Category: Society

An entry over at the WorldChanging blog draws my attention to the work of two Dutch documentary makers: Eric van den Broek and Katarina Rejger. They have used the medium of videoletters to put people driven apart by the war in former Yugoslavia back in touch with each other. The results are heartrending to watch.

Something interesting happened today in my brain when I read a blog entry over at Feministe. The entry was about Poise Pro-choice Messenger bags. Now the first thing I saw was the photograph in the blog entry, with its arresting symbol – a coathanger framed in the universal "prohibited" symbol (a red circle bisected with a single red line – see below).

When I saw that, I immediately thought it was a reference to Mommie Dearest – "No…wire…hangers!". Oops, wrong – slap wrist – stop being camp. It is in fact a symbol for the pro-choice movement. So then I had a moment of being deliciously confused over whether to laugh or be serious. That’s the trouble with semiotics – most of the time we bring our own cultural baggage that gets in the way of the pure reading of the word.

By the way, this is a remarkable meeting. I think that that particular three-year old is going to turn out just fine.

The Global Footprint Network and World Wildlife Foundation has published a report: "Europe 2005: The Ecological Footprint".

The report shows that the European Union uses 20 per cent of what the world’s ecosystems provide in terms of fibres, food, energy, and waste absorption. Yet Europe is home to only 7 per cent of the world population. Europe’s demand on the planet has risen by almost 70 per cent since 1961.

But of course, our American cousins do it so much bigger and better, so indubitably they will be proud of the fact that they are fucking up the planet so much faster than old Europe…

A Romanian nun has died after being bound to a cross, gagged and left alone for three days in a cold room in a convent. According to the priest:

"God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil"

He also helpfully added:

"I don’t understand why journalists are making such a fuss about this. Exorcism is a common practise in the heart of the Romanian Orthodox church and my methods are not at all unknown to other priests"

Reminder to self: don’t visit any monasteries in Romania.

PZ Meyers, the intelligence behind the Pharyngula blog, has done it again with a sly, metaphorical take on our need for fairytales. Read the Planet of the Hats to see what I mean. I’m proud to be hatless!

At the moment, if you travel around The Netherlands, you will see a lot of houses that are flying the Dutch flag, and hanging from the flagpole will be a school bag, or a backpack. This is the sign that in the house lives a schoolchild who has just successfully passed their last set of school exams.

In the group of eight houses where we live, two houses are flying the symbol. It’s also usually an excuse for a party, so last night Martin and I joined the rest of the neighbours for two parties. My head this morning was a little the worse for wear.

On a more serious note, go and read Trey’s autobiographical story over at his web site: Daddy, Papa and Me. At least he has survived – I can only hope that Zach manages to do the same.

One of the things about surfing the Internet for inspiration for the Blog is not: how difficult it is, but: how difficult it is to keep one’s nose above the slime.

So before I become too depressed about the human condition, let me give you a link that made me breathe a little easier. No, it’s not great art. No, it won’t change your life. No, it is not injurious to your health or addictive. No, it won’t pay the bills or make you more attractive to the sex that you wish to be attracted to. But, ladies and gentlemen, there’s something here about an obsession about an aspect of our existence that is sooo human.

I give you: Lacing Shoes.

Thank you, Ian for allowing me to rest awhile before returning to the never-ending tide of human dross. All I need now is a blast from Beethoven, and I’ll be as right as rain (and that’s not singing in it – at least not in that sense, Alex).

…and presumably neither can Spanish cardinals and archbishops, who hope that up to half a million demonstrators will join them tomorrow to protest against the introduction of same-sex marriage in Spain.  

UK Students, aged 13-16, were asked to name a famous scientist in an online survey carried out by an examination board. Depressingly, only two out of nearly 1,000 students managed to name a living scientist, and even then it was the highly suspect David Bellamy. 

Bizarrely, other students cited Madonna – please tell me that was a teenage joke?

The Guardian carries a full report on the survey.

Echidne of the Snakes writes about life. I empathise totally with how she feels, and her philosophy of how to live one’s life. Go and read it, and think about how you can make a difference.

Another post that deserves multiple categories: Science, Politics and Society. I’ve chosen the last, because the impact of the scenarios are likely to be so far-reaching.

Data point one: Interview in today’s Guardian with Lord Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell:

The basic facts of climate change: since the industrial period carbon dioxide levels have risen from 270 parts per million (classical for all previous warm periods) to 379ppm today, and are rising at 2ppm per year. In 10 years’ time they will be at 400ppm; at 500ppm, Greenland’s ice will melt entirely – it’s already receding by 10 metres a year – and the sea level will rise, drowning coastal cities and entirely changing the contours of the earth. Most scientists now agree that unless we stabilise the earth’s atmosphere by 2050, there will be no way to halt the disaster.

Lord Oxburgh: "We have roughly 45 years. And if we start NOW, not in 10 or 15 years’ time, we have a chance of hitting those targets. But we’ve got to start now. We have no time to lose."

Data point two: Peak Oil, Beyond Optimism and Pessimism – article by Jim Hill:

Statistically speaking, I am due to live another 40 years. During that time, I will witness the complete collapse of free-market capitalism. The project of globalisation will fail, and the consumer culture within which recent generations have been raised will end. A massive reduction in living standards, unlike any other readjustment in history, will be experienced by 99% of us living in the industrialised world. A hundred thousand things that we all take for granted today will have ceased to exist by the time I reach my allotted lifespan. This will happen.

