Learner-centred education

Maybe its the life-coach training, but as I look towards my training as a teacher this coming Autumn, I find myself increasingly aware that I really do think that learner-centred education is important and mor concerned that the current educational regimes are not really set up to enable it or even interested in it. In effect they are interested in learners either conforming or dropping out. And since the latter is politically unacceptable, blaming the teachers.

We must choose to adopt appropriate technologies that will ensure the classroom will fit the child, and buck the growing trend for technologies - including drugs - to be used to make the 21st-century child fit the classroom. The educational needs of the individual are changing, and the very nature of the classroom needs to change, too.

Is this a Christian issue? By raising the question you know that I'm going to say I think it is.
Here's why.
It seemes to me, reflecting [as recently] on Genesis 2, that Adam's God-initiated naming of the animals says that the freedom to organise experience into knowledge is one of the fundamental things that God wants for humanity. Forcing learners into contortions in order to learn, or [more likely] in effect to put them off formal/organised learning, is a betrayal of God's desire for the creativity and contemplative discovery that, at its best, learning is about. Factory-farm learning merely empowers one group who can more easily access a privilged learning-style at the expense of others. In turn this promotes a covert meritocracy which is really about wealth and genetic heritage and handing on privilege to relatives and others 'like us'. The more I hear stories of people who have managed to key into learning later in life, the more I realise how much we fail the God-given human potential of so many in the interests of maintaining social status quos.

At this rate, I could end up a bit of a stirrer for my future teachers and colleagues ...

EducationGuardian.co.uk | E-learning | 'We are at risk of losing our imagination':
Filed in: learner-centred, education, technology, drugs

On taking the medium red pill

The myth that this article nicely and succinctly exposes is that technology is neutral. Rightly it recognises what Marshall McLuhan really meant by 'the medium is the message' and challenges Christians to recognise what this means with a useful appeal to history.

modernity celebrated syllogism, systematization, and reason above all else. And the modern church followed suit by unconsciously offering an “unchanging” gospel pressed into a linear, sequential, and reasonable formula:
Apologies for your sins Believe in Jesus = Go to heaven.

As the print era wanes and electronic culture reigns, we are witnessing a morphing of modernity’s “unchanging” gospel. Something as simple as communicating with images and icons has changed the way we conceive of the gospel. Images, regardless of their content, erode our capacity for abstract thought and linear reasoning; while at the same time reviving our preference for narrative, concrete experience, and mystery.

The result is a gospel according to electronic culture, which is often carried by the emerging church. This budding approach to faith embodies the bias of images (just as Eastern Orthodoxy has for centuries). It is a gospel encountered through iconic story, mystery, and experiential ritual, rather than linear proposition and reasoned argument. It is a gospel bathed in the mystery of God’s Kingdom. It is elusive, deliberately defying categorization.

Quite so. Though I'm not sure about images removing capacity for abstract thought ... it's a different kind of abstract thought but it's still there, I think. Geometry is pretty abstract and yet imagistic to a high degree. What I really liked about this though is the recognition that the best road ahead lies with learning to adapt, not to try to totally resist. After all the churches didn't do badly in adapting to modernity, in actual fact despite the dire warnings of those who thought print would destroy thinking and pose a threat to culture and civilisation. Even the resisters, the RC church, eventually made peace with it.

Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: The Gospel According to Electronic Culture: What if the medium really is the message?:Filed in: gospel, mission, culture, message, media

meat is ecocide

A succinct guide to the costs of meat-rearing in environmental terms. Until we grow meat without animals, this should drive us to reduce our meat consumption...
Rustle the Leaf: Rustle Comic for May 28 - June 3, 2006
Filed in: meat, environment, cost, impact

The Aesthetics of Wind Farms

This is a very helpful article on practical aesthetics related to the practical debate about wind farms. It helped me to appreciate better why it is that I don't find wind turbines disturbing while others do.

what at first looks like two subjective impressions of the same visual image turns out to be two different understandings of order in the world. Both perceptions have truth in them, but not because they are "subjectively valid." Rather, they are both sensitive to the structures of wholeness in the world and to ways that this wholeness can and has been ruptured by human intervention. Differences in aesthetic judgment here reflect different understandings of our current ecological situation and what to do to recuperate a living harmonization in the world. I would argue that the preponderance of evidence supports the deeper truth of the aesthetic response to wind farms. Although they can exhibit aspects of ugliness, wind farms are objectively beautiful.

Of course the other thing I do point out which has a bearing on this, is that we have grown used to electricity pylons marching across the landscape: I sometimes don't even notice them until I come to photograph a scene. I think I would say that wind turbines are better looking.
Design Observer: writings about design & culture: What is Beauty? Or, On the Aesthetics of Wind Farms:
Filed in: aesthetics, wind-turbine, power, countryside, nimby

It's time to stop killing meat and start growing it. By William Saletan

Basically cloning cells means that it is technically feasible to produce meat without animals and so sidestep the animal welfare issues in meat-eating. What it also probably means is that the reason for me, for example being vegetarian is largely sidestepped: I am concerned by the ecological footprint of meat-raising and feel it is not really a good choice in a world of increasing scarcity and unjust food distribution systems [here's a good expostition of why]. As this article says:

Growing meat like this will be good for us in lots of ways. We'll be able to make beef with no fat, or with good fat transplanted from fish. We'll avoid bird flu, mad-cow disease, and salmonella. We'll scale back the land consumption and pollution involved in cattle farming.

In many ways it'd be rather like eating quorn [advertising link, but I don't think it has become generic yet] ...

It's time to stop killing meat and start growing it. By William Saletan
Filed in: vegetarian, cloning, meat, animal_welfare

Passport renewal for freedom

I'm on the right of the picture next to the LibDem candidate for our constituency. You can see the passport office sign in the background. I was a little disturbed that just befor this, a security guard had got twitchy enough to ask us not to take pictures on the office grounds. Forcing us to move three yards forward onto public highway [though we were not convinced that we weren't already on public highway, actually]. Apparently other such photo op demos have been rather more severely dealt with ... someone's a bit rattled I suspect.

Pauline Lord's Prayer liturgy

I'm leading a mission team this weekend at a church in Middlesborough. I put together an office of the Lord's prayer to use in one of the team prayer times. It uses only material originally taken from Paul's epistles.

Daily prayer in the Lord's prayer pattern with Pauline material.

We did not receive a spirit that makes us slaves to fear
We received the Spirit of adoption
Your Spirit testifies withours that we are your children:
By your Spirirt we cry “Abba! Father”

Praise be to you, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of compassion and God of all comfort. We give thanks to you at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
...
Nothing in all creation, will be able to separate us from your love, O God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Blessed are you God
Hallowed be your name.

Help us and all your church to bear with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, we pray for all humility and gentleness, with patience.
....
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

We pray that when your witnesses throughout the world speak, a message may be given to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel
...
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

We remember those in hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.
...
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

We eagerly anticipate that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We pray for the whole creation, groaning in labour pains until now;
...
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

other concerns may be voiced or silently prayed ...
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

You supply seed to the sower and bread for food, supply and multiply our seed for sowing and increase the harvest of our righteousness.
...
We bow our knees before you, Father, and your Spirit intercedes in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought.

just as the Lord has forgiven us, so we also must forgive.
...
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Thanks be to God

strengthen our hearts in holiness that we may be blameless before you Father God at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
...
Now to hyou who by the power at work within us are able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,
to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Filed in: liturgy, Christian, Paul, paternoster, Lord's_prayer
abbeynous.schtuff.com - Pauline Lord's Prayer liturgy:

When did 'love your neighbour' get superceded?

