Between you and ...

... ME! not 'I'.
Someone has flagged up a little grammatical 'hypercorrection' issue that I also find irksome. Read this little article and regain the courage to use 'me' after 'and'.

phrases like "between you and I"* (NB: by linguistic convention nonstandard forms are tagged with an asterisk (*).) Of course, it should be "between you and me." The first person personal pronoun "I" is used mostly as a grammatical subject; it is labelled the subjective form. "Me" is generally used as a grammatical object, and represents the objective form.

asphaleia: Objective Truth:
Filed in: language, English, grammar, syntak

Thinking Hebrew for the Pomophobic…

There are some interesting things to think about here, and as it's rather similar to my take on such matters, I'm flagging it up. Here's what it's basically teasing out.

the similarities between Eastern Culture and Pomo Culture are much more prevalent, with the chief exception being the humanistic focus of postmodernism.

Fishing The Abyss � Blog Archives � Thinking Hebrew for the Pomophobic…:
Filed in: post-modernism, mission, culture, Christian

Right corporate wrongs

UK readers might like to consider a bit of e-activism organised by Friends of the Earth.

We're asking MPs to back amendments to the Bill so that:
* Companies are legally required to report on their social and environmental impacts.
* Directors are legally obliged to minimise any damage their company does to communities and the environment.
* People overseas adversely effected by UK company activities have the right to take action against them in a UK court.

It gives you the means to find and contact your MP automatically from the link.
Friends of the Earth: Campaigns: Corporates: Press for change: Right corporate wrongs:
Filed in: corporations, impacts, reporting, audit, environment, social

on misguidedly despising contemplation

I came across this article a week or two back and I have been mulling it over in odd moments because I think that there is probably a fundamental misunderstanding. A first I thought 'O good, an article commending the use of the Lord's Prayer.' But as I read it I started to feel very uncomfortable. The author clearly feels that there is a problem with contemplative prayer and this article outlines why. Here's a quote that seems to get to the heart of the objection.

The question therefore arises, is contemplative prayer, or cultivating "the quiet," supported in Scripture? Is it a spiritual discipline encouraged in God's Word? Or is this manner of prayer simply a device of human invention? We turn to Luke's Gospel for insight. Even in Jesus' day the way of prayer was controversial. Jesus spoke about prayer to correct the wrong methods and manners of prayer originating from and employed by men. Jesus taught against the publicity with which hypocrites pray and the repetition by which pagans pray (Matt. 6:5, 7-8). So after having heard Jesus pray and on behalf of the other disciples, one of them requested, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples" (Lk. 11:1). To the request, Jesus replied, "When you pray, say . . ." (Luke 11:2a). The word to "say" (Greek, lego) means to carry on a logical and cognitive discourse with the emphasis upon what is being or what is about to be said. As opposed to silence, to say involves both thinking and speaking. As is evident from the context and content of his instructions to the disciples, Jesus neither taught nor practiced prayer via mindless and "mute language."

He seems to be saying that because Jesus said 'say' then other forms of prayer without words are illegitimate. I suspect that there are a number of problems with this.

First off, I suspect that there may be an inconsistency. The author is clearly an American Baptist and seems to be in the more fundamentalist stable. Therefore, I adduce that he's not going to be keen to take Luke with utmost seriousness at this point because I suspect he will want to argue that simple repitition is not right either, and yet that is arguably what Luke says. If I am correct in my supposition about the guy's approach to the passage under a slightly different heading, then we are already in the region of not quite taking the passage as literally as this. So it is that we should be very wary of this argument from silence. Just because Jesus gave this set of words in response to a particular request out of a background where we know that rabbis often gave their disciples a 'set' prayer as a part of their belonging to that group of disciples, doesn't mean that it should apply in the way that this article tries to say it does.

I would go further though. The outworking of taking that prayer seriously arguably leads [as I say in Praying the Pattern] to something like contemplation. To pray 'Your will be done' requires being informed what God's will is. I can't see that happening except by being silent as we are instructed [whether through Bible reading, hearing sermons, reading books] and doing what is necessary to take on board what we hear have been attentive to what the Holy Spirit seems to be pressing upon us. As far as I'm concerned, contemplative prayer is about being more careful about listening to God and not presuming to babble at God our own agenda.

The author, Larry DeBruyn, goes on to say,

Think for a moment about the implication of wordless praying. If Jesus or the biblical saints had engaged in the "mute language" of contemplative prayer, there would have been no prayers recorded in Scripture! The Bible would contain no resident examples of prayer to stimulate and instruct believers in the grace, knowledge and practice of prayer.

This is still and argument from silence. The presence of discourse directed towards God does not rule out other forms of prayer, any more than David going out into a field to meditate rules out his writing verbal prayers. Even if it is true that the Bible only portrays talking to God, but it isn't. There are examples of meditation and contempation in scripture, and it is hard to see the Bible having been written at all if not for people engaging in the work of reflecting quietly on Who God is and What God has done and is doing and being open sometimes to God's more direct communication.

To do a reductio ad absurdam on the basic argument, Jesus is not recorded in scripture as driving a car or going to the toilet, "then why should we?". The more helpful riposte would be, however, to ask how it was that Jesus and the apostles 'received' communication from God, and to point out that trying to be open to the Holy Spirit bringing something to us from the Father is no bad thing.

And I think we should also be careful that we don't fetishise verbalisation. I communicate with others without words all the time. So do most of us, excepting hermits. I don't see that it should be a problem to bring our wordless communication before God, in fact I would have thought it an important part of bringing all of our life before God. 'Offering our bodies as a living sacrifice' is not primarily a verbal matter. I'd be worried if it were, I'd suspect that large chunks of ones being were actually being missed out of the offering. Prayer and worship is far more fundamentally about bringing the whole of who we are into positive relationship with God than just talking at God, which is what Mr DeBruyn seems to be advocating. I suspect his apparent fear of the so-called evils of emerging church is driving him away from the whole counsel of God.

PtpTopic20060626143019 < Ptp < TWiki: Filed in: prayer, Lord's_prayer, spirituality, contemplative, words, silence

How Not to Pray in groups

I have to say that this is a nice article on attitudes in praying using the Sermon on the mount as a guide. Good stuff and mostly sensible and sane. I did want to look at the following more closely, however.

Now, what about prayer meetings? Is Jesus condemning those? Well, no, He is not. But He would condemn prayer meetings where people pray to other people rather than to God. If you are in a prayer meeting, or are in a place where other people are going to pray, say, family night, or Ladies' Aid, then beware lest your prayers turn into a performance for the other people there. What you must do instead is lift the people to the very throne room of God. You are not on display for other people, but are rather to be talking with God.

I agree with what is being tried to be communicated. However, there is a potential misunderstanding lurking which could be disabling of praying with others. The reason I say that is that I think we need to be a bit more self-aware of the realities of group dynamics and language. Language is a shared resource. We pray out loud in order to share our prayer with others in the hope that they will add their 'amen' [at least that is the hope and aim]. As such we are bound to be influenced by our inner representation of what others may hear from us and we will be attuning our verbal performance [and I mean that descriptively not as a veiled criticism] to that. In other words we are likely to speak to God differently in a group setting to how we might in our personal prayer because we take account of others' presence and overhearing. Of course, that is where the potential pitfalls lie and which the post I'm referencing draws attention to. But we need to be careful that we don't think that it is somehow hypocritical in itself to do this. It is in fact part of loving our neighbour to do so. The other potential pitfall in not recognising this is that we talk to God in the presence of others as if they are not there. I'm sure that many of us have been in places where it may be that the needs and feelings of the other group members is not apparently being taken seriously enough, even though the person praying may not be acting in a way that is mostly about trying to impress the other group members.

