19 August 2006

Religious rantings

I am an atheist who is about to try to voice some views on religion (please hold tight and don't lean out of the vehicle).

World events always evoke a lot of discussion and opinion and the events of the last few years have been more evocative than most. The subject of religion in conflicts has repeatedly come up as many people claim their beliefs give them rights or moral superiority. It seems that God's primary occupation is being asked to take sides in wars and then justifying the slaughter that results from them.

The US president and UK prime minister claim to be devout Christians but declared war on Iraq based on false evidence and then gave away Iraqi resources to western companies (in breach of 4 biblical commandments and the UN charter). Many Islamic states have claimed that this is a crusade against Islam and the cry has been taken up by suicide bombers. Some of these states have denied that Israel has a right to exist. Israel in turn have used religious doctrine to claim a right to their holy land and commit brutal acts against the Palestinians.

On the smaller stage many people have used their religion as a focus to perform acts of extreme compassion and bravery, others use religion as a platform of smug superiority where they can stand without a trace of human decency and others still use it as a stick of authority to force others to conform to their belief or will. Many people who claim to be religious choose not to be led by the doctrine and rules of their religion but rather to do what they want and interpret the doctrine in such a way as to justify this.

Contrary to the impression I may have given although I am an atheist I try to have total respect for all religions but here is what I believe: -


  • Although a persons religion is sacred to them it is worth remembering it does not have to be sacred to others.
  • Compassion, courage, sympathy, generosity, tolerance and ethical strength make people good, religion simply makes them religious.

Man's humanity to man

I installed the Ubuntu Linux distro on my machine today (Ubuntu is an African word meaning "Man's humanity to man"). As a software developer and tester for Windows based software I have to use Windows all the time. Because of this and the fact that it took me a week to set my machine up the way I like it I didn't remove Windows. Instead I set Ubuntu up in a virtual machine. I have a lot a friends who are dedicated Linux users and like most of their kind they divide their time between declaring Linux to be the single greatest thing that man has ever done and pouring red hot scorn and contempt on anything created by Microsoft. They may have a point. I have tried to get into Linux a few times but never really gave it the time or effort it deserved. The last time I tried it was a long time ago and Linux was a lot less friendly for those with a Windows background but things have changed. Hopefully this time will be different. Who knows I may even join the other side.

I also made few updates to the front page and links page of my homepage.

13 August 2006

The roots of hatred

I have just watched Shooting Dogs. The film covers the true events of a school caught up in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. During the genocide that lasted from April to July over 800,000 Tutsis were massacred by Hutu extremeists. The school (L'Ecole Technique Officielle) became a refuge for over 2500 local Tutsi people because UN peace keepers were stationed there and seemed to offer protection. The title of the film refers to the action or rather inaction of the UN peace keeping forces. The UN mandate did not allow the UN forces to fire on the Hutu extremists that were camped outside the school with guns and machetes screaming for blood unless they were fired upon first. They were not able to act to defend Tutsis in the surrounding area. However they were able to shoot the dogs that were feeding on the bodies of killed Tutsis and therby posing a health risk.

Shooting Dogs covers a small slice of what is one of the worst attrocities of the later half of the 20th century and shows the UN's inability and unwillingness to do anything to prevent it. The film was filmed in the actual locations were the events happened and many of the production crew roles and smaller parts were filled by survivors of the massacre. Much more information can be found here

During the genocide people who had lived side by side went from being neighbours to a relationship of murderer and victim. I feel that this brutal and tragic twist in the human spirit is not as uncommon as we like to imagine. The human race has the ability to split the world into two halves and does this at almost every opportunity. Those halves can be male & female, rich & poor, black & white, gay & straight, christian & muslim, faithful & godless, rational & crazed, group A & group B. However it ultimatley comes down to the very simple idea of "Us & Them". Once we have taken a group of people and seperated them into the group called "Them" it allows us to abdicate moral responsibility for participating or being complicit in the most brutal and barbaric acts: inequality, bigotry, hatred, murder, torture, imprisonment, starvation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, apartheid, war. The list is as long as the human imagination chooses to make it. I believe this driving instinct to break the world into "Us & Them" has caused and enabled us to heap more misery and suffering on ourselves than anything else.