I'm currently reading "The Myth of Christian Uniqueness" for review. It's a set of restatements of the case for a pluralistic approach to religious diversity against exclusivist and inclusivist approaches. From what I'ne seen of it so far one of the biggest arguments is that anything but a pluralist approach ends up like this:

As Christians recognise the uniqueness and particularity of Christ what seems to happen is that this theological point is then internalised by some Christians in a way that is then externalised in being boorish, obnoxious and offensive in their manner, attitude, and speech.

The solution being offered is that we must become pluralists.
My own feeling is that it is not really possible to do that as a Christian without effectively eviscerating the faith of a vital organ or three. But I will leave more of that to another time when I write the review. In the meantime I want to commend Phil Johnson's approach. He goes on to say.

The problem here is not the theological issue about Christ, but rather the lack of reflection on how one is meant to behave as a believer in relationships and discourse with non-Christians.

While the pluralist 'driver' has a good point, the solution to abuse is not non-use but right use.

While Christians can feel repulsed by other Christians behaving forcefully, arrogantly etc, the problem is in over-reacting one then internalises the equally opposite error. The mistake is to assume that convictions about Christ and the call to repentance cannot be raised for fear of "imposing beliefs".

As I say in the title: love of neighbour is still top of the list of Christian "do's", ahead even of mission, which should be an expression of love not a contradiction in praxis.
circle of pneuma: Fruits of the Spirit and Dogma:
Filed in: uniqueness, Christian, pluralism, apologetics

Renew your passport soon

Time is running out for passport renewals in the UK if you want to avoid your details being added to the National Identity register. Remember, it's the NIR not the identity card per se that's the big issue.

Once you are on the Register, you will never get off until it is abolished. But you'll be exposed to all the risks and dangers of the scheme immediately. The Home Office is building the most complex and intrusive ID control system in the world. It will certainly go wrong. Once you are on the Register — with or without a card — you will also be forced to keep all the details that are kept about you up to date (and sort out any government errors).

You may renew your passport at any time even if it is only a year old. You'd be buying peace of mind until 2016 and perhaps by then a wiser government will have stopped the nonsense.
renew for freedom - MAY 2006 - renew your passport: Filed in: ID_cards, UK, passport, campaign

Apologetics essential in postmodernity

I have found my thoughts returning to this over the last couple of days.

a survey conducted of 14,000 churchgoers in England where in an open-ended questionnaire churchgoers were asked to write down why they thought the church is in decline. The result? 73% of the 14,000 surveyed stated "clergy failed to prepare congregations for challenges to their faith, including explaining faith to non-churchgoers."

I think it's because it has rung a bell for me in experience. Apologetics is personally what drives a lot of my theological exploration, ultimately and it is what I see as needful in terms of enabling lay witness to be more effective. I seem to recall that much early church theology was essentially related to the kinds of challenges being posed by living in a 'pagan' society...
Anyway read Phil Johnson's post here, he's right too, I think, about it needing to be part of ministerial formation more fully and also to be embodied.
circle of pneuma: Apologetics essential in postmodernity:
Filed in: Christian, apologetics, UK, laity, witness

Spiritual art

Metanexus Institute

Filed in: art spirituality

It's in English, really!

Lavori in pirografia basati da Edoardo Triscoli

Filed in: quickscript art

Youth votes are different

Of course! This is why the Labour party and Tories oppose electoral reform: what would these voting figures mean if translated nationally? Serious problems for their hanging onto power, that's what. No wonder young people don't vote very highly: they know that their preferences will not register in a first past the post system.

The Hansard Society's " Y-Vote" mock elections were conducted in schools up and down the UK and were designed to co-incide with May's local elections to encourage young people to vote and take an interest in the political decisions that affect them.
The national results of the " Y-Vote" mock elections were as follows:
Lib Dems 30 % Green Party 25% Labour 25% Conservatives 15 % UKIP 5%

Lib Dems are winners with youth (Green Liberal Democrats):
Filed in: electoral_reform, youth, vote, UK

The Constituency Link myths and realities

For those who like me think electoral reform would probably be a good thing, here's and article that does a really good job of unpicking the myths from the truths of constituency links. Worth reading for those pub debates!
New Politics Network � The Constituency Link: Time to Cut the Umbilical?
Filed in: electoral_reform, constituency, myth

More knocks makes more gullible'

This piece of research is fascinating, partly because it contradicts a piece of pop psychology [though not completely].

"People who have experienced an adverse childhood and adolescence are more likely to come to believe information that isn't true- in short they are more suggestible, and easily mislead which may in turn impact upon their future life choices; they might succumb to peer pressure more readily."

It seems to me therefore, that ensuring the maximum number of children are brought up in relatively good conditions free from bullying etc. is a long-term priority for a healthy democracy and a better society.

Interestingly enough, it seems something like self-esteem is implicated.

Experience of adversity may have a knock-on effect on a person's mindset- they may come to believe that "they are no good", or "nothing they do is ever good enough".

And this is one area where Christians really have to think hard about the implications of popular versions of 'fall-redemption' theologies which clearly have supported or even driven a similar mindset and feed, clearly, authoritarian and abusive forms or distortions of religion and spiritual affiliation.

And the implication seem to go further still:

"However, the notion of suggestibility falls far beyond that of forensic psychology. People may find they are more easily influenced by the media, by TV adverts and so may make life choices as a result that they otherwise would not e.g. they may choose not to vaccinate their children, "

How to make sure churches and Christians are part of the solution not part of the problem? Seems to me that it highlight the importance of building genuinely loving communities where love is the trump card beyond doctrine ...

And while we're in the vicinity;

people who were verbally abused as children grow up to be self-critical adults prone to depression and anxiety.

the evidence seems to be coming in thick and fast about how socially constructed we all really are. Can a definitive cultural change modifying individualism be far behind? The building blocks of an Integral world view are mounting up.

ScienceDaily: Life's Harsh Lessons 'Make You More Gullible':
Filed in: psychology, adversity, upbringing, suggestibility, self_esteem

Criticisms of Da Vinci Code

Phil Johnson has produced an excellent resume of the 'factual inexactitudes' of the DVC. It is a real tour de force, and I highly recommend it. Even I learnt stuff, and that's not being arrogant, merely recognising that on things like this I'm usually just finding stuff that I think does a good presentation job, rarely finding things that are genuinely new to me.

One of the things that was new to me was this:

the "fact" page is a literary device. Dan Brown also employs this same device in his novel Angels and Demons, suggesting that its contents too disclose hitherto unknown facts about a global conspiracy devised by the Illuminati. Brown's "fact" page is not unprecedented in fiction. The same air of verisimilitude was ambiguously implied by Bram Stoker in Dracula.

Which is very helpful.
Thanks Phil.

circle of pneuma: Criticisms of Da Vinci Code:
Filed in: Da_Vinci_Code, apologetics

unTrue Confessions about the Emerging Church

Sydney diocese tend to be a by-word in Anglican circles for a kind of headbanger Reformed ultra-puritanism that embarrasses the rest of us who might take the label evangelical [though I'm finding it increasingly hard considering the connotations it is acquiring by association with such people as Sydney evangelicals]. I recently was directed to this article and was outraged by the calumny:

“This is not biblical theology,” says Canon Jim Ramsay, Director of Sydney Diocese’s Evangelism Ministries. “It’s a shaking of Christian orthodoxy.” Canon Ramsay says the emergent movement is a reaction to the polish of the mega churches – the famous Rick Warrens and Willow Creeks of the modern American evangelical scene. While he says there may be aspects of the movement that are helpful in understanding the postmodern mindset, the lack of solid theological criteria make it effectively ‘dress-up religion’.

