Saturday, June 23, 2007

True journalism and the death of constructive debate

Our dear patriarch James also asked me contribute to his blog in his absence.

Because very little of what I write is worthy of his blog, and because it's been a difficult week, I'm re-posting something I wrote a couple of months ago:






















There’s an important distinction between journalism and punditry: real journalism attempts to be unbiased and impartial. Pundits, on the other hand, write or speak from a specific angle.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with punditry, in small doses and in the right context. Most blogs fall under this category, although there are a few I would describe as journalistic.

But let’s not confuse the two. Bill O’Reilly may have a degree in broadcast journalism, but he is not practicing journalism. Neither is Al Franken. Neither is Rush Limbaugh.

The ideologies these people spew are often mistaken for “news,” or even “journalism.” But they’re not. I’ll tell you why:

  • Real journalists don’t demonize people who disagree with them while elevating those who do

  • Real journalists don’t shout people down

  • Real journalists don’t use inflammatory or biased language


Journalism is succumbing to pressures from all sides, but the worst trend that’s crippling the credibility of the institution is the increased movement toward journalists as pundits, especially on cable news shows. Nothing ruins a journalist’s objectivity quite like punditry.

Fox News comes under a lot of fire (and rightly so) for being biased and sensationalist, but the fact is that all the cable news networks present the news with a distinct slant. The problem is not limited to Fox. For every Rupert Murdoch, there’s a liberal equivalent. It’s blatant. It’s obscene. It’s everywhere.

Let me give you an example. During the 2004 election, CNN and ABC News would refer to Bush and Kerry in the same sentence as “Mr. Bush,” and “Senator Kerry.” One by his honorific, and one by the generic pre-nomial “Mister.” It was a very subtle way of discrediting one and elevating the other. Fox News, simultaneously, had it precisely the other way around: “Mr. Kerry,” and “President Bush.” Do you see how clever and subtle the difference is?

Most differences aren’t that subtle. Today, if you’re a conservative, there are countless conservative radio shows, talk shows, blogs, Web sites and publications that you can go to glean your news from. If you’re a liberal, there are countless explicitly liberal shows, publications, blogs, and Web sites as well. There’s no longer any perceived need for objective journalism, because people increasingly want to absorb “news” that reflects their personal beliefs and leanings.

I’d like to submit that this system is not working. It’s just leading to greater stratification and sectionalism within our collective societies. Feeding one’s intellect with only news and information that reflects one’s own partisan slant is not healthy or constructive. It leads to the kind of “debates” that we see televised daily on these cable news shows—debates that are not debates at all, but shouting matches between talking heads and pundits.

Here’s a prime example by two of the worst offenders.

These men aren’t talking to each other; they’re talking at each other. That’s all it is. This isn’t a debate. These are soliloquies.

For that matter, there’s a serious dearth of knowledge as to what constitutes constructive debate—or even constructive dialogue or discussion—whether in written or spoken form. Some very basic, common-sense rules are not being followed. For example:

  • If you’re presenting your opinion about a contested or controversial issue, it is the purest folly to insult people who disagree with you, explicitly or implicitly. You will lose whatever chance you might have had to convince them of the truth of your position, and you’ll wind up preaching to the choir.

  • Nicknames like “Democrap,” Repukelican,” “Lib-tard,” and other childish terms don’t help your case—they just alienate these groups entirely.

  • Your “side” is not always right, just as the other “side” (liberals, conservatives, whatever you like) is not always wrong. Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken would be well served to learn this.

  • Similarly, it’s important to remember that the other “side” is not comprised of evil people who want to see American/Britain/wherever fail. They usually genuinely think they’re doing the right thing. They won’t be impressed by this kind of rhetoric.



Divisive sectionalism within the “news” community has led us to an us-versus-them mentality that is entirely unhealthy. Dialogue, discussion and debate should be respectful and articulate, not inflammatory and divisive. I truly believe that the most important factor in any discussion or debate is the ability to put yourself into the shoes of whomever you’re disagreeing with. If you can’t understand why your opponent believes himself to be right, you might as well go home. We need a true understanding of why others believe what they do, or we will never be able to communicate.

This is why I feel so comfortable talking about one extremely difficult topic—abortion. I’ve been young, poor, unwed, pregnant and terrified, so I understand the dilemma. I’ve stood in the shoes of the countless girls who have to make the decision whether or not to get an abortion. And because I understand why a young woman might decide an abortion is the right thing to do, I am infinitely more prepared to discuss this issue with people who disagree with me. I can honestly say, “I know exactly why you believe this. I understand your reasoning perfectly and I pass no judgment—now hear the conclusion I came to and why I came to it.”

The moral of the story: Good debate, like good journalism, is free of inflammatory, offensive, or biased language. I’d like to see more of both: good debate and real unbiased journalism.


What, questions? How surprising.

But Ruthie: I like to get my news from newscasters who think like me. I don’t want some liberal/conservative injecting their opinions into my newscast!

Well, that’s your loss. Going to only one source for news is severely limiting your understanding of the world. As I’ve said, it’s important to understand why people disagree with you so you’ll be better able to discuss these issues with them in a respectful manner.

That sounds like political correctness. I dislike political correctness.

It’s not political correctness, it’s just good form. It’s common sense. If you alienate your audience by offending them or putting them off, you wind up preaching to the choir and convincing no one but yourself. I’m willing to bet that 99% of Rush Limbaugh’s listeners are conservative, precisely for this reason. He never has anything positive to say about liberals or Democrats, only derogatory remarks. If you switch it around, the same is true of Al Franken (who, delightfully enough, is running for Senate here in my home state). I see them as two sides of the same coin.

But what if I can’t find any unbiased news sources? What if none of them are objective?

True objectivity is impossible. Every journalist betrays his opinions when he writes. Even subtle and often unconscious word choices, like “hostage” vs. “detainee” betray a journalist’s true opinions. Many news organizations don't even operate under the pretense of objectivity anymore. The key is balance. If you understand all the sides of an issue—all the shades of gray and varying viewpoints—you’ll be better able to defend your own.

Thou Art The Ref

1. The Winger's Labours Lost

Fair DESDEMONA, daughter of Venetian senator BRABANTIO, hath skipped past the left-back and advanceth goalward.

Yet even as she approacheth the angle of the box, IAGO doth bring down DESDEMONA with a crude, two-footed lunge.

"Verily," cries IAGO, "I barely happened to nudge the lily-livered strumpet!"

Thou art unsure whether this venomous act of knavery occurred within the box, and thy assistant referee declaims that he was sore unsighted.

What shalt thou do?

a) Award a penalty unto the attacking team, and send forth IAGO unto an early bath?

b) Award a free-kick upon the box-edge, and issue IAGO a fulsome admonishment?

c) Smother the fair DESDEMONA, assail IAGO with thy blade and then slay thyself by thine own hand?

2. Much Ado About A Fair Challenge

OPHELIA and ROSENCRANTZ doth contest a fifty-fifty ball within the central circle. OPHELIA winneth the ball, leaving ROSENCRANTZ with an ugly gash upon his foreleg.

ROSENCRANTZ assails thee, crying "Thou art a dull, sheep-biting punion, sire! Thou needest glasses, thou blind bastard - may the worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul, thou mountain of mad flesh!"

In the meantime, play hath continued and lo! OPHELIA hast been bodychecked by HORATIO. A vexatious melee doth ensue.

