The year of living Biblically

Well, if this review's anything to go by, The Year of Living Biblically is worth having on my 'to read' list. I was particularly taken by this observation from the secular Jew who wrote the book reflecting on his year of discovery of the Hebrew Bible for himself. "book about all the various ways religious people pick and choose, the most famous being many Christians' fixation on the six biblical statements about homosexual relations in comparison to what Jacobs claims are seven thousand—seven thousand!—biblical comments on how to treat the poor. All religious people do this sifting, he finds; they simply have to. The Bible, Jacobs comes to understand, is a jumble of mysteries: How can these ethically advanced rules and these bizarre decrees be found in the same books? And not just the same book. Sometimes the same page. The prohibition for mixing wool and linen comes right after the command to love your neighbor. It's not like the Bible has a section called 'And now for some Crazy Laws.' They're all jumbled up like a chopped salad."
It Is Written - Books & Culture:

Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance

I'm wondering whether this adds weight to the theory that our intellectual capacity is a function of keeping social relationships and their implications in our heads. "We found that short-term social interaction lasting for just 10 minutes boosted participants' intellectual performance as much as engaging in so-called 'intellectual' activities for the same amount of time,"
I'm also thinking that this may be 'value added' for social learning environments and bears out the hypothesis that a good inclusive social environment is a hallmark of 'authentic instruction' to borrow Newmann and Wehlage's semi-famous phrase.
Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance:

capitalism's inner contradictions?

A banking friend of mine was shocked once when I pointed out in a sermon that money runs on faith. And I still stand by it: you have to believe that this token will be accepted (on faith) by other people when in turn you want to turn it into goods or services. The banking system is more so. If we lose faith in the system, it will collapse. So it's interesting to note, that herein, lies one of the contradictions of capitalism: it promotes self-interest but within a system that relies on others to maintain good faith. Perhaps it's another variant on the epistemological paradox that you have to believe something to know something.

I find some confirmation of this in the recent matter of the run on the Northern Rock bank following the blowback from the USA's bad debts problem. The fact is that the institutions that are often most gung-ho about the importance of private enterprise and not ruining markets by government intervention, nevertheless are happy to be bailed out when it suits. The irony is magnified when seen through the lens of particular protagonists like this: "When his libertarian business model failed, Dr Ridley had to go begging to the detested state. If the government and its parasitic bureaucrats had not been able to use tax-payers’ money to clear up his mess, thousands of people would have lost their savings. Northern Rock would have collapsed and the resulting panic might have brought down the rest of the banking system." Thanks to George Monbiot for the nice quote. The irony is that the business model the guy lived by says you go to the wall in such circumstances. The difficulty is that to allow them to do so could actually be bad for the economy more fully and there is a problem about letting financial institutions think that they can take big risks because they will be bailed out if they are wrong. We have to find a way to make sure that risk-takers in such influential positions get the feedback of failure to keep them from risking our futures and resources.
Monbiot.com � Libertarians are the True Social Parasites:

Train or plane: comparison

Climate Change Action

Draw your password; more secure

Sometimes I have recommended using a pattern on a keypad as a password because it may be easier to remember and numerically more random and secure. But this is even better...

in the wake of growing concerns about traditional ‘weak’ passwords created from words and numbers, Newcastle University computer scientists have been developing alternative software which lets the user draw a picture password, known as a ‘graphical password’.
“Many people find it difficult to remember a password so choose words that are easy to remember and therefore more susceptible to hackers,” explained computer scientist Jeff Yan, a lecturer at Newcastle University.

And did you notice it's a British university not for from home?
Oh, and in case you're worried that it would have to be an exact replication:

if a person chooses a flower background and then draws a butterfly as their secret password image onto it, they have to remember where they began on the grid and the order of their pen strokes. It is recognised as identical if the encoding is the same, not the drawing itself, which allows for some margin of error as the drawing does not have to be re-created exactly.

So perhaps ATMs will end up with you drawing on their touch screen rather than entering a four-digit PIN.
Password Protection With Easy To Remember Drawings

Removing Christendom from Halloween

Its nearing the end of October and a Christian's thoughts turn to All Hallows E'en. And so to controversy. Steve Hollinghurst has some helpful things to say and the thesis he puts forward is intriguing. There are some 'makes you think' insights in there, for example. "i find it interesting to compare the Halloween witches mask with the Nazi depiction of Jews, you will find them rather similar with hooked noses, green skin and warts. and this is the bit so many folks don't get, the wearing of these masks at Halloween is not a celebration of evil or witchcraft, but actually a piece of anti-Pagan propaganda invented by Christians and stemming from medieval Christian celebrations of All Hallows Eve."

