Category: Updates

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Ooh, look, America's own terrorists…

Eric Rudolph was given two life sentences yesterday in the US for Blowing up an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. Totally unrepentant, he carried on saying in court that the Abortionists were murderers and ‘needed to be fought with deadly force’.

Great, the American religious right has their own terrorists! They’ve been around for a while – attacks on Abortion clinics have been happening for decades – and the American people are generally fairly good at discerning between the beliefs of those on the right wing of the church who are anti-abortion but would never condone bombing a clinic, and those psychos with murderous intent. \

So, here’s the easy bit people, why not apply some of that logic to the situation with terrorists inspired by a violent murderous misinterpretation of their faith? Maybe what needs to happen is we need to get a couple of right-wing-but-not-bomb-expert American whackos – say, Pat Robertson and Oral Roberts, or Tim LaHaye – and get them to discuss the abortion clinic bombings, and then go through it and replace all the references to christianity with references to Islam, the justification of not agreeing with abortion with information about the bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then publish it as a statement to America’s religious right on how the actions of a murderer can be understood as separate from a) the actions of a wider faith community and b) the veracity of the politcal case they espouse.

It’d still make pretty horrible reading for the rest of us – I can’t imagine, Robertson, LaHaye or Roberts ever saying anything that I remotely agreed with, foul blight that they are – but might help those American Christian Jihadists in the PNAC-lovin’ south understand the less-than black ‘n’ white way that we need to engage with these kinds of event.

As it is, blowing up an abortion clinic to end murder is just about on par with sending hundreds of thousands of troops armed with depleted uranium shells into a country to bring about democracy…

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Paul Vallely on Iraq

I’ve just read the most thorough and razor-sharp critique of The War on Iraq from a Christian perpective that I’ve ever seen. I always find it really odd that the vast majority of the Christians I know in the UK are adamantly against the war (the anti-war movement always has a very strong church presence – it’s fantastic to see vicars marching with muslim leaders in solidarity against the war) in contrast to the situation in the US where the war is seen as some sort of righteous crusade. It all adds up to one confusing portrait of belief in the 21st century.

Well, now Paul Vallely (Associate Editor of The Independent and
principal author of The Commision For Africa’s report) has written a stunning article entitled ‘The Fifth Crusade: George Bush and the Christianisation of the War in Iraq’, critiqing the crusade mentality of the US invasion of Iraq and the kinds of human rights abuses and gross misjudgements that such a mentality has inspired.

It’s in a downloadable journal called Borderlands (1.8Meg PDF file), which also features a marvellous article by Tom Wright – the bishop of Durham – critiquing the Da Vinci Code. The journal is published by St John’s College Durham – and beyond that, I know very little about it, but they have some world class writers.

And all thanks to it being emailed to me by the marvellous David Dark.

Soundtrack – Jughead, ‘Jughead’ (Matt and Gregg Bisonette, with Ty Tabor from King’s X and Derek Sherinian from Dream Theatre – a genius album, that owes more to the Foo Fighers and The Beatles than it does to any of the band members better known projects)

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Update on the fairly aged felines

Yesterday, the original aged feline would have been 20. We had high hopes of him reaching that most prestigious of cat-landmarks at this time last year. His ongoing chronic renal condition got rapidly worse through August, and he died in September, a couple of months after his 19th Birthday. Which is not to be sneezed at. It makes him a bit of a Yoda amongst felines.

But we now have charge of the fairly aged felines, who are getting along just fine. The new challenge we face is trying to prevent the long-haired-ginger-one from resembling a moving shrubbery by combing him about five times a day to remove the myriad leaves, twigs and sticky seed-pods that he picks up whilst squirrelling through the ragged forest that is the extensive grounds here at Stevie Towers.

Both the boys have increased in bravery and friendliness, greeting new people in the house with curiosity and a request for cuddles rather than hiding under the sofa, which was their prefered reaction for the first few months.

They love their food, love cuddles, but are complaining a little about the heat of the summer. Well you try wearing a fur coat in this weather (I have tried it, it doesn’t work. Even for gigs.)

So raise a glass to the memory of The Aged Feline, and all the lessons he taught me.

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Telling us what anyone with half a brain already knew

A report today by Chatham House and the Economic and Social Research Council has reported that Britains involvement in Iraq has put us more at risk from terrorist attacks. It’s what those of us in the anti-war camp have been saying since before the war happened, and it’s been proved time and time again by the terror alerts, and now by the terrible bombing in London on July 7th.

But do the government come clean? Are you kidding? This is the new Labour spin machine at work here. So here’s John Reid to peddle the moronic party line,

“And the idea that somehow by running away from the school bully, then the bully will not come after you is a thesis that is known to be completely untrue by every kid in the playground and it is also refuted by every piece of historical evidence that we have.”

OK, what are the similarities between acts of terror and bullying. Are we talking about big kids attacking small kids for no reason? Er, no. Are we talking about people who want to take the equivalent of our dinner money, or assert their place in some kind of playground heirarchy? Er, no. So the bully analogy means nothing.

You can’t describe a group of people retaliating for a war waged on Arabs as bullies. Their methods are horrific – this isn’t any justification of bombings, suicidal or otherwise – but their motivation is not to grab the UK’s dinner money. It’s the actions of the voiceless. Those who feel for whatever reason, their point is not being heard. Mix that in with a load of crazy exteme fundementalist ranting that gives moral credence to the attacks, and you’ve got a potent cocktail. The answer is not to wage war, but to remove the reasons for war. Bully metaphors are just bollocks.

As usual, Jyoti got there before me, with another fine blog on the same story.

Also a must-read is this week’s cover story in The New Statesman, about the islamic tradition that has spawned the extremists – it’s on the cover story page, but I’ll try and find a more permanent link.

and if you want to read the whole report here’s a link to a PDF of it.

Soundtrack – Edgar Meyer/Bela Fleck, ‘Music For Two’.

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now I have to learn to play them…

The latest addition to the musical menagerie here –

Yup, congas – I’m a big fan of hand percussion – it’s quieter and generally more versatile than a drum kit (actually, drum kits have the potential to be hugely versatile, it’s just that most drummers play them in gruesomely unimaginative ways…) – so when The Shark offered to give me her Congas when moving to the US, I jumped at the change to get me some banging things! God knows where they are going to live, but I’m going to have to find out the proper way to hit them, and work them into some looped loveliness… And I’m sure Orphy will be more than happy to bash them when he comes round to play!

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Gardening and Bass Practice – don't work in that order.

So, I had a list of things I needed to get done tonight. The usual Sunday jobs of putting the bins out, checking the smoke alarms, bit of washing up etc. But also had to do a lil’ bit of gardening.

Anyone who has seen the garden at Stevie Towers will know it’s like a jungle (sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under, uh huh huh), and the suckers growing out of our blackberry bushes and out of the wild roses had got well out of hand encroaching onto the lawn (or savannah as it’s more properly named). They were also cutting off access to the compost bin, so action needed to be taken against these needle sharp thorny triffids. So I attacked them, with secatures (how on earth do you spell that?) and a gardening glove, but still managed to shred my fingers in the process, making the last of tonight’s tasks – some bass practice – a little tricky.

For the gigs in Italy next weekend I really need to get practicing, given that I’m only taking my fretless with me, and so will have to play all the chordy tunes like Kindness Of Strangers and Despite My Worst Intentions on the fretless as well (and maybe even Shizzle). That’s going to take some practice, and it’s also going to require that my hands are in proper working order, not lacerated by evil garden monsters.

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Some Sunday thoughts

It’s been an odd day today. Had two bits of news that are life-changing for the people involved. One good, one bad.

One v. good friend just had a baby – everyone concerned is well, and it’s probably the most powerful event ever in the lives of all concerned.

And at the other end of the scale, another v. good friend just found out that his mum probably has days to live. She’s been ill for a while, but it doesn’t really make the finality of such a prognosis any easier to swallow.

The two extremes of human experience – one ‘hello world’, one ‘goodbye world’.

Dave The Vicar was talking this morning about the 23rd Psalm – ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…’ etc. Focussing in on these first couple of lines, he unpacked what ‘I shall not want’ means – rather than it being a statement of overabundance, or some prosperity nonsense about having everything I might ever want, it’s a statement of completeness in God. Completeness in good times and in shit times. No promises of solutions, just the promise of presence.