What shalt thou do?

a) Inscribe the name of the whoreson mandrake ROSENCRANTZ in thine notebook, and adjudge the dropping of the ball?

b) Allow the play to continue anon, and issue ROSENCRANTZ a stern rebuke upon the exit of the ball from the field?

c) Send forth OPHELIA unto a nunnery, therein to be as chaste as ice, as pure as snow?

3. The Three Gentlemen of Midfield

While thine sight is distracted, thou doth hear a calamitous uproar from behind, and, turning, presently discover that MERCUTIO, kinsman of PRINCE ESCALUS, hath been struck an injurious blow and now bleedeth in sanguineous torrents.

Since it is plain that MERCUTIO hath not so wounded himself, the only possible culprits are TYBALT, cousin of JULIET, and ROMEO of the house of Montague. Thy assistant referee was, alas and alack, unsighted.

"Marry, I never touched the nondy fucker, sire!" quoth TYBALT.

"A plague on both your houses, thou dirty, hacking bastards!" cries MERCUTIO.

What shalt thou do?

a) Bring play to a most untimely halt, and allow the physick to attend the effuse of blood?

b) Send TYBALT unto the dressing room like a common dog, therein to ruminate upon his dastardly action?

c) Slay TYBALT, and flee unto exile?

Ye shalt find the answers in comments.

From the archives of Flying Rodent.

Football and the Second World War

Tom Finney, who played at every position across the forward line for England, in the postwar era was called up in 1942 to serve in the army (his photo is above). Finney was not unusual amongst footballers of his day- 98 went from Crystal Palace, 91 were called up from Wolverhampton Wanderers during the war, 76 players from Liverpool fought in the war and other future stars like Bill Nicholson of Tottenham Hotspur served in the war. Football within England was interrupted by war- the clubs were split into regional divisions and played each other, the FA Cup and other competitions stopped for the duration of the war and the England team ceased to play. Careers as notable as those of Stanley Matthews, Tommy Lawton, Finney himself, Bill Shankly and Don Howe all interrupted their careers to fight in the war. For many of them those careers became the lost years that they could never recover- like the Oxford Undergraduates who came up in 1939 only to complete their degrees in the late 1940s, these footballers spent their twenties fighting in conflict. English football also lost players in the war- Harry Goslin a England defender who played in unofficial internationals during the war was killed in 1943 in Italy (his picture is below), Billy Dean an Arsenal goalkeeper wrote home as he went to fight that he had fulfilled his ambition by playing for Arsenal, he was killed in 1942 on service with the Royal Navy.


Obviously the rest of society suffered as much if not more than football but football enables us to appreciate some of the costs that the Second World War brought to Britain- the echo of war lasts far longer than the war itself. For many clubs the war brought the end of a side that had prospered during the thirties- nowhere was this more true than at Arsenal where the side built by Chapman in the thirties and sustained by George Allison containing such famous names as Ted Drake and Alex James broke up during the war. Eight players from Arsenal were killed during the war- the war ended other players' careers as well though. Bill Shankly returned to find that Preston North End now considered him too old to utilise and thus started one of the great managerial careers in English football. It is interesting to wonder looking at the photo below of Bolton players going to war, how many of their careers were blighted by the experience.


The echoes of war in postwar football though were not merely a consequence of the absenses of those who were killed, the missing names on the teamsheets, or the absense of those who had spent their prime at Dunkirk and El Alamain, but also psychologically on those that remained. For Wilf Mannion fighting in Sicily and losing half his company effected him profoundly- for a while the Middlesborough winger found it hard to even play football again. The general effect of the second world war as studies in Scotland have found was to smooth out an underlining decline in suicide rates so the effect on footballers like Mannion fit into a general trend. For many men the war formed the background to their lives during peacetime- having broken up their careers and cost them their mates, the war became a defining event in their lives.

There is no question that the second world war was the right war to fight- but there were massive costs. Costs which ran through individual lives- the lives of footballers are interesting cases because for many of them their best proffessional years coincided with their military years- the costs though were greater in terms of the impact of war upon sensitive young men- giving them a numbness to death, like that Paul Fussel described in his study of the experience of the second world war. Just as with much of the rest of British history, the echoes of the second world war in football lasted long after the guns had stopped sounding.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Funerals -- Celebrations of Life

It seems that I have come to that time in my life when I am often a funeral participant. I hadn't been to a funeral in years it seemed, but, in the last year or so, I have had quite a few opportunities to be a mourner. With the exception of two very close long time friends, most of the departed were not close friends but my connection with them demanded a show of respect and an appearance at the funeral. Some of them were quite elderly and not well and the sorrow was tempered by the fact that they had led long satisfactory lives. On the other hand, some of them were the same age as I and this was sad for me, while some were considerably younger and this was indeed tragic.


It seems that certain things have changed at funerals since I last attended one. For example, there is usually a large photo of the departed displayed prominently. Sometimes it is a portrait of the person and sometimes a happy family group and often there are informal collages of photographs at the reception. The flower arrangements are simpler nowadays with many families requesting no flowers, but donations in lieu to the charity of one's choice.

But the innovation that I like best of all, is the PowerPoint musical slide-show presentation that is almost the norm now at funerals. True celebrations of a life, displayed for all of us to see what a fine life this person has led. Since I am an immigrant, I met most of these people as young adults or even middle-aged individuals. So I discover all these interesting things about their early lives that perhaps I didn't know before, that they had never told me. I love this part of the funeral and I am disappointed if there is none. The eulogies by friends seem to have become less formal, with funny stories being told so that there is joy in the atmosphere as well as regret. Now many people want to speak at funerals and sometimes they are very long. The funeral for my dear Hungarian friend, who died this past year, was two and a half hours long, since so many people spoke. There I found out he had been shot during the 1956 revolution, which I hadn't known previously, although I had known that he was part of it and escaped later.

Just over a year ago I gave the eulogy for a very close Scottish friend. It was a memorial service and since she had died at Christmas, it was held in early January. I wrote my eulogy and was terrified that I would break down and cry in the middle. However two days before I developed viral bronchitis and my voice almost disappeared. No one would agree to read the eulogy for me, so I was forced to croak away into the microphone and was concentrating so hard on speaking that I did not lose control until the last.

If you knew me, you would know that I am a micro-manager and always have to do everything myself with lots of double checking involved. So I keep thinking that I should prepare my own funeral celebration. I know which photograph I would like enlarged, a simple candid shot taken when I was about 50. It's my favourite photo of myself. I'm not photogenic at all, I fear. I have already asked a friend's son if he will play Amazing Grace on the bagpipes for me, but hopefully it will not be for a long time. I don't know much about PowerPoint but if I can learn blogging I can learn PowerPoint. So I'll have to start looking through my photos and borrow PowerPoint for Dummies from the library. After all, I want my mourners to enjoy my funeral presentation as much as I have appreciated the celebrations of life that I have attended lately.


The bagpiper is Jimmy Mitchell, from Texas, who plays Amazing Grace at funerals.
This is another early post from my blog.

Celebrities and Charities


Scarlett Johansson has recently been called in by former Vice-President Al Gore to help him promote his Live Earth day, this follows hot on the heels of an announcement that Miss Johansson, most famous for her acting and for being according to some the most attractive woman on the planet, was recently appointed to a role as ambassador for Oxfam in India. No doubt Miss Johansson will give Mr Gore's efforts to stop climate change (a matter I know of dispute within the readership of this blog, but that's a debate for another day) and the efforts to help the poor of the world, a touch of glamour and style that may tempt some more people to discharge their pockets in a beneficent gesture of charity.