The practical suggestion Steve makes following his analysis and identification of commercialism as the new Christendom, is this: "so how about a properly informed collaboration between Pagans and Christians to remove Christendom from Halloween? leaving both faiths free to celebrate a festival centred around their beliefs about the important subject of death and the relationship with our dead ancestors?
if we do this i add one thing that should not be banished, a place to also acknowledge our fear of death, the supernatural and evil. banishing the imagery of this from Halloween won't take away the fear, it just relegates it to places where we cannot face it together and handle it constructively, if differently in our two faith traditions. so i make a plea for renewed celebrations not to lose this element at least from both the medieval Halloween and its Pagan forerunner."
I think that's right: we need to be able to do something that doesn't collaborate with the sanitising of death and fear. Our culture desperately needs ways to face such things; that's the real victim of the consumerist hijack.
Thanks Steve.
On Earth as in Heaven: Removing Christendom from Halloween:

15 Reasons to Stop Hiding from Vegetarianism

Expanding on one of the introductory statements: "Thanks to an abundance of scientific research that demonstrates the health and environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, even the federal government recommends that we consume most of our calories from grain products, vegetables and fruits" this article does what it says. Important reading if the lower ecological footprint of veggie doesn't quite convince you to cut out or at least down on the meat.
AlterNet: Health and Wellness: 15 Reasons to Stop Hiding from Vegetarianism:

Resistance To Thoughts Of Chocolate Is Futile

I was wondering when I started to read this whether it was a "No s**t, Eistein" thing: "A research project carried out by a University of Hertfordshire academic has found that thought suppression can lead people to engage in the very behaviour they are trying to avoid."
The real interest, though, is probably going to be found in the later research ... "does trying not to think about having another drink make it more likely, or does trying not to think, or to think aggressively lead to aggressive behaviour? These questions are vitally important if we are to understand the ways in which thought control engenders the very behaviour one wanted to avoid"
But it does seem to play along nicely with the Genesis story.
Resistance To Thoughts Of Chocolate Is Futile:

Preach it bro! Or do I mean 'teach it'?

After a decent small bit of reflective practice, Rick Warren wrote: "What I have since discovered is that lecturing a passive audience for 20 to 40 minutes, what Doug Pagitt calls 'speeching,' has been repeatedly proven to result in a very low retention of content. Likewise, adult education experts testify, along with a multitude of unregenerate pew sitters, that passive learning rarely transforms values. Does this mean we should abandon instruction in the church? Of course not. After all, we are commissioned to teach people to obey everything Christ commanded. It simply means traditional preaching is not the best medium for skill training and instruction."
Which is true but I think it's a perspective that tends to be heard but not acted on because either many churches have a superstitious [in effect] reverence for preaching without necessarily noting whether what they are labelling preaching is really teaching, or the effort of doing something about the insight seems to be beyond them or to be a balloon made of lead.
When my wife trained to be a Reader she had to do an assignment on the gospel words that Warren picks up here and we came to the same sort of conclusion:

Preaching to inspire rather than instruct is a differentiation we see in Jesus' own ministry. The Greek word for "preach" (kerusso) means to announce. This is not the same as the word for "teach" (didasko), meaning to instruct

This article is oriented to examining the change that this might make to the ministry of preaching. I have to say that I'm more interested in how to make churches more truly into learning communities. I suspect our liturgies (in the broad sense of the term: what we do together before God) will have to change. I still think that the Mormons actually have something to teach us here, in practical terms. Sunday school for all! I know that there are churches in the USA that do that too, but it's pretty rare this side of the Pond.
Glimpses of Glory | Out of Ur | Following God's Call in a New World | Conversations hosted by the editors of Leadership journal:

Millais' painting of Christ in his father's workshop

A view of the painting with a really helpful commentary on its features and context. Enjoy!

Millais_Christ.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object)

Pan-African Parliament calls for UN Parliamentary Assembly

Adding their voice to that of the EU parliament: "the PAP considers to “take the initiative to achieve the establishment of a consultative United Nations Parliamentary Assembly within the UN system”. “The UN is an important advocate for democracy in the world. To maintain its credibility the UN itself, however, has to become more democratic. A UNPA would be a means to achieve this”,"
THey make a good point about democratic credibility ...
Pan-African Parliament calls for UN Parliamentary Assembly | Campaign for a UN Parliament:

10-20-30

I’ve been tagged for the 10-20-30 meme by Matt Stone. It's about what you were doing 10, 20, and 30 years ago. So here goes ...
1997 saw me as Vicar of St. Augustine's Church in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
1987 I was in the first year of being a curate at St.Mark's Church in Grenoside. I had also recently got married and we experienced a miscarriage.
1977 was the year I started Reading University, studying Linguistics (which seems not to be taught there at undergrad level anymore, it was once the best department in the country, if not the world, at that time). I was in the first year or so of active Christian faith.

In turn now I tag Doug, Sue and Mobsey...

Journeys In Between: 10-20-30:

TV and Film Violence

Those of us who are used to thinking about the Pauline advice about our minds tending to influence attitudes and habits and actions, have tended to think that there must be a link between violence (and sex, for that matter) portrayals in media and acting out. This article is a kind of 'where the research seems to have got to' on the portrayal and consumption of images of violence and the effects in society. As such it's really helpful. It acknowledges that it's not a simple thing but that there are correlations showing up in the studies. For example, "Even though we can't establish a simple, direct, cause-and-effect relationship between media violence and violence in our society, we can draw some conclusions from the data. Studies show that people who watch a lot of TV violence not only behave more aggressively, but are more prone to hold attitudes that favor violence and aggression as a way of solving conflicts. These viewers also tend to be less trusting of people and more prone to see the world as a hostile place."
Which is the kind of thing that I had naively hypothesised; so I would be feeling chuffed were it not for the subject matter. How to respond is a further matter only really hinted at. However, an intriguing link is mention in passing, to do with advertising smoking ...
The article mentions an article for greater depth and it appears to have moved. I think that this is it. It's also worth checking out a wider range of articles here.
TV and Film Violence:

