Okay. Just watched the Derren Brown's Big Event. Just a couple of thoughts. Firstly. Why was the guy selected sweating like he was being filmed all night by a national audience while behaving like it was a surprise? Second, would your bank allow you to withdraw 5 grand without warning?
Too bad. He lost. I'm sure the guy got to keep his 5 grand, but that is a None Event.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Get this child some lavender, NOW!
While meandering through the lovely district of Holborn, London, I came across the following sign:
Word to the wise. In case of emergency, I beg you to not confuse the two. If your child is suffering from leukemia and you are running late for the latest round of chemotherapy, please, please, please pay full attention. Emergency aromatherapy may make little Johnny more pleasant to sit next to in the car journey home, but it won't help in letting him live long enough to drive you home someday.
Word to the wise. In case of emergency, I beg you to not confuse the two. If your child is suffering from leukemia and you are running late for the latest round of chemotherapy, please, please, please pay full attention. Emergency aromatherapy may make little Johnny more pleasant to sit next to in the car journey home, but it won't help in letting him live long enough to drive you home someday.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Humans 1 - Earth 0
Last year I took a very pleasant vacation in the south of England with my family. Newquay is a glorious and splendid example of everything that makes England great. Every turn produces another picture-postcard image of idyllic Britain.
It was while visiting the harbour that I made this startling discovery; The human race has completely given up on the environment.
That may sound overly dramatic, but I whole heartedly believe it to be true. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are many, many occupants of the blue planet who fight tooth and nail everyday to protect her and all that share her resources with us, but I'm beginning to think this may be an uphill battle that cannot be won.
While gazing out over the harbour towards the crystal clear Atlantic Ocean on a beautiful morning with my daughter, I noticed a seal swimming next to the fishing boats. This is obviously a regular occurrence and the fishermen seemed all too used to the sight. What was startling and frankly very sad about this scene was that, from a neighbouring boat, four guys in their early twenties were pouring lager onto the seal and into the surrounding water. I have no idea what the aim of this action was. Perhaps they were on a stag party and they had to come up with a drunk seal to dress in their mother's clothing in time for the full event that evening. We've all been there. Perhaps one of the guys had a seal fetish and took a shine to the elegant beast, wanting to take it back to Essex as his aquatic bride. I think fewer of us have been there.
Or perhaps they were just idiots, because it wasn't difficult for them to see the impact of their actions. Floating just ten feet away from their trans-species kegger was the body of a lifeless, bloated seal. I couldn't have juxtaposed it better myself.
The point is this. The guys on that boat had absolutely no thought about the impact this process might have beyond the immediate gratification of seeing a drunk seal (side note - the seal was having none of it. She looked more of a Pinot Grigio type and viewed the common brand lager with obvious disdain). I know that, compared with the CO2 emissions of North America, India and China, this event is just a drop in the ocean*, but it is important from the perspective of how difficult it will be to get civilians to change our behavioural patterns and lessen the impact we have each and every day. What chance do we have of getting the guys in the harbour to walk to work or recycle when they won't even desist from attempting to drag marine life back to their own pre-evolutionary level?
Plus, what a waste of beer.
*pun intended
It was while visiting the harbour that I made this startling discovery; The human race has completely given up on the environment.
That may sound overly dramatic, but I whole heartedly believe it to be true. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are many, many occupants of the blue planet who fight tooth and nail everyday to protect her and all that share her resources with us, but I'm beginning to think this may be an uphill battle that cannot be won.
While gazing out over the harbour towards the crystal clear Atlantic Ocean on a beautiful morning with my daughter, I noticed a seal swimming next to the fishing boats. This is obviously a regular occurrence and the fishermen seemed all too used to the sight. What was startling and frankly very sad about this scene was that, from a neighbouring boat, four guys in their early twenties were pouring lager onto the seal and into the surrounding water. I have no idea what the aim of this action was. Perhaps they were on a stag party and they had to come up with a drunk seal to dress in their mother's clothing in time for the full event that evening. We've all been there. Perhaps one of the guys had a seal fetish and took a shine to the elegant beast, wanting to take it back to Essex as his aquatic bride. I think fewer of us have been there.
Or perhaps they were just idiots, because it wasn't difficult for them to see the impact of their actions. Floating just ten feet away from their trans-species kegger was the body of a lifeless, bloated seal. I couldn't have juxtaposed it better myself.
The point is this. The guys on that boat had absolutely no thought about the impact this process might have beyond the immediate gratification of seeing a drunk seal (side note - the seal was having none of it. She looked more of a Pinot Grigio type and viewed the common brand lager with obvious disdain). I know that, compared with the CO2 emissions of North America, India and China, this event is just a drop in the ocean*, but it is important from the perspective of how difficult it will be to get civilians to change our behavioural patterns and lessen the impact we have each and every day. What chance do we have of getting the guys in the harbour to walk to work or recycle when they won't even desist from attempting to drag marine life back to their own pre-evolutionary level?
Plus, what a waste of beer.
*pun intended
The Secular Faith
I am trying to raise my daughter to have faith. Not faith in unproven, existential beings. Not faith that all people are essentially good (I don't believe that to be true and so would have a real problem selling it to Emma as a philosophy). No, I am trying to raise her to have faith that asking questions until you hear an answer that satisfies your curiosity is a worthwhile endeavour. In fact sometimes, asking questions is more important than getting answers. That takes real faith in your convictions.