The point is, I guess, that we need to both keep in mind that it is God who is the pre-eminent audience but that we owe it to our co-prayists to speak accessibly, but to do so without slipping into trying to impress them rather than leading them in relating verbally to God.
Green Baggins: How Not to Pray: Filed in: prayer, groups, hypocrisy, piety

The carbon task ahead

It's probably worth noting and marking this article for future reference so that we can have on hand a strongly expressed but well-researched article telling us how much is to be done to save the planet for civilisation as we would like to know it.

if everything else were equal, greenhouse gas concentrations in 2030 would need to be roughly the same as they are today.
Unfortunately, everything else is not equal. By 2030, according to a paper published by scientists at the Met Office, the total capacity of the biosphere to absorb carbon will have reduced from the current 4 billion tonnes a year to 2.7 billion(8). To maintain equilibrium at that point, in other words, the world’s population can emit no more than 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon a year in 2030. As we currently produce around 7 billion, this implies a global reduction of 60%. In 2030, the world’s people are likely to number around 8.2 billion. By dividing the total carbon sink (2.7 billion tonnes) by the number of people, we find that to achieve stabilisation the weight of carbon emissions per person should be no greater than 0.33 tonnes. If this problem is to be handled fairly, everyone should have the same entitlement to release carbon, at a rate no greater than 0.33 tonnes per year.

Now admittedly young George is coat trailing to sell his book but that doesn't change the research. We urgently need to be calling for simplicity of lifestyle and localism to reduce fossil carbon use. It's a matter of loving our neighbours folks.
It's worth, too, looking at his related article almost but not quite celebrating the terminal decline of climate change denialism, 'not quite' because

The danger is not that we will stop talking about climate change, or recognising that it presents an existential threat to humankind. The danger is that we will talk ourselves to Kingdom Come.

I think he may be right...

When do we recognise a status quo?

Here we go again, though I hope not. But the Argentinian government is putting a new history textbook into its schools:

The book accuses British forces of arriving secretly on the islands in the 18th century and taking it by force from the Spanish. Since then the British have refused offers to discuss the islands' sovereignty with Argentina, the book claims.

The article seems to do a balanced job of putting the best case from both sides. Of course, as with many intractable disputes, the difficulty is that there are now people there who didn't cause the situation but are relatively innocent beneficiaries or otherwise of the situation where it would be manifestly unjust to oust them for a point of history. Same sort of difficulty with Gibraltar, Ceuta, Melilla, Palestine, and even to some extent Ulster...

It even rears its head in the thing about whether former slave-trader nations should apologise for their role of old. And if they do, what, if any, compensation should be offered? One suggestion is

material compensation could take the form of debt cancellation, development assistance or trust funds, or a number of other measures.

and there is a question here about what is taught at schools, too.

it was necessary that society "be reconciled with its own history, that the truth concerning slavery and the slave trade be taught in all schools, publicly acknowledged and better understood".

Of course all of that bears on the issue of whether we can repent corporately. I think that these matters are at the heart of answering that question....

Filed in: EducationGuardian.co.uk | Schools special reports | Argentinian pupils to learn how Britain 'colonised' Falklands:Argentina, Falklands, Malvinas, decolonisation, history, UN

Moving Beyond String Theory

This may be of little interest if, when you hear or read the words "string theory", all you can come up with is something to do with kittens, scissors or knots. If, on the other hand, your ears prick up but you aren't a scientist/physicist, then this article may be for you; containing as it does a quick guide to the alternative theories aiming to give a GUT. I quite liked the end paragraph, commenting on the possibility that the unioverse may actually have two 'manuals' according to scale.
"science is littered with present-day commonplaces that were once radical and courageous acts of unification: Copernicus said the Earth and the other planets were not two separate things but one. Giordano Bruno said the sun and the stars were not two separate things but one. Isaac Newton said the force that makes an apple fall from a tree is the same force that moves the planets through the heavens.
Skeptics of previous scientific grand unification efforts are often, though certainly not always, proved to have been lacking only in imagination."

Wired News: Moving Beyond String Theory:

Armed Basque group ETA says "it will keep on fighting"

Those who are joining me in praying for the Basque country may be disappointed, as I am, to read this.

Three hooded ETA´s spokesmen read a release in the occasion of the Armed Basque group´s Gudari Eguna. The release said, “we comprosime to continue fighting with weapons till we get independence and socialism in the Basque Country”.

I'm not sure what 'comprosime' is, some glitch of auto translation. Probably means 'promise'.
Anyway, more work to be done in prayer...
Armed Basque group ETA says "it will keep on fighting"

Filed in: Euskadi, ETA, peace, process

Pope urges dialogue between Christians and Muslims

There seem to be two different articles from the same 'paper on this. It's an interesting exercise in compare and contrast: Pope urges dialogue between Christians and Muslims and then there's this one "Violence must be opposed, Pope tells Muslim leaders" Of course there is no necessary contradiction, but it's interesting to see the different approaches and how easy it might be to draw oppositional-seeming implications from the same event.

Filed in: Pope, BenedictXVI, Islam, Christian, violence, dialogue, religion

Quotable Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton ...

we could have a really good argument over whether or not Jesus believed in fairies. But we cannot have any debate over whether or not Jesus believed rich people were in big trouble. There’s just too much evidence that he did.

Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: Out of Context: Will Willimon:
Filed in: Chesterton, Christian, quote, wealth, Jesus

Doubt cast on fingerprint security

A further question mark against the government's biometric ID cards and the linked database: now they can't even guarantee the security of our own biometrics...

BBC News | SCI/TECH | Doubt cast on fingerprint security
Filed in: ID, ID_cards, UK, biometrics, weakness, flawed

'Day of Rage' Observation Fizzles:

Perhaps the silent majority of Muslims have actually spoken by remain silent and not attending the 'Day of Rage'? I do hope that this is the correct interpretation. It may be that Muslims the world over are aware, or becoming aware, that the violent responses to an accusation of violence are a case of shooting oneself in the foot. It is good to find another robust Muslim response that lays in also to the miscreant Muslim responses.

Instead of referring to the teachings of the Qur’an and the Prophet (peace be upon him) a few deviants take it upon themselves to perform atrocities and injustices in the name of Islam.... Let’s not forget that we too have been guilty of engaging in rhetoric that has been equally inflammatory and counter-productive. As Muslims we must accept that the Pope made a mistake and has apologized. This should be accepted in good faith. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said that the best amongst us is the one who forgives. If we are true Muslims (and let’s face it, how many of us are?) we should show that actions speak louder than words. It is in our hands to demonstrate to the world the true message of our religion rather than use such opportunities to vindicate the negative stereotype that is all too prevalent in the West.

Moving on a bit, it's interesting to see a reasonably well known Muslim sheikh characterising some differences between Islam and Christianity. Sheik Al-Qaradhawi explained:

The Christian is incapable of imitating Jesus regarding war and conciliation since Jesus never fought or made peace. He is incapable of imitating him regarding marriage, divorce, parenthood, and family, since [Jesus] never had a family, never had a wife, a father, or a grandfather

Isn't that interesting?

And now for something completely different, well maybe not completely. A tongue-in-cheek article alleging the Vatican is considering the canonisation of Muhammed.