Makes y' think: Fewer young people using cannabis after reclassification

I make no comment because it's probably too early to know what this is about. "the latest figures suggested that the downward trend in cannabis consumption since 1998 - when 28% of 16 to 24-year-olds reported using the drug - had accelerated. Among all age groups, 10% of people said they had used an illegal drug in the past year - about 3.1 million people. This was the lowest level since the statistics were first published in 1996."
I hope this signals evidence that a lighter touch and possible decriminalising it could actually help control the deleterious social effects.
Fewer young people using cannabis after reclassification | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Free will and free won't

When I first looked into this, I thought I was going to find something that perhaps counted against my thesis about temptation in considering the Genesis account of the Serpent's offer. In fact it seems to play right into it. What it does raise is the intriguing possibility that neural connection between this 'won't' and linguistic negation could be found ... though if they aren't I'm not sure that it would prove or disprove anything."'The capacity to withhold an action that we have prepared but reconsidered is an important distinction between intelligent and impulsive behavior,' says Brass, 'and also between humans and other animals.' "
A remark which opens up the possibility of seeing the temptation story as marking a decisive test of hominization; with the concomitant idea that we are not actually yet fully human. In fact, the temptation of Christ represents the hominization of the human race in which we can come to participate by being incorporated into Christ ...
Separate Areas Of Brain Responsible For 'Self-Control' And 'Taking Action' May Help Explain Why Some People Are Impulsive:

Half of nuclear power stations closed for repairs

Perhaps, when we next hear a protagonist for more nuke power dissing wind power for its intermittancy, we should recall this. "Almost half Britain's nuclear power stations are currently shut down for repairs or maintenance, the Nuclear Industry Association said today. "

And then there is the difficulty of actually making sure they're safe when there is a pay squeeze on inspectors, leading to a shortage. "The government is so short of nuclear inspectors that the programme of new reactors being planned may have to be put on hold" (full article here)
Half of nuclear power stations closed for repairs | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Disturbing: the noose -new symbol of race hate

I fear that this is likely to be replicated in Britain sometime. "Nooses have been looped over a tree at the University of Maryland, knotted to the end of stage ropes at a suburban Memphis theater, slung on the doorknob of a black professor’s office at Columbia University in New York, tossed in a janitor’s closet at a Long Island police station, stuffed in the duffel bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard an historic ship and even draped around the neck of a black Barbie doll in a Pittsburgh suburb. The hangman’s rope is so prolific, some say, that it threatens to replace the Nazi swastika and the Ku Klux Klan cross as the nation’s reigning symbol of hate"
It 'feels' much more chilling. I think that's because it is more explicitly a death-threat than a burning cross ever was or the swastika.
Expert says the noose could become the new burning cross:

Britain Is More Energy Efficient Today Than In Time Of Shakespeare

Which may , at first, sound encouraging. However, a moment's thought should remind us that we have still ended up using far more energy, even if more effeciently. So we are left with the sobering reflection:

“The bottom line is that technology can’t contend with the realities of climate change. The only effective solution is to curb consumption. To stand a chance of meeting emissions targets, politicians need to switch their attention from energy efficiency to controls on consumption.”

Looks like we can't 'advance' our way out of this one...
Britain Is More Energy Efficient Today Than In Time Of Shakespeare:

Fixing democracy

Some research recently undertaken and published seems to indicate that in the USA at least, how candidates look may have a bearing on who wins ... "'This means that with a quick look at two photos, you have a great chance of predicting who will win,' Todorov said. 'Voters are not that rational, after all. So maybe we have to consider that when we elect our politicians.'"
If further research bears this out, then we may need to consider how to try to offset the beauty contest effects of candidature. After all, it's scary to think that people might get elected because of how they look. It's bad enough that policies are being finessed for acceptability to middle ground so that real politics -debate and argument- are dying ... some radical overhauls may be needed. And perhaps something that has a party list dimension to it has something to commend it after all.
Who Will Win An Election? Snap Judgments Of Face To Gauge Competence Usually Enough:

10m more people in UK by 2031

Usual disclaimers: this is based on current trends and could be affected by events, government policies etc. But it looks like we should brace ourselves for further house-price rises above inflation, increased religiosity in society due to immigration of Christians and Muslims from the wider world. I would guess also that this will help to offset our pensions crisis somewhat but will put further strain on the environment. "long-term assumptions of future fertility, life expectancy and migration are higher than past projections. Researchers have raised migration estimates from a net rise of 145,000 per year in 2004 to 190,000-plus each year. They believe that almost half of the UK's population rise of 4.4 million over the next decade will be fuelled by migration. The study also revealed the changing structure of Britain's ageing society as people live longer."
The question I'm asking is how we should respond church-wise. We will have, in all probability, more aging members but also more minority ethnic group members. The need for 'fresh expressions' will continue and a premium will be placed on leadership which is able to be culturally flexible and perhaps even linguistically versatile (who'd have thought ten years ago that we'd need French-speaking liturgical resources in Gateshead?)
What else will these figures imply? Higher proportions of incomes tied up in housing and food bills (peak oil plus less agricultural land locally would push up food prices, probably) so finances for church activities might be harder hit. Therefore continuing to enable tent-maker ministries and low-resource forms of church will be important. The challenge of Islam both in terms of integration and combatting the Saudi-funded Wahhabi and Salafi versions will probably continue to be vitally important.
10m more people in UK by 2031, say researchers | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