(hat tip to Chicken Yoghurt for the pointer)

Data point three: The advisor to the Bush Administration who fiddled with the scientific report on climate change has landed a plum job with ExxonMobil. No surprise there, then.

Why do I get the feeling that, despite the "crisis, what crisis?" mentality of ExxonMobil, climate change and peak oil are the Scylla and Charybdis of the 21st Century?

Marshall Brain has an entertaining and wise tutorial/presentation on how to do it. While I was reading it, I thought his name sounded familiar, and then I realised I had read his book on programming the Motif user interface.

Hat tip to Pale Blue Dot for the pointer to the presentation.

And while I’m having a Victor Meldrew moment, Butterflies and Wheels comments on a recent Polly Toynbee article in the Guardian (Toynbee’s article is here). As Stephen Fry said at the Hay Festival, the words "Respect" and "Offence" are taking on creepy overtones. Respect should be earned, it ain’t automatic.

I’m certainly not going to automatically respect someone who acts on beliefs that are clearly barking, and if they take offense at that, then really, in an adult world, that’s their problem.

I feel another Victor Meldrew moment coming on… Apparently, genealogists want psychotherapy to be made available for people who stumble across unpleasant discoveries while researching their family history, according to a story in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. 

An example of this is provided by Diane Mattinson, 48, an office manager from Bicester, Oxfordshire, who discovered that her great-grandfather, James Phillips, had never married her great-grandmother, Elizabeth.

"It was a bombshell," said Mrs Mattinson. 

Er, excuse me, a bombshell is what happens practically every day in Iraq, and the result is blood and death. Discovering that your great-grandparents weren’t married doesn’t even register on the Richter scale of bombshells. It might cause an ant to stumble, but that’s about it, Diane.

Physical and mental abuse may call for counselling, but genealogy? The world’s going mad, I tell you.

I was wondering today why I blog. I suppose partly it’s because I want to capture something in the stream of life. The modern day equivalent of keeping a diary. But there’s also a bit of vanity going on. I confess that I keep an eagle eye on the statistics of my blog – who’s been looking, or whether anyone has left a comment.

Frankly, and in the long run, who gives a toss? It’s really not important.

I got started on this thought by reading Tom Reynolds’ entry today, talking about his reaction to attending the recent Reboot conference. He writes:

‘A-Listers’ are A-listers for a reason.

Determination, focus, and the ability to prioritise people into those of value, and those not of value.

At first I thought people were being rude to me.  Nothing explicit, just that while I was talking to them they seemed to be ‘elsewhere’, always casting their eyes around looking for other people to talk to.

But they aren’t being rude – they are being direct to the point of being abrupt.  While I might happily chat away about random subjects with someone I’ve just met, for however long the conversation lasts – ‘A-Listers’ seem to evaluate whether you have anything important to say, anything that they can use to advance their own career or if you are a potential ‘customer’. 

If not, then they consider the conversation of little value, and look for something of more value.

He points out that he is not being judgemental about this, merely acknowledging that some folks do this and he (and, I think, I) do not. It’s that "people who are of value and people who are not of value" thought that makes me feel hollow inside. It’s the "I was only following orders" thought – the cry of man’s inhumanity to man down the ages.

But then I thought of what it is that Tom does for a living, and I thought that I would far rather listen to him than 99% of the A-listers prattling on about the latest gee-whizzery that appeals to their jaded senses. Tom, you make me think about life, and how people behave towards people.

PZ Meyers over at the Pharyngula blog has a sample of the transcripts of the recent hearings at the Kansas State of Education. In case you’d forgotten, this is where a variety of "expert" witnesses attempted to make the case for Intelligent Design to be taught in the schools in Kansas.

The transcripts make sad, sad reading. However, while Meyers feels that the transcripts amply illlustrate the depths of stupidity of IDiots, I feel that one should never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups (I even have a T-shirt bearing that very slogan). This skirmish in Kansas will not be the last. The Demon-Haunted World grows ever stronger, and the candle of Science may yet gutter before the forces of superstition and ignorance that seem to be growing in the US at the moment.

Today it’s our 7th wedding anniversary (although we’ve been together for 21 years). Time flies, I can’t believe that it was seven years ago that we were standing together in the Trouwzaal (Wedding Hall) of the Stadhuis (Townhall) in Gouda, saying "Yes!"

Majikthise posts a disturbing entry on her blog about Zack. He is a 16 year old living in Tennessee who recently came out to his parents as gay. Their reaction has not been one of support, but to send him to a place called Refuge, a Christian programme centre that promises to turn gay children straight.

Zack’s own blog entries are pretty heart-rending, the one lifeline that he has had is his blog and the messages of support that he has been getting via the blogsphere. But against that is the physical fact of his parents and his current incarceration (I can think of no other term for it) in a brainwashing centre. The rules of Refuge make sad, sick reading.

I’ve said before that I feel fortunate to be living where and when I do. It is still disturbing to realise that the "where" is just as important as the "when". This may be the 21st Century, but some people in the USA are still living in the mindset of the 1690s – the days of the Salem witchtrials.

A combination of H. P. Lovecraft, Samuel Delany and David Bowie (Changes), this is amazing. Brings it all back to me, the nights on Hampstead Heath in the early 1970s…