Vatican researchers said the application is already being processed and they need only find one more verifiable after-death miracle attributed to Muhammad.
“The first is indisputable,” a Vatican source said, “We already have ample evidence that the long-dead prophet miraculously caused a major religious leader, with a reputation for infallibility, to apologize for telling the truth.”

What's the emoticon for a raised eyebrow?

Pajamas Media: 'Day of Rage' Observation Fizzles:
Filed in: Islam, blasphemy, free-speech, Pope, BenedictXVI, Regensberg, reaction

Walter Wink among the Pentecostals and the Jesus Seminar

This snippet of Walter Wink's autobiography is fascinating, tongues-speaking and healing are there. Brilliant to see how this all fits into a scholarly vocation. I really liked this piece of theological reflection on his own journey.

no scholar can construct a picture of Jesus beyond the level of spiritual awareness that she or he has attained. No reconstruction outstrips its reconstructor. We cannot explain truths we have not yet understood. We cannot present insights that we have not yet fathomed. Our picture of Jesus reflects, not only Jesus, but the person portraying Jesus, and if we are spiritual infants or adolescents, there are whole realms of human reality that will simply escape us.

And a bit later these paragraphs, which is not a new perspective, I suspect for my more regular readers, but is again well stated.

My greatest hesitation about the Jesus Seminar is the idea that it is possible to build, from the bottom up, a perspective-free, objective database. Such a neutral, "pictureless" standpoint is impossible. Every analysis is value-laden. We cannot help projecting onto the texts our own unconscious needs and desires for transformation or confirmation, to say nothing of our socio-political location and biases. We need to take seriously the implications of the Heisenberg principle: that the observer is always a part of the field being observed, and disturbs that field by the very act of observation. In terms of the interpretive task, this means that there can be no question of an objective view of Jesus "as he really was." "Objective view" is itself an oxymoron; every view is subjective, from a particular angle of vision. We always encounter the biblical text with interests. We always have a stake in our reading of it. We always have angles of vision, which can be helpful or harmful in interpreting texts. Every description of Jesus is a form of advocacy, whether positive or negative. All lives of Jesus are a kind of apologetics. ... Scholars who believe Jesus was like a cynic philosopher will tend to reject as non-historical any data that suggests otherwise. When the cynic school prevailed, for example, in the voting at the Jesus Seminar, the apocalypticists quit coming; this further skewed the vote. The Seminar is denied the fresh perspective that liberationists and feminists might bring since there are almost no women or non-Caucasians in the group. So the picture that is emerging of Jesus is remarkably like that of a tweedy professor interested in studying Scripture.

That's gotta hurt, but he has a point. It's the old but largely valid criticism of the first quest for the historical Jesus.
Walter Wink Autobiography:
Filed in: Walter_Wink, autobiography, scholarship, Jesus, spirituality, Pentecostal, tongues

Feathers, Frugality and Fashion

There are, of course, other dimensions to this but in considering it we should recall this:

“Fifty percent of all the world's fabrics are made from petroleum, and most of the rest are made from cotton (crops), which use 20 percent of the world's pesticides,” Yang said. “We wouldn't be consuming any products to make this fabric, because they're there anyway. We're adding increased value to agriculture without polluting the environment.”

Now we might just want also to ask questions about the ecological footprint of meat production, animal welfare and the chemical processes involved in the conversion [read the article for a very brief indication of it]. However, in the mean time while those issues might be being raised and addressed, at least reusing some of the waste seems like a worthwhile cause.
Wired News: Feathers, Frugality and Fashion:
Filed in: recycling, garments, cloth, feathers, fabric, manufacture, cotton, petroleum

Maybe Angels; intersubjectivity and consciousness

Not sure about the rest of the article but this is a really helpful quote putting into a couple of sentences something I have been trying to say for a couple of years now.
Rupert Sheldrake:

I think that the reason we are conscious is because we are interconscious in relationship to other people. Consciousness is shared, and I don't think an individual human being, without language and without relationship with other people or any other thing, would be conscious. I think that consciousness has to be understood in relationship, not as a kind of isolated thing.

Rupert Sheldrake: Maybe Angels:
Filed in: consciousness, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, relationship, awareness, Rupert_Sheldrake

Howto switch from Linux to Windows - a users experience

Feeling vaguely chuffed for having extended my university information services account to include a linux log in, so I can work on my Open Office stuff without turning them into M$ office stuff until I'm done, and perhaps not even then, I was gently amused by this 'what-if' /alternative history story.... Including these remarks.

You don’t want to know what defragmentation is (there’s no need for it on a linux box), I won’t speak about the lousy terminal called “command” and why you should never ever open email attachments with Outlook Express.

After the system crashed when I wanted to burn a CD with the skinny burning tool included and at the same time do some spreadsheet analysis with Microsoft’s miserable OpenOffice alternative called “Office XP” that cost me another € 119 (I got it a bit cheaper because I’m a student) I put everything back into the nice green box and took it back to my trader. At the same day I installed Linux again giving a review on a half-baked, single-user operating system called Windows XP that may be ready for desktop use in about five years. Until then I enjoy freedom with BSD, OpenSolaris and Linux.

Matthias Endler � Howto switch from Linux to Windows - a users experience:
Filed in: Linux, Windows, OS

Subtle scholar, but what an inept politician - Opinion - theage.com.au

A hat tip to Matt Stone for posting up this moderate Muslim response to Pope Benedict's controversial speech.
Waleed Aly says this;

I happen to think Manuel had a shoddy grasp of Islamic theology. Indeed, the Islamic tradition would have much to contribute to the theme of Benedict's lecture. While medieval Christendom fought science stridently, the relationship between faith and reason in traditional Islam was highly convivial.

Were getting a bit closer to some helpful Islamic guide to what that theology actually is... and he's right, the period of Averoes [I think that's Ibn Rashd in more original Arabic] is worth thinking about: Muslim civilisation at that time preserved and continued the investigations and perspectives of Greek science which allowed them to be rediscovered by the West helping to trigger the Renaissance.

As with many such things, it's never fully simple, but I still would like to see that noddy guide to Islamic theology that brackets out Muhammed's 'less attractive' acts and manages to undermine their being used to fuel violent discourse. I really do want to understand. Anyone?
Subtle scholar, but what an inept politician - Opinion - theage.com.au
Filed in: Islam, Christian, Benedict_XVI, religion, reason

A Short Guide to Comparative Religions

A note to more regular readers. Yesterday I started my Postgraduate Certificate in Education, full time with a view to qualifying to teach Religious Education at secondary level. So there are two likely consequences. I will be blogging less. There may be more references like this ...[don't go if 'rough' language offends].
A Short Guide to Comparative Religions

Archbishop warns of huge pressures on children

I read this article and ended up writing to the Church Times. Here's the letter and you'll see why.

I was pleased to see in the press this week the Archbishop of Canterbury making helpful and thought-provoking statements, drawing on his work in Lost Icons, about childhood and family life in our culture. Particularly interesting was what he said here: "The pincer movement of the commercialisation of childhood and fragmentation of
the family is now closing ... We are talking about ingrained unhappiness among large numbers of children. There are high levels of clinical depression,"

I was doubly interested because on the same day that I was reading what he'd said, I heard from a colleague of a conversation with a bishop which implied that the House of Bishops had a normal expectation of a 60 hour week from clergy. If this is the case, then I think that the bishops should also be considering the effect of this expectation on the family life of clergy and the emotional health both of the clergy, their families and on the ability of clergy to sustain effective ministry in the longer term. I am aware of the pressures on clergy time but a tacit or even explicit expectation of those kinds of
hours would surely be further feeding the negative trends Dr Williams identifies at work in our culture. Such hours tend to work towards the fragmentation of the family and are contrary therefore the the ordination vow to fashion ones family in the way of Christ. Can we proclaim good news when exemplifying bad news?