Microsoft admit misdeeds

About time: "Microsoft said it would not appeal a EU Court of First Instance decision on Sept. 17 that turned down its challenge to a 2004 European Commission order three years ago that found it guilty of monopoly abuse. "
Wired News - AP News:

Bradford: the greenest city

For fellow Brits it may seem a double-take moment to read the title of this post. As a former Bradfordian, and one who still considers it 'home' in a way, I invite you to watch this video report to see why and how this has happened. Actually there's a long way to go; but I hope the pride in this award will encourage the city to continue to pursue environmental excellence.
Video: Bradford: the greenest city | Environment | Guardian Unlimited

What About Grass-Fed Beef?

If you are rightly concerned to reduce our collective ecological footprint and you eat meat, then you should read this: "Feeding grain to cattle has got to be one of the dumbest ideas in the history of western civilization." What About Grass-Fed Beef? � Celsias:

I've just upgraded to “Gutsy Gibbon”

This may help to make you windozers even more interested in ditching Bill Gates' lock-in and exploring a free alternative: "Major new additions include 3D desktop effects, desktop search, the ability to write to NTFS partitions, improved multi-monitor support, .... Ubuntu Linux 7.10 also includes new features like fast user switching, a plugin finder wizard for Firefox, and lower system power consumption thanks to an updated version of the Linux kernel. The distribution also comes with greatly improved and easier-to-maintain security."
And on that last note we should say that security is better than windoze anyhow just because of the architecture and protocols that natively go with Linux. One of the reasons most servers use a version of Linux, I suspect.
If you would like to see a pretty good review of the advantages of linix from a non-techie, Walton gives a great shot at it. And what he says about the prospects for continuing to use Windoze is worth contemplating.

Windows users have some hard choices to make. As support is withdrawn for XP, and new computers run Vista, at some point you'll have to upgrade. But Vista is so bad that the Dutch Consumer Council advises against using it. This is in addition to the security and data protection issues Vista has, notably that by installing it you are essentially allowing your computer to be controlled from Microsoft headquarters. Not a risk worth taking.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking about how to make an ethical and Christian case briefly to encourage and support colleagues and students to switch to Linux. What would you say are the arguments I should deploy first and foremost?
Ubuntu Linux 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” and other xBuntus Released � Linux and Open Source Blog:

Christianity is a lifestyle

Matt Stone is clearly on a thought-provocation roll. He starts with St Francis and takes us further. "St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary, use words' I thought, why stop there? “Worship always, and when necessary, use music” "
I really like that and the other ideas he mentions. I can't help wondering if there are even more.
Journeys In Between: Christianity is a lifestyle:

Myths about Christianity

Matt Stone comes up with a list of myths -or rather- overgeneralisations about Christian faith. Here are a couple of my favourites. "Christian theology is responsible for the environmental crisis (so, I suppose Hindu, Buddhist and Atheist countries are green paradises then?)
& Christianity demands you have blind faith (no, many Christians prefer a more informed faith actually)"
Matt invites further offerings, here's one of mine: "Christians are killjoys".
Actually Christian faith is rather open the the goodness of the material world, though concern for the effects of misusing God's gifts and enculturation into a neo-platonic medieval culture has often spilled over into a rather dour expressions of faith. Or something...
Anyway go and see Matt's full list and see what you can come up with to add to it.
Journeys In Between: Myths about Christianity:

why baptise infants?

Doug has stated very nicely one of the ad hominem arguments I favour for the propriety of baptising the infants of believers, and so I quote it here so you can enjoy it's pithiness. "There are a great many arguments that have roiled over the font about the baptism of children. One of the lesser used arguments in favour, but which I regard as one of the more significant, is that Christian parents would from the first share with their child their relationship with God, and central to that is the expression of that relationship in prayer. But the means and mode by which we relate to God, and address him as Abba, our Father, is the gift of the Spirit. Yes, prayer is also a human activity, but it is first a divine relationship into which we are invited and initiated. Baptism as the effectual sign of the Spirit’s gift should be administered to anyone who will be brought up to pray. "
The problems of baptism (art. XXVII) � Metacatholic:

A Carbon-Negative Fuel?