There are a couple of obvious issues to do with this kind of celebrity endorsement of things- firstly it leads to an uncomfortable situation where celebrities are effectively sifting for us the charities that we should be interested in. But of course they have no more expertise in doing that than anyone else. Miss Johansson to her credit is a very good actress and in films like The Man who wasn't there, her performances create characters who are very interesting. But that doesn't make her an expert on development studies or environmental science- having said that many of our decisions in politics are taken upon an ignorant basis- for example many people in the 2008 election for the US Presidency will be considering Hillary Clinton's behaviour in the 1990s, Rudy Giulliani's divorces, John McCain's age and Mitt Romney's flip flopping as well as their positions on the levels of income tax over the next five years.

There is something though that I object to just as much going on here. Miss Johansson is a very impressive actress but she is also a very rich woman- as is for instance Bob 'Give us your f***ing money' Geldoff. I work on a budget of around spending ten pounds a day at most- if I give a fiver to a beggar or a fiver to a charity, that's half my day's budget gone. If Scarlett Johansson gives the same amount to a charity, that's a fraction of her income in an hour gone. When Geldoff and Johansson and others get up and start pontificating about the guilt of the rich West and how we should share resources- there is a temptation to ask them well why don't they give enough of their resources away so that they have to live like a normal person. Admonitions to sack cloth and ashes don't come well from those strutting in diamonds and furs!

But I think there is something also going on behind all these celebrity moves into advocacy for charitable groups. Celebrities as many people comment are cut off from society- football players who used to earn the wage of the average manual worker, now earn the average manual workers' lifetime income in a year- actors and actresses now are wealthier than you and I to an extent that even their wealthy predecessors in 20th Century Hollywood would have found remarkable. This isn't a complaint at all- but one of the interesting things about this is that of course it makes the recipients of this largesse feel both guilty and unjustified. Yes probably the charity endorsements are the products of publicity agents- but it also strikes me that when Bono or Bob or Angelina Jolie head off to Africa and say the West is disgustingly wealthy, lets help the Africans, what they are really also saying is that the distinctions between I Bob and you Gracchi are insignificant, we are both disgustingly rich and you should share my guilt and do something about Africa.

I should end this post by saying that lots of celebrities do a lot of good- but I do think its interesting to look at the way that this novel state- being a celebrity- interacts with the high profile use of charity work by many of them- it almost makes being a celebrity into the condition of being a modern saint- recently Angelina Jolie was described by Esquire as being the best woman in the world because of her charity work- I'm almost certain that if I had Miss Jolie's wealth I could give a lot away as well- and I'm almost certain as well that if I did that I wouldn't be the best man in the world either.

Keys to the Kingdom

Several years ago, whilst on a holiday to florida, I took my mum on a backstage visit to Walt Disney World. It was shockingly expensive (although not so bad now at $60), but for me it was worth every penny to see behind the mirror.

Along the way, we were allowed to pick up cards called "7 Guest service Guidelines" I reproduce them here.

-Be Happy...make eye contact and smile!

-Be like Sneezy...greet and welcome each and every guest.Spread the spirit of hospitality...It's contagious!

-Don't be Bashful...seek out Guest contact!

-Be like Doc...provide immediate service recovery!

-Don't be Grumpy...always display appropriate body language at all times!

-Be like Sleepy...create DREAMS and preserve the "MAGICAL" Guest experience!

-Don't be Dopey...think each and every Guest!


Little Chef take note.

(Crossposted from my Blog)

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Nourishing African Obscurity

In the spirit of finding blogs that few people have heard of may I present to you the Malawi Windmill Blogger. The blogger, a gentleman by the name of William Kamkwamba, has become a blogger because he built a windmill generator out of scrap for the family farmat the age of 14. He followed instructions from a book. "I tried it and I made it," he said to a standing ovation at the TEDGlobal 2007 conference in Arusha Tanzania.

This all comes (including some of the phasing because I'm lazy) from the excellent Meskel Square blog run by a Reuters journalist in Addis Ababa. The journalist is apparently now moving to Sudan because his wife, a journalist for the BBC, has been posted there and he has decided to follow.

Amongst the recent posts at Meskel Square as his coverage of TEDGlobal 2007. It is well worth reading the whole hting but I think the key is this part where he explains how different TED was to the usual bureaucratic development conference in Africa:

So how does that differ from a typical tech conference here on the continent? Picture any of a dozen that have been hosted in Addis Ababa's UN complex or African Union HQ over the past year or so. Imagine a parade of government officials and state-appointed telecoms execs spouting phony African proverbs and development platitudes. At the last one I went to, the keynote speaker spent an hour going through his ten priorities for African development – "Last but not least let us remember the need for capacity building...". At the one before that, the event only came to life once a day after lunch, as people rushed to the front desk to receive their DSAs (daily subsistence allowances – the lifeblood of any UN-funded conference circuit).

The difference between all that and what happened in Arusha was best summed up by TEDGlobal speaker and Africa Unchained author George Ayittey when he talked about:

The Cheetah Generation - made up of the youth, specifically the TED Fellows present here, the saviors of Africa who are not going to wait for government and aid organizations to do things for them.

The Hippo Generation - the current political and business leaders who are happy to wallow in their water holes, complaining about colonialism and poverty, but doing nothing about it. [Thank you White African for the summary.]

I have only ever attended conferences with hippos on the centre stage. Arusha was full of cheetahs. There was barely a government official in sight – apart from Tanzania's president Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete who rushed in on the last day, mesmerising the crowd with his diamond-studded watch. I only heard the phrase "capacity-building" mentioned once, and I am sure that was a slip of the tongue.

(Cross posted from my own blog)

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Laying Off the Sauce (er, Book)

I just woke up from a deep sleep of about three hours. I've spent the entire day (after working, of course) reading Robert Fisk's book, The Great War for Civilisation: the Conquest of the Middle East. I got the book as a Christmas present and have finally had some time to read it, really read it. I'm on the chapter right now about the end of the Iraq-Iran War. In the previous chapter, Fisk was describing the trains the Iranians used to bring back to the cities victims of chemical attacks and ship new soldiers out to the front. Well, in my dream (among many other things), I dreamt I was on a train talking with the mother of my ex-girlfriend and my sister of all people. The train suddenly came to a stop when I realized my wallet and Oakley sunglasses were on the tracks and about to be run over. I woke up with my arm outstretched in the air (no, not from stretching, literally outstretched) as if trying to stop something from happening. Yeah, I need to stop reading this book for a bit.

Shading Obscurity

I said I would put something up for James but it seems that there is no shortage of guest posters...

So, in a Welshcakes moment, here is a picture of one of the Pancakes my lad gave me on Fathers Day.

Thanks Son.

Gaza

Israeli planes, tanks hit Gaza

By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip - Israel fired missiles and sent tanks on a foray into Gaza on Wednesday, killing four Palestinians in the deadliest military action since Hamas militants took control of the coastal strip.

At the same time, Israel eased restrictions on travel in and out of Gaza, letting in a few seriously ill or wounded Palestinians who had been holed up for days at a fetid border crossing.


A teenager with leukemia and four other Palestinians in need of medical care went through the tunnel at the Erez crossing in Israel, the military said. Israeli officials also authorized entry of all foreign nationals living in Gaza. (link)


Most of the people that read this will blame all this on the evil joos. They will neither look at or care about the context of what is happening to Israel or what has been happening to her since her inception in 1948. To them this will simply be another 'act of aggression' on the peaceful (heh) people of Palestine.