I'd be interested in what the Bishops and others have to say

Probably, if it gets printed, I'd be shot down in flames, but maybe not ...
SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Archbishop warns of huge pressures on children
Filed in: Church, clergy, hours, work, family, balance

Unintentional humour

Sometimes automatic translations are delicious. What mental images does this conjure for you?

Bank branches attacked with cocktails in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa

I thought of evening wear and forced entries using a screwdriver against a wall... any others?
Comments please.
Bank branches attacked with cocktails in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa
Filed in: unintentional_humour, translation

Unintentional humour

Sometimes automatic translations are delicious, I loved the mental picture of this one.

Bank branches attacked with cocktails in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa

Was a forced entry attempted with a screwdriver against a wall? Other possibilties should be commented ...
Bank branches attacked with cocktails in Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa
Filed in: unintentional_humour, translation

Viridian manifesto

I found this an interesting and attractive manifesto.

The Media

Today. Publishing and broadcasting cartels surrounded by a haze of poorly financed subcultural microchannels.

What We Want. More bandwidth for civil society, multicultural variety, and better-designed systems of popular many-to-many communication, in multiple languages through multiple channels.

The Trend. A spy-heavy, commercial Internet. A Yankee entertainment complex that entirely obliterates many non-Anglophone cultures.
The Military

Today. G-7 Hegemony backed by the American military.

What We Want. A wider and deeper majority hegemony with a military that can deter adventurism, but specializes in meeting the immediate crises through civil engineering, public health and disaster relief.

The Trend. Nuclear and biological proliferation among minor powers.
Business

Today. Currency traders rule banking system by fiat; extreme instability in markets; capital flight but no labor mobility; unsustainable energy base

What We Want. Nonmaterial industries; vastly increased leisure; vastly increased labor mobility; sustainable energy and resources

The Trend. commodity totalitarianism, crony capitalism, criminalized banking systems, sweatshops
Industrial Design

Today. very rapid model obsolescence, intense effort in packaging; CAD/CAM

What We Want: intensely glamourous environmentally sound products; entirely new objects of entirely new materials; replacing material substance with information; a new relationship between the cybernetic and the material

The Trend: two design worlds for rich and poor comsumers; a varnish on barbarism
Gender Issues

Today: more commercial work required of women; social problems exported into family life as invisible costs

What We Want: declining birth rates, declining birth defects, less work for anyone, lavish support for anyone willing to drop out of industry and consume less

The Trend: more women in prison; fundamentalist and ethnic-separatist ideologies that target women specifically.
Entertainment

Today: large-scale American special-effects spectacle supported by huge casts and multi-million-dollar tie-in enterprises

What We Want: glamour and drama; avant-garde adventurism; a borderless culture industry bent on Green social engineering

The Trend: annihilation of serious culture except in a few non-Anglophone societies
International Justice

Today: dysfunctional but gamely persistent War Crimes tribunals

What We Want: Environmental Crime tribunals

The Trend: justice for sale; intensified drug war
Employment

Today: MacJobs, burn-out track, massive structural unemployment in Europe

What We Want: Less work with no stigma; radically expanded leisure; compulsory leisure for workaholics; guaranteed support for people consuming less resources; new forms of survival entirely outside the conventional economy

The Trend: increased class division; massive income disparity; surplus flesh and virtual class
Education

Today: failing public-supported schools

What We Want: intellectual freedom, instant cheap access to information, better taste, a more advanced aesthetic, autonomous research collectives, lifelong education, and dignity and pleasure for the very large segment of the human population who are and will forever be basically illiterate and innumerate

The trend: children are raw blobs of potential revenue-generating machinery; universities exist to supply middle-management
Public Health

Today: general success; worrying chronic trends in AIDS, tuberculosis, antibiotic resistance; massive mortality in nonindustrial world

What We Want: unprecedently healthy old people; plagues exterminated worldwide; sophisticated treatment of microbes; artificial food

The Trend: Massive dieback in Third World, septic poor quarantined from nervous rich in G-7 countries, return of 19th century sepsis, world's fattest and most substance-dependent populations
Science

Today: basic science sacrificed for immediate commercial gain; malaise in academe; bureaucratic overhead in government support

What We Want: procedural rigor, intellectual honesty, reproducible results; peer review, block grants, massively increased research funding, massively reduced procedural overhead; genius grants; single-author papers; abandonment of passive construction and the third person plural; "Science" reformed so as to lose its Platonic and crypto-Christian elements as the "pure" pursuit of disembodied male minds; armistice in Science wars

The Trend: "Big Science" dwindles into short-term industrial research or military applications; "scientists" as a class forced to share imperilled, marginal condition of English professors and French deconstructionists. I would like to conclude by suggesting some specific areas for immediate artistic work. I see these as crying public needs that should be met by bravura displays of raw ingenuity.

WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Viridian Redux

Filed in: viridian, design, climate, policy, government, world, global, environment, ecology

Pope on a rope ... ?

There's a really good roundup of comment here. Against The Grain
I think that there may be a further irony identified by Amy Welborn in the last comment on the page as I saw it.

The Pope held up an interesting question for us to contemplate: Who is God? How can we talk about God? What does God's existence and nature then imply about the way human beings are to live together on this planet? When true reason is abandoned as an attribute and expression of God, what hope is there for dialogue and peace?
The "Muslim" response to the Pope ironically and unwittingly answers his question, don't you think?

And another comment caught the attention of the linguist in me, and, to my shame I hadn't noticed this but it's relevant.

An English translation of the speech, which was in German, was released yesterday, a French version is not yet ready, and no translation has been made in any Eastern language. Therefore, all the attacks so far are based on a few quotes and excerpts liberally taken by Western news agencies on what the Pope said about Islam, which was only ten per cent of his speech. But this ten per cent must be understood against the whole thing.

This article goes on to say

Comments made by Western Muslims were superficial and fed the circus-like criticism. In a phone-in programme on al-Jazeera yesterday, many viewers called in to criticise the Pope but no one knew about what. These were just emotional outbursts in response to hearsay concerning the Pope talking about jihad and criticising Islam, when in fact all that is false. Let me say why.

And the exposition that follows makes clear what the central point of the speech was, and by the way highlights the irony of the reaction from many of engage-rage-before-reason Muslims;

Pope was trying to show how western society—including the Church—has become secularised by removing from the concept of Reason its spiritual dimension and origins which are in God. In early Western history, Reason was not opposed to faith, according to the Pope, but instead fed on it.

So let's see that played out a bit more fully.