Intriguing: I mentioned terra preta a while back. And it is now being hypothesized that it could be a carbon negative thing: "I can't promise that using gasification for energy and using the resulting char as terra preta fertilizer will be a carbon negative fuel, because I haven't seen a credible lifecycle analysis of it. (If anyone has, please post it to the comments.) But it's quite plausible. Consider that it takes a certain amount of CO2 to grow a crop, such as corn. You harvest the crop and sell the food part, which leaves you with all the agricultural waste. Instead of burning it in the open air, or landfilling it (which is what's done today -- basically topsoil mining), you gasify it. You then burn the fuel gas you get from gasification, putting some fraction of that CO2 into the air; the agri-char (terra preta) that you're left with contains the rest of the embodied CO2 which the crops sucked up while growing. There's more carbon here than there was in the fuel gas. You spread the terra preta on the fields as fertilizer to grow more crops, and repeat the cycle -- and with each repeat, you pull more carbon back into the soil than you burn, resulting in a carbon negative fuel as well as crops fertilized with fewer petrochemicals. It's a double win. "
WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: A Carbon-Negative Fuel:

Dumbledore was gay

This could slow up the rehabilitation of Harry Potter novels in some evangelical circles as in a Q&A Joanne Rowling confessed: "'Yeah, that's how I always saw Dumbledore. In fact, recently I was in a script read-through for the sixth film, and they had Dumbledore saying a line to Harry early in the script saying, 'I knew a girl once, whose hair...' I had to write a little note in the margin and slide it along to the scriptwriter, 'Dumbledore's gay!''"
Chuckle.
Dumbledore was gay, JK tells amazed fans | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Books:

Rowan Williams hits out at atheist Dawkins

I'm almost in danger of becoming a fan of Rowan Williams, as he is now saying sensible things, well, about the whole Dawkins-style atheism. He "suggested that Prof Dawkins, the author of the best-selling The God Delusion and a leading Darwinist, was a good scientist but a poor philosopher. "
Got to agree: he's possibly the last of the positivists and seems ignorant of the important contributions to the philosophy of science made by Popper and Polanyi.


Rowan Williams hits out at atheist Dawkins - Telegraph:

Tony Blair plans launch of interfaith group

Tony Blair has been proposing some kind of interfaith initiative. It's interesting that this article in the Torygraph picks up this comment. "'The tragedy is that Christians, Jews and Muslims are all Abrahamic religions. 'We regard ourselves as children of Abraham but we have fought for so long.'"
I find it interesting, at least because of this 'Abrahamic faiths' thing. I find it hard to get excited about it. In fact, I think that it is potentially a pernicious distraction. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, the commonality, while seeming attractive, I suspect is illusory and not powerful enough to make any real impact. The ways we handle the texts and stories of Abraham are just so different and the place that Abraham has in our respective traditions are such that it doesn't carry much authority for many Christians or Muslims. Secondly, the endeavour is bound to exclude other, important, parties who should be in on the peace-speaking processes: Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs among them. Thirdly, I suspect the Abrahamic religions move as being a way to maintain the priviledged positions of some faiths and to sideline groups that others would rather not have to deal with because they present challenges to their raison d'etre. For example, Muslim difficulties with post-Muhammedan 'prophets' such as Guru Nanak and successors, or Baha'ullah. In fact the whole Abrahamic faiths thing seems to offer far more by way of fractures and fissures than it seems to heal. It's an enterprise which is far more congenial to Muslims than the rest of us, I suspect, and I rather suspect it's a Muslim enterprise at root. It plays well with their views on prophethood but less well with Jewish and Christian notions of religious and spiritual history.
I may be wrong, but I hope that by opening out my skepticism, I can find out where and how.
Tony Blair plans launch of interfaith group - Telegraph:

Principles of Feminist Economics

Actually, a lot of these are not specifically feminist, but the kinds of things that a number of people [myself included] for a while. For example: "Non-market activities are important to the economy. Once it is acknowledged that the household is a locus of economic activity, it also becomes apparent that unpaid work, such as the raising of children and all household work, is an essential aspect of any economy which must be recognized. "
And this is important and looks, at first, to be uncontroversial;

People compete, cooperate and care.
The valorization of competition in Mankiw and many other principles texts is overly simplistic. Cooperation and caring also play a role in the economy, often yielding superior outcomes to competition

But we should recall the classical economics view is that people compete.
Principles of Feminist Economics:

Migrants: a boon to UK economy

More raw data for those GCSE RE sections on race and minorities: "Migrants are more skilled and often more reliable and hardworking than British workers, and are fuelling the country's economic growth to the tune of £6bn a year, according to the first official study of their impact published yesterday."
In other words, the stuff from the Right on immigration is shown for what it is: xenophobia.
Migrants are a boon to UK economy, says study | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Blood May Help Us Think

Another nail in the coffin of simple dualisms?

"'Many lines of evidence suggest that blood does something more interesting than just delivering supplies. If it does modulate how neurons relay signals, that changes how we think the brain works.'"

In other words this is another piece of evidence to suggest that the physiological dimensions of thinking are whole-body related. In turn this is nicely consonant with Biblical/Hebraic approaches to anthropology which see humans whole rather than as partite.
However, don't push it too far:

How could blood flow affect brain activity? Blood contains diffusible factors that could leak out of vessels to affect neural activity, and changes to blood volume could affect the concentration of these factors. Also, neurons and support cells called glia may react to the mechanical forces of blood vessels expanding and contracting. In addition, blood influences the temperature of brain tissue, which affects neural activity.

They're not proposing blood 'thinks' as such.