It is extremely difficult to attempt to instil faith in another living, breathing, pooping human being when the word itself has been commandeered by the non-secular. When I discuss the things I want for my daughter with other friendly, ever so slightly passive- aggressive parents, I am told that developing faith means that I must educate her to believe even without proof and hand over some of my daughter's already well developed sense of inquisition. I don't use the word “poppycock” very often, but that is what that is. What I am trying to nurture is faith in inquisition, faith in method and faith in striving for personal knowledge.
Having lived side-by-side with Evangelical Christianity for the last 30 years, I can say that the belief and behaviour exemplified by the people I know in that community is commendable. I am certainly not anti-religion, but the idea of surrendering Will to a higher power is more than just a little unnerving. Above almost anything else, I would teach Emma to defend her Will vehemently. What I find unsettling is the notion of making a conscious decision to stop asking questions because you are told inversely “not to question faith”. To me, this sounds like a re-hash of the old “because I said so” line of reasoning that proves so popular with parents.
During a bath time this week, I told Emma not to touch the hot water coming out of the tap as it would hurt. Instinctively and, with hindsight obviously, she doesn't take my word for it. She wants to know why Daddy is being so imperious and she wants to know for herself exactly how hot it is. Now, I'm not saying that allowing your offspring to grab the kettle, attempt to iron their face or purposefully trap their hand in the door joint is the way to promote intellectual clarity, but a large part of me is encouraged that she decided to test the water for herself. She had a theory that the water wasn't as hot as Daddy said it was, she developed a method to test that theory, she executed that method and got a conclusive answer (for her post-doctorate she has put forward a theory that hitting Daddy in the testicles with her toy broom doesn't hurt nearly as much as he says it will).
A favourite quote, which I am extremely pleased to crow-bar into this article, is from Albert Einstein, who stated “It's a miracle curiosity survives formal education”. That applies not only to formal schooling, but to all constrained and limited education pathways, be they religious, from the classroom or from derivative parenting learned from Dr Phil or Oprah.
I want to instil in Emma a faith that the fundamental basis of endless questions and limitless answers will one day find a cure for cancer, that the origins of life will discovered and that one day we will discover if the Hokey Pokey is really what it's all about. But none of these things happen purely because she or I have faith that “everything will be okay”. It's because of our faith that people who care will work extremely hard and keep asking extremely difficult questions. I want my daughter to know that, if she has faith in herself and faith in pursuing solutions, she could help make those things happen.
I know that when Emma is 5 I may regret teaching her the value of asking “Why?”. In fact, I've tried to pre-empt that issue by having a house rule that all questions must presented in properly formed sentences. But it would be a much bigger issue in my mind if she didn't ask me anything at all. I have faith that she will keep asking and that I will run out of answers. I just hope then that she will start ask ask someone who knows more than her Father.
It is extremely difficult to attempt to instil faith in another living, breathing, pooping human being when the word itself has been commandeered by the non-secular. When I discuss the things I want for my daughter with other friendly, ever so slightly passive- aggressive parents, I am told that developing faith means that I must educate her to believe even without proof and hand over some of my daughter's already well developed sense of inquisition. I don't use the word “poppycock” very often, but that is what that is. What I am trying to nurture is faith in inquisition, faith in method and faith in striving for personal knowledge.
Having lived side-by-side with Evangelical Christianity for the last 30 years, I can say that the belief and behaviour exemplified by the people I know in that community is commendable. I am certainly not anti-religion, but the idea of surrendering Will to a higher power is more than just a little unnerving. Above almost anything else, I would teach Emma to defend her Will vehemently. What I find unsettling is the notion of making a conscious decision to stop asking questions because you are told inversely “not to question faith”. To me, this sounds like a re-hash of the old “because I said so” line of reasoning that proves so popular with parents.
During a bath time this week, I told Emma not to touch the hot water coming out of the tap as it would hurt. Instinctively and, with hindsight obviously, she doesn't take my word for it. She wants to know why Daddy is being so imperious and she wants to know for herself exactly how hot it is. Now, I'm not saying that allowing your offspring to grab the kettle, attempt to iron their face or purposefully trap their hand in the door joint is the way to promote intellectual clarity, but a large part of me is encouraged that she decided to test the water for herself. She had a theory that the water wasn't as hot as Daddy said it was, she developed a method to test that theory, she executed that method and got a conclusive answer (for her post-doctorate she has put forward a theory that hitting Daddy in the testicles with her toy broom doesn't hurt nearly as much as he says it will).
A favourite quote, which I am extremely pleased to crow-bar into this article, is from Albert Einstein, who stated “It's a miracle curiosity survives formal education”. That applies not only to formal schooling, but to all constrained and limited education pathways, be they religious, from the classroom or from derivative parenting learned from Dr Phil or Oprah.
I want to instil in Emma a faith that the fundamental basis of endless questions and limitless answers will one day find a cure for cancer, that the origins of life will discovered and that one day we will discover if the Hokey Pokey is really what it's all about. But none of these things happen purely because she or I have faith that “everything will be okay”. It's because of our faith that people who care will work extremely hard and keep asking extremely difficult questions. I want my daughter to know that, if she has faith in herself and faith in pursuing solutions, she could help make those things happen.
I know that when Emma is 5 I may regret teaching her the value of asking “Why?”. In fact, I've tried to pre-empt that issue by having a house rule that all questions must presented in properly formed sentences. But it would be a much bigger issue in my mind if she didn't ask me anything at all. I have faith that she will keep asking and that I will run out of answers. I just hope then that she will start ask ask someone who knows more than her Father.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)