers’ estimates of God’s beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people’s beliefs, but I'll give you an excerpt or two if you're too lazy, er, short of time, to read it for yourself.
Writing about their research, the authors say: When people try to infer other people’s attitudes and beliefs, they often do so egocentrically by using their own beliefs as an inductive guide. This research examines the extent to which people might also reason egocentrically about God’s beliefs. We predicted that people would be consistently more egocentric when reasoning about God’s beliefs than when reasoning about other people’s beliefs. Intuiting God’s beliefs on important issues may not produce an independent guide, but may instead serve as an echo chamber that reverberates one’s own beliefs.
They also note that: Unlike inferences about people, however, inferences about God’s beliefs cannot rely as readily on information directly from the judgment target. One can quiz neighbors on their beliefs, read editorials about celebrities’ positions, or observe public opinion polls. Religious agents do not lend themselves to public opinion polling. Even within Christianity, for example, groups differ quite dramatically in their interpretation of God’s attitudes toward such topics as same-sex marriage, the death penalty, and abortion. The inherent ambiguity of God’s beliefs on major issues and the extent to which religious texts may be open to interpretation and subjective evaluation, suggests not only strong egocentric biases when reasoning about God, but also that people may be consistently more egocentric when reasoning about God’s beliefs than when reasoning about other people’s beliefs.
The emphasis in the above paragraph is mine. I think that's so diplomatic as to be worthy of some praise. The paper is not that long, only six pages, which include some graphics, but here's a snippet from their summing up: Correlational, experimental, and neuroimaging methodologies all suggest that religious believers are particularly likely to use their own beliefs as a guide when reasoning about God’s beliefs compared to when reasoning about other people’s beliefs. People’s estimates of God’s beliefs were more strongly correlated with their own beliefs than were their estimates of a broad range of other people’s beliefs. Manipulating people’s own beliefs similarly affected their estimates of God’s beliefs more than it affected estimates of other people’s beliefs, demonstrating that estimates of God’s beliefs are causally influenced at least in part by one’s own beliefs. Finally, neuroimaging evidence demonstrated that reasoning about God’s beliefs tends to activate the same regions that are active when reasoning about one’s own beliefs (indeed, statistically indistinguishable in the whole-brain analysis), whereas reasoning about the average American’s beliefs activates relatively distinct regions associated with reasoning about other people.
And then: ...these data have interesting implications for the impact of religious thought on judgment and decision-making. People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want. The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.
In that time-honoured tradition of legal types, I rest my case.
From Traffic's Mr Fantasy album.
I came across this quite a while back and bookmarked it for future use. Well, you know how it is - the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. I forgot all about it until today, when I embarked on a session of clearing out the dead and the dross from my bookmarks, and there it was, grinning at me like an idol of idiot-worshippers..
The original Shakespearean Insulter can be found here, but I've taken the liberty of embedding it here for your delectation and convenience*, even though thou art the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.
* You may actually find it easier to read on the source webpage (it has a white background).
Dear Jo,
Seeing as this is my first letter to you, I'd better put it in some sort of context.
Firstly, you'll have noticed that I addressed you informally. Well, I don't know for sure if you've ever been known as plain old Jo (as I am) but, assuming your peers, in your younger years, were like most children, it seems likely that they called you 'Jo'. Be that as it may, I'll be happy to address you as Joseph in the future, if you'd prefer it. Just let me know, okay?
Secondly, the reason for my informal approach is that I'm not looking for an 'official response', but rather to talk to the man 'behind the façade'. Besides, to be absolutely candid, I'm not expecting a direct response of any kind, but that's not an issue for me (you'll see why later).
Thirdly, I had to make this an open letter, even though it's personal in nature, because, search as I might on your website, I couldn't find any contact information
Anyway, if you get a few spare minutes when you're feeling relaxed and contented, with not much else to do, perhaps you'll be curious enough to peruse the rest of my letter to find out what prompted me to write it.
Still with me? Good. Because, you see, there are several things which I'm puzzled about. One of them, which seems both trivial and serious at the same time, is Leviticus.
Yes, I know. Sigh...not that again. But that's the point. Why not get it sorted? There's so much 'iffy' stuff in there, and it's easy pickings for anyone who wants to have a pop at Christianity.
I couldn't manage to wade through it all, sentence by sentence, but here's some of the 'highlights' I picked up at BibleGateway.com (I use the Contemporary English Version alongside the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition, it makes it easier to understand).
3:16 ... All the fat shall be the Lord's.
3:17 By a perpetual law for your generations, and in all your habitations: neither blood nor fat shall you eat at all.
11:1-47 About what you can eat
12:1-8 About what women must do after giving birth
13:1-59 About skin diseases
14:33-57 About mildew in houses
17:10-14 About eating blood
18:1-23 About sexual relations
20:1-27 About death penalty offences
24:10-22 More punishments
26:14-29 "Vengeance is mine..."?