No historian can deny the fact that Muhammad and, after him, the caliphs often used violence to convert conquered peoples. This does not mean that Muhammad liked violence but it does mean that he was a man of his time. Fighting among Arab tribes was widespread, including over grazing land.... one can criticise Emperor Manuel for Islam did not spread by violence alone. In Indonesia, Malaysia and some African countries Islam was brought by Muslim traders. In other countries it arrived via Sufi mystics ...
But for the emperor, “violence is something unreasonable [. . .] incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul”. ... the message is that anyone who engages in violence ceases being a believer; anyone, Christian or Muslim, who goes along with violence goes against Reason and God, whose is the source of Reason. ... Rather than criticising Islam, the Pope is actually offering it a helping hand by suggesting that it do away with the cycle of violence. He also asks Islam not to leave the cycle of “Reason”

Gotcha. I now wonder whether the Pope was being very [probably over] subtle ...
Part of my contention about Muslim rhetoric and outraged over criticisms, however careful, of Islam is that it flows out of Muslim majority cultures where basically any criticism is met with harsh put-downs; it's part of the dhimmi mindset thing. Of course there could have been other reactions but Muslim preachers in Muslim majority contexts I would imagine tend to project onto the world a view which assumes that criticism and debate of Islam is not right. While I don't necessarily endorse the organisation behind it, I do think that there may be a point in picking out a proteset banner

"Mr. Pope be with in your limits." What limits? Classic Islamic law stipulates that Christians may live in peace in Islamic societies as long as they accept second-class status as dhimmis, which involves living within certain limits: not holding authority over Muslims, paying the jizya tax, not building new churches or repairing old ones, and...not insulting Allah or Muhammad. If they believe that a Christian has insulted them in some way, even inadvertently, his contract of protection -- dhimma -- is voided. So are these protestors warning the Pope to behave like a dhimmi, or else?

Food for thought. Particularly, note the dating of events; it is several days later that we have these protests. More; it is Friday and these things have happened after Jummah prayers, presumably the sermons have offered a particular understanding and incited a 'vigourous' response, I suspect with ready-made placards in some cases.

On a more engaged and critical of the Pope note,

But there have been many schools of Islamic theology and philosophy. The Mu’tazilite school maintained exactly what the Pope is saying, that God must act in accordance with reason and the good as humans know them

Although, less encouraging is the fact (if I recall correctly) that Mu'tazilite school were condemned as heretical, I thought. But it always helps to make comparisons like this;

The Ash’ari school, in contrast, insisted that God was beyond human reason and therefore could not be judged rationally. (I think the Pope would find that Tertullian and perhaps also John Calvin would be more sympathetic to this view within Christianity than he is).

And if you still find the title I gave this post too subtle, think of a rope in a lynching ...
Filed in: Pope, Islam, Regensberg, speech, violence, religion, Muhammed

Quiz on Islam

I propose that you shouldn't blog on Islam unless you rack up a reasonable score ...

He may have a point.

I have recently come across a prolific semi-anonymous clerical blogger who lives in my region I quite enjoy his knock-about style which occasionally ends up insightful, or possibly incite-ful. He's more outspoken than I am about the rather 'rich' fuss that a number of Muslims are making about some recent comment of the Pope's. I have been interested to note that the protesters have been engaging in violence, including against each other which rather damages their case; will they be apologising? Anyway;

Their scriptures allow, and in the case of Islam, encourage, violence towards non-believers. Islam, though, goes even further. The founder of the religion took part in violence against non-believers himself. He ordered the genocide of entire cities. He enslaved those he didn't kill, putting many women into sexual slavery and he enslaved a daughter of one of his enemies in his own harem, an institution that was competely unacceptable in the young woman's religion. It can be argued that the prophet of Islam had good, political reasons to do this. But the fact that cannot be ignored is that he will always be an example to his followers of how to use violence in spreading his cult as instructed in his writings.

Furthermore, the crusades were evil and horrible but initially they were a reaction against Islamic expansionism into Christian territories. Not just the Middle East but North Africa and parts of Europe as well. ... Of course, there are peaceable Muslims. But until Islam accepts the truth about its own genesis and the nature of its holy book and works out how it can condemn its own violent legacy, there is as much chance of there being a peacable Islam as there is of there being a peaceable Christendom with George and Tony in charge.

Of course, that is a quote. You may not assume that it represents my own views, of course. Look where that gets you.
Also see here.
http://revjph.blogspot.com/2006/09/just-give-me-some-truth.html: Filed in: violence, religion, Islam, Christianity, Pope, Qur'an, BenedictXVI

Pope in hot water with Muslims

Well, apparently, a number of Muslims have been offended by something the Pope said recently. See whether you think that the reactions are fair enough. I don't. Here's the so-called offensive passage.

In the seventh conversation (*4V8,>4H - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable.

It may, in hindsight have been unwise to court the potential reaction, given that this was an example which was merely to kick of a reflection which is largely irrelevant to the issue of Muslim and Christian theologies and ethics, rather a discourse about the place of rationality in Christian theology. But that aside it does seem to me that Ratzinger [and I am not a fan of the man or the office he holds] makes it clear that he is quoting a debate, does not make any claim that it is a view he shares and in fact alludes to the incomplete nature of the treatment of the matter and characterises the quote as 'brusque' which is to say he is indicating that it is not what he would say because he regards it as harsh and unnuanced. It also seems to me that at far as it goes it is an accurate statement of the facts, although to be fair more would need to be said.

The worrying aspect of it is that the reactions reported appear to cast Muslims in an obscurantist shadow.

Pakistan's parliament today unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Benedict for making "derogatory" comments about Islam and seeking an apology from him for hurting the feelings of Muslims.

So what exactly is it that is understood to be derogatory? Rather than attempting to exercise censorship, they should also have pointed out what in Islam contradicts what is said. It really is about time that people of this cast of mind got into the habit of responding with rational argument and facts. It is not enough to call for censorship any time someone says something that is critical but arguably true or at least a fair reading of the available evidence. Now the leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is reported to have said,

"The remarks do not express correct understanding of Islam and are merely wrong and distorted beliefs being repeated in the west,"

But I really do want to understand what a correct understanding is and how it relates to the central documents and lines of thinking in Islam. This keeps being asked for, but does not appear to be forthcoming, unless someone knows where ... it is possible that these people are saying more about how to handle the accusation made by the Byzantine emporor concerned, if so it'd be good to find references. Anyone know some?

As it stands I hope the Ratzinger stands firm on the matter, while perhaps regretting the occasion or any misunderstanding. On the other hand, I can see why some would suspect him of coat trailing for reaction, seeing as how so much of the quote was otiose to the real purpose of the speech.
Meeting with the representatives of science at the University of Regensburg: Filed in: Islam, Christian, violence, reason, theology, controversy

Looks like our margin for errror is eroding

At the moment, the government's estimate is that a 60% cut in emissions is needed to avoid a 2C increase in temperatures by 2050. But the authors of today's study conclude that a 90% cut in emissions is needed. Their data suggests that when aviation and shipping is factored in, UK carbon emissions have not fallen at all since 1990.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Warning: bigger carbon cut needed to avoid disaster:
Filed in: emissions, CO2, UK, reduction, policy

I still don't get it

How 'we' can react the way 'we' do in Afghanistan and then Iraq but leave bleeding sores on the nation state face of the planet like Sudan and North Korea. What does it take to get some action on this kind of thing?

Darfur would become the scene of the "first genocide of the 21st century" if peacekeepers were not sent to Sudan by the end of the month. "After September 30, you won't need the UN," he told the council. "You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones

If there is a cause worthy of prayer, attention and action, this would seem to be it.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Clooney warns UN of Darfur genocide:
Filed in: genocide, Darfur, UN, peacekeepers

Who is the enemy?

Sojorners have just emailed out a very poignant article which as it's in an email I take to be in the public domain but to save you the time of logging on ...

Who is the enemy?
by Omar Al-Rikabi

I have been on the road a lot in the last three months, taking different road-trips to New Orleans, New York City, Nashville, and Dallas. Constantly in the shadow of the endless line of 18-wheelers, I noticed that one particular trucking company had this sign posted on most of their trucks:

Support our troops whenever we go!
No aid or comfort to the enemy!

No way!

So who is the enemy?

