Twenty-Something

Well, that's my birthdays sorted for the next thousand years...!

2008-04-22T12:02:00.003+01:00

US Army Robot Suits Tested

If enough of you club together, you could all get me one, right? Pretty please? I promise I'll fight crime on my day off...

Giant Steps

2008-04-12T18:25:00.006+01:00

Rumour has it that someone once transcribed one of Coltrane's solos and presented him with it. When asked to play it, Coltrane said he couldn't - it was too difficult. That may or may not be true, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Musicians On Call

2008-04-12T14:02:00.007+01:00

Ever heard a song on the radio that's just made you smile? Ever had a piece of music remind you of a friend or loved one? Ever been moved to tears by a melody?

Musicians On Call, a nonprofit organization formed in 1999, brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities. Musicians On Call uses music to promote and complement the healing process for patients, families and caregivers.

Musicians On Call was originally founded by Michael Solomon and Vivek Tiwary in the course of their volunteer work with The Kristen Ann Carr Fund at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

After a concert sponsored by the Kristen Ann Carr Fund, a hospital staff member raised the issue that some of the patients had been unable to attend the performance either because they were in treatment or too sick to leave their rooms. In response, Michael, Vivek and the musician went from room to room to play for those patients who had been unable to attend the concert. The one-on-one interaction of patient and musician created a crucial intimacy; the expressions on the faces of friends and family members at the patients' bedsides revealed a deep sense of connection and release. Musicians On Call was born!

Unfortunately Musicians On Call currently only operates in the United States, and the Republic of Ireland. In the UK, Radio 3 ran a similar scheme for a brief period, but to my knowledge there's nothing in place right now.

If you want to make a donation, follow the links on the main Musicians On Call website. If you'd like to show your support at the same time, t-shirts can be purchased here. All takings above base costs will go directly to support the Musicians On Call program.

Where y'all at?

2008-04-11T11:08:00.003+01:00

And other such attempts to be cool and "down with the kids". In all seriousness though...

This blog gets hits from all over the world (following some quite disturbing searches on Google, I have to say!) but hardly anyone ever comments. How come?

Burn, baby, burn. Or not, as the case may be.

2008-04-09T09:56:00.005+01:00

So the Olypmic Flame was extinguished at least five times whilst being paraded through Paris, so as to allow its transportation via bus amidst protests against Chinese foreign policy. This has caused outrage. Why?

The Olympic Flame was never actually extinguished. At all points during the relay there is a back-up of the flame, carried in what I can only assume is some kind of windproof lantern. This is used to keep the flame overnight and whilst it is being transported on airplanes, and is taken from the original ceremonial flame at Olympia. It is therefore quite common for the flame that is carried in the torch to be extinguished, but the Olympic Flame never is.

Paula Radcliffe is an athlete who, as a sometime runner myself, I have enormous respect for in most cases. She's a phenomenal long distance runner, and does a lot of work promoting sport and healthy living.

"A peaceful protest on the sidelines - fine. But don't try to stop the torch, because the torch is about more than the Beijing Olympics. It's about the Olympic spirit and the importance of the Olympics in teaching youth, and teaching the world, what sport can do - how sport can bring people together, how it can overcome suffering, how it has overcome even wars in the past. It's a very powerful thing, and trying to stop the torch was trying to stop that message, so that was wrong." - BBC News

I agree with her point about the Olympic spirit, but the torch is not about the Olympic spirit. The relay was introduced in at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister for Public Enlightenment and Proaganda. Captured in Leni Riefenstahl's film 'Olympia', this was an attempt to glorify the Third Reich - the link with the ancient Games was the perfect way to illustrate Hitler's belief that classical Greece was a fore-runner to the Nazi regime.

Even if the relay was not a relic from a totalitarian regime with an horrific human rights record, and the Flame did symbolise what Paula Radcliffe claims it does, which I accept for some people is now the case - it is at the end of the day simply a symbol. Human rights abuses are real, and if disrupting the progress of the Olympic Flame draws even a little bit of extra attention to what is taking place, then that can only be a good thing, surely?

Never smile at a paedophile

2008-04-04T12:11:00.006+01:00

Sex offenders face website ban

So the e-mail addresses of sex offenders are to be passed to networking sites like Facebook and Bebo, in an effort to stop paedophiles contacting children. Any paedophile found guilty of not registering their e-mail address, or giving a false one, will face up to five years in prison.

Now. Sex crimes involving children already carry a pretty hefty penalty. Possession of pornographic images of children does too. Guess what? It's not acted as a deterrant... Any paedophile is just going to set up a hotmail account or similar and take his or her chances with the law. The great majority of criminals are, I have no doubt, perfectly aware that they are breaking the law, and do so anyway. This will be no different.