For most people the absolutes in life – birth and death – are some of the most spiritual of times. Contemplating our own mortality in the light of the dimming candle of a loved one can beat the fundementalist out of the most ardent of hellfire-and-brimstone fundies and make the most hardcore athiest doubt their convictions. Death is too big for any of us to be certain about, but there’s something within the human experience that suggests there must be more. So certainty dies and we look for hope. The hope of life beyond death.

And birth kind of completes the circle – I think it was Billy Joel who sang that life is a series of hellos and goodbyes (shit, did I just quote Billy Joel on the blog? somebody shoot me), and I think the hellos can help make sense of the goodbyes. It doesn’t take the pain away, but the circle of life is complete. We’re all born, we all die, we all have a finite number of years to try and make sense of the world. If we know that a person has acheived something in their life, be it as personal as having a good relationship with their family or as huge as the Mother Theresas of this world, we can rest assured that they didn’t live in vain. They’ve done what we all seek to do – the search for meaning and significance. And as just about all funerals testify, everyone has had an impact on someone.

And at this point, the belief in a life beyond death makes the significant life and the death that follows seem just as significant for the person departing as for the ones left behind.

And it makes the process of bringing a new person into the world a little less scary – The Shepherd of the Psalm is on your side, at the begining and at the end. It doesn’t guarantee an easy ride – far from it – but it does help when drawing up the roadmap. Facing the potential for significance in a baby and knowing you’re responsible for where they go is the start of the journey. Looking back on a life well lived is the end of this part of the journey.

So I pray for both of them – giving thanks for the baby, and for wisdom for the new parents. And then for peace and consolation for the one saying goodbye.

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JKR must be doing something right…

OK, so the world has gone Harry Potter mad. New book out, very exciting. At least, it would be if I’d read any of the others. Which I haven’t.

But, hidden away in this article about the press response to the book, is evidence of the world’s brightest 10 year old kid –

“Rosie Jenkins, 10, was one of the lucky winners who got to meet Rowling at the book’s launch at Edinburgh Castle.

She said the book “immediately plunges the reader into a world that is grim, chaotic and action-packed”.

She added it was “darker and more alarming than the other’s but that makes it more interesting and impossible to put down”. “

A TEN YEAR OLD said that’? What kind of kid that age talks like that?? OK, there’s the ginger kid at St Luke’s who when he was three offered to rent a van to deliver my Traidcraft shopping to try and encourage me to spend more, but he’s a bit of a one off. Methinks Rosie Jenkins parents have been scripting things for her to say, to make them look like badass parents…

Soundtrack – Scritti Politti, ‘Cupid And Psyche 85’.

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First entry from new toy

For a while now, TSP and I have been wanting to get a laptop between us – I could use it for travelling, and TSP could use it for writing when away.

So on Thursday I nipped into the Apple Store on Regent’s Street in London, and on the advice of Photographer Steve, asked if they had any ‘refreshed’ stock – that is computers that have been bought, but then brought back within the 30 day returns period. They are fully checked, reformatted and warrantied etc. as new, just 10% cheaper than the brand new ones! Result.

So we’ve now got a 12″ bog-standard bottom of the range iBook between us, which it has to be said, kicks ass. OSX 10.4.2 is fantastic! It’s called ‘Tiger’, but I haven’t found the ‘install Seigfried and Roy theme’ button yet that makes everything orange… I’m loving some of the features in OSX – the dashboard and expose features are really cool, and the way Safari handles RSS is very cool indeed. I still have to connect to the net via an ethernet cable plugged into my pc, as we’ve not set up wireless or anything yet, but thus far, it’s much coolness.

Soundtrack – Tracy Chapman, ‘Tracy Chapman’ (came across her singing ‘Thrill Is Gone’ with BB King earlier on today, and her voice sent shivers down my spine, so I borrowed the CD off TSP as I’ve only got her stuff on vinyl)

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Friends Reunited

Got an email the other day via Friends Reunited – a fun site (for the six people in the world who don’t already know what it is) where you list yourself by school/college/workplace and let all the people you chose to lose touch with get back in touch.

I’ve met up with a few chums via that, which has been fun.

Anyway, I got this email, but they don’t include a return email address, and neither did the email, and if I want to email back via the website, it’s going to cost me £7.50 to sign up again. Yes, that’s 750 whole pence to send one email! (well, I could send loads of emails, but I don’t really want to).

So, Nicola, if you’re reading this, feel free to email me again, via this site this time!

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