ScienceDaily: Blood May Help Us Think:

Reducing Class Size: More Cost-effective Than Medical Interventions

This research has got to be of interest to all of us interested in public policy and social welfare. "The study shows that a student graduating from high school after attending smaller-sized classes gains an average of 1.7 quality-adjusted life-years and generates a net $168,431 in lifetime revenue. 'Higher earnings and better job quality enhance access to health insurance coverage, reduce exposure to hazardous work conditions, and provide individuals and families with the necessary resources to move out of unfavorable neighborhoods and to purchase goods and services,' says Peter A. Muennig, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at the Mailman School. 'Regardless of class size, the net effect of graduating from high school is roughly equivalent to taking 20 years of bad health off of your life.' When targeted to low-income students, the estimated savings would increase to $196,000 per additional graduate. 'This is because low-income students seem to benefit more from the additional attention afforded by small classes,'"
Of course, like the research showing positive correlations between higher education and better overall health outcomes and more liberal social viewpoints, there may be issues about whether this is relative in such a way that it would not scale up to a whole population. That said, the above quote does suggest targetted intervention could be even more effective. However, then there are the issues around parents choosing schools, private education and the fact that public money is in different pots...

ScienceDaily: Reducing Class Size May Be More Cost-effective Than Most Medical Interventions:

The free open-source video platform

This could be what I've been looking for, and it may yet herald an age without TV channels. Download: Get Miro: "The free open-source video platform"

Vicars urged to drop 'risky' dog collars

Over the last few years, I realised recently, I have grown more wary of wearing my dog-collar when not on 'clergical' business. I think that somehow I have become aware that I am more prominent. Once upon a time that prominence was helpful and spoke good things into the community and witnessed, somehow, to the rumour of God. Now, I feel vulnerable in ways that I didn't twenty years ago. My prominence has become a cause for concern: it attracts people who tell stories that don't add up but would relieve me of money; it attracts people who seem all too quick to become abusive; and it would appear that beyond my direct experience, it attracts those who are prone to violence.
"More attacks are carried out on priests than probation officers and GPs, according to the latest figures. Between 1997 and 1999, 12 per cent of clergy were assaulted and seven out of ten were abused or threatened."
I guess too some of my reluctance is about feeling that, now I'm older, the 'witness' of a younger person wearing other items that were reasonably fashionable is no longer as helpful as once it was: now I feel like I'm just another middle-aged figure in a dog-collar not speaking by my presence of anything more than the male, white, middle-years-ness of my church and that is a message that the world doesn't need to hear.
But perhaps I'm a victim of my own cowardice and finding clever little excuses for it.
Vicars urged to drop 'risky' dog collars - Telegraph:

Forgive us our Ecological debts?

It's disturbing, though probably not surprising to discover that our ecological 'debt' is growing: "Last year Nef found that global consumption levels pushed the world into 'ecological debt' on 9 October; this year, it says, we are in debt three days earlier. Ecological debt means that our demands exceed the Earth's ability to supply resources and absorb the demands placed upon it."
I find myself mulling over the co-incidence of this terminology with the Lukan version of the Gospel Prayer: "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". Noting that there are ways in which the economy of grace is not easily compared to the ecology of resources. Though it is worth noting that while we can ask God to forgive us, we cannot 'ask' the earth or the rest of the globe to do so indefinitely: people will start (actually have started) dying to service this debt at some point.

While our 'debts' are ones to do with hurt and pride they have similarity to the digital economy. That is, they can be 'copied' potentially infinitely. and similarly they can just as easily (and this is not to say that it is emotionally easy) be forgiven. Of course the reason that they may be hard to forgive is that they can rest on physical events that cannot reverse time's arrow: a loved one cannot be returned from death and (normally) our words cannot be taken back, and so on.

So we may ask God to forgive our debts and others likewise, but we still have to work with the consequences of what those debts rest on. In this case taking more than our share and robbing our children and grandchildren, and in doing so to be changing the global balance of power in ways that, if we survive, may also be storing up further challenges for our descendants.

We can learn from some aspects of older Christian teaching: the idea of penance, I think, was meant to be about showing the fruits of repentance primarily by trying to make righter the things our sinning had marred. And actually, that seems to mirror a right human instinct. The instinct to make right, and to make or restore justice is served in our own persons as we recognise that we are the ones who need to do so. However, to do so is not to 'buy' forgiveness, since forgiveness can only ever be given (clue in the word itself, folks) never earned: the hurt can never be undone, only 'swallowed' and moved on from by various means.

God may forgive us this debt, and perhaps others will too. But the harm will remain for some time and we need to find ways, corporately to show the fruits of repentance by beginning to make decisions to enable us live ecologically-debt-free and to embed such living into the way we live so we don't even decide any more, we just do it. After all we don't, on the whole, decide to live ecologically in debt; we just do because the ways that lead to debt have been built into our lifestyles in a thousand subtle and 'innocent' ways. It'll be messy and it won't be easy to make decisions and embark on ways that are unambiguously good. These are days that will call for wisdom, forebearance and mutual encouragement: pretty much the qualities that make for forgiveness, in fact...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | UK 'exporting emissions' to China

The Islamist

Just for those interested in Islam, I've just briefly reviewed the book referenced in the blog title ... booklogging: The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left: Books: Ed Husain