A slightly more effective means of managing this would be to (ignoring the legal implications, which I'll touch upon briefly later) block the paedophile's IP address. This would not, admittedly, prevent them from accessing the sites on public computers at libraries, for instance, but then neither would registering an e-mail address.

On to the legal stuff (as I said, briefly, as I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure the far more legally minded brother-in-law will post a comment before too long!). Facebook and MySpace are both actually based in California, which is obviously outside of UK jurisdiction. Whilst the UK can ask them to comply, there can be no actual legal enforcement, so far as I understand it. This also raises issues of censorship on the internet: China would, I'm sure, very much like us to comply with their laws with regards to what they consider subversive information and have, as was reasonably well publicised here, managed to have some success with this. It met with fierce opposition though (myself included). Whilst it is, of course, incredibly important to protect our children and ensure their safety at all times, this is still an example of one country asking another country to aid it in limiting the information that certain citizens have access to. The internet by its very nature is next to impossible to police, and that is a double edged sword, as I'm sure we can all understand.

I think it's extremely interesting that the viewpoint appears to be that children have an almost God-given right to use these networking sites. I wasn't allowed to use the internet unsupervised when I was younger, for exactly this reason, amongst others. I was at least 16 before that was allowed. Why are children as young as 8 being allowed to use Facebook? What need do they have for that? Most of my Facebook usage, and most of that of my friends too, revolves around keeping in touch with people who have moved away, and embarassing the hell out of each other with photos from nights out on the ale. Neither of these are things that the average 8 year old will be doing! Therefore, if you want to protect your children from being groomed online by paedophiles, the answer is simple: don't let them use chat rooms or social networking sites. If you absolutely must, make sure they are supervised at all times.

Donald Findlater, from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, does make a very good point at the end of that BBC News report: paedophiles need to be encouraged to live as normal, or as good, a life as possible. Preventing them from having contact with "normal" adults (though, what is "normal"?), through networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, may actually compound the issue, making them more likely to reoffend.

It's an issue that's going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with effectively. I don't see this latest proposal as being one that will work though.

Pupils "to take allegiance oath"

2008-03-13T08:51:00.005Z

A report commissioned by Gordon Brown on the subject of British Citizenship says that school leavers should be encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to Queen and country. This will, claims the report's author, ex-attorney general Lord Goldsmith, give teenagers a sense of belonging. Those who volunteer to do so may receive council tax and student fee rebates, as well as a "Britishness" public holiday. Welsh Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones has already stated that he doesn't think it's appropriate, as has a Scottish Government spokesperson.

Lord Goldsmith believes that these ceremonies would help improve teenagers' sense of what it means to be a British Citizen, and has stressed that he cannot see why Republicans would not want to swear an oath, even though they may not believe in the present system of government. I would say that it's fairly obvious why a Republican would not want to swear an oath of allegiance to the Monarch... The clue is in the fact that they are a Republican. Also, if they did swear an "oath" of allegiance it would not be worth the metaphorical paper it was written on - there's no allegiance there if they are working towards the removal of the Monarchy. Thus, the oath would be a pointless exercise.

Offering a bribe to take the oath also has dubious ethical connotations. If a reduction in student fees is offered, for example, what pressures may be put on a teenager by their parents to take the oath so as to reduce the enormous and potentially unmanageable costs of a university education? Even if no pressure is put on the teenager by their parents to do this, how would the teenager feel about refusing to do something that may save their parents a considerable sum of money? For example, whilst I took a part time job whilst at university and paid rent to my parents (I lived at home as an undergraduate) my father supported me significantly whilst I was studying, paying my course fees. Whilst I am sure he would not have pressured me into taking such an oath had it existed at the time, I would have felt extremely guilty refusing to take it on principal. I was also fortunate in that my parents could afford to help me get a university education. For many teenagers their only chance of being able to afford such a thing may be to take this oath, and that puts them in a very difficult position. Incidentally, if the government can afford to provide a rebate to anyone who takes this oath (potentially the whole of one generation) then they can afford to do it regardless. Why have they not reduced the cost of a university education full stop?

It seems to me that this is just another poorly thought out scheme that won't actually achieve anything close to what those involved would like us to believe it will. People are not going to have any greater sense of citizenship through the swearing of an oath - this needs to be taught in the classroom. In fact, the very act of encouraging people to swear an oath of allegiance is somewhat undemocratic... Also, given the way that the welfare state is abused at the moment, what makes the government think that people won't abuse the Citizenship Oath just to see some financial benefit?