I think there must be something terribly wrong with us.

Simple technology for a better world

I studied engineering at university and now work in the IT industry. Some people might think that this would make me a fan of advanced technology. In all fairness they would be correct, I have a very fast PC, a mobile phone, MP3 player and even a GPS. However I am also a fan of appropriate technology. By this I mean technical solutions that are no more advanced than they need to be. This philosophy can best be summed up by two well known sayings: -

      1. The right tool for the right job.

      2. If it's not broke, don't fix it.

Why put nails in a piece of wood with the nail-o-matic ultra 4000 when a hammer is cheaper, simpler, doesn't require batteries and if properly cared for can last a lifetime? I suppose this does tie in with my time studying engineering. Engineers like to solve problems and they usually like their solutions to be simple and elegant.

It is when market forces come into play that technology is driven forward further than is really required. I want a phone that can make calls, send text messages and has a decent battery life. As a consumer, phone manufacturers want me to be able to stream TV clips over 3G networks because if I don't they won't be able to sell me their new phone. These market forces have given us a population desperate to buy gadgets that will only have 5% of their features used.

But what about people who can in no way be called consumers. People in the developing world are among the most vulnerable in the world. For people whose main concern is getting clean water and a steady supply of food appropriate technology can have a profound effect on their lives. It can help them solve problems such as transport, agriculture, home building, energy, water supply and purification. It can help them create successful and profitable industries. Because the technology is simple it is reliable and can easily be maintained, improved and replicated by local people using locally available materials. It doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to work and it certainly never needs to be able to stream TV clips over 3G networks.

One charity that has done incredible work in this area is WaterAid. WaterAid works in 17 countries across Africa and Asia. When they come to a village they help local people design and install clean water supplies and sanitation, they also teach those people all they need to know to maintain these systems as well as the importance and application of proper hygiene. Having a clean water supply can lead to incredible changes for a village. Women and children who had to walk for miles every day to collect water now have their time freed up for other things. This means more time for family life, education, work on other areas that improve their financial wellbeing. Clean local water supplies and sanitation also dramatically reduce health issues related to water-related diseases. WateAid have helped some of the 1 billion people in the world who do not have access to clean water.


I used to walk past a bookshop on my way to work. It was called "The Intermediate Technology Bookshop". The books in the window fascinated me, they covered such topics as wind energy, water purification, solar cookers, human and animal powered transport, hut building, agriculture and international trade on a small scale. If an asteroid hit us and civilization went back to the stone age this shop would tell the lucky finder everything they needed to know to pick up the pieces and start again. The shop closed (perhaps I should have gone inside and actually bought something) to be replaced by a down-market Italian restaurant which also closed to be replaced by an empty shop.

Fortunately the shop was just one part of the Intermediate Technology Development Group who have renamed themselves to Practical Action (Their site is even more fascinating than the bookshop was). Practical Action are a charity that design and implement a range of solutions to problems faced by people in developing nations around the world. They also make many of their designs freely available online along with a host of technical information. Go on, try making some of them, I dare you. Practical Action have provided such life changing solutions as: -

      • Solar powered cookers.

      • Improved wood burning stoves that require less fuel and produce less smoke (Excess levels of cooking smoke kills 1.5 million people a year.).

      • Gravity powered rope ways in Nepal.

      • Composting toilets.

      • Wind and hand powered water pumps.

      • Bicycle trailers and bicycle ambulances.

      • Small scale electricity generation from wind, hydro, and biogas.

      • Solar water distillation.