Going too far

A writer is taken to court for using a word allegedly 'owned' by an organisation in a title. I can't help feeling that this amounts to censorship by private enterprise. "By declaring images, titles and now words to be ownable brands, these various organisations and individuals are contributing to an increased commodification and thus privatisation of materials previously agreed to be in the public domain. For scientists, this constrains the use of public and published knowledge, up to and including the human genome. For artists, it implies that the only thing you can do with subject matter is to sell it."
Of course trademarks have been around a good while, but usually some kind of acknowledgement has been sufficient, as far as I know. But read the comments for further info. There are some disturbing trends outlined in it all. However, the law may not be as asinine as sometimes made out. One of the commenters notes:

Trademarks (TM) ... are established by habitual use. The Olympic Authority needs to prove that a company is deliberately benefiting from their hard work - known as passing off. If the olympic rings are used, then this would be easy to establish. But because the Olympic tradition dates back so far, most users of the term can claim they are referring to the original games.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | You can't use the O-word:

More cheers for Rowan: neocon crit

Whatever else one might say about him, Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) is saying important things from a Christian perspective. In this case he

criticised the neoconservatives of the Bush administration and accused them of 'potentially murderous folly' for suggesting military action against Syria and Iran

To be more precise he said this:

"When people talk about further destabilisation of the region - and you read some American political advisers speaking of action against Syria and Iran - I can only say that I regard that as criminal, ignorant and potentially murderous folly. We do hear talk from some quarters of action against Syria and Iran. I can't understand what planet such persons are living on, when you see the conditions that are already there.

Of course, one might think that the neocon position is likely to be unaffected by such considerations since they are more interested in 'projecting geopolitical power' than in empathy, human suffering and justice. It is sad to find myself saying that, but I really am coming to think that some political opinions are 'autistic': they are people-blind and empathy-low and mostly interested in their own place in the world.
Archbishop attacks neocons over US threat to bomb Iran | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Superworm ready to strike Windoze

This is disturbing particularly for you Windows users, though I'm also concerned about our college network. It's a very cunningly designed, sophisticated piece of malware, and it hasn't even done anything yet ... "Oddly enough, Storm isn't doing much, so far, except gathering strength. Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams. There are rumors that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing. Personally, I'm worried about what Storm's creators are planning for Phase II."
Gathering 'Storm' Superworm Poses Grave Threat to PC Nets:

Make Affluence History

"The high living standards (read: mass consumption) of industrialized nations is subsidized by the very low (and lowering) living standards of underdeveloped nations. We rarely connect our wealth and the poverty of others. To make poverty history, we need to Make Affluence History"

Church of England launches campaign to counter steep decline in baptisms

This article in the Daily Mail is a bit of a showpiece in journalistic misunderstanding or misleading (take your pick and consider how charitable you feel). Towards the end we are told: "The drop in baptisms mirrors a long-term decline in church attendance overall. The CofE saw its figures for Sunday attendance drop below the million mark at around the turn of the millennium. Roman Catholic churches in much of the country have also seen a fall. However large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe has meant some Catholic churches in London are overflowing on a Sunday."
Now let's just look a bit more at some of that. Actually the drop in baptisms is following a different pattern in some respects especially as recently attendance figures have levelled out and even increased slightly. Note how the article talks about the turn of the millennium rather than the last couple of years which would count against their point. And why pick out RC churches in London? Because to do a similar exercise with Anglican churches would again give the lie to the reporting: Anglican churches in London are very healthy, thank you, because of migration from Africa.
I suspect the real story here, at one level, is one of newspaper journos and editors still running in their minds the old stereotypes about churches, particularly the CofE and finding it hard to come to terms with some new facts. Here they wrote the story they were expecting: the truth is, as Hook says in the film, far more interesting.
Have a look at the comments.
Church of England launches campaign to counter steep decline in baptisms | the Daily Mail:

Slippery slope argument: rug pulled

I doubt that this will be the last we hear of the matter, but for the time being at least, this is a significant development in the debate about euthanasia> "a University of Utah-led study found that legalizing physician-assisted suicide in Oregon and the Netherlands did not result in a disproportionate number of deaths among the elderly, poor, women, minorities, uninsured, minors, chronically ill, less educated or psychiatric patients."
I guess there will be questions about the methodology and whether there has been a sufficient time-lapse. However, the anecdotal evidence had been that in Holland, the vunerable were being oh-so-gently pressured into an early exit. However, the aggregated figures appear to tell against that.

I do have to say that it seems to me that Christians may be straining at gnats and swallowing camels in this debate, or at least non-pacifist Christians. It seems to me that the conditions talked about in these euthanasia killings are far more stringent than those applied in theory and definitely in practice in prosecution of warfare. That's not to say I'm taking a position, but simply to say I think there is a degree of inconsistency at this point in the positions of many Christians. Perhaps I'm being harsh, or missing something major, but I'm looking to provoke looking at the matter a bit outside the normal box.
ScienceDaily: Doctor-aided Suicide: No Slippery Slope, Study Finds:

Children Of Lesbian Couples Are Doing Well

Whatever your view of homosexuality, this is an important study because it moves some of the ground of debate. One by contributing to the 'normalisation' of gay relationships and two by taking away bad environment for child-rearing as an objection.

A study of families in the Netherlands indicates that children raised by lesbian couples “do not differ in well being or child adjustment compared with their counterparts in heterosexual-parent families.”

More interestingly, and challengly, but perhaps not surprisingly:

lesbian biological mothers were significantly more satisfied with their partners as a co-parent than were heterosexual mothers. The partners of lesbian biological mothers “are more committed as parents than are heterosexual fathers, that is, they display a higher level of satisfaction with their partner as co-parent and spend more time on child care and less on employment.”
Lesbian couples were significantly higher on strength of desire to have children than were heterosexual couples. There were significant differences in the division of family tasks, with both of the lesbian partners spending more time on household work and childcare, and less time at work outside the home, than the heterosexual fathers.

Watch out for more studies on this kind of thing, particularly for studies on gay males as co-parents.
I think that the challenge this presents to the received approach to homophile relationships centres around 'God is love and those who live in love live in God' ... for a traditionalist approach there is a difficulty in honouring that of God in such relationship, particularly where 'innocent children' are implicated, with a distaste [is that the right word?] for the nature of one aspect of the parental relationship.
ScienceDaily: Children Of Lesbian Couples Are Doing Well, Study Finds:

Children learn sound systems really early

Building on earlier research about children and habituation to linguistic environment,

The results demonstrate that at 18 months children have a rudimentary understanding of the 'sound system' of their language and that knowledge guides their interpretation of the sounds they encounter," said Daniel Swingley, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Penn who worked with colleagues from the University of British Columbia and the Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics.
"Children can easily hear how the same word can be pronounced in different ways. We might say, 'Is that your kiiiiiitty"' or, 'Show me the kitty.' In English, we're still talking about the same cat. But children have to figure this out. In other languages, like Japanese or Finnish, those two versions of "kitty" could mean completely different things. Our study showed that 18-month-olds have already learned this and apply that knowledge when learning new words.

Apart from the linguistic interest, it also seems to have implications for learning more generally: that we are constantly learning and at subconscious levels we pick up all sorts of patterning things and integrate them into our perceptual approaches.
Native Language Governs The Way Toddlers Interpret Speech Sounds

Portugal gambles on 'sea snakes' providing an energy boost

"Portugal is poised to open what will be the world's first commercial wave farm ... The Pelamis machines, named after the Latin for sea snake and developed by a Scottish company that leads the world in one of the newest renewable energy fields, are a series of red tubes, each about the size of a small commuter train, linked together, and pointed in the direction of the waves. The waves travel down the tubes, causing them to bob up and down, and a hydraulic system harnesses this movement to generate electricity."
Hurrah for Portugal. Why aren't the UK there as the first? Oh yes: we're too busy pouring research and development money down the plug-hole of nuclear power to invest in truly green energy.
Portugal gambles on 'sea snakes' providing an energy boost | Environment | The Guardian:

Religion and freedom

Next time you come across one of the headbanger-atheists (as opposed to the more nuanced and reasonable ones) claiming that religion never does any good, re-read this article which just reports on how religious sensibilities have in Burma and once in East Germany been in the lead against atheist tyranny. That's not to claim religion is universally benign: my doctrine of God, human nature etc leads me to expect the subversion of things created good is a perpetual (in this age) danger. However, we should be prepared to hear evidence on both sides of the claim.

I like the article because it also makes connections with other areas of debate such as the uses of new technologies in assisting popular resistance. And this:

"the thing that should come to us as we allow the sequestration of our rights to assemble in Parliament Square, to communicate without being monitored and to move about without being watched is that once these things disappear into the vaults of the state, we face a long, perilous fight to reclaim them."

Hmmm, that's exactly my fear.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The faith of the oppressed can topple the worst tyrants:

crony capitalism

In this reflection from Naomi Klein on the legacy of Alan Greenspan based on his autobiography, we find a laying-out of the old problem of whether free-market ideologues are pushing a genuine belief in trickle-down economics, or a veiling of cronyism. Now I have written before about trickle-down economics,

"Greenspan's legacy hardly fits the definition of a libertarian market, but looks very much like another phenomenon described in his book: 'When a government's leaders routinely seek out private-sector individuals or businesses and, in exchange for political support, bestow favours on them, the society is said to be in the grip of 'crony capitalism'.' He was talking about Indonesia under Suharto, but my mind went straight to Iraq under Halliburton. Greenspan is currently warning the world about a dangerous looming backlash against capitalism. Apparently, this has nothing at all to do with the policies of negligent deregulation that were his trademark. Nothing to do with stagnant wages due to free trade and weakened unions, nor with pensions lost to Enron or the dotcom crash, nor homes seized in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Greenspan, rampant inequality is caused by lousy high schools (which also have nothing to do with his ideology's war on the public sphere). I debated with Greenspan on the US radio show Democracy Now! recently and was stunned that this man who preaches the doctrine of personal responsibility refuses to take any at all."

So that eventually leads to the idea that perhaps, this man who showed little interest in big ideas when training in economics, is perhaps still not interested in them, just in an idea that allows him to feel better about the politics of greed.

Perhaps the true purpose of the entire literature of trickle-down theory is to liberate entrepreneurs to pursue their narrowest advantage while claiming global altruistic motives - not so much an economic philosophy as an elaborate, retroactive rationale.

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free: