Waterboarding

Heather Mallik, usually an interesting read and contrast with the normal slant of the CBC, hits it right on the head when she deals with the topic of waterboarding and the general inhumanity that humans are capable of. Her example of waterboarding is of someone who suffered it under the Japanese in WWII, but she gives examples of lots of others who carried out this loathsome act. Waterboarding is not "dunking" as Dick Cheney said. What is worse, I think, is what this belittlement of torture says about the speaker's worldview and his perceived place in this world. We're all capable of horrible things and it's so important to remember this most of all. Here's a link to a short summary of the UK man's journey from torture to forgiveness.

Evolutin vs. Creation but not

The Royal Society has a podcast on the topic of why Creationism is wrong and Evolutionism is right. An interesting topic, but Steve Jones of University College London who gives the talk engages in rather irritating devices in his talk. He starts off by pretty much dismissing creation myths by belittling them in a straw-man sort of way. This wastes the opportunity to actually engage in any kind of reasonable comparison leading to a proposed conclusion. Additionally, Jones says at the beginning of this talk that one must embrace doubt and uncertainty but seems in his whole talk to do the opposite. Another irritating thing Mr. Jones does is engage in class-based derogatory remarks about the accent used by Prince William. He suggests jokingly that it's hard to understand and that perhaps in a few generations the whole royal family may descend even further in their pronunciation. I had no difficulty in understanding the prince in the clip provided and can't for the life of me grasp what makes his pronunciation any worse than any other accent.

To sum up, what bugged me as I listened to this talk was the use of elitist, exclusionary, and derogatory talk by someone presented as a researcher and thinker of some note. Mr. Jones should have stuck to his main topic of interest. Those bits were interesting.

The Royal Society makes the lecture available as a podcast one but only apparently compatible with Itunes. This fits in well with my sense of them (confirms my prejudice) that they are rather used to keeping and dishing out information in as exclusive a way as possible rather than disseminating it for the good of humanity ASAP. They go back a long time. VanLeeuwenhoek was a member (after waiting a rather long time for membership if I recall). They have apparently made their archives available free but only as a sort of marketing move that will end in less than two months from now. As far as I can tell you can't actually search their archives from the free interface. You have to rely on their glowing writeup which acts as mothering docent to the archives, never letting you just roam and read. May exclusive clubs like this change or wither and die (that's my freedom of information flow curse). In the morning, as they surfed along, they saw the Royal Society archive website had withered from the roots. Apologies to Mark.

Truth and lie together again

Maher Arar, wrongly sent to Syria and tortured by the US after the Mounties fed US intelligence fairy stories about nonexistent ties to Al Qaeda, was not tortured, as far as the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, knows. That was most likely a lie, but Mr. Gonzales showed a trait evident in the current US administration and with good liars everywhere, denied an over-precise fact. Mr. Gonzales said that "we were not responsible" for sending Mr. Arar to Syria. Technically, the US dept. of justice does not handle such things, now. It did back then, ruining the lie and causing a technical re-statement by one of Mr. Gonzales' underlings.

One of my favourite lies is when George Bush said that he did not "have a plan for the invasion of Iraq on my desk right now". Not on his desk.

Of course, Mr. Arar would not have gone to Syria without the incompetence and sycophance of the RCMP and Canadian politicians eager to "help" in the "war on terror". Following Mr. Arar's deportation lies were spread about his character and actions. More were sprinkled about after his release. The Mounties also obstructed the inquest into Mr. Arar's deportation and torture. The full report has been censored for "national security" reasons. And they call it democracy.

Woodworking

I've been to Lee Valley Tools a few times this week. They opened a store four blocks from my work this past April. They obviously place great stock in carrying only products they believe to be of good quality and value and go out of their way to ensure that you know what you're buying and why they think it's a good product. When you visit some product pages on their website you get a message that the product is no longer available as they are not able to offer it at a competitive price. Nice and straightforward. Anyway, I've purchased drill bits and accessories for countersinking screws and making plugs (my brother the cabinetmaker recommended doing screw and plug joinery because it doesn't require clamping), a stud finder, on-sale German wire working pliers, a set of four Czech-made chisels, a flush cut saw (for cutting off the bits of plugs that stick out), a small tool holding roll, very nice German deck screws that you can screw into wood with no predrilling (it's amazing, they go in like butter), some "Gorilla" glue that works amazingly to glue metal to metal, metal to wood, plastic to wood, etc., and quite a few small rare earth magnets.