While I admit that there is no one doctrinal test, my impression is that most EC types are Christianly orthodox. We just don't find that the traditional evangelical cultural mindset can contain very helpfully the re-expressing of our faith in post-modern terms. The reason for that has been very clear to me for at least ten years. Evangelicalism, as represented by Sydney diocese and Reform, is simply modernist through and through and don't realise how much cultural captivity they live in because they assume they are right. They distract attention from the work of re-enculturation of the gospel in western culture by throwing stones at others.

Furthermore, to say it is not biblical theology; words almost fail me. But what I have tended to find in EC'ers is quite a bit of wrestling with scripture. It's just that it is the bits that Reform and the like tend to miss out. Or it's doing it in ways that they find uncongenial. But hey, ask these guys about the way that the writer of the letter to the Hebrews uses scripture and watch them squirm. Some of us are very committed to scripture, to the gospel and can sign up to the doctrinal bases of the Reform types. It's just that we think that it is a great adventure in missing the point. Hankering after the 17th century heyday or the 'righteous for truth' days of the Ritualist controversies is in fact missing the connection points and will be contributing to decline over time. That said, at the moment there is some growth in evangelical churches in the UK and Sydney, I'm told. Of course this does reflect the other reaction to postmodernism: entrenchment in firm identity groups. I fear that this is a culturally temporary thing to be a fashion accessory but never really making an impact. That way lies a future of Amish-like irrelevance [no disrespect meant to the Amish who I'm sure would agree that cultural 'sympathy' is not their forte]. I just wish they could see how wedded to the Enlightenment project they really are.
sydneyanglicans.net - True Confessions of the Emerging Church:
Filed in: evangelical, emerging, Reform, church, gospel, mission

Drought, climate and a new order

Those of you whe visit 'from abroad', as we Brits say, may not know but the southern half of the Britain has been suffering from drought for several months. I know it may be hard to believe, given the image many clearly have of England. But the truth is that southern England was always the driest set of regions. And now winter rain has not been very forthcoming, so ...

Last week the government granted a drought order to Sutton and East Surrey Water banning the non-essential use of water. The government is still considering requests to grant similar orders to Southern Water and Mid Kent Water. Thames Water - which last week deferred applying for a similar drought order - said there was still a "significant chance" it would have to make the application "at some point".

Actually it may be the worst for 100 years, not made any better by profligate water consumption habits of western lifestyles. But it will have to be addressed at that level because most predictions of climate change effects in Britain show increased draught especially in the south east; just where the highest population concentration is.

So what are we to do? Well, I confess I've been irritated by calls from southerners to appropriate our northern supplies: first they act condescendingly towards the north, bleed the economic lifeblood from it, and take the lead in unsustainable lifestyles and then expect somehow that 'we' will bale them out when the pigeons come home to roost. Grrr. Hands off! Sort your infrastructure and pricing mechanisms out to push you towards greater sustainability. Or better yet, organise economic policy to encourage populations to move to where the water is. And another piece of advice: lose the condescending attitude; it's never attractive when you are asking favours.

Glad I've got that out of my system. Perhaps I can now work on more building myself some more constructive attitudes.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Rainy May 'won't end drought':
Filed in: drought, England, 2006, Southeast, water, climate

The Muppet Personality Test

Thanks Jem, once again, hooking my stupid love of the nonsensical, and yet I ... can't ... look ... away ...

You Are Scooter

Brainy and knowledgable, you are the perfect sidekick. You're always willing to lend a helping hand. In any big event or party, you're the one who keeps things going. "15 seconds to showtime!"

The Muppet Personality Test

Blogthings - The Muppet Personality Test
Filed in: random_nonsense

UK ID card: IT expert thumbs down

Believe it or not, when I first heard about ID cards I was marginally in favour of the idea. And I wonder now whether a lot of those in the UK who think it's okay do so because they basically assume that it would be what I assumed it was which is the alternative way of doing it that UKgov is not putting on the statute books.

an alternative, which involved keeping the data on the card. With such a system, only the template is downloaded and identity processing happens on the card using Java and local data rather using centralised storage and processing.

Let's be clear, that would not be such a big problem: when I say I'm opposed to ID-cards, it is mostly the National ID register that I fear: ie the centralised keeping and cross referencing of data. It is this that is the big achilles heel of the scheme.
The IBM expert, Michael Osborne recently outlined the problems:

Osborne... used a dozen criteria, including whether or not such as system is mandatory or time-limited , to show that on all but two, the UK Government's scheme fails - even before controversial civil liberties issues are considered.

And

Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation.

And

"ID cards won't solve the problem because terrorists don't care about identification - and they'll have valid IDs anyway. The issue is the central database. But no-one knows if it'll work, or if it'll be accurate enough - it's more about perceived security than actual security.... since terrorists wanted to be identified, having an ID card was unlikely to be a deterrent."

And that's even before we consider the capacity of the Home Office to actually carry out this unprecedentedly huge IT project with technology that hasn't yet been tried in this way on this scale. As this other article says [and I don't normally go for right wing stuff such as the Torygraph, but they have a point in this case, I think]:

What is quite clear is that the Home Office has completely broken down under the weight of Mr Blair's initiatives. It is an utter shambles - and its employees cannot begin to cope with the work that has already piled up in their in-trays. Yet this is the department that is supposed to be introducing ID cards - one of the most ambitious and expensive schemes ever proposed by a British government in peacetime. It is a massive bureaucratic cock-up just waiting to happen.

Earlier in the same article we are told that it is now legal to carry and use a false British passport, in fact

a court case involving two men who are said to have been caught with forged passports has already had to be adjourned.

and this is because

when the new ID Cards Act gained Royal Assent in March. A clause in the Act, which gives the Government the power to go ahead with its ID cards scheme, repealed an important section of the 25-year-old law banning fake passports - the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.

No-one at the Home Office noticed. A confidence inspiring fact. Not.
If you hope that the nearly inevitable happens and the whole thing collapses in on itself but want to keep clear of the debris, renew your passport now, before you have to also be entered on NIR as you do so. It is perfectly legal to simply renew even before the date of expiry, you simply have to stump up the 51 quid and fill in the form. You have only a few months to do so though. but that'd keep you out of it until 2016.
Techworld.com - IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme:
Filed in: ID, ID_cards, UK, costs, IT, biometrics, IBM, terrorism, crime

Slate blogs the Bible. By David Plotz

This has got to be worth checking out.

My goal is pretty simple. I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based. I think I'm in the same position as many other lazy but faithful people (Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus). I love Judaism; I love (most of) the lessons it has taught me about how to live in the world; and yet I realized I am fundamentally ignorant about its foundation, its essential document. So, what will happen if I approach my Bible empty, unmediated by teachers or rabbis or parents? What will delight and horrify me? How will the Bible relate to the religion I practice, and the lessons I thought I learned in synagogue and Hebrew School?

I've subscribed to the RSS feed. You may find I refer to this one from time to time. I suspect it could be gold dust because the guy seems apparently without an agenda to knock or slate but to enquire:

My goal is not to find contradictions, mock impossible events, or scoff at hypocrisy. Nor am I quite stupid enough to pretend that Judaism (or Christianity) is just the Bible. Jews are not only the People of the Book but the People of Many Books. There is the rest of the Hebrew Bible—the Prophets and Writings, the vast commentary of the Talmud, the stories of the midrashim, and thousands and thousands of years of other law and story and commentary. This 4,000years' worth of delving and discussion is totally unfamiliar to me—I can't hope to compete with its wisdom. Nor is there any shortage of modern advice on how to read the Bible.