Of course, most people don't realize why they feel that way, but hopefully one day they'll be able to come to grips with the fact that they are against a country defending itself against terrorists and be able to grow from there. Of course, I hold out no hope for most of those people. I feel they will continue to ignore the actual happenings in the Middle East until the 'Palestinians' have fulfilled their 'mandate' to wipe Israel off the map (with ample help from the mad mullahs of Iran).

If that day ever happens, I wonder how many of you will be joyful and how many will realize that you had been rooting for it the whole time?

I probably should

post something on here as I did promise James I would. Don't know why he asked me, to be honest. I have been in something of a foul mood of late, but he laid down the challenge for me to try to get his blog shut down.

Pah. Can't be bothered. I'll tell you why I can't be bothered, shall I? Because my head hurts. People are always telling me that going to the gym is bad for me (except my mother who takes it upon herself to tell me when I have put so much as an ounce of weight on) and I think they may be right. The other week I ended up banging my head on the corner of one of the big wooden locker doors and, since I can't remember much of the rest of that evening besides going to a pub and not drinking alcohol), I was informed that in all likelihood I had knocked myself out.

Things then became worse when I went a bit tardy on the tube on the way to work and ended up in hospital and to kick a girl when she's down, I passed out on Sloane Square when I was wearing my new silk dress. (It was very odd, some guy was running round without his shirt on, but thank you to all the lovely people, whoever you are, who looked after me. And especially to the kind person who gave me a goody bag from the gay pride conference they had just been to. That came in handy during the wait in A&E).

Now I am on horrible tablets that I can't drink on, have constant headaches, can't walk very far unaided and might possibly have to wait weeks to see the neurologist. And Aunty Pat thinks the NHS is in a good state? I waited so long at A&E in a hospital gown with no pillow, no water even though I was thirsty, no pain killers and no chance of seeing a doctor that eventually I discharged myself on the grounds that I would me more comfortable and a lot warmer in my own bed. A health service which is the envy of the world? I don't think so.

I haven't even been able to register with my local GP since I moved house because I don't have a utility bill with my name and address on, since I share a flat, so have to go back to old house when I want to see a doctor. All in all, I am a little bit pissed off. There were lots of terrible things about living in Brussels, like foreign gentlemen of a darker hue regularly trying to drag me into their cars, but their health service was good. I had employee based health insurance and a doctor who I could call up and make an appointment in advance for. I could call up a specialist and make an appointment without having to be referred by my GP and thus save myself weeks of waiting and pain, and, of course, uncertainty.

I am off to Brussels tomorrow even though I am sick and if I do have another funny turn, it may be a blessing in disguise as perhaps I might be able to find out what the bloody hell is wrong with me.

I wish people didn't think a national health service was so good, because quite frankly when you're sick in this country, the waiting around and general hassle of everything makes me a lot sicker than I was to start with.

I'm off to have another sleep now, and if that bloody ice cream van drives past one again, he's getting a corneto up his fundament. Complete with chocolate flake.

Excellent Stem Cell News

In April I wrote a couple of posts about stem cells (and one somewhat indrectly) where I based a good deal of my argument on what was (then) the limit of published scientific knowledge. The critical points were that
  1. We can't tell stem cells from normal ones except by seeing how they behave
  2. Adult stem cells only produce cells for special parts of the body and not generalized ones
Well the Instapundit informs me that point (2) may no longer be true. At TCS there is an article about the researches of Shinya Yamanaka who has now published a couple of papers, includng this one in Nature, that appear to show that adding a few proteins to a stemcell it becomes "pluripotent", i.e. able to generate all types of cells. Critically (and unlike a certain Korean stem cell researcher), the research he published last year has now been reproduced by a different lab so it seems like he has got something right. Of course we are still at the "baby steps" stage of research. Prof Yamanaka has got mouse cells to work and there is, as far as I can tell, some confusion about whether what he has produced are "normal" stem cells or some evil thing that will produce tumors and nothing else. There may also (I'm limited to reading abstracts) be some mystery about why the trick he uses works. If you MUST know what he does is "retroviral introduction of Oct3/4 (also called Pou5f1), Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4, and subsequent selection for Fbx15 (also called Fbxo15) expression" and some colleagues have a paper that may explain why it works.

Now all this is excellent stuff and may well allow us to ditch the idea of human embryo stem cell research, but it seems to me that the TCS article is written by a gentleman who is vehemently against research using human embryonic stem cells so I'm not going to take his word for it. Why do I think that you ask? well phrases like the one I quote below seem to be a tad hyperbolic:

Will this disruptive technology open up ethical avenues in the promising field of stem cell research, avenues which do not involve turning women into battery hens for their eggs and destroying embryos?

I also suspect that, contrary to what the article implies, researchers would greatly prefer to use processed adult stem cells to embryonic ones if they can. One good reason why is that it will be very very easy for researchers to get adult human stem cells, from for example a piece of skin or flesh from a biopsy, and they will therefore be far more numerous and varied, becasue to put it simply every researcher can get his own from himself, and hence discoveries will be less likely to be flukes and more likely to work with all humans and not just some. But the bad news is that until we understand why retroviral insertion of Oct3/4, Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4 works (and for that matter whether the same proteins work in human stem cells) we can never be sure that such modification is in fact safe. On the other hand the related positive news is that this may hold out the possibility that we figure out not just why adult stem cells aren't as flexible but also how stem cells differ from normal ones so that we can make every cell in a biopsy a stem cell.
(xposted at my own blog)

The Immigrant Experience


I don't know why, but James has invited me to post something during his blog hiatus. I guess he thinks something is better than nothing, which in my case remains to be seen. Of course he's worried about the retention of his fan base and if I can't keep you here, even drive you to click on, maybe some of the other guest bloggers will perk your interest.

Who am I, you ask? I'm a "little old lady", retired from hospital pharmacy, some years ago. I write a very obscure blog called, Nobody Important, which James has been kind enough to highlight on occasion here. I wrote this post very early in my blogging career and I hope you find it interesting enough to keep on reading.

James wrote a post about Immigration in April and he certainly set the cat among the pigeons, with lots of heated comments as a result. This is a gentler post about my experience as an immigrant.

THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE

Emigrant, a person who leaves one's own country to settle in another.

Immigrant, a person who comes to reside permanently in a country other than one's native land.

The fact is that the emigrant and the immigrant are the same person.

The one departs from his homeland with great sorrow and regret, leaving behind family and friends. For whatever reasons he leaves, the sorrow and regret are felt, for this is the land of his birth. No matter that perhaps life there has become intolerable. No matter that perhaps the reasons for leaving are happy ones: to join a loved one in another country; to take advantage of a better job; for a better business opportunity; better education opportunities. There is still sorrow and regret.

The other arrives with great hope and expectations for a better life, or at least a different life. New challenges have to be met, involving jobs, housing, cultural differences, religious differences, language difficulties, maybe even racial differences. To be met with hope and excitement.

Yes, this is one and the same person, an emigrant as well as an immigrant who feels both the sorrow and the hope.

I am an immigrant.
I am the daughter of an immigrant.
I am married to an immigrant.
I am the mother of an immigrant.
I am the mother-in-law of an immigrant.
I was the daughter-in-law of an immigrant.
Ninety percent of my friends are immigrants.
For more than 45 years the immigrant experience has been my world.

I, the Australian daughter of a Scottish immigrant to Australia, immigrated to Canada with my Australian husband, whose father had emigrated from New Zealand to Australia. We came, after a two year stay in England, so that he could take a position as a university professor. We really hoped to return to Australia after two years, however we stayed here instead. We had none of the difficulties faced by so many immigrants. Yes there were minor cultural differences and we used different words for some things, like petrol for gas, but still English words. We settled in immediately.