I've used the glue and some magnets to make 'fridge magnets and glued some more magnets to the wall in the basement to stick my new chisels to. I've used the chisels to hollow out a spot in our front door frame where Lewis had ripped the screen door pneumatic door stopper screws out by repeatedly opening the door beyond its normal maximum In the hollowed out spot I've glued and screwed a new bit of wood. I also purchased a two dollar wire coffee filter holder that I put on a cupboard door.

This all may seem a bit quotidien, but I've been waiting years to have the tools to fix things up around the house. I'm having a lot of fun. My first larger project will be to make a bench with integrated shelving in the kids room.

To the Person Sitting in Darkness

Mark Twain, speaking of the actions of the US in the Philippines, suggests this honest explanation to those who might have expected more from their saviours:

"They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; yes, but they were told in a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn't it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit's work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America's honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We know this. The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and ninety per cent. of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice, cannot do an unright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right."

New shoes

Went to MEC yesterday and got a new pair of light hiking shoes. I tend to wear one and only one pair of shoes, so they get a lot of wear and tear. My old ones had very very worn soles and the toe on the left shoe was blown out. Putting on a new pair of shoes was a great experience and made me realize how much I had needed them. Got a set of insoles that you heat in the oven to let them soften so they mold to your feet. It's amazing how comfortable feet make such a large difference in how one feels.

Anton Praetorius

Wikipedia has an interesting aritcl on Anton Praetorius, a German Calvinist pastor who advocated against torture, including the torture of witches. Little forward leaps of thought like this are necessary, for those whose thought is new in some ways hew close to tradition in others. This was the case with Calvin, who despite having been able to veer away from prevailing religious theology in many ways, was a fan of central control, torture, and in particular the torture of witches who he seems to have considered a seditious and insidious form of religious threat to the new one true way. On the other hand, Calvin seems to have punished men equally with women for adultery and been dead set against spousal abuse.

True comfort

CBC's Dispatches, a wonderful program giving in-depth essays on current news topics, an almost dead art, has a podcast (they used to have a lame Realaudio download). Their podcast is here. This week's podcast is on Korea's Grandmothers who were sex slaves to Japanese troops during WWII. There is very touching coverage of a young Japanese man and his devotion to these women. He learned about their story while studying with Koreans in Tokyo. Following up on this new knowledge, he went to Korea and began talking to them, breaking down their distrust by learning their local dialect of Korean and in general being a good listener. He now lives with them and is a guide at their residence, greeting visitors to the residence, including uninformed Japanese young people. This is a real tear jerker of a story.

Fun debate on the use of "they"

There's a fun archived debate in a discussion on Groklaw (the actual discussion has to do with a comparison of the formatting approaches of OpenOffice's vs. MS's document standards (the OpenOffice one was approved today, yay!). The discussion, though, dealt with the use of the word "they" as a gender neutral pronoun

Unless it is appropriate, can people please avoid using gender specific
pronouns. It doesn't matter in this article whether, or not, the developer is
female - but it keeps referring to "her", it would be better to use
"their" instead. Constant reference to "her" imply that
most developers are female.

Traditionaaly "he" has been used to indicate either gender, and it is
the greatest common string of characters in "He" and She". Also,
"she" has traditionally be associated with females only. But, I would
recommend using "their" and "they" rather than
"hers/his" and "he/she".

Also using gender neutral language avoids offending people who identify
themselves with both genders (they are rare, but I spoken with several). Note
that using "themselves" is a lot more elegant and shorter than saying
"herself or himself".

Constant inappropriate use of gender distracts from the otherwise excellent
technical article.

As the author mentioned, the article used "she" when referring to an individual programmer who might be working with the two XML formatting approaches. The replies ranged from "get over it" to nostalgic remeniscences of manuals using "she" to discussions on the latinizing movement of the 19th century to the lack of gendered pronouns in Finnish to the centuries old usage of they as a neuter singular in English. This is the sort of nit-picky, sleeves rolled up discussion that makes it fun to be a techie! Lateral thinkers of the world disperse!

I had a funny experience with the neuter use of "he" at my MA graduation ceremony. The honourary speaker at the graduation was a former Ontario Supreme Court judge and a woman. She started off her speech by saying that she would be referring to the singular person as "he", using the "neutral" usage. Fiona, my femenist co-graduand who was sitting beside me, could barely repress the urge to grind her teeth in anger. The judge was probably just acting out a well-worn habit of qualifying everything she said.

Wikipedia has a nice overview of the usage of "they" as a singular pronoun, including a section on historical usage, inluding by Shakespeare. That settles it then.