GodHatesIgnorantAntiSemiticRacistHomophobicNutjobs.com

2008-02-15T09:03:00.014Z

Westboro Baptist Church. So much I could write. So little time...

Where to begin? WBC is a fundamentalist religious organisation, based in Topeka, Kansas, part of the so-called Bible-belt of the United States. It's headed by Pastor Fred Phelps, a disbarred lawyer. They are behind such websites as GodHatesFags.com, preaching hatred towards homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender people, as well as Jews, Roman Catholics, and Muslims, and condemning those countries it sees as supporting the aforementioned groups (Great Britain, America, Sweden etc). They are renowned for picketing the funerals of homosexuals who have been victims of hate crimes or died of AIDS. They have also been known to picket stores selling Swedish vacuum cleaners (whilst being filmed by Louis Theroux!) because the Swedish government had recently imprisoned a pastor for preaching against homosexuality, and also the funerals of American soldiers, since they believe the death of these soldiers to be God's way of punishing America, and that the soldiers only joined the military because they were "lazy, incompetent idiots" who could not find other work. Nice guys, I'm sure you'll all agree.

There's so much that could be written about this bunch of crazies that I'm not even going to attempt it all in one go. Instead, I'm going to tackle one particular area:- Westboro Baptist Church and the use of the word "Nazi".

On the subject of extremist organisations such as the KKK, their FAQ states:

"We don't believe in physical violence of any kind, and the Scripture doesn't support racism... The only true Nazis in this world are fags."

Wrong! Sorry sunshine - even for the moment ignoring what he's trying to say, he's plain incorrect. The only true Nazis are those who were members of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei which was active in Germany between 1933 and 1945. That's where the word comes from - it's shorthand. Other groups may be referred to as neo-Nazi, but not actually Nazi.

Moving on to the fact that he's actually trying to label homosexuals as Nazis. What an amazingly ill-informed comment. Homosexuals were persecuted under the Nazi Party (despite several members of the Party, for example Ernst Röhm, being openly homosexual). Approximately 100,000 were arrested after Hitler became Chancellor, with an estimated 50,000 being sent to concentration camps. Of that number, between 5,000 and 15,000 are believed to have died. Whilst in camps, homosexual men were forced to wear an inverted pink triangle so that they could be easily identified, much like the yellow star of David worn by the Jews.

Phelps goes on to refer to the Holocaust as "miniscule" and in 1996 led a protest at the United States Holocaust Memorial in Washington D.C., stating:

"Whatever righteous cause the Jewish victims of the 1930s-40s Nazi Holocaust had... has been drowned in sodomite semen. American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed and to filthy fag lust. Homosexuals and Jews dominated Nazi Germany.... The Jews now wander the earth despised, smitten with moral and spiritual blindness by a divine judicial stroke.... And God has smitten Jews with a certain unique madness... Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda... Jews are the real Nazis."

Now, once again, this is completely ridiculous. Yes, a number of prominent Nazis were homosexual, as mentioned above. Yes, certain prominent Nazis even had Jewish roots. However, the Nazi Party systematically exterminated European Jews.

It gets better:

"Fag Jew Nazis are worse than ordinary Nazis. They've had more experience."

WBC don't seem to understand what a Nazi actually is, and they don't seem to care. Essentially, everyone who isn't them is a Nazi, yet their beliefs (anti-semitism, anti-catholicism, anti-homosexuality etc) are strikingly similar in parts to those of the Nazi party.

So what conclusions can we draw from this? It would appear that if you're not a racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, ill-informed biggot then you're a Nazi, so far as the Westboro Baptist Church is concerned. Well then, by that definition and that definition alone, I'm proud to be a Nazi.

Disclaimer:- If anyone has read that and completely missed the point of what I was saying, let me make it perfectly clear that I am not, in fact, a Nazi sympathiser, nor do I subscribe to any extreme right wing viewpoints. I am strongly opposed to such groups.

Wonderland: The End Of The World Bus Tour

2008-02-14T09:08:00.005Z

If you didn't manage to catch this on BBC2 last night, I strongly suggest you try and find it on iPlayer or something similar.

"Documentary series about everyday dramas. Sharon is leading a group of tourists who believe the Apocalypse is due in a few years. Her customers are going to Israel to take a last look at the valley of Armageddon before it is awash with the blood of unbelievers. They will be baptised and will spend a day helping out at an Israeli military base. As the passengers relate their beliefs, some of which seem to have come straight out of science fiction, they clamour to rescue the film makers' souls."