Last summer my older cousin Ali was able to come in from Ohio to be at our wedding. I think it was really good for my dad to have someone from back home who was able to be there, and he filled in as my grandmother's escort, sitting with her on the front row.

Ali was forced to serve in the Iraqi Army in the first Gulf War. Other cousins were also conscripted, stationed on the front lines and in Kuwait City. Some of them were rounded up in the mass-surrenders after the ground war began, and they all made it home. But Ali had a different story. He was a field surgeon on the front lines with the Republican Guard. Sadaam thought that if he placed the medical units close enough to the rest of the soldiers then the Americans wouldn't bomb and shell them. He was wrong.

Somehow the Iraqis knew when the American ground troops would be coming over the dunes, and so they were given a five-day pass to go home to Baghdad and say their goodbyes. Ali knew it would be a meat-grinder, and he knew that under Sadaam desertion meant death and trouble for your family. So while he was in Baghdad he had another surgeon friend take out his perfectly good appendix. While he was in the hospital, his entire unit was annihilated.

Around that same time a Marine friend of mine named Nelson had been part of an artillery outfit that was shelling Iraqi positions inside Kuwait. Suddenly an Iraqi artillery shell slammed into the hood of the truck Nelson was standing next to, but it was a dud and didn't go off. He lived to come home and tell me that story.

Also at our wedding, only four rows back from Ali, was my friend Joe, who is an Army Ranger veteran. On the other side of the isle from Ali was one of my two mothers-in-law, whose stepbrother was part of the Army forces that moved through the same area of Kuwait where Ali had been. On another pew was my friend Johanna, whose husband has served in Afghanistan and is now training for Special Forces duty in the Middle East.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The best phrase came from a taxi driver in Cairo, right after the invasion of Iraq three years ago, who upon finding out that my brother was half Iraqi and half American said, "Ahhh ... is funny. Your country is attacking your country."

I have often become frustrated when I have heard people in my church make statements like, "Remember who we're fighting here," before they lead prayers for our military victory. A professor here at Asbury once said that the only two choices we have is to either "convert them or keep them from hurting us."

Well ... first of all you can't fight and win a "war on terror." Terrorism is a method, not a country or ideology. I once heard it said that fighting a war on terror is like having the flu and declaring a war on sneezing: you're only attacking the symptoms. As long as there have been people, there has been terrorism.

But what frightens me is the mindset in this country, and in the church, that seems to think terrorism was born and raised in the Middle East, and if we can take out the Muslim Arabs then the world will be a safer place. Put this idea up against the idea in large segments of the Arab world that America has, in a sense, created terror herself with her policies toward the Middle East. So the cycle continues, and we have "become a monster to defeat a monster."

So who is the enemy? I believe that on this side of the cross, according to the scriptures, that "we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12)

If you track through the whole story of scripture, you see that while God may have fought battles on Israel's behalf in the Old Testament, the trajectory was always towards to the cross, which redeemed God's intention for creation. Jesus set for us an example of living and witnessing that intention through loving, serving, and forgiving our enemies. The way of Christ was not to kill and destroy those who had abused and killed him.

Imagine what would have happened if the entire mass community of Christians who prayed so fervently for our troops to "defeat the enemy" would have instead prayed against the real Enemy and for peace between humanity.

So who is the enemy? We must first remember that the enemies of America are not the enemies of God. I have Iraqi Army veteran family and U.S. Army veteran friends. I have been raised by Southern Methodists and Shiite Muslims. I cannot abdicate the gospel message of Christ to a bomb, but can only bear the cross: the ultimate battlefield victory over the Enemy.

Omar Al-Rikabi is the son of a Southern Methodist mother from Texas and a Shiite Muslim father from Iraq. He is in his final year of earning a Masters of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary, and a declared candidate for ordination in the United Methodist Church.

Sojourners: Christians for Justice and Peace
Filed in: enemies, Christian, Iraq, violence, humanity, peacemaking

Demolishing Strongholds: Evangelism and strategic-level spiritual warfare

Grove books have revamped their site and now all the details get put on separate pages for each booklet. So mine's now there properly. Thus;

Demolishing Strongholds is a critique of the concept of corporate exorcism and territorial spirits as a means of and preliminary to evangelism. It recommends instead an understanding and use of 'spiritual warfare' which is more true to the actual New Testament witness.
Walter Wink's work on the Powers is used as a resource for a better understanding of the NT language of principalities and powers. What emerges is a more holistic approach to spiritual warfare based in the discipleship of Christians and the witness churches.

Christian resources from Grove Books - Ev 21 Demolishing Strongholds: Evangelism and strategic-level spiritual warfare
Filed in: spiritual_warfare, strategic-level-prayer, Walter_Wink, principalities, powers, exorcism, territorial_spirits, evangelism

Green business=commercial success

Telling briefly of a conversion from plunderer of the Earth to "recovering plunderer", and how it was actually, against the warnings of fellow entrepreneurs, a way into profit. Following the Principles of natural capitalism can mean greater efficiency, thus:

Engineers were encouraged to cut down on energy use. Some solutions were blindingly simple. An engineer saved money in a Shanghai factory by changing the width of the pipes needed to carry the liquids for making carpets. His bigger pipes created less friction, so less power was needed to pump the liquids. Thin pipes would have cost less, but the energy costs would have wiped out that initial benefit.

Ray Anderson, the recovering plunderer in question says,

I see no other long term choice for industry to survive," he said. "Each of us has a role in this transformation. We must all learn to make peace with the earth, not to make war on it, or we will lose

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Rolling out the green carpet
Filed in: green, profit, Hawken, natural_capitalism

Ruth Gledhill's misinterpretation?

I think that Ruth has got this the wrong way about. Her reading of the image is the reverse of what I think the actual connotative implications are for most people. See if you agree. She writes;

My experience is that spiritual awakening comes, if it comes at all, by putting down the glass, not picking it up.

I actually think that's what the image is saying. In addition it seems to be hinting that Christ comes to us even in our worst moments ...

This is being touted as the new ad campaign for Christmas. Usually each year it draws out a load of comment from people who are not really culturally literate in popular culture because they tend to misread it. In this case, Ms Gledhill may also be misled by her own personal history which, I'm guessing, has a close encounter of the bad kind with alcohol abuse. Point taken, but that is not what this ad's about, and if we have to pull in our horns from making edgier statements because some people have their cages rattled by it ... well, not sure that's a good thing for the brief of the producers of this campaign.

Clare Short's resignation ...

One of the thing she said, three cheers:

My conclusion is that the key to the change we need is a hung parliament which will bring in electoral reform. Then we would have a second election. Labour - with existing levels of support - would have one-third of the seats in the Commons, the Tories something similar, and we would be likely to see some Greens and others added, creating a plurality of voices and power centres in the Commons. British politics would then change profoundly. Parliament, and in turn the people, would have to be listened to, Cabinet government would return, the error-prone arrogance of Number 10 would end, and we would have a chance of creating a new politics, a more civilised country and a more honourable role in the world.

Independent Online Edition > Commentators:
Filed in: electoral_reform, constitution, Clare_Short

House of Lords reform.

Ooh ooh, another chance to ride a hobby horse of mine. This time on the reform of the British House of Lord's. The 'Taking Power' consultation is discussing it among other things.

We will be looking in detail at the issue of reform of the House of Lords during the conference. Let us know your view on the composition of the second chamber of Parliament at this stage.

So we were asked whether we prefer appointment, election or a combo of some kind. Of course I felt this too restrictive.