Slate blogs the Bible. By David Plotz

Einstein struggled with the maths

Some correspondance of Albert Einstein has been published and it shows struggle and trial and error played a big part in the man's genius.

...it was fascinating to see breakthroughs not coming easily to Einstein. "I do think it is interesting, the way you see him groping around. He's just trying anything. Here we see the greatest scientist who ever lived struggling and being honest about it."In one sequence of 16 letters Straus criticises a line of inquiry that Einstein is pursuing and eventually persuades him to abandon it.

One of the things that gets my attention is the role of community in the achievements of this icon of individual genius. Worth thinking about.
Guardian Unlimited | Science | How Einstein struggled with his grand theory - and the maths:
Filed in: Einstein, thinking

There's more to life than money, says Cameron

I keep reading David Cameron saying things I like and I have to pinch myself: this is a Conservative leader saying things like:

"Our goal is clear: to move beyond a belief in the Protestant work ethic alone to a modern vision of ethical work."

But there's a voice that says "where's the catch; this is the Conservatives, after all."
Well, the catch would appear to be that David just wants to talk people into it but not actually have a go at regulating or doing something that would reduce the wiggle room for those who don't want to do the right thing because it's not profitable or because they don't do trendy.

Government must not ignore these issues, but equally should not seek to impose ethical working practice through regulation. Instead, a Tory administration would act as an "advocate for progress", talking up good initiatives and drawing attention to bad practice.

In other words; we'll tell you it's good but we won't do anything except lecture you: is this the same people who lampooned student politics for making gestures but no practical difference? Cameron is right about advocacy [we used to call it education] but it needs to be more than that. For the poorest in society shopping ethically is not very easy unless there are governmental measures in place to make products that have been produced in more ethical ways competitive [because doing it unethically is usually cheaper in terms of the individual company's bottom line, unhappily] or to reimpose externalities on the less ethically produced stuff, it is doomed to be middle class hobbyism.

I agree with the Lib Dem spokesbeing who said,

"These are important issues, but it is far from clear that Mr Cameron has any serious alternative measures to indicate national performance.It is yet another example of posturing without substance. Once again, vague positioning has taken precedence over spelling out concrete policies."

Which is exactly the Tories' criticism in years past of student bodies passing resolutions condemning apartheid or USAmerican intervention in Nicaragua. I suspect, given his age, Cameron was one of them.

Could do better, must try harder.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | There's more to life than money, says Cameron:
Filed in: UK, Tories, work, wellbeing

Home Loquens Coram Deo [6]

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, "You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, "You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Genesis 3.1-5
With the possibility that language opens up for projecting futures, things that are yet to be, comes the possibility of projecting alternative futures and of questioning interpretations and taxonomies in the present. It is these potentialities of language that are exploited here in the straight denial of God's projection and the offering of another.

But before that comes an exploitation of implication. Because languages are systems of signs and because they are ways of paying attention to and focusing attention on particular aspects or features of the world, they also necessarily involve implicatures or connotative meanings. Connotative meanings happen when members of a system such as words [which are members of a lexical/semantic system] tend to remind users of other words in the system by well-known relationships such as synonymy and antonymy or by associations from usage, for example. Implicatures are the logical connections driven by necessary meanings such as if something is called 'a tabby' it is likely to be also a domestic cat unless some kind of specialised or ad hoc meaning is being used.
So, "Did God say, "You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" uses such things to infer that God may not be generous, may in fact be out to deprive them of innocent pleasures. This rests, of course on the mechanism we noted in an earlier post where positive 'images' tend to be primary in thought and symbolisation/representation. So the later denial is given added plausibility by resting it on an affirmation evoked by the implication that God is a killjoy. And note too that the alternative is also, after the original negation, restated it terms of a positive conception of a future and one that in a sense postulates a continuity with current experience rather than asking Adam to conceive of a state of affairs that is unimaginable because unexperienced: death. The odd thing is that by negating death, a positive conception is evoked of continuing life. [A state of affairs we all share in ...]. The language system is used to manipulate imagination to make one outcome seem more plausible or at least imaginable than another. This plausibility is then leveraged to encourage disbelieving the divine scenario and believing an alternative and so channeling action towards disobedience.

In some ways this could at first sight be read as linguistic determinism by saying that until an alternative was presented, language constrained Adam in an Orwellian '1984' manner and that temptation was offering freedom; Adam could not conceive of disobeying God because there was no way to do so. Of course, a little reflection will show that not to be so. In fact I would say that were anyone to attempt something like 'Newspeak', it would be doomed to failure. The point about human language is that it is generative; it works well because it is capable of generating a potentially infinite number of utterances based on a finite set of components and rules. In a sense this means it is unstable, one bit of the system can rub up against another and create 'turbulence'. It also means that it can retool our thinking to deal with new situations. And in fact, as we see in the temptation story, it can be used to open out new conceptualisations. Language is in fact creative of necessity. We can be steered in our thinking by language, but not absolutely determined: the instabilities of language [beloved of poets] can suggest new avenues of conceptualisation; the newness of situations can evoke efforts to recraft language to convey things more accurately or elegantly or concisely. The way that Adam is shown of naming tells us that the ability to name is a freedom we have, even if, having once named the degree of freedom is constrained.

However, let's note that the freedom is still there, albeit hedged about with the prior history of selection of vocabulary and ways of reference. Nevertheless, those constraints can themselved become the subject of further creativity, a creativity which could not exist without the communal consensual artefact that is language. Language becomes a medium of artistry and of knowledge expansion/creation.

What the story of the serpents' temptation tells us is that the creative possibilities of language can be used for ill as well as for good. Language is a means not of information only, or even principally, but of persuasion and of sharing affective and emotional responses and viewpoints. In this we have the seed of theological appraisal of the media and the arts.

So, the 'fall' is not a fall into freedom, but a use of freedom in ways that do not serve longer-term human welfare within the love of God. I note, in passing, that it is not presented as a question of obeying God but of what is good for people [dying or not]. God's command pertains to human welfare.

I note also that the issue of negatives being harder to conceive because they involve first conceiving /representing the positive, is fundamentally the same issue as creation being good. The positive is more fundamental because it is as opposed to 'is not'. Goodness is more fundamental for the same reason, it just is, whereas as evil is defined only negatively in relation to it. CS Lewis made the same point in Mere Christianity, and it seems to me to relate too to Augustine of Hippo's idea about evil being a privation of the good. Now is it the same issue because we can only conceive it so, or because it is so and language partakes in reality to that degree? [The same question, at root about the maths of the universe].


Last posting in this series ...
Filed in: Genesis
God
linguistics
language

The Da Vinci Code conspiracy

I like it. I've been looking for a nice bit of apologetic ju-jitsu for the DVC and here it is. Thanks to Damaris a conspiracy theory to theoretically out-conspire Brown, Baigent, Leigh and all the other fantasy-history revisionists.

Could it be that Dan Brown has been plucked from the obscurity of being an English teacher and beginning novelist in New England by a secret society which has made him its spokesman? With his interest in conspiracy theories as a useful smokescreen, he would be able to write a book that could get under the public’s critical radar and persuade them to believe the cover-up. One imagines that the guardians of the secret are Picknett, Prince, Baigent and Leigh. Henry Lincoln has kept rather quiet which suggests he is the ultra-secretive Grand Master of this secret society. Somehow their agents have inflitrated the worlds of publishing and movies. The central question is, what are they trying so hard to cover up? Surely it can only be the greatest of all two thousand-year-old mysteries: a story that eclipses fantasies of New World Orders and aliens; the claim that the most powerful being there is, God himself became a man and lived in our world, dying and rising again to destroy the oldest conspiracy of all. And what is the oldest conspiracy of all? The suggestion that we are able to do without our Creator, supplanting him with other gods and, ultimately, taking on the role of God for ourselves. Could it be that people are desperate to believe the cover up for fear that the real truth might actually require a response?

