And Finally...

Guess what? More quotes from that good book, which I finished (in Joni-talk: sinished) today. Some highly controversial points are made here, but who can argue - and come off the winner in that argument - with them? I'd like to hear from you if you think you can. I personally know many within one of the religious groups mentioned just below (hint: it's not the Taliban) who would take what is said about them there as a compliment, and to be truthful I understand why: if your religion is true, then things ARE black and white: there is no need for the grays of the modern tolerant (religious people prefer the word "permissive" - for its negative connotations I suppose) world- no need for you to see them, or to take them into account; no need to live your life as if things weren't clear to you, as if you didn't know the answers - to be sure, other religious people live their lives that way, but that's not the way Jesus (or whoever you follow) meant for it to be (and who can disagree with this?)! You see, if you take your religion seriously, that's where it should lead you: you don't, in other words, think about your (possibly) eternal future on your death bed, you make things of a spiritual nature the prime concern in your life, ahead of all else, NOW, and all else (in comparison) is "rubbish" to paraphrase (St.)Paul. This sounds rather positive doesn't it? That's what I'm saying, and therein lies the problem- all these positives make one huge negative, all these people taking their religion very seriously (fundamentalists) are turned against all the others who do likewise but believe anything but likewise, whether this is evident in spirit(or words) or in (witness September 11) action. Here are those quotes:

"All religions are such that, if they are pushed to their logical conclusions, or if their founding literatures and early traditions are accepted literally, they will take the form of their respective fundamentalisms. Jehovah's Witnesses and the Taliban are thus not aberrations, but unadulterated and unconstrained expressions of their respective faiths, as practiced by people who are not interested in refined temporisings or theological niceties, but who literally accept the world view of the writings they regard as sacred...that is where the most serious threat lies, because all the major religions in fact blaspheme one another, and each by its principles ought actively to oppose the others...where they can get away with it - as the Taliban did in Afghanistan - fundamentalists continue the same practices...it is only where religion is on the back foot, reduced to a minority practice, that it presents itself as essentially peaceful and charitable."

[In reference to Anthony O'Hears books] "his chief mistake is to accept the false and hackneyed claim that Western man is unhappy, empty and lost because material values have displaced spiritual ones. The opposite is the truth: more people are happier now than has ever been the case. It is a mistake to think that peasants were happier in days of yore - scratching their lice in church on Sundays, which they attended despite the hectoring sermons and boredom because it was warm and provided a diversion from their daily routines...and because they had been indoctrinated from childhood into thinking they would suffer eternal damnation if they did not at least sometimes conform to the requirements of the faith they had been born into. It is a mistake to think that they were more fulfilled and content with their laborious days slogging about in muddy fields, and their illiterate candle-lit nights drinking home made beer and chewing bread with grit in it, than their descendants who have television, football, bingo, cinema, shopping malls, theme parks, zoos, holidays in Majorca, sliced bread, and vastly more money and more things to spend it on than their forebears could even dream of. People are now, accordingly and as a rule, neither unhappy nor empty; to have the satisfaction of a good grumble they are obliged to complain about the weather or our national sports teams - barrel-scrapings by comparison to the harsh realities of life in the Good Old Days mourned by nostalgists...one can understand those who welcome modern dentistry, lap-tops, television and air travel; who marvel at the beauty and power of science, and what it has revealed about this extraordinary universe of ours; who welcome the fact that more and more people are gaining access to the good things in life, intellectually as well as materially - and who have no desire to send anyone back to life in a hut made of peat, lived under the oppression of priests and warlords, with only the rain and an early death for a horizon."

Quoth I more...

The "group project" is finally done, we had the "viva" yesterday, and I was a bit disappointed at the (well, one of the) teachers reaction to my work, it was more a case of "you could have done this in one line" rather than "well done for getting this to work" (and get everything to work I did): I'm aiming to become a good programmer, I know I'm not there yet, please mark me on the functionality of my programs and not the gracefulness-that will come (maybe?)!

I'm so in awe of Bergmans films (I've just discovered MORE of them on Lovefilm hidden away and not even credited to him - including his first film - here's my current "rental queue"), I'll have to devote a blog to him, hell, to Sweden itself, that place I'd love to see: home to Bergman, Hallstrom, Moodysson, Abba and Ikea!

I've read more wonderful things from "What is Good?", this time from the pen of Grayling himself. So here we are with some random quotes from chapters 7 and 8:

"The most famous formulation of the categorical imperative is: 'Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.' Kant thinks of the moral community of persons as a 'kingdom of ends', a mutual association of free beings, in which each individual seeks to realize freely chosen goals compatibly with the freedom of everyone else to do likewise."