The program started off innocent enough. A group of people, with more faith than most, had decided to take a package tour to the Holy Land, as they believe that the Rapture will soon be upon them. They also wanted to be baptised in the Jordan, which I can understand would be important to someone of the Christian faith. I didn't quite understand the reason for helping out on the Israeli military base until later in the program.

The more these people were interviewed, the more unnerving I found the whole thing. Initially I was simply taken aback by the depth of their faith - for one who doesn't have that kind of unquestioning belief in a higher power, it was fascinating in the truest sense of the word. What became scary was the way in which some of these people talked about unbelievers, and particulary Muslims.

When questioned by the interviewer about life after death, one of the travellers, an 18 year old college student from Britain, had this to say (I paraphrase at this point): "Let's just say that, when we die, it turns out that you're right. There is no God. We've both been good people, so that's fine. If, on the other hand, I'm right, I get to sit forever in God's presence, whereas you will burn in hell for all eternity." The sheer relish and venom with which she said this was extremely worrying. It also seemed false, in a sense, because of the self serving nature of what she was saying. She had "chosen" to believe because of what it could offer her, almost like a business decision. Her attitude made me question how much she truly believed what she was saying - it seemed more like she was hedging her bets.

Another case was that of an American woman, who felt that all Muslims were evil. Full stop. That the Palestinians deserved everything that was happening to them, as it was a punishment from God, and that all they had to do was "believe". At this point she was almost begging Muslims the world over to convert to Christianity, to save themselves. Again, the venom in her voice when talking about Muslims was quite disturbing.

I think I'm trying to make a point about religious fundamentalism. A great deal is said about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the UK, and abroad. The same demonisation does not occur with Christian fundamentalism. There are members of the Christian Right in America (and, it would seem, in Britain too - albeit maybe less vocal) who scare me just as much as Al Qaeda. Christian fundamentalism seems to have the reputation for being "ok" because it's "ours". These hardline Christians are scared of Johnny Foreigner and his religious practices, but don't see the extremism in their own views. This is not the Christianity that I was brought up on. This is a bizarre fundamentalist perversion, the likes of which probably haven't been seen in the West since the days of the Spanish Inquisition.

Extremism needs to be dealt with, in whatever form it presents itself. We need to get our own house in order - it's one thing to say that we need to tackle Islamic fundamentalism, but we can't allow Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or any other kind of fundamentalism and extremism to take hold either.

Sharia law

2008-02-08T14:17:00.000Z

Sharia comments trigger criticism This report has caused me to have a raging argument with myself all morning, and so I'm throwing it out to the rest of the internet to see what happens. Dr Williams says that the idea of there being one law for everyone, regardless of belief, is a dangerous one. I would say that completely the opposite is true: as soon as you introduce a different law for a different social group, then you are discriminating. He goes on to state that, under current English legislation, people may devise a way to settle their dispute in front of an agreed third party, provided both sides agree to the process. I'm sure I'll be corrected soon enough if I'm wrong, but is this not an "out of court settlement"? As a result, can it not only be invoked if the matter is a civil one, not a criminal one? My knowledge of law is poor, to say the least, but I seem to remember something along those lines. The existing Sharia courts and Orthodox Jewish courts apparently fall under this category. If this is the case, then the facility already exists for disputes to be settled under Sharia law as much as is legally permissable, surely? If Muslims are allowed to use Sharia law to govern marriage, divorce, inheritance, custody of children, and so on, what happens when the death penalty is called for? Will the government step in and say "too far" (in which case it's a watered down version of Sharia law) or will they allow the execution, thus effectively re-introducing capital punishment? I believe that one should be aware of, and abide by, the law of the country in which one resides. When my partner lived in Austria, she had to abide by their legal system, and did so. The school teacher involved in the "Mohammed the Teddy Bear" debacle should have been aware of such a key aspect of Muslim faith. It was always going to cause a ruck, particularly within the ranks of fundamentalism. Whether you agree with the law or not, surely it's self preservation to keep within it if at all possible? (I know this is going to open a can of worms, with regards to oppressive regimes and freedom of information, but I'll deal with that in another post at some point) However, this does lead me to the other side of my argument. I do not agree with, for example, capital punishment. I don't agree with discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, perceived caste, etc. All men (and women, at the risk of degenerating into a Monty Python sketch) are created equal, and should have equal rights. I support Amnesty International in their work. If a country has a legal system based upon any or all of those methods, I want to see it changed. Islamic fundamentalists disagree with our legal system, on similar grounds, and therefore I should not be against them campaigning for it to be changed. I suppose it's a similar situation to my feelings about extreme right wing politics. I hate the idea of fascism, yet I do not agree with censoring fascists, as by removing their right to freedom of speech I would descend to their level. I AM NOT COMPARING MUSLISMS TO FASCISTS!!! I am simply showing how the situation is not black and white, much like my feelings about fascist rhetoric. Mulsims have every right to campaign for the introduction of Sharia law. I just don't want to see them succeed. Let the flaming begin!