Now, I have to say that I find, from time to time that Damaris fall back into a skepticism about post-modernism that smacks of rejectionism and seems reluctant to make any positive appraisals and so tends to side with the modernist-encultured Christian perspectives of the Christian establishments. But that aside, they produce some good resources and usually have something provocative to say.
So my main question now is whether we can make this conspiracy theory stick in the imagination of the general public?

There's a good summary of the real history of Jesus' divinity and gnosticism etc at the Slate it's succinct and straight to the point, worth bookmarking for future reference or forwarding to a friend.

Culture Watch - Exploring the message behind the media:

Filed in: Da_Vinci_Code, Christian, conspiracy, apologetics, culture

Big chains all want to be green

In some ways, I see this as hopeful; after all, how is the greening of society going to take place unless easy access to doing the right thing is possible? It's also hopeful because it reflects a growing trend among consumers. Perhaps education is beginning to pay off?

Consumers ... are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment. "To retain [their] trust, we must innovate to meet changing needs," he said at the launch of the Tesco community programme. "We have a wider responsibility to society." Consumers are changing the way they shop, from increases in demand for organic produce to the proliferation of farmers' markets.

Of course there are those who are skeptical, and such skepticism is understandable. This is happening because the supermarkets see a profit in it, not necessarily because they believe in it. And as such it is a fragile good; it could be overturned by all sorts of forces whereas belief would cement it in place. The real battle, surely, then, is for a way of running and regulating the economy as it impinges on distribution and marketing to make sure that environmental concerns touch on the bottom line in such a way as to make doing the right thing profitable or at least not as risky as the alternatives and to do so in a way that impacts upon short turn decision-making.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | The big chains all want to be green grocers - but it's nothing to do with that inquiry:
Filed in: environment, supermarkets, greenwash

Are Two More Trouble Than One?

I've mentioned before my interest in the mechanism that facilitate human cooperative working and group-cohesive action. So look away now if this is not something that grabs you. It concerns an experiment to see how people co-operated 'haptically' over a task.

many said they thought the other person interfered with them. However, despite the perceived difficulty of coordination, most pairs performed significantly faster than individuals doing the same task. Not only were pairs faster than individuals, most pairs quickly developed a cooperative strategy. The pairs "specialized" such that one participant primarily accelerated the crank when the target appeared, while the other brought it to rest accurately when the marker reached the target. Most participants were unaware that they had adopted a cooperative strategy.

This is task orientated non-verbal communication enabling co-ordinated action. Sounds like the kind of psychological mechanism that could be useful for building emergent trans-human corporate entities ... and that's my interest.
ScienceDaily: Helping Hands: Are Two More Trouble Than One?:
Filed in: human, synergy, corporate, haptic, emergence, social, psychology

Hope?

No being forced to change deeply embedded lifestyle is easy but sometimes it is necessary. And so, for the sake of the world, I greet this news as hopeful, whil acknowledging the painful decisions it will mean for some.

The current American obsession is not Iraq, it is not NSA wiretapping or even the never-ending abortion debate. It is quite simply petrol prices. Americans are being squeezed at the pump, now paying more than $3 a gallon. That is still cheap by most European standards but the shock is palpable in America. It also undercuts the economic model of the exurbs, rendering commuting costs so painful that suddenly, at long last, living by the car alone is starting to become unattractive.

The Observer | Comment | I love driving in my car:
Filed in: USA, car, travel, culture, history

Power Glass

This seems like potentially very good news because it seems to place easy to install photovoltaics within reach of average people.

XsunX has developed very thin translucent coatings and films that create large area monolithic solar cell structures. This semi-transparency makes their so-called Power Glass glazing desirable for placing over glass, plastics, and other see-through structures.

And if it isn't too hard [and why should it be?] to tie them into the domestic power grid it would be a way of reducing leccy bills. In fact, when you think about it, it doesn't have to be only over glass that they go: why not doors or walls? If they are nearly transparent then there are lots of places they could go and be pumping helpful amounts of electricity into your home. The mass production of this stuff sounds easy enough, so I'm hoping this will turn into mass-solar power ...
Transmaterial: Power Glass:
Filed in: PVCs, electricity, generation, solar

Eurovision Song Contest and national rivamities

I made up the word 'rivamities' to sum up the phenomenon that we saw, once again, played out in the voting for a Song for Europe last night. Terry Wogan, on the BBC was along with the rest of us making 'uncanny' predictions for which nations gave which other nations their highest scores. For those of you less familiar with the arcane ritual of 'European' 'unity' played out each May by a huge networking of broadcast TV, each nation awards, on the basis of a national phone-in vote, points to the songs of other nations between 1 and 12 depending on the size of the phone-in votes. Most points go to the highest-scoring. And we can't shake the feeling as we see the votes come in that more than musical merit is involved. So the high scores given by the Ukraine to Russia and vice versa, the fact that the only two Rumanian-speaking nations in Europe each gave the other the highest score is interesting. So is the impression I gained that Andorra were the only nation to give Spain a top score. Even more interesting is that Balkan nations who were butchering each other a decade and a half ago now award each other the highest scores, and the Baltics, apart from honouring each other with good scores tended to be good to their old oppressors, Russia. Even Ireland were nice to the UK and Norway and Denmark have obviously put aside old animosities to the former occupying power, Sweden and Finland seem to have forgiven Russia for an early twentieth century occupation. The one that surprised Terry Wogan at first but didn't catch me unprepared was where the top score from Germany went. "Turkey?" asked Terry. Then you almost heard his brain working and he exclaimed, "Gastarbeiter!" Yes, Terry, the biggest minority ethnic group in Germany probably voted en masse for their country of origin.

Still, it makes you think about that old observation about rivalries between those who are closest being fierce but pit them against the rest of the world ... Somehow, though I think it's hopeful to see all these old enmities being overcome by such loyalties. Perhaps that's what the contest is really about. Just a shame we can't get it to be about the music, it might help improve it!
eurosong.net - Eurovision Song Contest
Filed in: Eurovision Song Contest

Tony Blair's closed nuke mind

It wouldn't take you too long to work out my stance on nuclear power; a quick survey of postings on this blog would soon tell you that I think that it is too expensive, a standing invitation to terrorists to have a go, an immoral bequest to future generations of problems we can't solve and unlikely really to address climate change within the time scales needed even if it didn't embed so much CO2-generated energy in it's rather-too-slow onstruction.

So you can imagine I'm less than happy about Tony Blair's attempt to soften up public opinion for commissioning new nuke-plants. More frustrating still is that so far the process has been working:

A survey of 1,491 people this year, carried out by Mori and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, found 60% of people would support new atomic power stations as long as renewable energy sources were developed and used at the same time, and 63% agreed that Britain needed nuclear power as part of a mix of sources to ensure a reliable supply.

Thoug more careful questioning revealed that this was a position of last resort: people really don't want these nukes unless there's no alternative.

But 74% said that nuclear power should not be considered as a solution for climate change before all other energy options had been explored.

So the real task is to keep hammering away with arguments like this pointing out that we would be writing ourselves a huge tax bill indirectly via our utilities bills [unless we can make sure that nuke power is properly transparent in costs to the potential consumer, in which case it'll be dead in the slightly warm glowing water]. And if you want a more wide-ranging opinion piece, this one is good; worth looking at the comments too.

Homo Loquens Coram Deo [5] Adam names the animals

out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field;

Genesis 2:19-20a

I hope you will excuse me commenting on God's declaration of the non-goodness of Adam's aloneness, for the moment. Perhaps I'll come back to it. For the moment, I will simply say that it seems interesting that the 'non goodness' seems to relate to the previous posting on this topic about the imagination, 'not' and the potential for ill.

It is this naming by Adam that seems to be the most fascinating. And again, it doesn't seem to me to be about taking power over. It seems, once again, to be more of a contemplative act. Perhaps more than contemplative: an act of understanding, of taxonomy; and act of seeing in connection with other things and in differentiation. In actual fact, in doing this we seem to have a parallel to what we have seen of God's naming in chapter one.

Of course, the difficulty we have with that is that it is almost certain that chapter one has a different origin to that of chapter two. However, we may want to ask further questions of potential intertextual histories, but I don't want to hang around that issue here; merely note that I think that perhaps this theological similarity may indicate that there is one, in God's providence.

I'm very interested in how this naming is presented. It is not something that Adam snatches at while God isn't looking, it is not an act of fallen humanity [though it is intriguingly bracketted by things that later contribute to the fall, perhaps more of that later]. Rather it is an act which God engineers by bringing before Adam what is to be named. And althought it is in the passive, there is more than a hint of Divine endorsement in "that was its name". It is as if God is giving Adam -that is humankind- the freedom to make connections and discoveries, taxonomies and poetries. In short, it seems to me, it is implied in this little scene that God opens up a space for human culture to evolve with some degree of freedom from God. God is not creating a Divinely-sanctioned Borg collective where individuality is effectively erased and cultural development is only permitted along certain very tightly constrained lines. No, Adam can make names, give names and those names stand. Humans can contemplate the world, explore its nature, its components and its 'inter-ousiality' and assign signs and codes to think further and together about it and that sign-empowered marshalling of thinking understanding and celebrating is allowed to stand; it is accepted by God. God seems to want to see what we will make of the Creation, how we will understand it and wonder at it and how we will speak of it. And when I write 'speak', I mean to include the languages of the arts as well as the more 'scientific' or formal linguistic registers.

What I'm not yet sure I have a reflection on is the matter of whether plants and other non-animal things not being named is significant for these purposes ...

Last posting in this series ...

Filed in: Genesis
God
linguistics
language

Motorists and other polluters

I bet this was written by someone who drives a car.

Five companies in Britain produce more carbon dioxide pollution together than all the motorists on UK roads combined, a

Why do I reckon that? It's because tha comparison being made seems to be designed to let motorists feel a little better about their polluting: "At least I'm only adding a bit, not like Eon". Of course it is significant that 5 companies produce something over 21% of CO2 pollution in the UK. But then again, mostly they are power generators, so no surprise there, really. See what I mean, letting motorists off the hook and not reimpaling them on the hook of domestic power consumption. The sad fact being how much domestic use plus motoring adds up to.

Maybe I'm wrong; a sad old cynic attempting to rescale the giddy heights of the moral high ground. But actually, I know that my ecological footprint is too high, and I'm a lower user by UK standards. But I also know that I cannot reduce my footprint alone: it will take social, aggregated, actions because we are all in this together. I just don't want anyone given trivial excuses to slack on this because it is the major issue of this generation, actually.

I now fold my soapbox and dismount the moral high ground before the quagmire it actually is swallows me whole.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | New figures reveal scale of industry's impact on climate:Filed in: electricity, generation, UK, CO2

"Banish those mislaid ex-offender blues with ID Card." Not!

This morning I heard John Reid MP interviewed on BBC Breakfast. He claimed ID cards would help avoid the kind of dabacle we're seeing over released prisoners absconding before deportation. I thought that he was using the words "ID cards" more as a kind of totem to wish away the problems, because I couldn't see how they would help. It appears I was not the only person the think that he was talking up the solution. Have a look at the article referenced under the title of this post. In it the nub of the problem is concisely put.

The problem, essentially, is not that the data is broken - in these cases at least the data exists, is of relatively good quality, and is somewhere in the system. Clearly, it is the system itself that is broken, with its components utterly unable to organise the data they own, and therefore unable to exchange data meaningfully with other parts of the system. So, under these circumstances, what price your national identity register?

Just think what chaos with 60 million instead of a few hundred thousand identities to manage. Better still [that's ironic, just in case you didn't spot it], if it goes wrong, the legislation has us guilty until proven innocent; it is our responsibility to make sure our data is up to date and accurate, presumably even if they cock up.
Banish those mislaid ex-offender blues with ID Card! | The Register:
Filed in: ID_cards, UK, data-sharing

New world order?

I'm watching with interest what is happening in Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina ... and this is why:

Never mind that the privatisation of Bolivia's gas and oil in the 1990s was almost certainly illegal, as it took place without the consent of congress. Never mind that - until now - its natural wealth has only impoverished its people. Never mind that Morales had promised to regain national control of Bolivia's natural resources before he became president, and that the policy has massive support among Bolivians. It can't be long before Donald Rumsfeld calls him the new Hitler and Bush makes another speech about freedom and democracy being threatened by freedom and democracy.

It's a kind of Robin Hood tale: the rich start whining when someone turns their money-printers off so that the poorest can have their rights.
My main fear is that these governments are in cultures that have a history of corruption ...
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | When two poor countries reclaimed oilfields, why did just one spark uproar?:
Filed in: Bolivia, Morales, nationalisation, oil

Fish scale sura?

Every few years there's a report like this from the Muslim world: the last one I recall was the allegation that trees fallen in a storm in eastern Europe, on a satellite photo, showed up looking like the Arabic script of a verse of the qur'an. Of course the Christian world has its own share of this sort of kookiness: pictures of Mary and Christ appearing in natural phenomona. In fact I suspect that, given the nature of Arabic script, it isn't hard to find natural phenomena that kind of randomly, once in a while, come to resemble it ... a bit like the alleged Bible code, given the nature of Hebrew, it is hard not to end up with strings of 3 or 4 consonants that can't be made to mean something ...
Offbeat News :: Wonder fish awes Kenyan Muslims
Filed in: religion, qur'an, Islam, nature

Homo Loquens Coram Deo [4] "You may freely eat ..."

And the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

Genesis 2:16 - 17

On a more trivial note, one of the things to notice abouth this is the linguistic equivalent of the belly-button problem [see the omphalos hypothesis]. An old argument about Adam was whether he had a belly-button or not: being unborn he would not have needed an interface with a uterus ... and it would appear that the ability to understand God's speech was not learnt in childhood either, which would be interesting since most of us have to learn it then or we lose the window of opportunity for best learning a language. Of course, this is to mistake the genre of the story, although it is further evidence of what genre we are actually dealing with.

Likewise, what can 'die' mean to someone who has not seen death yet?

In this we move from language as contemplation of reality and as a means of clothing thought to a means of creating thought in another and opening up imagination. Adam is invited not merely to contemplate and appreciate what has been made but is positioned with regard to the trees and what is not yet real. Modal verbs are introduced to 'channel' action by constraint and allowance and by conditional futurity. The significance here is not that Adam may imagine things that are not yet, and now considers that some 'not yets' should be 'nevers' -those things can take place in the privacy of ones own mind and even without language. Rather it is that Adam has these considerations stimulated by another: his mind is acted upon by another through language; thought transference has taken place.

Perhaps without a commonly agreed 'code' direct brain to brain communication would be impossible: if you want computers to share information they need to have common protocols, and especially if they have different operating systems. Human brains each, as I understand it, have to produce their own operating system on the hoof while collecting data and learning to interpret it. The potentially infinite ways that we could each end up wiring up and systmatising the physical and intellectual stuff inside our crania surely presents problems to mind-to-mind direct links; a bit like trying to run a Mac programme on a PC direct. Language is the best we can do at mind-reading.