Practical Action was founded by a guy called E.F. Schumacher, an economist who wrote a book called "small is beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered" The book suggested that the current economic model of profit and progress that leads to large corporations was damaging both the environment and the developing world. It is hard to watch the news without at least considering that he might have had a point. Schumacher attempted to befriend tree-hugging hippies and scruffy communists alike by suggesting that a better way for man to move forward is the use of intermediate technology based on communal ownership and regional workplaces using local materials. When he published the book 33 years ago it caused a sensation and although the developed world clearly didn't pay that much attention the methods he described are being used by people through the developing world (aided by many fine NGO's) to create improved resilience, prosperity and quality of life for themselves. It can put the lives and futures of people across the world into their own hands. It can help make a better world.

08 August 2006

50 films to see before you die

Channel 4 recently showed a programme called 50 films to see before you die. It was yet another one of the countdown shows that has insidiously worked it's way on to our screens by being cheap and requiring very little creative thought to make. Unfortunately these shows contain some sort of secret chemical that makes them addictive. This means they will force otherwise rational people into spending three hours of their lives finding out what the 250 most shocking moments in a soap opera were.

I found that I disagreed with most of the choices and decided to compile my own list. I have to say as the list filled up it became increasingly difficult to decide which films to include and even worse which films to leave out. I also found the list kept changing as I thought of films that were more deserving of a place. This is my (possibly)final list (in alphabetical order): -

12 Monkeys
2001: A Space Odyssey
Alien
Apocalypse Now
Apollo 13
The Big Lebowski
Blade Runner (Original Cut)
Blazing Saddles
Brazil
Donnie Darko
Dune
Enemy At The Gates
The Exorcist
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Fight Club
The Fisher King
Forrest Gump
Gattaca
The Green Mile
The House Of Flying Daggers
Interview With The Vampire
It's A Wonderful Life
The Italian Job
Jaws
Kill Bill (1 & 2)
Leon
Life Of Brian
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Lord Of War
National Lampoons Animal House
Natural Born Killers
Oh Brother Where Art Thou
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Pleasantville
Pulp Fiction
The Rock
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Run Lola Run
Se7en
Seven Samurai
Seven Years In Tibet
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shining
Shooting Dogs
The Silence Of The Lambs
Sin City
Spirited Away
Time Bandits
Trainspotting
The Truman Show

05 August 2006

Words of wisdom

A conversation with a friend reminded me of a piece of wisdom that life taught me a few years ago and that I now want to share with you all.

If you are going to drink so excessively that you are violently sick, don't do it while wearing sandals.

04 August 2006

The blood is the life

Prompted by my friend's premature baby (see Jamie and Tom) and my mum's constant nagging I decided to start giving blood. The first time I went was 3 months ago and I was amazed at the high level of precautions taken to ensure the well being of the donors and the safety of the donations. I was also disappointed that the needle slipped and I was only able to give half a bag which is at least enough for lab use.

The second time I went was yesterday and I thought I was going to fail again. I flinched as the needle went in and they were forced to remove the needle and could not use that arm again in that session. I also acquired a fantastic bruise (shown below). They wanted to give up but I was so desperate to give my first full donation that I insisted. They swapped arms, made me sign a new set of consent forms, got a new bag and called in their senior donor carer who apparently has 20 years of being a nurse and sticking needles in people. 10 minutes and no discomfort later I had given a lovely fresh pint of O+. Hooray.

One of the frightening facts about blood donations is that the stocks of blood are always so low. At the time of writing the national blood service has only enough O+ to last 3.8 days. Without sufficient stocks of blood care of serious injuries at A&E units as well as many operations would be impossible. Yet only 5-6% of people who are eligible to give blood actually do so. I am ashamed that I took so long to start giving blood and fully intend to continue for as long as I can.

Btw the people at donation centers are always as friendly and helpful as possible. Donors are volunteering their time and effort and this is very much appreciated. I urge anyone reading this who can give blood and doesn't to at least consider becoming a donor. The National Blood Service have a great web site with lots of info. Now for the bruise (which doesn't hurt at all).