SS Richard Montgomery

Reading the Times this morning, I found out that the excellent plan to move London airport to a new island off the Isle of Sheppey in Kent has a major league hitch. To wit, the USS Richard Montgomery, the wreck of a World War II munitions ship still carrying 1400 tons of explosive in some 3000 tons of ordnance.

I see here not an obstacle but an opportunity. To build the proposed island needed to site the airport is a massive feat of civil engineering requiring the building of an artificial island over 6 Kilometres on a side. A good deal of excavation will be required, not least in the unstable and polluted silts off Sheerness.

Now to my semi educated eye, knowing the little I do on the subject, might it not be a good idea to build a huge soil and rock 'coffer dam' around the wreck to the planned island perimeter? It should be worth noting that the nature of the wreck means, according to a report by the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency that "doing nothing was not an option for much longer". In other words, it's going to explode anyway as sea water infiltrates the fuses and detonators, so why not deal with it in a planned and careful manner? Build the coffer dam in the form of a perimeter wall some 50m thick, let's say to a height of 15m above the high water mark withe the wreck half a kilometre inside the southern perimeter. Build a sluice at the lowest point and let the next extreme low tide drain out the bulk of sea water. Block off the now redundant sluice with an earthern wall to the same thickness as the rest of the coffer dam, and pump out enough water to expose the very top of the upperworks of the wreck if these are not already awash. Set demolition charges and detonate at low tide to mitigate any shockwave in the water. Do not forget to stand well clear. Two miles should do the trick.

The 15m coffer dam, if shaped correctly, would deflect most of the blast energy upwards, and thus prevent blast /overpressure damage on the mainland. It would also contain most of the debris, limit damage to the nearby marine habitat, which would be destroyed by the wreck detonating on its own. It should also limit any fallout by 'shaping' the detonation rather than allow a disaster to happen on the north Kentish coast. Leaving a certain quantity of water in the enclosed perimeter would have a damping effect on the explosion which should inundate the coffer dam but mitigate any catastrophic effects upon the environment. Sheerness might not hear a thing, rather like this example, where local residents spoke of not hearing the largest civilian explosion ever.

Benefits; Big hole dug for underground airport infrastructure / landfill at minimal cost. Getting rid of dangerous wreck which is going to go up in smoke in the not too distant future anyway. Provides a lot of construction jobs while the global economy is in a downturn. Workers pay taxes, provides work for associated industries such as mining and construction equipment. Gets rid of a cubic Kilometre or two of non recyclable material and provides new land for an airport nobody else wants. All that and lots of work for Civil Engineers.

Looks like a win-win to me. Wonder if the US governments offer from 1967 to help make the wreck safe would provide extra project funding? Could be worth a try.

Death to television

Friday was a day when a figurative bucket of cold water was thrown over my occasionally overheated good intentions. I work for a charity, and part of my job entails home visits. Oh boy. Some of the homes I visited on Friday made me thoughtful. If ever anyone asks me for a definition of squalor, I think I can understand. Not that I mind you understand, it goes with the territory.

On the up side, most Canadians I have contact with are polite, unfailingly positive, and honest. Almost stereotypically so, but this is not a bad thing. For the most part I love the people over here, they give you hope in humanity. On the down side of the equation there are a few who, for one reason or another, are the authors of their own undoing.

I know no one is going to read this if my reading figures are anything to go by, but I have to get it out of my system. There is poverty here in Canada, real, hardly any clothes on your back poverty. Even here in one of the most carefully wealthy nations on Earth. Not that this is the fault of any political system. Most of it (But this is only my opinion, for what little that is worth) is to do with what I would call 'poor life choices'.

Visit 1: Person living in a rented apartment. Condition; 'grubby', a fine patina of greyish brown over everything that seemed to permeate the very air. Tidy, but poor quality furnishing that would look more at home in a landfill. Persons condition; prematurely aged by a mixture of alcohol and / or drugs. Physical age was probably early forties, but physical appearance was more like someone of sixty plus. We met parents who actually looked slightly younger than Visit 1. The self neglect / abuse was palpable. The biggest and newest item of furniture was the TV, and even that looked like it was from a thrift store. The TV was left on all the time I was there.