"There have always been Hitlers and Stalins...if the atom bomb had been available in the fifth century BC, it would have been dropped. If Zyklon B had been available in the tenth century AD, it would have been used...those who think that modern times are wickeder than previous times [my note: even the Bible councils against thinking like this in Ecclesiastes 7:10] are apt to identify the cause as the weakening of a sense of moral law, associated with the departure of religious traditions of morality...this reprises the usual muddle that getting people to accept [my note: various biblical miracles are mentioned] will somehow give them a logical reason for living morally...it is scarcely needful to repeat that the morality and the metaphysics here separately at stake do not justify or even need one another, and that the moral questions require to be grounded and justified on their own merits in application to what they concern, namely, the life of human beings in their social settings."

"It is a principal part of according respect to individuals that we treat them as autonomous, and when in some respect we cease to treat them so, we are being what has aptly called 'paternalistic'...(Mill says) 'the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection...the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.' A powerful argument supports this liberal tenet: it is that if one granted that a given body such as the state were licensed to decide what is in others' interests, there would be no obvious limit to the authority it could exercise over them."

Good eh? My next book, ordered today, is one mentioned by Grayling within the context of the above - I need this book, as an antidote to "Straw Dogs", which reduces us to animals - or asserts that as we ARE animals, we act (as we truly are) as animals when in extreme circumstances - "Dogs" focuses on the darkest reactions of man under the darkest circumstances: maybe all is not lost after all (maybe it never was...) and maybe it's a matter of where you look, who you talk to, what you read (isn't it always the case?)

Quotes...

I'm reading a really interesting part of the book "What is good?" at the moment, as I rush to complete assignment upon assignment for university. I manage to escape into a computer free "zone" in the lovely twenty minutes it takes for the train to get from Saltburn to Middlesbrough, and whilst in this zone I read today from chapter six, entitled "The Third Enlightenment", some wonderful thoughts and quotes (albeit from other sources-credit to Grayling for bringing them all together into one book!), worth repeating here. So from Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" (1784) I read:

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Dare to know!...For enlightenment of this kind, all that is needed is freedom. And the freedom in question is the most innocuous form of all, namely, the freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters. But I hear on all sides the cry: Don't argue! The officer says: Don't argue, get on parade! The tax-official: Don't argue, pay! The clergyman: Don't argue, believe!"

And respecting sex, or rather in defense of the non-prudish discussion about sex and the unashamed enjoyment of it, Diderot is quoted as saying, from the seminal (28 Volume) Encyclopedie:

"If any perverse Man may have taken offence at my praise of the most august and the most prevalent of passions, I would invoke Nature before him. I would have her speak and she would say to him: Why do you blush upon hearing the name of an exquisite pleasure [volupté] when you do not blush for having felt attracted by it in the shadow of the night? Do you not know its aim and what you owe it? Do you think that your mother would have risked her life in order to give you yours, if she had not attached an inexpressible charm to the embraces of her spouse? Be quiet, miserable one, and bear in mind that it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion."

Oh man, I love that last line. Roll it around on your tongue: it is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. It is pleasure that pulled you out of oblivion. I could type it forever. A truer word has not been spoken although it's not something we like to dwell on, I'm reminded of the Paul Simon lyric to the Philip Glass gem "Changing Opinion"- "Maybe it's the hum, of our parents' voices, long ago in a soft light, mmmmmm". That mmmmm doesn't really work in text, but it's sung so well ;-) !

These quotes are pretty random I admit. Here's a great one to finish on, again from Diderot, from his "Supplement to Bougainvilles voyage":

"[Nature says] Have you sought your happiness beyond the limits of the world I gave you? Have courage to free yourself from the yoke of religion...Run through the history of the centuries, of nations both ancient and modern, and you will find man in subjection to three codes, the natural code, the civil code, the religious code, and bound to infringe these three codes in turn, as they never agree. So it happens, as Orou guessed about ours, that in no country is there a natural man, a citizen or a pious person."

2

Our little baby is two today! She's not so little anymore, and she doesn't seem to be a baby either, the way she orders us about - but I remember that day, this day two years ago as clearly as if it were today, the day Joni was born and Becky and I became parents. We might as well have been born on that day, as our lives have been so different since- born again parents! I have video of the moment that all happened and beautiful it is too (but too gory for this blog); however here's some photo's taken two years ago today, bigger versions can be got at by clicking those below.

India

Yes, the place! Our friends Mark and his wife Tammy (the jammy gets) just got back from three weeks holiday there today, and mailed us these photo's. I mean, did it feel like you were living inside those yellow covers of the "National Geographic" Mark, or what? Back to drab Scotland for them now though, I think God only had brown and green paint left by the time he got to colouring in up there.... ;-) no it's beautiful really, just in a different way.

Radio Free Blog...

Well, after just two attempts I've decided to stop putting out podcasts, the honest reason being I haven't got the time to sit down and make a "show" of any quality, with you know, a bit of thought going in there somewhere: at the moment the shows have just been something equating to a stream of consciousness, in this case a beck of consciousness, because I haven't got the time needed to organize myself. And hey, these words are what counts, it is a blog after all! That's not to say I won't try again when I have a bit more time on my hands, from June for example. Finished "popit" today, maybe someday I'll look back and wonder what I meant by that, but I don't think so, it's been such a haul...

Ringtones...

Well, I never thought the day would come when I would devote a blog to ringtones! The fact is, I was playing around with my phone and with some of the software that came with the data lead I got for it, and it dawned on me that I could basically upload any midi file to the phone and use that as a ringtone- I know I'm about four years behind everyone else here, but that's how long it takes for my wallet to catch up with technology: don't blame me, it's my money that lets me down!

So I got to thinking about what would be an original tune to have as a ringtone, you know, something that probably no one else had, that was on the net and that I could grab for free. Well lo and behold, a few Months ago I got hold of and got into "The well-tempered synthesizer" by Wendy Carlos (who also did "Switched on Bach"), I mean I REALLY got into it (when I get into something I usually REALLY do) - and especially the pieces by Scarlatti, they just blew me away, and I didn't tire of playing them over and over, though I think Bex got tired of hearing them! I just couldn't (and can't) get my head around the fact that these pieces were written 300 years ago, they sound so modern to my (perhaps untrained) ears, some of the techniques and progressions he uses I've never heard anything like outside of works from this and the 20th century, I wonder did he "invent" them? My musical illiteracy is shining through here! Anyway, I was amazed to find that John Sankey has recorded all 555 sonatas for Harpsichord that Scarlatti composed, available to download in one incredibly small zip file! My favourite from the album and my current ringtone is his K455, but check out K096, K491 and K531 too, they're all great.

Brian passed his driving test today! And yes that does mean, you jealous Americano's, that he can drive till he's older than Homer Simpsons Dad (how old is he anyway?) or until Death, which is more likely to happen first. Happy driving Bri! Staying with the theme of cars, hence no new paragraph, here's some photo's of Joni we took today en-route to feed the ducks at Great Ayton: isn't she looking older? She's 2 a week on Monday, I can't believe it!

The Rise and Rise....

...of Brian Stevenson, friend and fellow Junior Elvis'ee until said band disolved around our ears. Not one to take anything lying down (although he's sung live sets in the past in that position) Brian's released TWO solo albums in as many weeks-if you can call "released" sending cheap cd-r's to friends and local media, and if you can call an "album" something he sang in (pretty much) one sitting in front of a cheap plastic mic I gave him a few Months back-but let me say, with all the (admittedly good) band stripped away, we hear the quality songwriting and the superb voice of Mr Stevenson that much more clearly. It's as if, and I'm being honest, Brian's songs are made to be sang by Brian alone, and I mean alone. Anyway, our local advocate of all music local (who doesn't to be honest, and as you'd expect, ever have much bad to say about local bands) reached a new superlative tonight in our local paper "The Eveing Gazzette" where he calls Brian "a genius". He may be a friend, but I'm not going to dishonour him in his home town by seeing the carpenter ahead of the prophet. Why he can't make a million out of his songs I just don't know. Read that article here and hear the raw talent (and it is raw, be warned!) of Brian here, just one song from "Viva las Redcar", Housewife's Choice.

Phones!

Today me and Bex got our new phones from Amazon, though I haven't got the SIM for mine yet. Nearly every review I read of this phone was a bad one, but hey, who can knock the price, for a phone with a camera- £39.99? I got a data lead too so we could transfer pics from the camera to the PC (to the blog...) and wasn't expecting much, and didn't get it either, but come on: they're not too bad! This is how they came out...

I Haven't Told Her...

...and she hasn't told me (but we know it just the same). What a song! I know it sounds like something Wodehouse's Wooster would play to Jeeves, but I just can't get it out of my head! Local hero Martin Carthy (I must devote a whole blog to this guy, who along with Nic Jones really define Folk music in my opinion) and Dave Swarbrick recorded it live on Danish TV (!) in 1965, it's included in the Carthy Chronicles, and I've put it up below in its full black and white glory (the poor sound is actually from the original video). Don't just listen to it once, it's short, give it a chance: now, isn't that a grower?

So! Who wrote it? Is it traditional, did George Formby write it or should credit go to a trio of unknowns by the names of Al Dubin, Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal? What's most irritating is George Formby is most famous for singing it, yet it doesn't seem to be on any record he ever made! To sort this out, I've e-mailed the webmaster of the George Formby Society, (can John sink any lower into unhip "sad"ness?) - perhaps he can shed a little light. I mean, come on, you can find versions online by Peter Sellers, Guy Lombardo and our local plucker Benjamin Wetherill, but not a word (well, JUST the words, you can find lyrics alongside Formby's name, so we know he sang it!) about any Formby recording, let alone any clips of one.

I await with bated breath the reply to my e-mail...