Luckily for us, since Vancouver is such a young city, even the Canadians we met were from the Prairies or Eastern Canada. Very few people our age had family here, so we became each other's families. We had no one else and we relied on each other totally. The most incredible bonds were forged, maybe even stronger than familial bonds because we didn't have the emotional baggage that many families carried. My family has celebrated Christmas with the same Scottish family for more than 40 years. My friends are Scottish, New Zealander, Hungarian, English, Welsh, Spanish, French, Chinese, German, American, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Japanese, and yes, there are even some Canadians.

We all left our homes and families and settled in Canada. Here we established new families and new friends. Yes we are proud Canadians, but we'll always be Australian, Scottish, New Zealander, and so on. But to my mind, the greatest thing that has come out of this immigrant experience is the tolerance we have learned to have for each other.

Sixteen years ago, my daughter left Canada to do graduate studies in the USA. Ten years ago, she married an Italian who had come to do graduate work there, as she had. They have settled in the States and have a daughter. Where will she finally settle? She has three citizenships, American, Canadian, Italian. Unfortunately my daughter, herself a dual citizen, Canadian and Australian, was unable to pass on the Australian citizenship for technical reasons.

Our immigrant line may well continue into the fourth generation, for this is the reality of the world of today.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

MY OWN URBAN WETLAND

James often posts about climate change and, back in Cardiff, I had definite proof that it was happening - with a little help from the Cardiff Bay people, admittedly. Few Cardiffians would argue that the development of the Cardiff Bay area has not been a good thing: this area, once the world's foremost coal port, became, with the end of the "golden age" of coal, a run-down, seedy district where you could not walk safely at night. Now people pay up to half a million sterling for an apartment there in which there is not room to swing a cat, there are all sorts of restaurants, people go along there for a stroll at any time of day or night and most Cardiffians are rather proud of it all. My little house was not in the Bay area, but a stone's throw from it and, a few years ago, strange things started to happen: rowan trees started to die in the area, my garden became overrun by frogs [which didn't amuse my dog at all!] midges known as chironomids arrived and - the last straw for me - the ACROBATIC ARACHNIDS took up residence. Here is a copy of a letter I sent to the Cardiff Harbour Authority about three years ago:

Dear Ms N....,

ACROBATIC ARACHNIDS


I have just put my wheelie-bin and bags out, a task that has left me virtually hysterical as I have had to battle with a broom past several of the large spiders that have spun hammock-like webs across my garden.

These are no ordinary spiders - I swear they can fly - and they use their webs to loop the loop and then dive-bomb you from the tops of them.

They are resistant to the insect spray that Mr. A.... let me have and their webs are stronger than my clothes-line, speaking of which, I no longer put my washing out, as the spiders think my sheets are trapezes and swing on and from them.

It is no good telling me that spiders won't hurt me or that they will control the wretched chironomids: nothing will convince me of a lack of evil intent on the part of the former and I am just plain scared of them.

Presumably they have been attracted to the area because of the midges? Or have they been introduced into the area as part of the Harbour Authority's attempts to "naturally control" the chironomids? Are they going to metamorphose into tarantulas? The environment has changed so much in this area that nothing would surprise me! [Anyway, they are already tarantulas in my mind!]

I am a city woman who has no desire to commune with nature; I especially do not wish to commune with the arachnidan population; if I did, I would have bought a house in remotest Africa, not urban Grangetown! So please, what can be done about this gothic nightmare and how can I regain the peace of what was always meant to be a city garden?

Yours sincerely,

I copied this email to my Welsh Assembly Member, MP and a local councillor and it got me lots of action in terms of empathy and visits from the Harbour Authority. I think I was supposed to be comforted by the fact that the area had now been declared an "urban wetland"; the problem was that I would never have chosen to live in one!

Marketising universities

From the March archives of the mediocracy blog. Well, James did say I could, and I'm rather fond of this one. It was intended to be a prelude to critically analysing the idea of marketising universities, which a number of pro-marketeers (e.g. Gabriel Rozenberg) seem to favour, and I still hope to get round to that. The point here is that imposing markets in a partial way can do more harm than good.

Now, I think the involvement of the state is a good part of the reason why academia has become mediocratised. And if I was building a university system from scratch, I would keep the state well out of it. But, in practice, any demands for "marketising" starting from here are going to lead to piecemeal stuff — forcing students to take out loans being a good example. And (paradoxically) there is no reason why piecemeal marketisation might not just make the harmful effects of state involvement worse rather than better. As it has probably made things worse for users of the NHS. Free markets are one thing, pseudo-marketisation another. (Note: non-economists may wish to read an earlier post which explains the basics of "perfect competition".)


What does economics have to tell us about how to optimise efficiency, if we cannot achieve PC (perfect competition)? There are two ways of dealing with the "problem of the second best" for policy purposes. The first favours government intervention, the second doesn’t. No prizes for guessing which one is most often stressed in economics courses. (For the avoidance of doubt: the first.)

1) If we had information about the preferences of every individual in the economy, we could calculate what the range of possible optimal states are, given the constraints we have to work with. (Call these states “second-best solutions".) In that case, it might turn out that, if the economy departs from PC in one specific area but is PC elsewhere, we will only be able to get to a second-best solution by departing from PC in other areas as well. In fact, it can be shown that for very simple scenarios, that is the case — i.e. it is better to deviate from perfect competition in all areas rather than just in some.

This is sometimes taken to prove that in certain cases government intervention is better than laissez-faire as a way of generating the best possible outcome, given the constraints. But note that this conclusion depends on knowing everybody’s preferences, which in practice is impossible. The great benefit of the strict-PC model — of being certain that the outcome will be efficient, without having to know anything about people’s preferences — doesn’t apply here.

2) The other way of treating the problem of the second best is to advocate agnosticism. If we don’t have perfect PC conditions and can’t get to them, and we don’t know everyone’s preferences, then we can’t know whether any particular policy change will move things in the direction of greater efficiency. Even if a policy change appears to be moving things in the direction of PC conditions, it might easily result in less overall efficiency.

Now there are two ways to interpret treatment (2), either of which might be appropriate depending on the circumstances.

(2a) One is to be conservative, in the sense of being cautious about doing anything, especially major changes. They might do harm on balance, rather than good. This generates the opposite conclusion to that of (1), in the sense that you should avoid tinkering further with an already imperfect system in case you make it worse.

(2b) The other way to react is to adopt a muddle-through approach, for which there isn’t any strict justification, but which might be the best one can do, on a sort of hopeful common-sense basis. This could be taken to mean, we should try to aim at the nearest thing to PC in all markets, being careful to ensure that we don’t miss out any major areas.

Bottom Line

The one thing second-best theory can definitely tell you is the following: you should be wary of policy changes which involve partial marketisation of a given area. E.g. if the intergenerational market for private capital (= inheritance) is heavily distorted by estate duties, don’t rush to marketise (i.e. remove subsidies from) cultural institutions such as universities or opera houses.

Also — though you don’t really need second-best theory for this — don’t try to impose artificial marketisation, e.g. by making academics or medical professionals try to prove they are generating “value for money”. There is no hard support from economic theory for the idea that anything other than a genuine market (where the genuine end users are able to vote with their wallets) will generate any benefit whatsoever.