My favoured option would be to recognise that single-issue politics is quite important to many people and that engaging the voluntary sector could be very healthy. So I propose that any organisation with charitable status and more than, say 20,000 members, should be able to elect and send to the ‘Lord’s’ one representative fore every multiple of the threshold. That way we get expert advice and advocacy in the scrutiny process from Help the Aged, Churches, Greenpeace, etc etc on a basis that empowers and encourages the voluntary sector and allows their hands-on expertise to be part of the process of legislation.
Not sure if that’s election or appointment; a bit of both really.

Taking Power - Have your say about how Britain is run � Poll 5 - House of Lords:
Filed in: UK, government, Lord's, reform

The Real Mary

Mary, the mother of Jesus tends to elicit a phobic reaction among those who are heirs of the Protestant Reformation. And yet she is revered by millions and scripture itself encourages us to 'bless' her. A number of years ago I read Max Thurian's Mary mother of the Lord, figure of the Church which made a good case for seeing her as a prototypical Christian and therefore worthy of our respect and meditation. The ought to be some middle ground between her erasure, which is what really happens in a lot of non-Catholic or non-Orthodox, and some of the excesses of Marian devotion which surely do slip off the end off acceptable. Can it benefit us to explore that. That's what I think Scot McKnight's book is about and why I'm hoping to promote us thinking about it further...

Join thousands of people around the world in an online discussion of
THE REAL MARY by Scot McKnight.
Scot's dynamic new book is not yet available (it will be on November 1),
but Paraclete Press is making available the Table of Contents and first two
chapters now. Click here for access to this excerpt, and also look for it on websites and blogs across the country starting today.

In the introduction Scot says;

...no one has written a book about the life and character of Mary helping us develop a positive, Protestant view of Mary. Allow me to say this more forcibly: We are Protestants; we believe in the Bible; Mary is in the Bible; we need to believe what the Bible says about Mary

Welcome to Paraclete Press:
Filed in: Mary, book, discussion, theotokos

Bonfire of the vanities -is all vanity?

I blogged this a few days ago. Apparently the guy got quite a lot of negative comment, some of which is repeated in the comments of this column. What I did think was worth flagging up in the comments was this one from a poster under the moniker of BetaRish

** raises head above parapet as someone who works in branding and marketing... **
Oh Lordy, here we go again. Neil raises some valid points (which are things, believe it or not, some of us in the industry do wrestle with.) But:
1) Neil doesn't say if he has stopped consuming completely. If he hasn't then chances are that he is still engaging with and buying brands on the daily basis. Someone's already alluded to the paycheck from The Guardian. One presumes that Neil still watches and uses the BBC. What Neil means is that he's not using those brands which are self-consciously 'brands', that make a lot of noise about who they are and what they stand for. That's no bad thing.
2) Brands function as an editor of choice. There are so many products and services out there in the world today, some consumers need help or shortcuts to making the choices that they want and need to make. If they previously know a product's reputation (the definition of a brand) then that saves time when faced with 500 options on the shelves. An unbranded world would be a difficult one to navigate (and being 'unbranded' is as much a brand as one that 'exists')
3) Why be surprised that people haven't joined you in burning stuff (and no I don't think that a handbag is of equal value with a book)? Choice and individuality means that, hey, people tend to be able and pretty good at making up their own minds, and spurious projections of one's own career insecurities on to a wider population was never going to be successful. Neil's argument serems to be, "Burn your stuff because knowing some pricks in agencies makes me uncomfortable."
4) Brands can do good. Efforts like Make Trade Fair and Bono's Project Red, not only raise money, but also raise awareness of issues, and provide a way in to complex subjects. If Chris Martin waving a logo around on his hand means more people look at the Oxfam site, get involved, read the research, then the brand is doing its job there.
5) Could some brands be a bit quieter? Undoubtedly so - not every brand needs to advertise all the time, and most could do so more subtly and with more elegance. This is Naomi Klein's most accurate insight - not all public space should become commercial brand space.
But equally, brands can equally open up new worlds and possibilities. Who drank smoothies before Innocent came along (incidentally a 'brand' that has its heart in the right place, and a company that strives to do the right thing). Orange and Apple are other examples where people have become attached to the brand precisely because of the opportunities that consumption of their products allows. Again, no bad thing.
So, burn away by all means. But don't be surprised that people might just choose to engage with brands for the positive possibilities that they allow as well.

Food for thought, eh? We need to recall that there is a proper function for advertising and even branding, it's the poisonous developments where it feeds psychically unhealthy fads and contributes to the degradation of planet or workers ... we need to keep our eyes on those balls.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Bonfire of the vanities:
Filed in: branding, labels, consumerism, logo, advertising

Poignant coincidental anniversary: 11 September

You might even call it ironic like dropping the first nuclear bomb on 6 August -the feast of the Transfiguration; thus symbolically offering the world a choice of transfigurations to make paradigmatic. And yesterday, unbeknownst to most of us, another since it was the 100th anniversary of, well, read it for yourself ...

On Sept. 11, 1906, Gandhi, then a young, little-known lawyer working in South Africa, joined a meeting of fellow Indians in a Johannesburg theater to protest a proposed law that would force Indians to carry identity documents and be fingerprinted. Indians had initially been brought to South Africa as indentured workers by the British, who ruled both countries at the time. Gandhi convinced those present to resist or ignore the law — but without resorting to violence. He called the idea "Satyagraha," which literally translates as "insistence on truth."

The irony for me is that the effects of the twin towers destruction has been one of growing violence and igniting ever fresh rounds of violent reaction. We really know that it won't solve the problems and that we will have to be more constructive sometime... Gandhi's way deserves to be better known especially as he was so influenced by Jesus Christ.
Indians mark 100th anniversary of Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune:
Filed in: non-violence, Gandhi, satyagraha

A Catalogue of Idiocy

So, it looks like the 50 year-old problem of what to do with nuclear waste is still waiting for an answer.

A report in this week’s Sunday Times suggests that the agencies charged with cleaning the site up have, in effect, conceded defeat(1). Dounreay – or the area surrounding it – cannot be wholly decontaminated. Nuclear pollution from the site will last for as long as the fissile metals remain radioactive.

But the catalogue of errors which follows in this article is deeply disturbing to surely anyone considerig the life-extension of nuclear generation. But

The catalogue of idiocy at Dounreay is not necessarily an indictment of all nuclear installations: nuclear power stations built today couldn’t get away with practices like this. But it shows that when things go wrong they can be incredibly hard to redress. Dounreay’s story also reflects the fact that corner-cutting is a constant temptation, as disposing of waste properly is difficult and expensive.

And you thought Monty Burns in the Simpsons was a theoretical comedy construct? Monbiot goes on to make this interesting observation.

it is another argument for open government. None of this could have taken place if Dounreay’s operations had been open to public scrutiny. The disasters there happened for the same reason as the disasters in Iraq: the government used “security” as its excuse for hiding the truth from the public.

Monbiot.com � A Catalogue of Idiocy:
Filed in: nuclear, energy, power, generation, clean-up, pollution, Dounreay

Mecca is for men

Not many years ago, I was talking with a former Muslim convert to Christianity who was telling me that one of the distinctive things he had liked about the Ismaili Muslims for whom he had worked once was that they regarded every meeting as if it was taking place in the Kaaba which meant that women mingled freely with men in worship. It made me think then of a kind of eschatalogical dimension to that form of Muslim worship ... and I was reminded of it when I read this.

For more than 1,400 years women have been allowed to mingle with men in the immediate vicinity of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque which Muslims circle seven times during the pilgrimage. But now a committee set up by the governor of Mecca - which, as might be expected, consists entirely of men - is planning to confine women to a distant section of the mosque while allowing men to continue their prayers in the central area.

And I was doubly interested to read one of the comments, from someone with a name that looks somewhat Islamic, on this article:

the Kaaba used to be dedicated mainly to female deities before Islam. This is probably one reason why so many Muslims find it important to try to wipe out references/links to pre-Islamic religion in Arabia. Then of course, when people see on TV that men and women share a prayer space in the Kaaba, while they're vigorously segregated in other mosques (try Regent's Park), it makes them think. Thinking is a bad thing for religious belief.

That's kind of what I thought when I heard about Ismaili worship.
Comment is free: Mecca is for men:
Filed in: Islam, Mecca, women, Kaaba

energy pay-back periods

A useful reference resource for discussions about the energy pay-back periods of various generation systems.

The semiconductor materials currently in volume production are monocrystalline silicon (crystalline), poly-crystalline silicon (crystalline), amorphous silicon (thin film), and cadmium telluride (thin film). Systems are expected to have a lifetime of at least 25 years, with low maintenance requirements.
...Depending on technology and solar radiation, the energy pay-back period
canbe between 2.5 and 4 years."

Climate Change Action:
Filed in: energy, pay-back, generation

Negawatts

the cheapest form of energy is wasted energy. It is far cheaper to increase the efficiency of the grid and modify the load than to keep building more power stations to compensate for erratic power demand fluctuations.

So if you want to find a bit more out, read the article.
Climate Change Action:
Filed in: negawatts, power, generation, efficiency

Hackney wins logo case against Nike

It's hard to believe, isn't it? I can't imagine that Nike would not hesitate to take legal action against those who ripped off their logo and yet what was going on in their corporate heads when they thought they could use a local government logo without permission?

Nike, settling out of court, apologised to the east London borough and agreed to pay 300,000, including legal costs, after the US company produced a range of clothing bearing the area's name and an exact replica of the council's logo in the run-up to the World Cup.

As a spokesbeing for the council said,

Just because we are a public organisation, it does not mean that big corporations can take what they want from local people without asking.

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Hackney wins logo case against Nike:
Filed in: branding, Nike, logo, Hackney, legal

New tactics in battle against drug-resistant bacteria

This is interesting because it points to interesting implications for life more widely.

Colonies of bacteria use chemical signals to keep tabs on their numbers and, like an amassing army, only attack when their populations are large enough to ensure they will swamp a host's immune defences. The bacteria sense their numbers by the strength of the chemical signals they receive and as soon as they reach a certain threshold change behaviour dramatically, growing aggressively and turning on virulence genes to cause infection. Many bacterial colonies also set up defences by secreting a mucus-like substance which forms a slimy, protective "biofilm" around them, making them nearly impervious to antibiotics.

This means that if we can find a way to disrupt the signalling systems, the bacteria don't become a co-ordinated 'army'. I'm minded of the way that agglomarations of humans move from being a crowd to being a mob or an organisation. Clearly our signalling systems are involved. If my intuition is right that we should be thinking of the transition from crowd to organisation as the genesis of a 'principality', then part of our struggle against principalities and powers could be about disrupting signalling systems...
Guardian Unlimited | Science | New hope raised in battle against drug-resistant bacteria:
Filed in: MRSA, bacteria, colony, signal-disruption, infection

Simple String Lord's Prayer Things

Over the summer I was finding a modicum of interest in the Lord's prayer knotted cords I've been using and occasionally promoting. So I've decided to make them more widely available ... Simple string Lord's prayer thing
Filed in: Lord's_prayer, paternoster, beads, cord, knots, string, praying, rosary, buy

Simple string Lord's prayer thing

Over the summer I was finding a modicum of interest in the Lord's prayer knotted cords I've been using and occasionally promoting. So I've decided to make them more widely available ... Simple string Lord's prayer thing
Filed in: Lord's_prayer, paternoster, beads, cord, knots, string, praying, rosary, buy

Feelings Matter Less To Teenagers, Neuroscientist Says

Dt's a bit of brain research that confirms the idea of developmental aspects to moral reasoning. It's bound to have implications for teachig, particularly the teaching of religion. But I guess that youth workers need to clock it too.

Dr. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience,... said: "Thinking strategies change with age. As you get older you use more or less the same brain network to make decisions about your actions as you did when you were a teenager, but the crucial difference is that the distribution of that brain activity shifts from the back of the brain (when you are a teenager) to the front (when you are an adult). The fact that teenagers underuse the medial pre-frontal cortex when making decisions about what to do, implies that they are less likely to think about how they themselves and how other people will feel as a result of their intended action. We think that a teenager's judgement of what they would do in a given situation is driven by the simple question: 'What would I do?'. Adults, on the other hand, ask: 'What would I do, given how I would feel and given how the people around me would feel as a result of my actions?' The fact that teenagers use a different area of the brain than adults when considering what to do suggests they may think less about the impact of their actions on other people and how they are likely to make other people feel."

I will have to consider further how it affects thing, I'm still thinking about it and trying to match it and map it to the observed behaviour of teenagers I know, including my own. And I'm trying to recall my own teenaged years in an attempt to feel around the idea from the inside, so to speak. First response is that 'they are less likely to think about how they themselves and how other people will feel as a result of their intended action' might relate to that alleged tendency of the young to be very black and white about morality and the tendency of aging supposedly to make one more woolly because more in touch with the way others may feel about it.
This would fit with ...

"It seems that adults might be better at putting themselves in other people's mental shoes and thinking about the emotional impact of actions -- but further analysis is required. The relative difficulty that teenagers have could be down to them using a different strategy when trying to understand someone else's perspective, perhaps because the relevant part of the brain is still developing. The other factor to consider is that adults have had much more social experience."

So, more study needed but intriguing eh?

ScienceDaily: Feelings Matter Less To Teenagers, Neuroscientist Says:
Filed in: brain, empathy, aging, development, thinking, moral

Better late than never

In the early 80's I worked in a wholefood shop. We used to pack our food into biodegradable plasic bags. I'm really glad that a start is being made to make this more 'normal':

Starting this week, the supermarket [Sainsbury's] will use compostable packaging instead of plastic for almost half of its organic fruit and vegetable products, rising to 80% by January. The scheme will extend to all Sainsbury's ready meals by September 2007. The company's compostable packaging consists of maize, sugar-cane or starch so it can naturally break down in a garden compost heap and need not be binned and sent to a landfill.

I hope it'll spread, I really like the idea of being able to put even more in the composter. Our bin waste will dwindle to virtually zero if the plastic gets compostable.

Full house as leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist has his say

I am skeptical about this, though I know that there is enough in my reaction to warrant a challenge from 1Cor.13:4-7 'love ... does not delight in evil ..." However, what intrigues me is what this tells me about Western culture at the moment.

36% of Americans believed it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that their government was involved in allowing the attacks or had carried them out itself. There are many people in the UK who agree with them. The theories as to what happened on that day, when almost 3,000 people were killed, differ but their unifying theme is that a neo-conservative cabal within the US government staged the events as a pretext to wage wars, become a dominant force in the world and establish "the new American century". The attacks, it is said, were not carried out by al-Qaida terrorists but were a "false flag" event used to justify invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The fact that this is so easy to believe for so many people is also alarming for what it tells us about the apparent trustworthiness of governments.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Full house as leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist has his say:
Filed in: USA, TwinTowers, conspiracy, new_American_century