Unless I'm much mistaken, putting people to death for cursing their parents, for example, isn't any longer preached as the right thing to do. Times have changed, as have the rules of conduct we are expected to adhere to, and the methods used to enforce compliance.
It may not seem to have much in common with 'the word of God', but in the world of computer programming, when a construct in a computing language is considered out of date, and planned to be phased out, but still available for use, the manual is updated so the construct in question is clearly marked as deprecated.
As it happens, Wiktionary gives the etymology of 'deprecated' as: from Latin deprecatus, past participle of deprecari (“to pray against (a present or impending evil), pray for, intercede for (that which is in danger), rarely imprecate”), from de (“off”) + precari (“to pray”). Which rather neatly brings me to the purpose of this letter.
If I understand it correctly, then you, in your official capacity, are as close to the Lord who features in the book of Leviticus as it is possible for a human to get. So, why don't you ask him what to do about Leviticus? After all, it needn't be a complicated question. Simply ask if it should be deprecated, or maybe just ditched altogether. There'd be some real kudos in getting a definitive answer (and it'd be 'one in the eye' for your detractors - and Lord knows there are a few of them who've been having a bit of a field day of late, what with all the scandals and what have you).
Well, that's about it for this letter. I know what I've written about might not seem so important in the grand scheme of things (although some of that Leviticus stuff is pretty horrendous), but wouldn't it be a massive credibility boost (for very little effort) if you could come out and say, "Leviticus is deprecated/ditched - and that's official. Please mark all bibles accordingly."
Anyway, I'll let you get back to pontificating now.
Thanks for your time.
All the best.
Till next time.
Jo
This is a sobering video. A time-lapse map of every nuclear explosion since 1945 - by Isao Hashimoto.
The soundtrack consists of a beep for each passing month, and a beep for each explosion. The pitch of each 'explosion beep' corresponds to the country which detonated each explosion. It makes a kind of music remeniscent of (bad) 8-bit home computer games from the eighties. As an alternative, mute the video and listen to the Carlos Santana track from his Divine Light album (it's about the right length, and the title seems appropriate).
The thing that struck me most is this. Of the seven countries which have detonated nuclear bombs, only the UK and France didn't set any off in their home territory.
Do you have a bucket list? I do, but it's an amorphous beast that threatens to bite me because many of the things on it I haven't a hope of doing (unless my circumstances undergo a radical change). Mind you, I've marked 'done' against a few items on the list. One that's still on there is probably a common item on bucket lists galore; to see the northern lights, or aurora borealis if you want to be a bit fancy.
Apparently there was a solar storm recently and this video captured the show in real time.
The music is Visions of Socrates by Martijn de Man
Tip o' the hat to WEIT
I've been growing increasingly frustrated with the built in Posterous music player. There's nothing wrong with how it plays the music, but the lack of control over how it displays the Artist and Title rubs me up the wrong way.
Look at the way it dealt with the Arlo Guthrie track the other day. That mp3 file has standard ID3 tags which every other player seems able to read, but the Posterous player resorts to using the file name and substituting an underscore for any spaces. It's just ugly!
I'm actually quite happy mucking around with HTML, but I like convenience too, especially when my objective is simply to put up a post which includes some music. My solution was to turn to AutoHotKey, with which I made a small program to automate the task as much as possible. Here's the result - I hope you like it (assuming it works!)
I like this version of Green Day's Basket Case (it seemed rather appropriate). You can find out a bit more about Janie Porche at her website.
Here's a fun little exercise. Get a sheet of paper and make a list of people you know who exhibit the "my way, or no way" attitude. When you've done, you can write the title Self-Righteous Pricks above the list, and stick it up on your wall (and throw darts at it?). If you've included women on your list, don't worry, having a penis is not a requirement for behaving like a prick.
Okay. So it wasn't really much fun at all, and if your list is anything like mine then one sheet of paper is not enough. But perhaps the interesting part is thinking about other people's lists. Do I feature in any of them? Do you? Do I feature in your list! Do you feature on mine?
I'll come clean. I didn't actually write a list so you can be fairly certain you're not on it. My list exists in conveyor belt form. When I come across someone who meets the criteria - holier-than-thou, self-important, condescending, prick - I put them on my imaginary conveyor belt, and watch them disappear off the end where they fall into the great oblivion.
I suspect that Sid Vicious probably falls into the self-righteous prick category for some people. But it's neither here nor there because he fell off the end of life's conveyor belt quite a while back, possibly because he was curious enough to go see what was over the edge.
In one of those chains of thought which take you somewhere you didn't expect to go, I ended up thinking about Sid after doing my usual in-the-car-in-the-church-car-park routine this morning. It started off with Knockin' On Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan's original version) as the first song to be randomly played by my music player.
If you don't mind, we'll skip the discussion about why I like the song even though I am about as convinced as it's possible to be that there is no door to knock on. Maybe another time. The thing was that I featured covers of that song in a previous post, so I didn't want to include it in this post.