"That Man Would Typewrite a Love-letter"

In my God as Metaphor post some time ago, I ended up concentrating on organised religion, and how it might be read as a literary effort to explain our search for meaning. It struck me then, and still does now, that in doing so I had over-emphasised my critique of religion, and only briefly touched on the antipode of science that I had also been meaning to critique:
The same argument, incidentally, could apply to scientific theories seeking to explain the world, including that part of it that relates to our morality. It is simply a metaphor framed in very different terms, albeit one I personally am finding increasingly limited.
That was all I wrote about science, then, and yet the post had been partly motivated by my dismay at the tendency in certain quarters to disparage the beauty that surrounds us in dismissing the claims of organised religion.

In one of those happy little coincidences that life throws up now and then, and yes, I am being somewhat disingenuous here, I recently picked up a book by an author I was very fond of as a child. I will not say who it is just yet, as there is another post to be written about him. The passage I want to concentrate on today draws on a metaphor drawn by the village postman:

Look at these early flowers which appear. So many of 'em are droopin' bells, as though natur' were ringin' em [the courting birds] on their way. When the west wind blows, I watch the snowdrops, the little woodsorrel of the pine-woods, the tall daffodils, and bluebells ... All of 'em ringing their carillon - bells for the birdies' weddin's, swingin', swayin', pealin'; and the great big marsh marigolds and the flamin' buttercups standin' up straight out o' the green grass and holdin' their ... chalices aloft and cryin' , "Good 'ealth to bride and bridegroom".
Shortly after this tour de force of rustic mysticism - even if "flamin' buttercups" strikes an odd note to more modern ears - our narrator encounters a keen gardener, with whom he cannot resist sharing the postman's vision, although even the narrator refers to these as "quaint conceits."
'Ah, yes,' he said in his superior way; 'very pretty, no doubt. But we botanists like to stick to facts.'

'Facts are not so beautiful as truth, sometimes,' I ventured to interpolate.

'Those of us who have a scientific bent explain things differently,' he said, with a superior air. 'You see,' he added. 'those tubular flowers of yours live under cold atmospheric conditions. By closingh the petals much of the warmth which would be lost by radiation is preserved. The surface presented to the Arctic winds and dews being that of the involucral leaves, or bracts, of the calyx, which...'
Now, while our narrator is clearly not shy of editorialising - I would have thought that his interlocutor's condescending attitude would have been obvious without us being told twice of his superior airs - and while there are flaws and subtexts that I would like to explore anon, he can coin a wonderful phrase.

"Facts are not so beautiful as truth, sometimes" speaks even unto a confirmed agnostic like me, and it's a truth that the more militant atheists would do well to remember.

Brief Tour of Downtown Indianapolis

Yes, I too was invited by James to guest blog over here at Nourishing Obscurity. Following a suggestion given to me in an e-mail, why not venture to downtown Indianapolis, Indiana and see Monument Circle, the Statehouse, and Military Park?

Indianapolis is the capital of Indiana and is the largest city in the state. There's plenty of events going on all year long but downtown is pretty cool.


Bank One (Chase) Tower

One of the first buildings you will see (if you come down from the north side) amongst the skyline is the Chase Tower (formerly Bank One). This tower can be seen in skyline postcards of Indianapolis.

Top of Building on Meridian Street

Downtown is where we have our tallest buildings.

Monument Circle from a distance

Monument Circle makes the main street, Meridian Street, into a roundabout. It is a gigantic statue devoted to fallen soldiers from the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Civil War.

View One from the Circle

So, the last photo was of Monument Circle. Here we are standing on it, looking back at the street we were standing on when the previous photo was taken (Meridian Street).

View Over Fountain

Looking left and down you will see a fountain.

Stitched Backside Inscription

Going behind the Monument, we will find another inscription (dedicated to the soldiers who died in the Civil War). The fronstide inscription is dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the Spanish-American War of 1898 (Cuba's War of Independence).

Fountain from the Circle

Stepping down from the Monument, we can see a view of the fountain. Note the soldiers.

Backside of Bank One Tower

Remember the Chase Tower we saw at the very beginning? This is it from the backside.

The Statehouse

Heading to the street to the left of the Monument, we approach the Statehouse of Indiana, where the governor works. I had the good fortune of briefly meeting him about a month ago.

Steaming Storm Drain

Don't worry, it's normal :-) .

Closer to the Statehouse

Ah, here we are! The Statehouse!

Office in Statehouse

This is one of several offices on the main floor of the Statehouse. It's available only to authorized personnel.

Awning Skylight

Walking into the center of the main hall, we can see this gorgeous skylight which sadly didn't want to look as pretty as it does in person.

Justice and Liberty(Main Hall of Statehouse)

Justice and Liberty.
Here is one of the four two pairs of statues that grace this hall beneath the skylight.
Here are the others.

Agriculture and Commerce(Main Hall of Statehouse)

Agriculture and Commerce

Law and Oratory(Main Hall of Statehouse)

Law and Oratory

History and Art(Main Hall of Statehouse)

History and Art

Banner supporting the troops

Military Park, stitched

Here we are at Military Park, where the names (if known) of every single Medal of Honor winner, their conflicts, locations (if known), and ranks are etched into rows of glass. A few summers ago vandals came in thru here and broke one of the glass walls.

Designing, stitched

Here's an explanation of the Medal of Honor that can be found in Military Park. Simply put, the Medal of Honor is the highest medal that a member of the US armed forces can receive. I wish to apologize for the evident jerkiness of a few of these photos. I stitched them together earlier today (all of these photos were taken in 2005).

Congressional Decision
Bottom of Congressional Decision

Unknown Soldiers Holder

Every wall has its conflict labeled. For example, here is the wall for unknown soldiers. Some conflicts contain several walls of recipients.

Unknown Soldier Recepients

Here is one of their walls.

Indian Battle Recepients

These are some of the armed service members who died in our conquest of the West against the Indians.

Baghdad, OIF

Paul Smith was the first soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor since Somalia. He died in the Battle of Baghdad during Operation: Iraqi Freedom. You all can look up his amazing story on the Internet, a true soldier indeed.

Canal near Walls

The canal that runs beside Military Park is popular with musicians, on occasion.

Foggy Skyline

Note the fog's effects of obscuring the Chase Tower (in the middle of the picture).

Canal heading towards Indianapolis

The canal runs back to the city's very center.



Now, we'll go briefly to a suburb of Indianapolis where we'll find a forest.



I leave you all looking at this creek, near the forest. I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Monday, June 18, 2007

Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out

Wallace and Gromit are a pair of characters that not many political bloggers post about (shame I hear you cry and indeed such cries are acknowledged), furthermore they are not a pair of characters that even the great Higham has deigned to grace with his type (even greater shame I hear you shout from the back row and its acknowledged) so I'm going to have to take up the pen and say something about how this duo, particularly in their first film, the Grand Day Out- offer a kind of defence of freedom that is very necessary to heed.

Lest you forget, and how could you, Wallace is an inventor with a mind filled with ideas, Gromit his dog is the more practical side of the duo forever shaking his head in disbelief at his master's antics (as shown above, Gromit ends up spattered with paint and used at one point as part of a work bench when Wallace has cut away the other end of the work bench). The story is basically thus- our heroes are in despair, in the midst of a bank holiday sitting with their feet up they feel the need for adventure (well Wallace does, Gromit looks quite happy!) and need a holiday, furthermore a crisis in their affairs has been realised- a crisis that involves the fact that though there is tea, though there are crackers in the house, there is no cheese, not one piece of cheese in the Fridge. Having thought about Cheese holidays- they decide to go to the moon, they build a rocket and set off, watched by a group of rats in shades, and reach the moon without incident (though Gromit loses a tower made of cards in the process) and Wallace prepares to carve out some cheese from the moon. After a series of adventures with a robot confused by their presence whose lifetime ambition is to ski, they set off home again and the movie finishes twenty minutes after it started, with Wallace leaning back in his seat sipping a cup of tea, and Gromit fiddling with the controls, as the Robot skis up and down the craters of the moon on bits of metal it had tugged from the spacecraft.