Visit 2: Single parent of teenager living with elderly newly bedridden parent in rented apartment. Kitchen was full of unwashed dishes with weeks old food ingrained into the preparation services. All the rooms were piled with unwashed bedding and junk. No real attempt had been made to clean or make the apartment presentable. Curtains were drawn, giving an extra gloomy air to the apartment, and the TV, a modern 32 inch plasma screen, was on all the time.

Visit 3: 1960's built apartment block. Occupant elderly with careworker present. Most charitable description of the apartment and occupant would be 'threadbare'. Frayed bedding, likewise furniture. As in the other two visits, the word 'dilapidation' was uppermost in my thoughts. Elderly TV was on all the time throughout our visit. Like in the other two apartments, the occupants paid more attention to the TV than to us newcomers.

In all three cases, the occupants kept the television on all the time, it beckoned even my attention (And I personally think most of what is on TV is pap at best) like some consciousness sucking black hole, or audio visual wallpaper over the gaps in people's lives. Possibly a little of both. It verged on the hypnotic.

When I lived in the UK I used to be an avid reader of Policeman's weblogs (Coppersblog, PCBloggs, Inspector Gadget), and all three detailed (and still do) how much of their work took them to places similar to those I have described. The common denominator in all their writings is the TV.

We have a modest 24 inch television set in our apartment, but I refuse to have either a cable or satellite subscription, and it sits unused for all but an hour or two each day when it is used as a DVD player for a movie or old TV series we want to see again. In my family, the television and its output was referred to many ways and most of them disparaging; 'One eyed monster', 'goggle box' etc. We used it sparingly. Not like many, who leave it on all day. The news we get off the Internet, and even then sparingly. Life is too short to just sit in front of a screen all the time just watching or reading. A man (or woman) needs time in his / her own head, with his / her own feelings, and this is something having the TV on constantly denies us. It takes the place of thinking. It promises us an unattainable world yet gives nothing back. It is a one way distorting mirror where we can observe but not partake of life.

My friends who have TV services often complain that they have 'two hundred channels, but nothing worth watching'. One friend has a sixty inch screen in his living room. He switches it on for one hour a night, and then complains that the news coverage makes him "Angry", especially the BBC news he gets via his satellite connection.

Now the TV is not wholly at fault. It is partially at fault because it forces passivity upon us, and humans are not necessarily passive. It is an excuse for procrastination, for not dealing with your inner self because that requires mental work. It also acts as an excuse for not performing those physical taks like cleaning that can make our quality of life better with only a little effort.

Even standing quite still in the middle of the woods, ears straining, listening to the far off blare of someone playing music across the Narrows, Dog crashing through the brush, the cawing of crows, and the high pitched cries of Bald Eagles, the rustle of leaves, the cool autumnal air like chilled satin across your exposed skin, requires thought. That kind of active watching is what humans evolved to do. We are a predator species, originally reliant upon our senses for survival, and just sitting in the warm staring at a screen and consuming is probably not really all that good for you. You need to get out and do, or even just 'be'.

By comparison, watching Television is a passive process which requires little mental input from the observer. It requires amongst other things willing suspension of belief and inaction. Yet I have the overwhelming suspicion that if there were no television, the 'social problems' of which it is symptomatic would not disappear. It is a symptom, not the disease. The poverty I often see in my working life will not cease if the TV does. That is within some of the people themselves.

It's not just for kids

While Wife is in the UK, I get to choose the viewing, and today was reminded of a series first aired on British TV in 1970, UFO. It was one of my favourite TV shows at the time, and has to rank with some of the more sophisticated sci-fi ever made despite it's vintage. Well, I was young then (Hells teeth! I was once young! Oh tempera! Oh mores!). Of course the costumes and everything were a bit naff, rather like the wigs, but as I recall, it was the first sci-fi show I ever saw that dealt with adult issues like relationship problems, betrayal, and racism in a mature (for the period) manner.

UFO was cancelled then followed up with Space: 1999, which I found rather corny by comparison, but then many TV studios appeared to think and probably still do, that sci-fi is for kids. All this despite Firefly and a few other popular shows that have done the rounds over the years. The best sci-fi programming addresses adult themes, it has, for want of a better term, edge. I think this is why I don't much care for Doctor Who, Star Trek and Andromeda. They're too anodyne, too safe, too glib and glossy, or too PC. I liked Farscape for the same reason, there was a certain goofiness of the characters that made them each unique and very plausible.

It's possibly the anodyne PC stuff that makes some sci-fi such a turn off for so many people. The characters, like Kirk, Picard, or The Doctor have a particularly constructed quality. They move through the scenes and episodes, yet appear unchanged by them. There is the odd exception of course, but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Drama, no matter what its genre, should have characters that change. Like people change throughout their lives. For example Wife says that I behave sometimes as though I've still got the body of a 23 year old, well I have, but it's a bit shop soiled and creaky sometimes, and rather like an early model automobile, no longer has the full fuel economy or top speed of when it was new. Stercus accidit. I understand this and no longer try to figuratively leap tall buildings in a single bound. People adapt with age and experience. I've ridden a Motorcycle round Europe, scrounged my way around the UK, won a couple of fights, and lost a couple, got much too drunk too often, married, seen two teenage girls safely through adolescence to University. I'm not the same as I was at 23. I'm smoother, more self aware, more laid back (Well, with exceptions). We all change. So should characters in a TV show, regardless of genre. It's what gives them immediacy and interest and adds to the story.

That's my take on it anyway.

I think I'll go and see this one...

....if of course it gets screened up here. Failing that, a trip to Seattle might be in order.

The news from my one time home

Keep on feeling that selling this manuscript of mine is going to be a tougher job than previously. All of my enquiries to date have been met with a deafening silence, not even a 'send it and it'll go in the slush pile' response, which is odd. I'm putting it down to the economy. When the credit goes crunch then there is less money about as the economy is shrinking back to a more sustainable level. Less money for luxury items like magazines and books, so all the publishers are counting all the baked beans in every tin, and only staying with the trusted and proven moneyspinners.

Relative newcomers like me without an inside track are basically going to have to wait until the market improves. Unless of course a publisher gets desperate enough to take a chance on a nobody. Even a published nobody like me.

Have stopped getting upset about the reduction in civil liberties and increasing taxation back in the UK. I have a job, a Canadian Driver's License, and as far as I am concerned, this is going to be home for the rest of my life. I'm here legally, and intend to stay that way come hell or high water.

I often get asked by other ex-pats, and a few native born Canadians if I'll ever go back to Britain. My general response, after looking around at the calm waters, distant snow capped peaks and blue skies of Vancouver Island, is so far "No. not if I can help it." Whenever nostalgia about bright early mornings and open roads on the old Fosse Way bites, I recall rush hour traffic on the M25, grey skies and drizzling rain, the incessant background whining (From the people, not mosquitoes), 'people jams' and the, well not specifically rudeness, but the sense that you, as an individual do not count.

The general claim round here is that British Columbia is the best place to live on Earth. Having travelled throughout the world, I would heartily endorse that assertion. God bless Canada.

A theory of Human remains

Whenever I walk Dog along the local shoreline it’s easy to think of all the recent news stories about human feet being washed up on the beaches of local islands, wondering if such an item would end up under my eyes.

What occurs to me is that BC has a lot of relatively fast flowing rivers that dump everything west of the Rockies into the currents that flow along and between the coastal islands. Where the gap between landmasses is relatively narrow, stuff gets washed up in tidal estuaries, isolated shorelines and more commonly in increasingly populated areas.

One of the things you are also constantly reminded of is that BC is still mainly wild country. Less than 100 metres from where I sit typing this throwaway prose is completely unmanaged woodland. In parts of the province that’s all you’ve got for hundreds of miles. Trees and game trails without a trace of man’s influence. Most of the forest sloping hundreds, or in some cases thousands of feet down to the nearest creek or river. Raw creeks and unclimbed bluffs, which are at first sight a rock athletes wet dream. Did I mention that the Canadians are an outdoor people?

When mishaps occur this can be a place where help can be slow in arriving, if at all. In most of the province there is no mobile phone signal because there are no towns and suburbs to serve. Ergo, no phone masts, and in many deep valleys, even on the Trans Canada Highway, no radio coverage or reception. You screw up in the wrong place, and help may be a long time coming.

Every other month there are plane crashes where the victim’s bodies are never recovered, boating accidents that never get reported. Walking ‘off trail’ is very popular, and occasionally people get lost, are attacked by wild animals, or simply walk over a cliff and are killed. Flash floods or the deep chill of the Northern Winter claims others. Some commit suicide, and occasionally someone is murdered. Some die of natural causes. Their mortal remains often lying where they fell, and where the moods of wind and water send part of their bodies tumbling downstream. Down the rivers and into the sea where the natural process of decomposition reclaims the various chemicals of the organic soup that goes to make a human.

Body parts protected by slow to decompose artificial materials, such as sneakers etc, will float, buoyed up by their lighter than water components. Disarticulated by decomposition, they bob along the currents and tides, nibbled at by passing sea and river creatures, until they arrive on a beach, and if found by someone walking the shoreline, instantly become a tabloid headline.

There you have it, my personal theory about the body parts appearing on British Columbia’s beaches. No serial killers, no massacres, no drug lords with a bizarre fetish for tossing away the amputated feet of their executed rivals, (Well, perhaps not as many as the sensationalizing media would have us think) but simple human cock up, and the occasional hoax.

Update: Paragraphs 5, 6 & 7 corrected. I really should proof this stuff like a short story before hitting the 'publish' button. Apologies to anyone offended by my glaring grammatical errors. I have kicked myself.

Strange dreams

The past few weeks my dreams have been full of grey, machine like shapes which are probably an imagination overflow from the current project. This morning I woke up with a head full of Orca's and Dolphins. Go figure.

Hazards to navigation

Down in the Dodd Narrows is not really a place for full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes boating at the moment. There really is a lot of floating log debris out there. I put it down to the tides, which have gone from quite low, right to the bottom of the inter tidal range, to right up to the top of the beach, which floats off all the massive logs that have been resting quite happily on the foreshore for some time, now letting the currents gently waft them out into the middle of the tidal flow to lurk in wait for some hopelessly gung-ho boating individual in a hurry. No one has been sunk to my knowledge yet, but I'm sure that come the weekend there might be some dented or holed hulls.

While walking Dog, have been pondering the nature of the term 'Extelligence', which was coined by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen of Warwick University back in 1997. Although some have criticised it as being little more as a neologism, for myself, being a wordsmith of a middling sort, I'm inclined to think that all words began that way, and the field of Computing releases a flood of jargon into the English language every year, as did the Space age, the industrial revolution and every societal adaptation before and since English began to be formalised in medieval times. English is a constantly evolving language, whose main rules are often treated as little more than rough guidelines by those who claim it as their mother tongue.

My own personal definition of extelligence is 'If you don't know something - look it up'. An Internet connection can make you highly extelligent to a degree, but then you have to use your own intelligence and reasoning abilities to examine the source and compare it against other sources. To put it in the words of my forbears; 'Don't believe everything you read'. You have to learn to be discriminating instead of just regurgitating the opinons of others. A quick Google (Itself a recent word-invention) on any given topic will find the web sites and opinions of any number of 21st century snake oil salespeople selling 'health' products, promoting whatever it is they have to sell; be that Gadgets, Philosophy, Politics, Holistic Therapies, their own particular brand of hypochondriasis, Religion or cult.

Although I have a fairly jaundiced view of my own level of intelligence, and question it on a daily basis, I'm often astounded at the failures of reasoning in others, and often have to work very hard to conceal that surprise. Wife constantly chides me for 'frowning' (i.e. scrunching up my forehead in amazement) when I see or hear something that jars or conflicts with previously held reasoned conclusions.

Although having considered that, perhaps I am just cautious in navigating the hazards of mental navigation. Hmm. Cute. Back to the MSS.

Curiosities

Around 12 today there was a loud booming noise, like you would get when hitting a big steel container with a lump of two by four. Took a look out of the front window. No big trucks in view. Down in the narrows a tug was pulling a log boom northwards to the Harmac, which is supposedly going to close down shortly. Took another look and saw something like a mast sticking up, like a fishing boat stuck amongst the logs. Turned out to be a floating crane in the middle of the boom. You see something new every day round here, despite our relative isolation.

Found Dog hiding in the bathroom as usual, chickenhearted mutt. We used to expect him to cope with street noise, sirens and all sorts when we lived in a town, now he lives out here in the boonies, he gets upset by the least little thing. Poor old thing. I make a fuss of him for reassurance, although that doesn't seem to help.

Read in today's online Telegraph that the UK Ministry of Defence has released more of it's UFO files and that a 'Solar powered bra' has been unveilled. Must be something to do with May's early warm spell. The 'silly season' has come early this year.

Meanwhile, back in BC, it's been raining; but the forecast is for sunshine tomorrow, and a nice warm weekend. That will do me. Back to work.

You see something new every day

Yesterday's novelty was watching a log boom do a U-turn in the narrowest part of Dodd Narrows at low tide. Was walking Dog in the morning and noted the amount of boat traffic going north. Around here it's usually so quiet at this time of year that five boats passing through the channel is rush hour. I counted eight, plus a log boom being chugged north by one of the ever busy tugs. At first, the tug kept to the far side of the channel by Mudge Island, letting the other traffic go past. As it got level with Joan Point something odd appeared to happen. A blue hulled sailing yacht, a fifteen metre boat with two masts which had been following the seventy five metre long boom had to stop and go backwards.

Being a curious sort, I ambled up the foreshore and took a look at what was going on, having a quiet curse for not having brought binoculars for once. Damn me if the tug was now facing south at the 'wrong' end of the boom, it had turned south where the channel is less than a hundred metres wide. The blue hulled boat was moving backwards under power. For ten long minutes I watched the tug shunt and heave at the hundred or so tons of logs blocking the channel until it had the front of the boom facing south. Then, with a creak from the towing cables that I thought heralded the break up of the corral of heavy floating timber, the tug began the arduous job of turning the boom north again. Still at low tide, still at the narrowest part of Dodd Narrows. Another ten minutes and two boats from the direction of Duke point came south on the relatively shallow side of the channel closest to Joan Point, then the blue hulled yacht and two other boats headed north towards Nanaimo. The tug and it's log boom were snugged close to the deeper side of the channel next to Mudge Island, just holding steady with the current.

Other stuff include our two resident pairs of Bald Eagles are back hunting with a vengeance. Early morning and late afternoon is the best time to see them hunt, dive bombing the surface and coming away with a struggling silver form in their talons. These guys are big too, full grown specimens with well over two metre wingspans. Their droppings can be found all along the foreshore.

On a more sombre note, I notice that Wikipedia is infested by people who don't care about accuracy, only putting forward their own world view. A piece in the National Post (see Wikipedia's Zealots) I learned about from Small Dead Animals outlined the difficulty of updating the terribly useful online resource, when your entries could be deleted at will by someone with a political agenda. There's an Information War going on. A propaganda machine that Goebbels would have been proud of is perpetuating it's own view with a complete disregard for accuracy. They are intelligent, they are organised, they are funded, they are committed, and they frighten the socks off me. What is their real agenda? It isn't truth, and that's a fact.

This does not alter the fact that there is still snow on the top of Mount Benson, and at the current rate of decrease, it may stay there for at least another week or two, the longest in anecdotal memory. People have noticed against the avalanche of pro warming propaganda, and are guiltily mentioning it like they are speaking heresy just before the next scheduled Auto da fe. During a haircut yesterday, my Barber raised the subject. My workmates have noticed. Our friends on the island have noticed. The heat death of the universe is not upon us, and they openly wonder what all the fuss is about.

Day off

Nice day yesterday. Took the ten minute ferry ride over to Protection Island and had a very pleasant late lunch at the Dinghy Dock pub. Walked it off wandering round the island, and looking at all the different houses lurking amongst the trees. There's a very off beat vibe, Island residents mostly get about the gravel roads on golf carts which they use as runabouts. One even had his own sea plane, with an ingenious launch vehicle. Notwithstanding all the place names being on a pirate theme, various road names being Pirates Lane, Cutlass Lookout, Captain Kidds Terrace etc. No doubt this was all the brainchild of Nanaimos eccentric Mayor Frank James Ney (A.K.A. 'Black Frank') who was also credited with being a prime promoter of the Nanaimo to Vancouver Bathtub race. We missed last years race, but hope to follow it in 2008. Frank, an ex pilot, died in 1992. I think I would have liked him. The world is a poorer place without people of his character.

Wife was bowled over by the log built homes we saw there (She's always wanted one) and vouchsafed "Promise me Jones, when we build our house, it's got to have a sea view."
"I'm good with that." I replied, but then I can be good at giving out promises when I haven't a clue how I'll deliver. All I know is that the promise will be delivered, though hell itself should bar the way. I'm like that. I haven't failed yet. Nor will I.

Victoria

Day trip down to Victoria yesterday. Wife had an evening meeting to go to, so we thought we'd make a day of it. Left Dog with friends around nine, and headed south down the Island Highway. It rained all the way down until we crossed the Malahat, then all of a sudden, no rain. This sort of thing often happens when you travel through Vancouver Islands many micro climates.

We began the day off at the Maritime Museum, and a surprisingly spooky experience. On the third floor of the Museum is the Assizes room, where felons were tried, and sometimes sentenced to death. Now I didn't know this at the time, and just popped my head round the door and stepped in to the old court room. As court rooms go, this one looked pretty average for a Victorian court room. Having done jury duty (Twice!) I'm fairly familiar with the layout of a courtroom, including how hard those bench seats can be on your arse after two or three hours. The furniture and panelling was all built from the same gold coloured timber, with a raised bench at the back for the Magistrates / Judge to sit at, framed by heavy velvet hangings, stepped seating down both sides of the room, an enclosed witness stand by the court recorders bench in front of the judge, and a raised dock about a third of the way in to the court room from the rear. As I stepped level with the dock my back muscles knotted a little, and a vague sense of unease made me look up and around the plain panelled room. Looked behind the judges bench to see a fire extinguisher and old plain wooden chair. Passed by the dock again, and felt the same tightening. Very odd, seeing as I was the only person on that floor at the time. Not just the room, the entire floor. Rejoined Wife down at the gift shop and mentioned that 'you can feel a sense of history' when you walk in the old assizes. She pointed out an article about ghosts and what have you that we had missed on the way in. "You felt the ghost then?" She smirked at me.
"Don't know. All I know is what I felt." I said, so she wrote down that I had 'felt the ghost' in the visitors book, a thinly disguised expression of glee playing about her lips. Sometimes I should think very carefully about what I say to my better half.

Today we didn't head down to the Empress for tea. At sixty five bucks a head they can go whistle, but instead lunched at one of the many coffee shops in town. I chomped into a very nice Chicken and Mushroom Calzone with Olives, and wife had an Italian salad. After that, we spent our time visiting the Market Place and a number of stores around town. The dread 'shopping' experience was ameliorated by the various sales people, who lightened our path with friendly banter. We tried on hats, shopped for stationery and art materials, Wife looked at necklaces while I found a chair to lounge in. It could have been worse. Supper was at the Four Mile Bar and Grill over towards view Royal. Great chairs, guys. Terrific Garlic Chicken wings and vegetable dips. Wife went to her meeting around seven, and I took an hours snooze in the car when it became too dim to read. Drove back to friends to pick up Dog at twenty past ten, then Wife drove the last ten klicks home for tea, and a couple of episodes of 'Yes Minister' before bed. All in all, not a bad day.

Art has boundaries

Via Small Dead Animals; an 'artist' gets some children to round up a stray, then ties it up in an art gallery to die of starvation.

I think that the people who went to see the 'art' are just as culpable, if not more so, than the 'artist'. Jeez, I like to hunt and fish. I'm quite relaxed about taking my dinner from field and sea to my dinner plate but prolonging the suffering of any creature is the true meaning of 'cruelty'. Poncing around drinking wine and talking, watching something die slowly while dog food is used to spell out the word 'work' in the local language out of reach of the poor bloody creature. A small boy pulling wings off flies is the closest comparative social stereotype I can think of.

A memory tugs in my head about another piece of 'Art' like this. In 1971, the comedian Spike Milligan smashed a glass door at London's Hayward Gallery in protest at American artist Newton Harrison's plan to electrocute catfish, oysters and shrimps as part of his Portable Fish Farm installation. The 'catfish controversy' was widely discussed in the media.

Art does have boundaries, and this kind of crap crosses them all. Hope the 'artist' never sells any of his work in his lifetime. Let him starve.

Blocked?

Was checking my meagre site statistics this morning and found the line below from the ‘Block options’ menu on someone’s web server.

http://131.235.253.200:15871/c...ions.cgi?ws-session=2684744925

A quick WHOIS IP check later and got the following report. The Web server in Question belongs to Environment Canada.

OrgName: Environment Canada
OrgID: ENVIRO-4
Address: 2121 North Service Road
Address: Trans-Canada Highway
City: Dorval
StateProv: QC
PostalCode: H9P-1J3
Country: CA

NetRange: 131.235.0.0 - 131.235.255.255
CIDR: 131.235.0.0/16
NetName: ECONET
NetHandle: NET-131-235-0-0-1
Parent: NET-131-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS1.CMC.EC.GC.CA
NameServer: DNS2.CMC.EC.GC.CA
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated: 2005-03-09

OrgTechHandle: NOC1519-ARIN
OrgTechName: Network Operations Center
OrgTechPhone: +1-514-421-4698
OrgTechEmail: whois-admin@cmc.ec.gc.ca

This is quite amusing. I’m lucky if one or two people a week drop by and then move on, let alone read my empty pseudo environmental ravings. I’m inconsequential, irrelevant in the scheme of any greater debate on anything, yet is this blog now blocked by Environment Canada? I’m amazed they even bothered to look.

Maybe they just block blogs as a matter of policy. That is more likely. Well it won’t make much difference to my non existent readership.

Perspective

The longer I live out here, away from the insanity that seems to pervade modern day life, the more I wonder at my fellow humans. The rarity of joined up thinking is staggering.

Brought up in an Engineering background, I tend to look at events as processes. Causality rules, so to speak. Nothing happens in isolation with few absolute values. Everything is relative. To pretend otherwise is pure folly.

Conversely, to overstate an effect is an even greater mistake, yet I see otherwise intelligent and rational people do it all the time. They take a philosophical position on the shifting sands of 'morality' for example, and promptly get everything disasterously wrong. Almost like they're wearing blinkers.

So it is with religion; as for me, I find religion gets in the way of God, or at least my perception of God, and what that concept means to me. By way of explanation I don't believe God micro manages our lives. From the limited evidence I have available this does seem to be the case. Ergo, some priest in girly robes telling me for example, that eating beef on a Tuesday is not the will or the Lord will get laughed at for the simple reason that I don't think God cares overmuch. In our day to day lives, experience will bear this out.

What I tend to look at as proof God does not meddle in our day to day lives (He's probably got better things to do) is when 'true believers' start handing around veilled threats that something bad will happen to you if you do not do things like their priests tell them you should. If what they say truly were 'God's will', then surely God would make it physically near impossible for me to do. The same argument can be seen to hold true for 'bad' things like Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Sunspot Minimums, Murders, Ethnic Cleansing etc.

Then again, who is to say what is 'bad'? The Earthquake is mainly a side effect of plate tectonics. Volcanoes are just the Earth venting a little excess pressure here and there. Murders and killing are a side effect of a whole rake of factors which have precious little to do with religion, and more to do with the 'baser' side of human nature. Ethnic cleansing is an extreme extension of natural competition between tribal groups. Ergo, 'bad' is a morally relative position just as much as 'good' is.

By this reasoning, religion can neither be viewed wholly as good or bad. If examined under the light of historical perspective, religion is tribal, or to borrow a term from Desmond Morris, 'super-tribal'. We have had eras in human history when a number of Gods were the religion of preference. At the moment a single God is the religious preference. The rest is all a matter of perception and politics.

All seasons in a day

This morning brilliant sunshine. This afternoon sunshine and showers. Right now, snow.

Posted 18:45 local time, broad daylight.

Snow stopped after about seven minutes. Now bright blue sky. Cold and damp outside around 1-2 Degrees celsius.

Posted 19:00 local time, red dusk painting the cliffs of Mudge and Link Islands pink.