As coincidence would have it, the Guns N' Roses version came up a few songs later, which is probably my favourite version because their treatment of it is, what shall I say, sacrilegious? Later in the day I had the misfortune to pass by a karaoke party (you know the sort of thing - people who are really quite bad at singing amplifying their efforts to such a degree that nobody within several miles can have any doubt about how bad they are), and, to my horror, the miscreant of the moment was singing My Way.
And that's how I got to thinking about Mr Vicious. Here he is doing his memorable version of that 'classic'. Now that's sacrilegious!
In the squares of the city, in the shadow of a steeple.
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?
As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign there, It said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!
That side was made for you and me.
These are the original last two verses of "This Land is Your Land", which American folk singer, Woody Guthrie, dropped from his famous song which he wrote after the 'Great Depression', and the Dust Bowl. They certainly make it much clearer what his views were.
His son, Arlo, carried on the tradition of writing and singing protest songs, in his own style, and, as far as I'm aware, he didn't have to drop anything from this song, from 1967, to get it published. It's long, but it remains a classic, in my opinion. It still makes me chuckle.
From the album Alice's Restaurant.
Photos again. But this beetle caught my eye because of its 'feelers'. It's difficult to think of brown beetles as beautiful, probably because of their visual similarity to cockroaches, but this one's adornment sets it apart from the others.
I stumbled across this PDF while I was rummaging around in my documents folders. I can't remember where I got it from. What I do know is that it was a very long time ago. I also know that although it's quite clever, and amusing to a small degree, I never used it to deal with any of the telesales people who used to call me up. I suppose that just means I'm lazy.
I went through various stages in my responses to those who rang to sell me double glazing, a time-share apartment in sunny Spain, or any one of numerous other things I didn't want. I tried the put-the-phone-down-quietly-on-the-table-and-leave-them-to-talk-to-the-air routine, the I-am-mister-angry-and-I-will-shout-at-you-loudly-until-you-disconnect thing, the keep-them-talking-for-as-long-as-possible-until-they-give-up tactic, and others too, none of which were very satisfying, and, more to the point, did not stop them from calling me again at some future date.
The reason I object to those calls is that I'm the sort of person who, if I decide to buy something, will do some research, search out sources, compare what's on offer and come to a conclusion about what I will buy, and where I will buy it, based on the information I have gathered. Some stranger ringing me to tell me 'how white my shirts can be' is a waste of time, both theirs and mine.
I tried the 'Do not call' lists, but while it may have stopped some of them, it was not as successful as I'd hoped. It took me far too long to hit upon the sure fire way to stop a company from ever calling me again. I'll tell you how to do it, and maybe it will be the start of a new anti-telemarketer/telesales campaign. It's really quite simple, but it does mean you have to make a small investment of time. However, it works, so that's a negligible price to my mind. It goes like this:
Telesales person calls you up and tries to interest you in whatever it is their company sells. You say that's marvelous because you were only just thinking that you'd like to buy it, and how convenient it is that they have called. Make arrangements with them to send someone round to discuss your needs, and, if it seems necessary, tell them that you are thinking of replacing all the windows in your home (or whatever is appropriate) to encourage them. You won't be lying because you really are thinking about it - you're just not mentioning that the thoughts you are having are that you don't want to do it.
When the appointed time arrives, and the sales person comes to your door, invite them in and make them comfortable. When they've relaxed and are about to start their pitch, ask them if they've got all your details correct - telephone number, for example. As soon as you've established that they know who you are, tell them the reason you invited them is because you want to tell them face-to-face that you do not want their company to ring you ever again, and, if they do, you will again invite a sales call so you can repeat the message.
There might be an awkward moment or two before they leave, but you will be the one in control, and you can be certain that the message will get through. Wasting the telesales person's time on the phone is expected, as is the abuse they get - it's built in to the costing of the operation. The cost of sending a salesperson to your home is a different matter altogether.
Think it's a bit cruel? Not a bit of it. A valuable lesson that won't easily be forgotten, and, [insert evil laugh], it's payback time for all those occasions when their telesales people annoyed you with their patter (they work off scripts like the one at the top of the page).
Happy hunting!
My Nokia N95 might be old, and the cause of exasperation when it's my only means of access to the internet, but it takes a fair old picture. This moth (that's what it looks like to me), and twenty or thirty others, settled on the wall of the house today. I rotated the picture because, without a wider field of view, it looks more sensible this way. This little chap is about one inch long.
This 'little chap' was about three feet long. Hoping to find some dinner in amongst the grass. The house geckos who share my abode would struggle to eat the moth, but this bayawak wouldn't even bother with it. Bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
So where's this a map of? But perhaps you were not fooled by my artistry with the GIMP, if I can call it that? It is, of course, an unusual colour scheme for the location, and the eroneous labelling is also designed to mislead you, if only for a moment. Crazy old Jo, eh? But there's a reason for my deception.
The shoes I want you to put yourself in are those of the marine lifeforms of this planet. Metaphorically, of course. I am well aware that none of them wear shoes. Not having feet, for most of them at any rate, precludes the option. But suppose our situations were reversed.
The map is a fish's eye view of the planet. The 'solid land' is a representation of the area which belongs to marine life, while the 'water' is the area which is generally not accessible to them, and belongs to terrestrial lifeforms. Yes, there are exceptions, but let's not get sidetracked.
The point of it is to give us a perspective which we can't easily see when we look at our 'normal' maps. I've shown you a different map. I'll leave you to do the thinking.
More Mark Knopfler here.
I had occasion to read a letter written by one Mr Ratzinger to some other chaps in his organisation who he holds responsible for the management of said organisation in the USA. But before I go further, I should point out that I mean no disrespect to the gentleman by referring to him as Mr Ratzinger. Bearing in mind that I don't believe there are any gods, let alone the one he not only claims to exist, but also claims to represent, it would be hypocritical of me if I was to use a title which implies that such an entity exists. However, I suspect that some people who hold him in awe will already have switched off their brains (quite possibly a long time before they began reading this).
But back to that letter. I hardly know where to start. There are so many things in it which could do with examination, but I'll just pick up on one or two. After all, you can read it for yourself and come to your own conclusions, if you feel so inclined.
Let's dive in at the third paragraph which ends with the following sentence: "When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey, as the late Pope John Paul II so clearly saw, to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society."
"Dimension of ultimate mystery"? He's been reading too much Deepak Chopra! And is he really suggesting that his organisation doesn't exhibit totalitarian tendencies? Or perhaps 'totalitarian readings' is something else?
Skipping forward to paragraph six, he writes of "grave threats to the Church’s public moral witness presented by a radical secularism". I'm a tad confused. Is he saying that good old common or garden secularism is okay, but it's this pesky radical secularism which is the problem? And what exactly is the difference. Is it that the common or garden variety is okay because that's the kind which nobody defends, or, if they do, they say what they have to say very quietly? Does secularism only become radical when people say "Hey! I'm standing up for secularism and I wish to complain about your behaviour!"
But wait. In the very next paragraph he writes of "reductive secularism". Ah... you've got me there. I haven't a clue what he means by that. True, I could spend time trying to figure out what he might mean by it, but I get the feeling that he simply can't bring himself to write secularism as a word on its own. Mind you, he does write of the secular sphere a bit further on.
In the penultimate paragraph he writes of "the great moral issues of our time: respect for God’s gift of life, the protection of human dignity and the promotion of authentic human rights." Bugger me if he hasn't done the same thing with human rights! Why not just human rights? Are they somehow different from authentic ones?
I've heard of passive-aggressive, but I've never been absolutely certain I really know what it means. Maybe those are examples?
But fear not, my friends. It's all gonna be okay because we learn in the final paragraph that it's all about "the building of the civilization of love."
With apologies to the memory of Tommy Cooper
~ : ~ : ~
Well, it is Sunday. And, as is my custom, I will share with you the song which was the first randomly selected track from my phone's music player this morning. To be honest, I'm a bit ambivalent about Cat Stevens, as he used to be known. I like this track but I can't get to grips with why he decided to get religion as he did. But then, I suppose he was a bit new-age-spiritual, and perhaps Moonshadow was a clue to his future path.
Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam home page
And, Posterous, if you are listening, I wish you would sort out your music player so it displays the tags properly. All the tracks I upload have ID3 v2.3 tags which ought to work! Grrrr!
Fred Rune Rahm, who I met on Diaspora, created this video on vimeo for the purpose of a lecture in mindfulness. Fred wrote the following notes on the vimeo page:
No exciting video, nothing happens. So this is kind of special.
Most will find this boring, but if you care to take the two minutes to watch, then do it mindfully:
Focus on video and music, focus on the moment right now.
Take on a non-judgemental stand, don't fight intruding thoughts and feelings, but reconize them, let them go, and focus back on the video. Accept the moment, - and relax.
I don't find it boring. In fact, when I'm in 'thinking mode' (which sometimes finds me staring blankly at the wall), I could watch a much longer version. It's in HD, so I highly recommend you watch it in full screen (click the icon at bottom-right between HD and vimeo), and you'll need patience to let it load if you have a slow connection.
Music is by Evgeny Grinko. And thank you, Fred, for introducing me to the Free Music Archive.
A friend introduced me to the Joslin Rhodes Adviser Blog. He had some dealings with them when they did the conveyancing on a property he sold, and, he says, although they could have done better in the service they provided, he finds their monthly email newsletter quirkily amusing; enough that he usually forwards it to me.
The email usually contains an excerpt from a blog post. The latest one contained the following excerpt:
"Good evening and welcome to the Nine O’clock News.
The world is going to end and it’s all Kevin McCloud’s fault…….reportedly.
You may be surprised by that headline as we normally like to start the program by reporting on a grisly murder or such like. Ideally, a good hammer attack in some pretty middle class village, although anything that makes you feel like ‘you could be next’ is good for us. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, nobody was murdered today, which caused us a bit of a problem.
We tried very hard to find one, and in desperation the Producer even considered bringing one about however we talked him out of it.
We’re sure that lots of nice people did some good things today but as the media, we are unable to bring ourselves to report these to you for fear that you may go to bed in any state other than terrified for your life. Click to read more."
Bearing in mind that Joslin Rhodes describe themselves as Independent Financial Advisers who give advice on pensions, mortgages, savings, investments and insurance, not to mention the conveyancing services I alluded to earlier, I wonder if they have among their employees a staff member who not only likes to indulge his or her penchant for illegal substances, but also manages to slip blog posts onto the company blog, written under their influence, which have nothing whatever to do with the company business. I don't think it's a spoiler if I tell you the last sentence of that post reads: "Remember that you may still be hammered to death by a maniac at any time though, so don’t drop your guard."
If you click that link to read the rest of it, you'll find that the whole of the post carries on in a similar style, and doesn't 'drop out of character' at any point. The author strives to illustrate, through the use of humour, how TV 'news' programs seek to manipulate their viewers' emotions via the spin they put on their 'reports'. In one of those coincidences which spawns knowing looks from those who see hidden meaning in every coincidence, it arrived in my inbox just as I was thinking I'd do a post about TV soap operas, and the effect they have on their viewers. [Cue dramatic music]
I have heard it said, although I can't point you to where, that soap operas just hold up a mirror to life. Hmmm. Leaving aside the bad acting (have you ever watched a soap opera with the sound turned off?), it strikes me that if there are any mirrors involved then they are far from perfect. They may not be as distorting as those found in the fairground hall of mirrors, but they most certainly reflect the bias of the soap's makers, and their backers.
Try watching a soap from a non-English speaking country, and observe what the themes are. You don't have to understand the language to recognise which behaviours are considered bad, and which are considered good, and if you spend a little time, you'll see behaviours which are presented as normal, even though they are not normal to you, probably because you don't live in the country of production. Then watch an English soap with the sound turned off.
From the album Overnite Sensation
No. Not those ones. Real ones!
Watching this I was reminded of David Attenbrough's encounter with wild gorillas in his Life on Earth series, which aired on British TV way back in 1979. I don't know if gorillas can 'think', but something is going on in their brains during such encounters.
One thing is for sure. If we couldn't 'out-think' them, as we have done for thousands of years, then we really wouldn't stand a chance against them. However, watching them idly wandering through as if they own the place (they do, at least as much as we do), their powerful bodies having the capacity to snuff out a human life with ease, puts me in a place where my perspective on this world, and how we humans behave in it, is considerably broadened.
If we, as a species, were treated half as badly as we treat gorillas, in a general sense, we'd attack our oppressors on sight, with whatever strength we could muster. How fortunate we are that gorillas don't have the capacity to organise themselves as we do. If they did, we might show them more respect.
They deserve far more respect than they get.
Hat tip: WEIT
I read this article the other day, and the final sentence leapt out at me. Apparently, the gentleman around whom the article centres, has urged institutions who share his beliefs "...to become more accessible to the young, for faith leaders to make religion fun and put more emphasis on teaching religious ethics." 
It brought back memories of groovy young clerics who attempted to make religion fun in the make love, not war days of forty, or so, years ago. I don't think they were very successful - singing happy-clappy songs can be vaguely fun, but it's all those DOs and DON'Ts which always seem to be a stumbling block in the fun stakes. And with DOs and DON'Ts which are based on the immutable, absolute truth, there's not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to making them fun, when they are plainly not.
Together with the happy-clappy songs, the tactic seemed to be simply to not mention the bits which are not fun, at least not until later when the poor unsuspecting victims of all the smiles were already ensnared, by which time it was much more difficult to extricate themselves. However, the figures for religious affiliation in the UK, over the last forty years, suggest that, as a strategy for arresting the decline in interest amongst the young, making religion fun was a dismal failure.
It's not that surprising, really. Religion never has been about fun. It's been about unconditionally obeying instructions, and, as far as I can see, it still is. The fact that the instructions are supposed to come from a god doesn't make them fun. And the fact that some things, which seem and feel like fun, are the subject of instructions which prohibit them doesn't add to the gaiety.
I suppose it's an example of that saying "some people never learn"? But perhaps that's a little unfair to the man featured in the article I linked to above. After all, he's probably not had direct experience of the failures associated with previous attempts to make religion fun. For Ahtsham Ali, a cleric and the Prison Service's Muslim advisor, it probably feels like a bright new idea which is sorely needed in view of the numbers of young men in UK prisons who are considered, at least by him, to be Muslims.