After that little excursus back to the plot. Along with the employment of modal verbs comes negation. A thought into the future, enabling to imagine what is not [yet] also makes possible a negation. Negation really can only be understood imaginatively, otherwise only what is can be apprehended. But imagination can conceive of things other than as they are, including the possibility or implying that things can not be. It is as this point that I have come to think that it is probably correct to see negation as cognitively derivative: that is to say to imagine a negative we must 'first' imagine the positive. It's the old paradox: "Don't think of an elephant -too late". NLP tends to discourage changing behaviours by the use of telling ourselves negatives ["Don't lick toads"] because the positive is invoked more powerfully in our minds and our mimetic drive pushes us towards it before the prohibition kicks in.

Perhaps it is this psychological mechanism that is exposed by this story and has led to its providential preservation for teaching us and training us in righteousness?
Negation is inherantly implicated in imagining and creating what is not yet. The human ability to bring good things that do not yet exist consciously into being: to plan and to tell stories and to produce art and technology brings with it the ability to say 'not'. And with 'not' comes the possibility of wrong, of transgressing the boundaries of the good. Indeed, the power of mimetic desire operating in the human imagination alone can draw us towards 'go[o]d-transgressiveness' where only a 'not' stands between us and straying, and that 'not' is psychologically later and weaker.

I think that this perspective goes against the notion that this 'original sin' was a fall into freedom and a necessary aspect of growth and development...

Filed in: Genesis
God
linguistics
language

Attack of the killer contemplatives

What can I say? Thanks Matt!

dedicated to all those who think all contemplative prayer is related to Transcendental Meditation

RIP: Theologian Pelikan Dies

Yale professor Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the world's foremost scholars of the history of Christianity, has died of lung cancer, his son said Monday. He was 82.

I owe him a debt of gratitude: his work on Christian doctrinal history helped me through theological training and beyond. I loved his clarity and comprehensiveness; not an easy combination. May light perpetual shine upon him.
Yale Theologian Pelikan Dies at 82:
Filed in: historian, theology, Pelikan

Java volcano = global cooling?

Not to belittle the danger, inconvenience, suffering etc, but I can't help wondering what effect, if any, this could have on global warming. All that particulate matter in the upper atmosphere should act contrary to the warming effect. Think about theories of dinosaur extinction; atmospheric dust is thought to be the culprit following meteor strikes or periods of vulcanism. The question is whether one big volcano can have a significant effect ... somehow I doubt it but it'd be interesting to know how it shapes up.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Java volcano grows more violent
Filed in: global_warming, volcano, offset

Warm Watts

Wired News: Warm Watts for Wireless:

A tiny new generator that produces electricity from small variations in temperature could turn people into power packs for medical implants and clear the way for complex wireless monitoring systems.

Filed in: electricity, generation, thermoelectric

Questions on EU carbon trading

Looks like teething troubles, at least it's to be hoped that's all it is.

figures from today's assessment showed that countries across Europe were given too many pollution allowances or permits by their governments, reducing incentives to cut pollution. Only six countries - Britain, Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, Italy and Austria - issued permits reducing rather than increasing the limit on annual average greenhouse gas output compared with real output last year. Germany emerged as the worst performer. "While the system appears to be functioning effectively, the results across the EU do raise questions about the stringency of the caps in some member states," the environment and climate change minister, Ian Pearson, said.

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Questions raised over EU carbon trading scheme:
Filed in: environment, EU, carbon_trading, CO2

This is all we need: Muslim milennarianism aswell

Here's a bit of a back story to the current situation in Iran. The president is an Islamic religious counterweight to Bush. In this case the Iranian president is connected with ...

Devout Shiites believe some day he [the Mahdi, the 'Hidden Imam'] will re-emerge to inaugurate a new era of perfect government on earth, which will in turn be followed by the return of the prophet Jesus to judge mankind. And those who flock to Jamkaran believe that this will happen very soon.

I seem to recall that this kind of Islam was what gave the British Empire trouble in Sudan during the Victorian period.
Iran :: Iranian president backs messianic cult:
Filed in: Islam, shi'a, mahdi, Iran

Torture: the means subverts the ends

I sign up for the promotion of democracy and the rights of human beings that the USA is supposed to be about. Shame that much of the world doesn't believe in the USA's rhetoric because things like this happen.

Last week, Amnesty International said 34 detainees died under such U.S. interrogation.

Lord Acton's dictum again ...
USA :: Torture and other human lunacies
Filed in: human_rights, USA, torture

ID theft by UK officials: state-sponsored errorism

It's frightening enough to discover that low-paid civil servants have been so corruptible in the UK...

One government figure said: "We have been told that DWP staff have been colluding with organised criminals to commit identity theft on an industrial scale. It is far wider than just tax credits and reaches right across Whitehall."

But add into that mix ID cards; they are going to be really heavy duty and if there are mistakes [even ones caused by corrupt officials] it is we the subjects of her Britannic majesty who will be legally resposible and liable to fines and imprisonment. What a boon for the criminals: a central database to mine with a little inside help and the blame will go, in the first instance, on the victim and by the time anyone might know differently it may be too late.
My advice: don't voluntarily get an ID card, no matter how useful you think it might be: it's colluding in state-sponsored errorism [no, you didn't misread that and it's no typo; I just made the word up].
Independent Online Edition > UK Politics:
Filed in: ID_cards, UK, ID_theft, fraud

Da VInci Code - Leonardo's portrayal of John

I've recently watched a DVD on the Da Vinci code background details, particularly the ones about the figure of John being feminine, the knights templar and the meaning of 'saint grail'/'Sang real'. With regard to the former this is quite helpful and interesting. It's an art history perspective and usefully contains a whole load of links to other paintings of the same era and a historical-cultural note that rather puts a different perspective on it from the Holy Blood Holy Grail/ DVC line. As the author says:

when Leonardo's version of The Last Supper is viewed in context, the John "gender issue" seems less of an issue. Leonardo was sticking to tradition: Biblical (John was the youngest Disciple), Florentine (young men were often love objects) and the Florentine School (young men were often painted as "pretty"). Considering this logically, it would seem reasonable to lend credence to the many art historians who've said no, based on contextual evidence Leonardo didn't paint Mary Magdalene, he painted John. Unless, of course, many art historians have got it all wrong, and the whole Florentine School actually believed that Jesus meant for Mary Magdalene to head His Church.

Worth bookmarking for apologetic use?
See also here, for a look at what the restorers did, which is intriguing too.
The Florentine School and the Portrayal of Male Youth:
Filed in: Da_Vinci_Code, art, Last_Supper, John_the_Evangelist, Da_Vinci, art_history

Mother’s Day USA: better?

I was reminded by this that today is Mothers' day in the USA. Now, I don't often say this kind of thing, so look carefully and mark the day in your journal: this is one thing where I think the USA have got it better than GB. -The date of Mothers' day. I'm fed up with it being moveable because it's tied to a Sunday in Lent. Furthermore, I dislike the way that it hijacks the liturgical propers of the fourth Sunday in Lent; it's a poor theological resource and yet it is pretty much forced on us. Wait a minute, isn't it the same over there? Probably, but it seems to me that it might be better late in the Easter season than right in the middle of Lent. But then, that may just be a case of the grass being greener... At least with a date fixed in the secular calendar it varies as to which liturgical date it coincides with.

Of course the bigger problem is whether we also celebrate Fathers' day, and if we do (and what's the case for not doing so?), where do we stop letting secular themes into the Kalendar? Let's just have a parents' day and get it over with. Better still, let's just forget about it and use birthday's or name day's to personally appreciate parents and other significant people in our lives. The triumph of Hallmark over big-picture thinking, that's what it is.

