A Force More Powerful and "Serious Games"

One of the keys to creating a culture of peace is to train people's moral imaginations so that the first thought is not 'Let's hit 'em hard, and if they get up let's hit em again' but rather conflict resolution. I'm convinced that half the problem is that people just do not know or cannot imagine how to resolve things by ramping down the heat and seeking win-win solutions and recognising that the other has a perspective which is reasonable in their own terms too. Hopefully this will act educationally as well as being fun. The values enshrined in our entertainment need to be looked at, and this is a god start. Sponsored by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, the game, called “A Force More Powerful,” resembles a cross between a political science model and one of the popular city-builder games. The player represents the chief of staff of a non-violent resistance movement.

Some good links from the article too.



WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: A Force More Powerful and "Serious Games"

healthy ecosystem necessary for poverty reduction

Yet another report on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment this time highlighting the connections with development goals."The report says that the Millennium Development Goals, a series of eight global targets to reduce poverty and disease by 2015, will not be met unless, among other measures, steps are taken to reverse ecosystem decline."

Basically the environment is wrth ahuge amount of money if we had to pay for it in cash. Frittering it away is impoverishment which affects the poorest fastest and hardest.

SciDev.Net:

CO2 rise forces energy rethink

Let's hope that the actual rise in the UK's CO2 emissions really does get the skates on under the government who have been more than a little complcent in my mind Apparently it is prompting reconsideration of the options.Among the actions being considered are:

· A review of wind power and other renewables to see if they can deliver more carbon dioxide savings;

· Large scale investment in the next generation of tidal, wave and solar systems;

· Consideration of whether a new generation of nuclear power stations is needed;

· Tax breaks and subsidies for energy efficient household appliances;

· New building regulations to make houses and businesses more energy efficient;

· Carbon taxes,<-> including rises in fuel duties;

· A reduction in prices of alternative fuels and subsidies for bio-diesel made from oil seed rape.

Personally I think that wind tide and hydro should be major players and anything to encourage energy efficientcy with regard to homes is going to be a good thing; so tax breaks would be good and new build regs really do need to be looked at. there is no reason on earth why we shouldn't be building extrememly low-energy houses.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | CO2 rise forces energy rethink

Nursery rhyme contest aims to oust violence

At first, when I saw the headline, I thought "Yeah; nursery rhymes are pretty gruesome, surely it can't be healthy" But then I got to thinking and suspect that some of the mitigating factors alluded to in the article are worth bearing in mind to. I don't ever recall thinking about the meaning of nursery rhymes until I was quite a bit past using them as a child. So I am not certain at all that their violent nature is actually something that really imprints on a child. It's like the act of singing or reciting them is handled by a different part of the brain than real meaning-carrying speech [maybe supported by the experience of some stroke victims who can't talk but can sing songs]. Then there is the whol issue about how scary and violent children's stories often are -the Grimm brothers certainly deserve their name as it sounds in English. So what is the existence of such scary material in the nursery saying to us about our collective psyche? I suspect that kids have no real idea, often, what is so scary about what is depicted in nursery rhymes or even the fairy stories. It is as we grow up and widen our experience to discover [I'm generalising and I know there are some tragic exceptions] that sometimes things can be as nasty as they are protrayed. Is it that the adults who sing and recitre these for the children originally were having a bit of a laugh at the child's naivety? All these horrible things and see how they don't affect such innocents [because they are innocent of the real import of the words]?

I have to say that with our own kids we didn't use traditional nursery rhymes very much and this was not because we didn't like the content, it was just that we wanted to do other things with them and traditional nursery rhymes didn't really figure much in what we felt we wanted to do. I think our kids learnt what they learnt of them at nursery and school.
Anyway I'll leave the last word to someone who is skeptical of the drive to unviolence nursery rhymes, though I must say the idea of doing what they suggest does seem grim; composing is rather different to inheriting nursery nasties, don't you think?
"'Let's have pneumatic drills going through our feet, trees falling on us, and people going to bed and bumping their head. This is the language of folk and fairy story - kids like this. They help us explore our fears and delights.'"
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Nursery rhyme contest aims to oust violence:

Good on yer Rowan!

I heard some of this on the news last night, and I thought that this really is the kind of thing we want an ARchbishop to do: "Asked on BBC2's Newsnight about the Conservative leader's pledge that 'I want yobs to fear the police', the archbishop replied: 'I think there are things we really ought to be afraid of. And talk about fear at that level perhaps doesn't get to the root causes. 'If you think about what actually threatens us, not only as a country but as a planet, that's the level I think we ought to be going to.'"
I pray that this voice may be heard and heard well. Of course the 'little' fears that the Tory campaign seems to be keying into are there but really they are doing proxy duty for the real big fears about the future of life on this planet and for civilisation as we know it. If only someone would have the political courgae to deal with those fears properly.
Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Attacks on Tory politics of fear:

Now not if but when for the pope

It's time to get praying. I will be praying for the Pope to die peacefully in the arms of Christ and I will be praying for his successor. I may not be RC but I do realise the impact a Pope can have. I would really like to pray for another John 23rd type pope [you know the one that set up Vatican II and changed a whole lot of things that has conservative RC's discomforted and this last pope has somewhat reversed in some cases]. I'm interested also in the Vatican statement:
"Pope John Paul was today in a 'very serious' condition after suffering heart failure, according to the Vatican, which insisted he was 'lucid and serene'"
It just seem to me that there is conceived in this a 'proper' way for a Pope to die and 'serene' is part of that. Quite a lot of some varieties of RC piety are taken up with praying for a good death, so the Pope has to be an exemplar. It's hard to know whether the reality might measure up. No matter how strong your faith, dying is to enter a huge experiential unknown and the process is often uncomfortable. Serenity might not always be easy to find ...
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Pope suffers heart failure:

Ten ways to beat the system

An article that does what it says on the box, so to say. There are some rather amusing suggestions on how to get even with commercial practices from non-vending vending machines to cold-call salesfolk. And to be fair, there are sensible ideas from the industries themselves -so you have a choice, revenge or the other way -what do they call that?
Guardian Unlimited Money | Cash clinic | Ten ways to beat the system