It does make me wonder what they talk about at those interfaith dialogue meetings. Perhaps, assuming he attends, he never thought to mention his idea, and, consequently, was not given the benefit of the experience of the now aging groovy clerics whose efforts in the last century showed how ineffectual such initiatives tend to be.
But really, if he read his own words with some detachment, he should be able to see that making religion fun and putting more emphasis on teaching religious ethics, are two concepts which, when put together, will surely end in tears.
Do you ever get flashes of inspiration/enlightenment/understanding? How about the situation where you see or here of something that someone has invented and you feel a bit affronted because you had that idea ages ago (but never did anything with it - [insert expletive of choice] )? It's happened to me, occasionally, and I suspect everyone has experienced at least one of those scenarios.
I had one of those moments today. I had to do a fair bit of driving, on narrow roads, and at one point got stuck behind a cyclist while a long line of oncoming vehicles went by. Not having to concentrate particularly hard on driving (the cyclist was going as fast as his little legs could manage, but it was up a slight gradient so progress was slow), my mind had spare capacity to wonder why cyclists don't fall over.
More specifically, I was wondering why it's very hard to prevent yourself from falling off your bike if you take your feet off the ground when it's stationary (oh yes! now I'm thinking about those 'slow bicycle races' I participated in as a youngster), but as soon as you start to peddle along, or even roll forwards, falling off just isn't much of an issue anymore. That was the point when I suddenly understood.
Riding a bike is just controlling the direction of your fall. Instead of falling sideways, with the painful results which often accompany such a manouvre, riding is simply falling forwards, in the direction you want to go. And seeing as you can only fall in one direction, once you get moving, that's the direction of your fall, and that's why you don't fall off sideways.
Ouch!
Now, I have to accept that you might be thinking, "Duh! Everyone knows that!", but to the best of my knowledge, that piece of insight came to me without having heard or read it elsewhere. I suppose, though, I could have simply forgotten. Maybe I read it years ago in one of those little Reader's Digest books which one would find in the waiting room of the Doctor's or Dentist's surgery. Or perhaps it's splattered all over the internet and I've got some sort of mental block which causes me to forget the numerous times I've clicked that link. Oh...it's so depressing!
Humour me, let me continue in my self-satisfied ignorance for a little longer. Let me wallow in the glory of my innovative thought, even if I am deluding myself. I, for one, will resist the temptation to search the internet for all those splattered articles, for at least twenty-four hours. Yes, I'll have my cake and eat it too!
Long Line Of Cars is on the Comfort Eagle album.
Do you ever get flashes of inspiration/enlightenment/understanding? How about the situation where you see or here of something that someone has invented and you feel a bit affronted because you had that idea ages ago (but never did anything with it - [insert expletive of choice] )? It's happened to me, occasionally, and I suspect everyone has experienced at least one of those scenarios.
I had one of those moments today. I had to do a fair bit of driving, on narrow roads, and at one point got stuck behind a cyclist while a long line of oncoming vehicles went by. Not having to concentrate particularly hard on driving (the cyclist was going as fast as his little legs could manage, but it was up a slight gradient so progress was slow), my mind had spare capacity to wonder why cyclists don't fall over.
More specifically, I was wondering why it's very hard to prevent yourself from falling off your bike if you take your feet off the ground when it's stationary (oh yes! now I'm thinking about those 'slow bicycle races' I participated in as a youngster), but as soon as you start to peddle along, or even roll forwards, falling off just isn't much of an issue anymore. That was the point when I suddenly understood.
Riding a bike is just controlling the direction of your fall. Instead of falling sideways, with the painful results which often accompany such a manouvre, riding is simply falling forwards, in the direction you want to go. And seeing as you can only fall in one direction, once you get moving, that's the direction of your fall, and that's why you don't fall off sideways.
Ouch!
Now, I have to accept that you might be thinking, "Duh! Everyone knows that!", but to the best of my knowledge, that piece of insight came to me without having heard or read it elsewhere. I suppose, though, I could have simply forgotten. Maybe I read it years ago in one of those little Reader's Digest books which one would find in the waiting room of the Doctor's or Dentist's surgery. Or perhaps it's splattered all over the internet and I've got some sort of mental block which causes me to forget the numerous times I've clicked that link. Oh...it's so depressing!
Humour me, let me continue in my self-satisfied ignorance for a little longer. Let me wallow in the glory of my innovative thought, even if I am deluding myself. I, for one, will resist the temptation to search the internet for all those splattered articles, for at least twenty-four hours. Yes, I'll have my cake and eat it too!
Long Line Of Cars is on the Comfort Eagle album.
When I fired up my PC this morning, Skype began to run automatically, as usual, but then, instead of signing in automatically, it popped up the log in window. I was a bit surprised because it hasn't done that for a long time. I was more surprised, and a little perturbed, when my Username/password combination was rejected. I let all the other apps which I have set to auto-start settle down, and then, after l logged in to my email account, I found out why.
A message from Skype informed me that my account had been suspended because they had recently identified some unauthorized activity and, for my protection, they had temporarily suspended it. Oh, bummer!
Fortunately, a quick online chat with a customer service person restored my account again, and, in the process of chatting, I was informed that although they obviously could not identify the culprit, they did know that the intrusion originated in Egypt.
After access to my account had been restored, which involved changing my password, I logged in to find that the culprit had apparently depleted my balance by a pound, or so. although, to be honest, I could be wrong about that. I don't keep that close a check on it, but I certainly thought the balance was lower than it should be. However, if they made any calls, they don't show up in the history.
Oh well, these things happen. But of course it meant that I've spent a good part of my day running security scans on my PC (almost 4 hours for Windows Defender Offline to do a full scan), and then changing all my passwords, everywhere. The scan revealed my PC is clean, but man was it boring. Boring. Boring. Boring!
~ : ~
The first track on my music player this morning (I had to wait to fix Skype until the morning's church run had been done) was Ashes, by KT Tunstall, which is one of those songs I like because it's a bit unusual, lyrics-wise, especially considering the style of the music. I'm not going to include it in this post, but you can listen on You Tube if the fancy takes you.
The reason I'm not including it is because a little later, Boogie Street by Leonard Cohen came on. It's from his Ten New Songs album with Sharon Robinson, and is one of many songs of his I like, including this one which has the immortal line, I was born like this, I had no choice, I was born with the gift of a golden voice. Yes, Leonard, it makes me smile that I have to agree.
A cloak of darkness drapes upon
This fragile mind of mine
So heavy and opaque it is
That through it no light shines
The infiltrator slithers in
With whitewash in her hand
Obliterating all desire
To do what I had planned
These words do not come easily
They seem a waste of time
What do I think they will achieve?
Just so much pantomime
I am going through the motions
A mimic's overture
It's little more than handwaving
A transparent caricature
I can't be bothered now, you know
To finish this 'ere poem
You'll have to make the last line up
...
How hard it is to love you
When you poison the well of my emotions
With your random anger
How hard it is to love you
when you assign the worst possible motives
to acts of kindness
How hard it is to love you
when you punish the victims of circumstance
with righteous disdain
How hard it is to love you
when your reaction to misfortune is to point
the finger of blame
How hard it is to love you
when you perceive an attempt at compromise
as a sign of weakness
How hard it is to love you
when you engineer another pointless fight
to fuel your fury
How hard it is to love you
when my attempts so often reward me
with a chest full of pain
Should it be this hard to love you?
Should I be grateful for this opportunity
to experience heartache?
Should it really be this hard?
I almost feel guilty because I'd never heard of Stephanie McKay until a friend pointed me to this video. I'm off to check out a few more of her videos on You Tube
I've been missing my chosen channels of communication. I know my inability to make a decent post over recent days probably hasn't had much affect on the world at large, but nevertheless, I've been suffering withdrawal symptoms (a slight exaggeration, but not entirely unfounded). And even when I got my hardware problems sorted (with a nice, shiny, new LED monitor), there was the need to catch up with correspondence before I could get back to my normal habits, not to mention rewriting my backup scripts so that they blink the keyboard LEDs when the backup is completed.
You may have guessed from the above, that my monitor failed while a backup was underway, and, without any visual information to go by, I (incorrectly) guessed that it had completed (because there was not much hard drive activity), so powered down my PC. Yes, I know what you're thinking: I should have pressed Alt+F4, then Return, to get Windows to close down properly, and avoid the corrupted backup which powering off caused.
However, due to the fact that I use a custom AutoHotKey script which controls a series of utilities to achieve the backup, even shutting down Windows in the normal way is likely to result in an undesirable outcome. On initiating shutdown, Windows would ask, then demand, that the script, and any process started by it, close immediately, cutting short any pending communication between them, leaving the backup in an indeterminate state.
Talking of miscommunication (groan), in my enforced idle time I was thinking about how common it is for people to engage in miscommunication. Sometimes it's deliberate, but sometimes it seems to take on a life of its own, like a cloud which descends upon the participants in a conversation, causing them to flounder about in it, often colliding with miscommunication's sister, misconstrue. Unfortunately, it often results in arguments where none of the participants are listening to what the others are saying, and the miscommunication grows exponentially.
Sometimes it results in farce, and sometimes the farce is funny. I remember watching Brian Rix acting in farces. They were shown on British television back in Nineteen-SomethigOrOther, when everything was black and white. I couldn't find a Brian Rix farce (although I did find this rather odd, very short video), but I'll give this one a go which is an earlier version of the genre, according to the You Tube notes.
Actually, I don't think it can be done. Infinity is one of those weird things which I can understand, logically, but which I can't picture or imagine. Trying to imagine it is a bit like that thing with peripheral vision where you think you see something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn your focus on it, there's nothing there.
I was, and probably still am, fairly average at mathematics, but nevertheless it fascinates me. There's a kind of beauty in how it all fits together so perfectly. Perhaps that's part of its beauty - it has to be perfect or it wouldn't be mathematics.
I had to do some calculations today. Just a straightforward addition of a list of numbers written on a piece of paper. I calculated the result in my head, rather than using a calculator, because I enjoy looking for patterns which make the task easier. I scanned the list and found pairs which, when added together, gave a 'round number' result.
As an example, I saw 1400 near the top, and then further down the list, 1600, so I paired them to make 3000. If I'm doing it in my head, I can only use the technique on number lists which are visible in their entirety. Does it confirm that I am in fact a sad old nerd, because I get enjoyment from doing it? Who cares? I certainly don't.
While on the subject of the beauty of mathematics, here's a video which shows that beauty magnificently. It was posted on Diaspora by an internet friend, and it was the thing that got me thinking, and prompted this post. Enjoy.
For anyone who is not familiar with the expression "off your trolley", it's a British slang phrase with a similar meaning to "lost your marbles". Now that I've cleared that up, I expect you want to know who is off his trolley. Is it me?
Possibly, because the title of this post is a tenuous link to a post I wrote years ago (definitely before I moved to Posterous) about the famous trolley problem. It's a tenuous link because I can't find the post, but I was reminded of it as I watched a series of five You Tube videos today, in which the trolley problem was discussed.
I became aware of the videos via the RSS feed from the website of that shrill-and-strident-chap-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned, I have long been of the opinion that all gods, without exception, are figments of human imagination, so the title of the video series prompted me to view them. Here's the first in the series of five (the links to the other four are below, and if you want to go straight to the trolley problem discussion, it's in part 3).
God spoke to me, and said: "You are a conduit from me to the world! You must spread my message! Tell the world they have misunderstood my nature! Tell those who claim to represent me that they got it wrong; they have been duped, and in turn they dupe their followers! Tell them that I am intelligent beyond their understanding! Tell them this universe is but one of many I choose to oversee! Tell them to listen to the truth in these words!!!"
Completely off my rocker, right? Definitely out in the cold.
God spoke to me, and said: "You are a conduit from me to the world. You must spread my message! Tell the world they have veered from the true path. Tell them that they must open their hearts to me, for I will fill them with grace and understanding. Give this message to all who would know me."
A little warmer?
God spoke to me, and said: "You are a conduit from me to the world. You must spread my message. Tell the world I sacrificed my only begotten Son to atone for the sins of man. That sacrifice must never be forgotten! Accept my Son's offer of salvation, repent of your sins! Follow Him, and you will find your place at My side in eternal joy!"
Now we're cookin'!
God spoke to me, and said: "You are a conduit from me to the world. You must spread my message. I want to correct a few errors in my book. Lord knows there are enough of them! Finding a good proof reader shouldn't be so difficult - especially for a god like me! Anyway, let's start with Matthew and Luke. That Luke, boy did he have a few flights of fancy! I only turned my back for a moment and, lo and behold, he'd got Mary literally singing my praises, while she was at Liz's place, and then he invented a completely different version of events, nothing like Matthew's. Oh, hang on...I'll have to get back to you on this. Something's just come up."
Oh dear, bridges burnt to a cinder.
Isn't it strange that Christians who believe that gods could, and do, speak to us, would probably find the middle two messages perfectly acceptable, and wouldn't question the veracity of my claim that 'God' (which they would translate to mean Yahwey - although they probably don't use the name) had spoken to me. And yet they would dismiss my claims, out of hand, with regard to the first and last messages. If I thought he existed, I'd feel sorry for Yahwey. Poor old chap has been ring-fenced. He can't say anything his followers don't want to hear. I suppose that's omnipotence for you?
By the way, if you happen to label yourself a Christian, and you are tempted to say something like, "you wouldn't say that about Muslims!" (as if that somehow invalidated what I've written?), the same thing applies to all people who believe in the existence of gods-who-can-speak-to-us. I just happen to be more familiar with Christian stuff than any of the others. Had I been born somewhere else, it's quite likely that I would be more familiar with the stuff from one of the others.
~:~
First day of 2012, and it's a Sunday. No prizes for guessing where I was this morning. Yep. In the car, in the car park, outside the church, listening to randomly selected music tracks on my phone. I was especially glad to have a pair of noise excluding ear buds today. The bloke doing the preaching was either shouting, or had the amplifier for the roof mounted speakers turned up to 11. Either way, Gillian Welch's Look At Miss Ohio (the first one out of the trap) couldn't entirely block it out, even at full volume.
I couldn't understand exactly what the preacherman was saying, because he was speaking in a language which I only know a little, but it was pretty clear he was giving his congregation a bit of an ear bashing. Was I glad when the next track turned out to be The Killing Stone by Hootie & The Blowfish. It seemed so appropriate! One might be tempted to think it was divine providence.
But not this one.