Remembrance Monday

2008-02-07T11:31:00.000Z

Blog posts are like buses. You wait months for one, then two come along at once...

Whilst idling away the hours at work on Facebook (not because I'm lazy, but because I literally have nothing to do today) I came across this group:

Petition for New Bank Holiday - Remembrance Monday

Oh, where to begin...! 1. To emphasise the remembrance of those servicemen and women who have given, and continue to give, their lives for Britain.

Yes, ok. This one I'll let you have, although it's actually not just for British servicemen and women. However, we shouldn't really need a special day to do this. We have one already, in any case. That's right:- Remembrance Day. 2. To remind people of the importance of protecting our Nation and what it stands for.

This is not what Remembrance Day is about. Remembrance Day is about remembering the veterans, initially of the First World War, but subsequently extended to include all conflicts. It was meant to prevent another war like that of 1914-1918 by remembering the 'lost generation'. It's not a day for chest beating, flag wielding 'Isn't our Nation great, our values are worth defending' patriotism. 3. To break that 3 month period between the August Public Holiday and Christmas when there are currently no long weekends, especially as the UK has fewer public holidays than most European Countries.

This is ridiculous. Admittedly, we have fewer public holidays than most European Countries. However, we should not be using something as important as the Armistice as an excuse to take a day off work and go out and get lashed. That's not what it's about. Is a day of binge drinking showing respect for, and honouring, the fallen? Ok, not everyone does this on a bank holiday, but next time it is a bank holiday, have a look at what carnage does take place in city centres across the country, and you'll maybe see my point.

I am not against honouring the veterans. On the contrary, I think that it's absolutely right and correct that we should do so. However, to quote Manic Street Preachers, "wheeled out once a year; a cenotaph souvenir" is not the way to do it. Getting pissed the following Monday isn't either. We should be remembering the horrendous human cost of war every single day, and doing everything in our power to prevent another one.

Stop with the imperialist foreign policy. Stop sending soldiers to fight illegal, bloody, and drawn out wars. Stop trying to use the dead as an excuse for a pint.

Lack of responsibility

2008-02-06T22:24:00.000Z

It's a while since I've been sufficiently motivated to write a blog post. In fact, it's a while since I've not been too tired to think of anything to say. However... Ban under-age drinking Now, it's not that report itself that got me so annoyed. In fact, it seems fairly reasonable. What angered me was the way the BBC news reported it on television this evening. More children aged 13 are drinking alcohol now than are not!!! Oh no, shock horror. Kids are doing something that they are legally allowed to do. Note, they didn't say that more kids were drinking on the streets and causing trouble. At least, not in the main headlines/soundbites. It was explained, but only buried deeply in the middle of the report. The beginning and the end were pure sensationalism - more children under the age of 13 are drinking alcohol than not. Demonising young people drinking. Provided it is under responsible supervision, there is absolutely nothing illegal or wrong about people under the age of eighteen drinking. My sister and I drank wine, at home, from an early age. My fiancée was allowed to drink at home. We were never into going out, hanging around street corners, and drinking. I used to go out skating a lot with my friends when we were younger, but that's exactly what we did: we skated. Alcohol held no mystery for us, there was nothing illicit or exciting about going out and getting drunk. Even when I did begin going to pubs (underage, I admit) it was because I played guitar at open mic nights. The alcohol was there, yes, but it wasn't the reason for me being there. Drinking under the age of eighteen does not turn you into a beer fueled killing machine who rapes grandmothers. This is really beginning to annoy me about the BBC. I expect scaremongering and sensationalism from tabloid newspapers. Hell, I expect it from the Daily Mail (with a healthy dose of 'blame Johnny Foreigner!' thrown in for good measure). However, from the BBC I would like honest, clear reporting. No sensationalism. As little bias as is actually possible (it's impossible to be completely unbiased). One should question everything one hears and sees - what apparatuses are acting upon one, as a spectator. People don't do this as much as they should. I know I don't - I'm just as guilty as many others. Because people aren't inclined to question things, and want their news like they want their television (rapidly edited short segments, to avoid boredom) it's even more important to have a bastion of responsible reportage. I used to think that the BBC could be trusted to be that. Maybe in some guises it still can be. Apparently, not on television.