Incidentally, the Microsoft XML programming style makes me think it was designed by a bunch of people who love programming in C. It's very pointer-oriented. Normalized as well. Not readable.

Neil Young's new album "Living with War"

From Flags of Freedom

Have you seen the flags of freedom?
What color are they now?
Do you think that you believe in yours
More than they do theirs somehow?
When you see the flags of freedom flyin’

From After the Garden

we live in the garden of eden, yeah
don't know why we wanna tear the whole thing to the ground
we live in the garden of eden, yeah
don't know why we wanna tear the whole thing down

From Living with War

In the crowded streets
In the big hotels
In the mosques and the doors of the old museum
I take a holy vow
To never kill again
Try to remember peace

The rocket's red glare
Bombs bursting in air
Give proof through the night,
That Our flag is still there

From The Restless Consumer

The restless consumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for taste and grace

People from around the world
Need someone to listen
We're starving and dying from our disease
We need your medicine
How do you pay for war
And leave us dyin' ?
When you could do so much more
You're not even tryin'

I'm a bit too young to be tripped out by the library of hippie protest song. This stuff does resonate with me though. Neil, perhaps because though he's proud of the US, grew up in Canada, has a refreshingly broader view than much national protest music that either seems to blame everything on the US or can't see past the toenails of lady liberty.

What I enjoy as well about the album is that its lyrics aren't a collection of bludgeons but rather heartfelt and measured. Neil's into his sixties now. I'm well into my thirties and just beginning to see the possibility of moderation and realize rather than look for evil people under every rock it is often useful to look for the pull of greed or fear or anger. I think Neil sees all of these and more and is protesting for a return to actions led by feelings of truth and justice and love, attributes that led him to fall in love with his adopted country.

Neil Young - The Restless Consumer

Found on a site with lots of ads and popups.

The people have heard the news
The people have spoken
You may not like what they said
But they weren't jokin'

Way out on the desert sands
Lies a desperate lover
They call her the "Queen of Oil"
So much to discover

Don't need no ad machine
Telling me what I need
Don't need no Madison Avenue War
Don't need no more boxes I can see

Covered in flags but I can't see them on TV

Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies

The restless consumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for taste and grace

People from around the world
Need someone to listen
We're starving and dying from our disease
We need your medicine
How do you pay for war
And leave us dyin' ?
When you could do so much more
You're not even tryin'

Don't need no TV ad
Tellin' me how sick I am
Don't want to know how many people are like me
Don't need no dizziness
Don't need no nausea
Don't need no side effects like diarrhea or sexual death

Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies

The restless consumer lies
Asleep in her hotel
With such an appetite
For anything that sells

A hundred voices from a hundred lands
Need someone to listen
People are dying here and there
They don't see the world the way you do
There's no mission accomplished here
Just death to thousands

A hundred voices from a hundred lands
Cry out in unison

Don't need no terror squad
Don't want no damned Jihad
Blowin' themselves away in my hood
But we don't talk to them
So we don't learn from them
Hate don't negotiate with Good

Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies
Don't need no more lies

The restless comsumer flies
Around the world each day
With such an appetite for efficiency
And pace...

Don't need no more lies.

Neil Young's new album "Living With War"

I'm not so likely nowadays to jump into things political, but I am interested in Neil Young's upcoming album "Living With War". An interview can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7utryGZ25dg

A rather articulate man. Kind of sad that rather than ask him about what he was trying to do and say with the album she (the interviewer) kept on trying to pick at ways he was being disloyal or perhaps might not have a right to speak because he's also Canadian even though he's been living in the US for 40 of his 60 years. The strategy seems to be to prevent disloyal speech when possible by questioning the credibility or motives of the speaker. Speech is supposed to be one of those inalienable, self-evident rights. Whether people will listen is another thing. I appreciate that Neil Young emphasized this in the interview that the protection of freedom and the right to speak and disagree is a responsibility shared by all people in all countries. At least the host's last comment was frank. The interviewer didn't know what to do with ".. I think that anyone who feels that the themes of this album are motivated by publicity, I think that's ridiculous".

The album can be listened to on the web starting Friday the 28th at http://neilyoung.com/

Two out of three ain't good

Sitting atop seven active earthquake faults, the Bay Area has a one-in-25 chance of experiencing another large earthquake in the next 25 years, the U.S. Geological Survey predicts.

In early 2001, a report from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) concluded that an earthquake in the area was one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters" facing the United States.

The other two were a terrorist attack on New York City and a hurricane striking southern Louisiana.