But now I've got that rant out of my system, I can probably hear the voice of reason that you, dear reader, can bring to the comments.
Jesus Creed � To Kris, Happy Mother’s Day!
Filed in: Mother's_day, USA, Kalendar, worship

ER might change minds if Labour 'faces poll wipe-out'

If this is true,
"Labour could be heading for a wipe-out by David Cameron's Tories at the next general election, says the first detailed study of the local election results and their possible impact."
it might be that Labour might beef up their half-hearted commitment to electoral reform in a bid to limit the damage, and incidently do so by mitigating the worst injustices of first-past-the-post. A win-win situation, you'd have thought. But then, most MP's seem to believe the guff they spout about fptp.
The Observer | Politics | Labour 'faces poll wipe-out':

Chavez changes things

Perhaps the real reason for Washington's dislike of the emerging new order in south America is that they are doing what USA-sponsored trickle-down economics promised but never did deliver.

Venezuela was like a lot of those old Latin American countries - a small elite of super-rich families who basically stole the national resources. He's now driven a new economic order through, you've got for the first time healthcare for poor people, illiteracy has been eradicated.

And if you want to get an idea of why I don't like trickle-down economics: it's the peoples in places like Venezuela who have had to bear the cost of demonstrating the myth -those not in the ruling elites, that is.
I just hope the good Chavez and co do is not undone by the corruptions of power.
The Observer | World | Chavez offers oil to Europe's poor:
Filed in: Venezuela, Chavez, oil, EU

Wal-mart goes organic !?

Apparently Wal-Mart are about to go into organic food, so I guess that Asda can't be far behind in the UK. It is one of those genuinely crisis moments balanced between danger and opportunity:

The potential for big agriculture to destroy the integrity of organic farming stirs valid concern. ... Nevertheless, ... big business can have positive effects on the world. In an ideal scenario, Wal-Mart ought to be able to use their might for advancing better farming practices, encouraging healthier eating habits, and increasing access to organic food for low-income families.

I'm cautiously hopeful, actually. Though the issues about the buying power of supermarkets are still there too and could undermine the organic endeavour.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Wal-Mart Going Organic?:
Filed in: organic, farming, Wal-Mart

Power from magnetic bacteria

Here's an interesting and potentially important invention. And it's doubly heart-warming because of the age of the inventor and the way it was discovered.

Madiraju put the free-floating bacteria, which are essentially tiny magnets, into plastic boxes less than a fifth of a cubic inch. Metal strips on two sides act as electrodes and get them spinning, generating a magnetic field and an electric current. Current and power were sustained at 25 microamps and 5.5 microwatts, respectively, beyond 48 hours at a resistance of 10 kohms.

Wired News: Power Up With Magnetic Bacteria: Filed in: electricity, generation, bacteria

Homo Loquens Coram Deo [3] "Let there be..."

"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.""

Verses 26-28
This is the first time that God is portrayed as talking to godself. A first-person "Let us..." instead of "Let there be ..." and similar third-person phrases. I can't help feeling that this is significant.

Language really implies community. There is no such thing as a language with one speaker, unless it is a dying language that once had many. The point is that we don't leart to speak unless there is a language community to learn from and with. Language is a collective possession belonging to all who use it [notwithstanding the attempts to police it by the grammar-marms and 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells']. So, though I know it's theologically perilous, I can't help seeing a plurality implied in God being portrayed as speaking; it's not a royal 'we' [and I'm not sure any language but English does that anyhow, I may be wrong in that ...] it's a simple recognition of a linguistic community. And it seems to imply that the communicative community that is God is being widened to include humans. Especially as God goes on to instruct the newly-formed divine-image bearers directly: second-personwise.

So it also seems to me interesting that the divine image seems to be associated with communication and therefore personal relationality. So to me, it doesn't seem at all far-fetched to find here a hint at personal relationality and community 'in' God. And it seems to me that we have the embryo of human beings being invited to share in the divine community-life.

Much as I would like to comment on 'ruling over' the earth and 'subduing' it, it would be outside the scope of this series, so I will refrain. Except to note that these are not about naming. As I noted in the previous reflection, I remain unconvinced of the idea that naming is about power over things, rather it seems to me a more contemplative and agapaic act. Here, it is the being included in God's [speech-]community that brings with it a share in God's privilege of ruling, rather than acting linguistically by naming things.

Next articlette.
Filed in: Genesis God linguistics language
Genesis
God
linguistics
language

Youth, meaning and self-harm

I day or two back, I drew attention to a recent report published by the Church of England about youth attitudes to the meaning of life and religion [ Their creed could be defined as: “This world, and all life in it, is meaningful as it is,”]. Well, it clearly should be read in conjunction with another recent report which would indicate that there are clearly problems with meaning among young people and that these are sometimes critical. Remember too that teen/youth suicide rates are unprecedentedly high ...

Mental health problems are common in young people and there is evidence that they are on the increase.
For some young people with mental health problems, a Goth subculture may be attractive, as it may allow them to find a community within which it may be easier for their distress to be understood.
Social support is important for all young people to help them cope with the difficulties they face, and therefore finding a peer group of like-minded Goths may, for some, be adaptive.

Somehow this doesn't sound like a generation of contented, meaning-imbued people. Though I don't doubt that there are many who are reasonably content and unperturbed by meaninglessness and anomie, we shouldn't rush into a moral panic about that. I worry that the CofE's report is partial in its sampling or has failed to get past the posturing and ideological presentations, or both.
Mental Health Foundation: News
Filed in: goths, suicide, teens, self-harm, UK

A 'Da Vinci Code' primer

If you have been metaphorically living under a stone because every time you peek out you get embarrassed that you don't know anything really about the Da Vinci code and now they've gone and released a film, here's your chance to reintegrate into society. A bluffer's guide.

I really liked this bit.

Can I learn about art, history or theology by reading the book?
Most experts say that’s like trying to learn science from watching Star Trek.
As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” And Mr. Brown gets plenty of facts wrong.

And this quote probably puts most of us in our place. It certainly woke up my inner pedant who has now stored that away and will plague me with emabarassment and self-reproach if I fail to put 'Leonardo' in front of 'Da Vinci'.

Art historians also snicker at Mr. Brown’s repeated references to “Da Vinci.” That would be like referring to “Fred from New York” as “from New York.” Leonardo had no last name, as we now think of it.

The article also expresses well why we might be bothered about the historical inaccuracies and downright falsehoods.

The Rev. Robin Griffith-Jones is the master of Temple Church in London and author of The Da Vinci Code and the Secrets of the Temple. His church is one of the places the novel’s protagonists visit on their quest for truth.
“I have recently seen Syriana and The Constant Gardner . I have never known anything about the oil or pharmaceutical industries, and probably never will,” he said. “But those films, which I know were of course fictional, were so vivid that they have given me a template into which I will from now on fit everything I read/hear about the oil/chemical business. Ditto with The Da Vinci Code, for a large number of people who will from now on see priests, monks, the church, Christian faith and churches-and-women in the light cast by the novel and film.”

Quite so, as I said to my sister, yes it is only fiction, but it it's all people 'know', and if it's wrong it creates a lot of work for people like me [priests and religious teachers] to unpick.

The article mentions but doesn't really analyse why it should be so popular. And that is the thing we should really be paying attention to because it tells us something of what is going on in our culture with regard to spirituality, religion and popular perceptions of Christianity.

Filed in: Da_Vinci_Code, guideDa Vinci Code :: Glad you asked that - a 'Da Vinci Code' primer: