the corner office

Here's something interesting: tucked away at the end of this article about witch burning is a piece which refutes the commonly held view that witch burning was orchestrated and encouraged by the Church:

In her paper, Recent Developments in the Study of the Great European Witch Hunt, Jenny Gibbons notes that most witch-hunts took place where central authority had broken down, often in border areas "where rival Christian sects fought to impose their religious views on each other". It was partly for this reason that local secular courts meted out the harshest judgements.

In countries like Spain, Italy and Russia, where a strong, unified Church existed, there were few witch trials.

On the other hand, Hallowe'en is the devil's work, Catholic church warns parents. Ah well.

"the brief respite this night off would bring." Jeez!

Done. Tomorrow morning after Ronwen's done a final proof-read, I can priority post my project paper off to the university and mail the soft copy to the lecturer, accompanied by a grovelling apology for it being late. I hope she'll accept it, else my rather shite October will have been both shite and in vain.

Heavy going, all this academic writing. Two months ago I couldn't even spell heteroskedasticity, and now, well, now I can spell it. I even got to throw in a ceteris paribus. Utterly contrived, I must concede, but between all the we-note-thats and clearlys and it-follows-thats and thuses and givens and what have you, a little self-indulgence is earned.

I sit here now, and even though I'm done, and have so desperately being looking forward to the brief respite this night off would bring, I still feel terribly guilty because I'm not working, or something.

Being slightly more serious about environmental issues, this is sobering stuff:

A picture is emerging of ubiquitous chemical contamination driving down sperm counts and feminising male children all over the developed world. And anti-pollution measures and regulations are falling far short of getting to grips with it.

I'm not saying climate change isn't a problem, but this strikes me as no less of a problem. I remember seeing a documentary about the effects of our exposure to increased oestrogen-like chemicals (largely from plastics) many years ago (as far back as in the 90s, perhaps?), and society didn't seem to be too fussed back then, and society doesn't seem too fussed right now.

The thing is, you wouldn't expect it to be difficult to market this as a problem: at the risk of resorting to trite stereotypes, you'd think that faced with the likelihood that their sons would end up with smaller tooties, look more like girls and be far less likely to provide grandchildren one day, most fathers (and mothers) would be seeing this problem as Environmental Public Enemy #1.

Not a great mental image if you're squeamish like me but if you care about the acid rain then maybe you have to embrace these sorts of things:

The bodies of thousands of rabbits culled every year from the parks in Stockholm's Kungsholmen neighbourhood are being used to fuel a heating plant in central Sweden.

I guess that'll be one way to deal with all the poor dogs who fail their MOT.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey got his cassock in twist about the BNP:

Lord Carey said the other panellists should have challenged him more on his "deceitful attempt to align his despicable policies with Christianity".

...

"To hear the phrase 'Christian Britain' coming from the mouth of Nick Griffin made me shudder...

He called on "all Christians to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in rejection of Griffin's notion that 'Christianity' has any place in his bigotry".

I can't help but wonder how many of the BNP's policies have been supported by Christian churches in the past. Would it have been better if Griffin had said that he represented 1950's Christian Britain?

Of course, even in contemporary terms, Carey is full of shit. Speaking of bigotry:

Members of the Forward in Faith group discussed the Pope's invitation to Anglicans to convert to Catholicism but keep many of their existing practices.

Many who are considering conversion are unhappy at women bishops being introduced into the Church of England.

Female Anglican bishops are only a recent development, the Catholic church still won't allow female priests, Judaism and Islam are no better. Where are the activists campaigning to keep religious leaders off the telly?

Fido is causing fairies to die in the rain forests:

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found

The only morally consistent conclusion is that dogs should be taxed heavily, and that they should be given MOTs, and when they get old and fart too much, they should be put down.

Not that I have anything against dogs - I love dogs - but if we don't wanna choke to death on the acid rain then we know what we have to do.

I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech. So I think Nick Griffin has a right to spout racist BS if he wants to. Does that mean he has a right to go onto the BBC and spout his BS on public broadcasts? That's not the same thing. I think it's debatable whether the BBC has a moral duty to give him air time; even though it's a public broadcaster, I think it comes down to how the BBC interprets its own policies or charters.

On a practical level though, it seems clear to me that allowing Griffin onto Question Time was the sensible option. The real problem isn't about Griffin on the BBC, it's that Griffin is an elected politician and lots of Brits voted for him. He and his ilk are by their nature prone towards paranoia and persecution complexes, and when the 'establishment' bends rules to silence them, it just reinforces their assertions that they're being persecuted. I think it works better for Griffin's message to be exposed to the world, to be challenged and exposed in debates, and shown for the BS it is.

On another level, I'm not sure what's more dangerous - a racist on the telly or a bunch of activists trying to silence people whose views they don't like. Griffin's views may be odious, but the views of those who believe he shouldn't be allowed to speak, who believe that the rest of the world should be denied the opportunity to hear him and make up their own minds, aren't much better. Neither Griffin nor the activists seem to have much respect for the freedoms of others.

My big project is already overdue and I'm working flat-out to finish it off. I have to submit a paper version as well as an electronic version of the project. This is not a good time for postal workers to go on strike.

Some things irk me. Tesco's stealth loyalty program via supporting DEFRA's war on BOGOF is one of those things. There's something deeply wrong with the idea of a government department stopping me from getting certain types of discounts because it doesn't approve of what I might end up doing with the things I've bought.