The story really isn't the point here though- its the individuality, its the eccentricity (in England's that's a virtue)- there is a line in the Lord of the Rings when Gandalf tells Frodo that what's worth fighting for is all the absurd Bolgers and Boffins and Bagginses- that's the same sense you get from Wallace and Gromit. These two characters are crackers, they are mad, their lives revolve around inventions, cheese (particularly Wensleydale) and tea- but in some sense they are the essense of the whole of Western civilisation. Civilisation isn't just Michelangelo and Machiavelli, its Wallace and his efforts to get to the moon, its loving Wensleydale and its a dog knitting in a chair and rats with shades over their eyes, its merry eccentricity which is a value all to itself. The absurdity of life is in many ways its essence- when we talk about freedom often we lose sight of the fact that freedom isn't just a political issue- its a personal issue as well. Put simply in a totalitarian state like North Korea, you can't live a life based on Wensleydale and tea- you can't just decide to build a rocket to go to the moon (theoretically you could in the West) and you can't be madly, loveably, endeeringly and frustratingly often eccentric.

That's the reason its important to be free- its so Wallaces and Gromits continue to flourish in our society.

The Blue Wave Falls Short

Here in the south east of France we remain as blue as blue can be (see post a week ago), with every single Alpes Maritimes constituency being UMP (or ally) and every one in the Var too, as well as one of the two in the inland Alpes de Haute Provence department. Unforunately for President Sloshko elsewhere in France his blue wave fell somewhat shorter and so, although the UMP did retain a comfortable margin of victory (314 UMP seats plus about 32 allies out of 577 total), it wasn't the 400-500 seat blowout that looked possible a week ago. Indeed the Socialists gained some 50 seats compared to their results in 2002, which makes them the winners in terms of swing - but not the real winners because they still fell 100 seats short of the numbers required for a majority.

The excellent news though is that convicted crook, pal of Chirac and former PM, Alain Juppé, who was appointed as a minister by Sloshko, failed to win his seat nad has resigned from the cabinet. This news goes hand in hand with the fact that Chirac is now no longer immune from prosecution so Inspecteur Knackeur should be knokcing on his door any day now to ask him to answer a few questions.

Back to the elections. Why did Sarko's blue wave fall short? Well there are a bunch of reasons from low turnout to a generally pronounced belief that a few checks and balances are a good thing that may have helped but the most likely reason is that the economy minister opened his mouth last week and said that he'll probably have to raise VAT to balance the books since Sarko has stated he wishes to reduce income tax and social charges to make it less expensive to employ people. Sarko did his best at damage control after his return from EU diplomacy in Poland but it looks like it wasn't enough.

On the other hand though Sarko looks like he will find it easier to maneover during the summer as the Socialists have now officially formed a circular firing squad. Sego has stated that she has split up with her non-hubby François Hollande (there was some argument about who should wear the skirt in the relationship apparently) and all the "elephants" of the socialist party are now joining in the fray to declare that had only the socialists followed their advice they would have won. So, since Sarko will face little or no sane criticism by opposition politicians, the opposition is likely to come from the loony fringe and Sarko is sure to welcome that as being proof that he is right.

I should note that, despite my posts during the campaign in favour of Sarko, I agree with the dissident frogman that comparisons between him and Thatcher or Reagan are overstated. Comparisons between him and Bush (either) are probably fairly accurate though, although I suspect Sarko is smarter, less loyal and more devious than either Bush. In fact the closest anglo-saxon political figures that Sarko resembles are probably Pres W Clinton and PM A Blair... The reason why I was so strongly in favour of Sarko compared to Bayrou or Sego was that the latter two were destined to lead France to total destruction in a short time, Sarko may manage to turn things around and may be the enabler that lets a real French Thatcher or Reagan appear.

(X-posted at my own blog)

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Return of the Strap and Cane?


This has got to be a subject that James would have strong opinions on as a former Headmaster.

Ever one with a strong opinion, given his religious training and previous job as a Priest, Australian Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, has weighed in in favour of the whack of the leather and the crash of the cane in restoring discipline to out of control teens in Australia's schools. Several high profile cases of violence have been shown on television and on YouTube and in an election year, it is obligatory that politicians comment on the issues of the day.

I strongly doubt that it will make the slightest bit of difference.

My own personal experience was that the teachers who were respected hardly ever had to use corporal punishment in the classroom. The one's who used it most were either ineffective or very permissive teachers.

My brother, had the record for his year for the number of times he was belted in class. It was like a badge of courage as he took it to the teachers. He actually had a collection of belts at home, taken from teachers drawers, prior to baiting them to belt him. I on the other hand was the quiet type and only got belted twice, once for chewing gum in class and another for a minor incident that four people, including myself were held collectively responsible for.

In neither case did the presence of corporal punishment make the slightest difference to behaviour. In fact for my brother, it was likely a motivation.

I think you have to look to families to make a difference. It seems that this responsibility is being abdicated by many, leading to disrespectful behaviour in the classroom.

The other alternative may be to go to stronger measures as suggested in the photograph.

This is an edited version of the original post on my blog Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe.

Just looking around

Thought I'd look around the place for abit, maybe put some new windows over there or whatnot.

Happy Father's day out there to all the dads.

Hello?

I thought I was guest blogger. Strange here, not what I am used to at all.

The Price of Oil

L'Ombre de l'Olivier writes of the real reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union and is our first guest blogger:

Excellent SF writer Charlie Stross has a post where, inter alia, he links to a fascinating paper by Yegor Gaider (former PM of Russia) on the reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed. It is well worth reading in its entirety but I'll summarize it as:
  1. The collectivization of Soviet agriculture meant the Soviet Union could not feed itself
  2. To buy food it needed hard currency
  3. Hard currency was available by selling oil
  4. Unfortunately in the mid 1980s Saudi Arabia decided to drastically increase production and thereby wrecked the sums of the Kremlin and left them in a total mess. The Saudis did this because they perceived that as the best way to stop the Russians gaining more influence on the Arab world and as revenge in part for Afghanistan.
  5. The Kremlin tried to borrow money from international banks but in about 1989 the banks decided the Kremlin was a bad credit risk
Thereafter the Kremlin got money with lots of strings (e.g. about not using force in E Europe) that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. This story doesn't mention the "Reagan outspend the military" idea that many Americans are keen on but it doesn't matter directly as indirectly, that idea is true. The Americans made it clear that military attempts to get at more food (or control of oil wells) wouldn't work hence non-military means had to be used. And non-military means meant loans that would be cancelled if the Kremlin did things the bankers didn't like. QED.

There are a bunch of lessons that can be drawn from this. One is that if we in the "West" want to kill Islamic fundamentalism, dictatorial totalitarianism and the like probably the best thing we can do is find an alternative energy source that is as cheap as oil and which we can produce ourselves. Another is that a country that can't feed itself is dreadfully vulnerable.

(This post also appears at my own blog l'Ombre de l'Olivier )

[alan johnston] j'espère aussi qu'il sera libéré

Alan Johnston, enlevé à Gaza le 12 mars, pourrait être libéré dans les prochaines heures.

"J'espère qu'Alan Johnston sera libéré dans les prochaines heures si Dieu le veut", a déclaré le représentant du Hamas à Téhéran, Abou Ossama Al-Motti, dimanche matin. "Il sera libéré. S'il veut rester à Gaza il sera notre invité mais s'il veut partir pour la Grande-Bretagne, il pourra le faire", a-t-il ajouté.

Alan Johnston, correspondant de la BBC à Gaza, a disparu depuis le 12 mars. Il était apparu en bonne santé dans une vidéo diffusée le 1er juin par le groupe Armée de l’Islam, qui avait revendiqué son enlèvement dans un enregistrement sonore le 9 mai.

[people quiz] ten names from history

1] Born at at Braunau am Inn, surname possibly Schicklgruber, 173 cm tall, twice decorated for bravery in war, painted in his early years, spoke positively of his Christian heritage.

2] Named Mortenson, signed by The Blue Book modeling agency, appeared in in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!, said: "Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer."

3] Pioneered Satyagraha , urged disobedience of the salt tax, could not stomach his English landlady's mutton and cabbage, killed by Nathuram Godse .

4] Known as "El Dragón" , born in the parish of Crowndale, one of the first slave traders, died of dysenterya major east-west road in Marin County, California is named after him.

5] He was a silversmith, developed an intelligence and alarm system, worked for the Committee of Public Safety, participated in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition, later opened a opened a hardware and home goods store.

6] Known for her politically incorrect behaviour, she won eight Olympic medals, including five golds, and six Commonwealth Games gold medals, winning gold for the same event at three successive Olympics, was alleged to have climbed a flagpole in the Emperor Hirohito’s palace, taking the Olympic flag.

7] She stands at 1.66m (5'4) and weighs 48kg (106lbs), many coaches did not like her because they thought that she was too "heavy" and "ugly", one of the most decorated gymnasts in history, dropped her hoop in Sydney in 2000 and lost gold.

8] Had a lifelong association with the Victor Talking-Machine Company, made millions of dollars, was present at the San Francisco earthquake, is pictured wearing a bedsheet, draped like a toga, in his first publicity photograph because his only shirt was in the laundry.

9] Is the author or editor of fourteen political books, appeared on Sunday Service on BBC Radio Five Live, educated at Ashdon County Primary School, spent a year teaching English at the Gymnasium Besigheim, was nursing assistant at the Werner Wicker Klink in West Germany, sold his bookshop, pioneered a new form of media.

10] Married her second cousin, powerful enough to eliminate anyone who was a potential threat, had a brothel under an assumed name and organised orgies for upper class women, won an all night competition with a prostitute.

Answers here

[debt economy] and unbridled acquisitiveness

The Age leads today's edition with a photo of a luxury yacht and the caption:

Billionaire says week-long wedding party on Cote d'Azur "nothing lavish".

Beside this - the main headline announces:

Debt crisis forces mass super raid [meaning superannuation]

And the opening paragraphs:

Tens of thousands of Australian families are being forced to raid their superannuation savings to pay off crippling personal debts. Since 2001, the amount of money taken from superannuation accounts to pay off debt has quadrupled.

It is also possible to have money released from a superannuation account to prevent foreclosure of a mortgage or the exercise of a power of sale over a principal place of residence.

Forgive me but two things immediately strike the eye:

1] The problem itself;

2] The sheer gall of the newspaper running the photo and caption beside that particular lead story. It is as akin to running an airline disaster movie on a flight. It's a disgrace and the sub-editors would have been horsewhipped years ago.

As for the problem itself, one wonders, you know. One really wonders if we're so far into this madness now that we can neither see what we're doing nor wish to discuss it. There have been four major pro-active moves going on in the west since the end of the last world war:

1] The weaning of the citizenry, by the financial institutions, off "live within your means" and onto the debt economy;

2] With the nexus between unit cost and wages now broken, via the mechanism of credit, prices are now free to soar to levels where the only way to purchase anything substantial is to go into hock for it, thereby turning the finncial insitutions into mother pigs and us into little piglets;

3] The fuelling of acquisitiveness. I am no socialist but still one must give the nod to R.H.Tawney, who wrote The Acquisitive Society [1961] in which he understood the dynamics of a society mad for ever escalating personal riches.

4] At the same time:

He [Tawney] was deeply opposed to centralization and saw the problems of an over-concentration of power in the hands of the national state. He was critical, for example, of the support of many socialists in the 1920s and 1930s for the 'Police collectivism' of Russia.

In other words, statism and the wresting of the mechanisms of real power from the citizenry into the hands of a self-perpetuationg elite, masquerading as elected leaders. Was John F Kennedy an accident? Was he heck. Is pre-selection a free rising to the top of the most meritorious? Is it heck.

5] The systematic suppression of Christianity and the Christian ethic by:

a. the rise of anti-christians like Swaggart and the like as its most vocal spokespeople;

b. the relativism and non-action of supposed church leaders - Ramsay, O'Connor and the like, along with the church in Russia, failing to take firm stands, as they are charged to do by their office and instead relegating Christianity to the Sunday "comfort zone" and leaving the moreal crusading to people like John Howard, PM of Australia;

c. weaning people onto the god of acquisitiveness and replacing chapels of G-d with chapels of tat, i.e. smooth tiled and glitzy shopping emporia;

d. the progressive stacking of the education and legal system with morally and religiously relative humanists in key strategic positions, in order to influence policy and take decisions with reference only to similar thinking people;

e. with people's attention effectively distracted and an apathetic malaise in its place, the real attack can take place [take your pick which article to peruse].

The suppression of the "Calvinistic" work ethic and notions of fair pay for a fair day's work, living within one's means, caring for our fellow man, the offering of atonement and redemption, the need to place limits and perspective on our desires, the intolerance of deviance, the championing of the family as the key unit of society - all of these require suppression in order for the new system to work.

6] With all that hard work done, with the people now defenceless and at the mercy of the ruling elite financial cabals, the new feudalism can begin - the increasing Statism, the removal, step by step, of citizens' rights, the re-ordering of the means of economic interaction even down to removal of coinage and its replacement by electronic buying and selling, controlled from centres in the hands of the financial institutions, the replacement of real money on a gold standard with fiat money [Roosevelt was the most to blame for this] and the inexorable move towards the next crash.

The Fed is in the hands of the Morganistic cabals, interest rates are in their hands, personal debt is in their hands, political power is effectively in their hands and the only people who even get a sniff of power are of a certain type.

Call it the Twelve True Fishermen, call it the Skull and Bones, call it what you will. The manifestations metamorphose and reappear in diferent forms but the vermin at the top remain the same - men and women like Tony and Cherie Blair who sold their souls early to be allowed a shot at grasping the Main Chance - these are only victims, almost as much as the very people they're oppressing on behalf of their masters.

The new feudalism is here, the era of the police state - and men and women like ourselves are doing absolutely nothing to stop it, outside of the blogosphere and in one or two other places. And yet even the blogosphere is like an old man in the corner, muttering indistinctly to himself and not hurting anyone.

And yet there's hope - the MSM and its controllers are certainly paying great attention to one of the last media to be suppressed [around 2012, on the grounds of national security].

Trouble is, there are no free lunches and never ever have been.

Let's all get out of the debt economy, live within our means, rediscover our spiritual roots and then the whole world of the people driving this destructive process ever onward and downward will collapse. The fuel of greed and personal acquisitiveness on which the New Feudalism depends will simply evaporate and the calls for war and the state of emergency will never eventuate.

Cassandra, at the Lighthouse, has approached this issue from another direction but we've both ended up in the same place.