Big dill hits Big Apple?

It's usually Tim Blair's job to track all things "Hicks", but here we go.

The New Yorker ran an article noting that it finally appears confirmed (in a new book by his ex-wife) that Osama Bin Laden made a short trip with her to the United States in 1979. According to the wife, it seemed most Americans were nice enough towards them.

In the comments that follow, there is one by someone calling him (or her?) self "davidhicks1" who is from "downunder". I'll just put it here in full:

"I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice." Well of course 'most' Americans are thus. The only 'problematic' ones are those that have been supporting the Racist State of Israel these many decades past. There is a feeling around -and some hope in the world these days- that these unfortunate policies may be about to be minimised( Stay on course President Obama!),and maybe even reversed. How many Americans could list the THREE 'demands' of Osama bin Laden post 9/11. I'll give you a clue from 'downunder.' One had the word PALESTINE in it!

To my ear, this does indeed sound like something the real David Hicks would say, but who knows. Certainly, it seems odd that the writer finds "most" Americans are nice, but then finds the (very large) proportion who support Israel "problematic". Are they overlapping sets, with some Americans being both nice and "problematic"?

Whoever the writer is, he (or she) should not plan on visiting the States any time soon.

Julia, Julia

Annabel Crabb today has a pretty witty column about how right wingers have become infatuated with Julia Gillard, in much the same Margaret Thatcher was seen to have sex appeal by her male opponents of a certain age.

Well, it may have something to do with the mysterious allure of her fleshy ears, since I can report again that barely a day goes past without a few people landing at this blog via a Google search of "Julia Gillard earlobes" or some variation thereof. (For those fans, Julia's sometimes coyly hiding lobes were on very open display last night in a 7.30 Report interview. Knock yourselves out.)

As for me, I think I have mentioned here before that my response to her softened when she showed a surprising graciousness on election night by declining Kerry O'Brien's offer to put the boot into John Howard for not making way for Peter Costello. (When asked whether this had been Howard's big mistake, she replied that, while such simple analysis would be easy to make, in reality all the Labor polling indicated that the Coalition would have done worse under Costello.)

Of course, her policies will still lead to rack and ruin in industrial relations, but she does seem a more genuine person than K Rudd by a few country miles.

The dubious god of Silence

Review: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong | Books | The Guardian

Here's a review of a new book by Karen Armstrong, in which she makes her response to the views of the modern militant atheists.

If the review is accurate, I have an immediate problem with her version of the history of religion (in much the same way many have had a problem with her history of Islam):

Karen Armstrong takes the reader through a history of religious practice in many different cultures, arguing that in the good old days and purest forms they all come to much the same thing. They use devices of ritual, mystery, drama, dance and meditation in order to enable us better to cope with the vale of tears in which we find ourselves. Religion is therefore properly a matter of a practice, and may be compared with art or music....

This is religion as it should be, and, according to Armstrong, as it once was in all the world's best traditions. However, there is a serpent in this paradise, as in others. Or rather, several serpents, but the worst is the folly of intellectualising the practice. This makes it into a matter of belief, argument, and ultimately dogma. It debases religion into a matter of belief in a certain number of propositions, so that if you can recite those sincerely you are an adept, and if you can't you fail. This is Armstrong's principal target. With the scientific triumphs of the 17th century, religion stopped being a practice and started to become a theory - in particular the theory of the divine architect. This is a perversion of anything valuable in religious practice, Armstrong writes, and it is only this perverted view that arouses the scorn of modern "militant" atheists. So Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris have chosen a straw man as a target. Real religion is serenely immune to their discovery that it is silly to talk of a divine architect.

That sentence in bold, if it reflects Armstrong's arguments, sounds hard to justify. I mean, you don't have to read much of the history of early Christianity to be struck by the seriousness of the intellectual battles over how Jesus was to be properly understood. Wikipedia gives a list of pre-reformation "controversial movements", and Paul Johnson in his enjoyable "History of Christianity" made the point that many of the early Christian theological controversies were beset with language difficulties: he writes that Greek lent itself to complexity in theological discussion, but finding equivalent words in Latin proved difficult:

The upshot was that it proved comparatively easy to devise a definition in the Latin West; much more difficult to produce one for the Greek East, and almost impossible to create a translatable formula which both East and West could accept in good faith.

My point is: intellectual understanding of itself has always been important in Christianity, not just since the 17 th century. Maybe she argues that to the average participant in Christianity, such debates had little practical impact. That might be plausible, but isn't the exact nature of (say) a 5th century congregation's personal understanding of their religion at least a little hard to judge that from this point in time?

According to the review, Armstrong thinks this:

So what should the religious adept actually say by way of expressing his or her faith? Nothing. This is the "apophatic" tradition, in which nothing about God can be put into words. Armstrong firmly recommends silence, having written at least 15 books on the topic. Words such as "God" have to be seen as symbols, not names, but any word falls short of describing what it symbolises, and will always be inadequate, contradictory, metaphorical or allegorical. The mystery at the heart of religious practice is ineffable, unapproachable by reason and by language. Silence is its truest expression.

Well, this immersion in mystery is certainly what the likes of Peter Kennedy and his St Mary's in Exile crowd are now promoting.

The author of the review is skeptical, as am I.

This is a tricky area: from a Catholic perspective, mystical or meditative experience is certainly not dismissed as invalid; but I think it would be fair to say that the mystically inclined saints of the Church never doubted the concrete reality of the God that they believed the human mind was inadequate to perceive. The Cloud of Unknowing hid a mountain. The problem with the pop-mysticism of today, with all of it's "everything we can say about God is just a metaphor for the great mystery" approach is that it has converted God into a cloudbank with nothing solid in the centre at all.

Simon Blackburn says this at the end of his review of Armstrong:

Silence is just that. It is a kind of lowest common denominator of the human mind. The machine is idling. Which direction it then goes after a period of idling is a highly unpredictable matter. As David Hume put it, in human nature there is "some particle of the dove, mixed in with the wolf and the serpent". So we can expect that some directions will be better and others worse. And that is what, alas, we always find, with or without the song and dance.

Sounds about right. How can anyone be sure that the meditative practice, or "song and dance" does have a significant effect on the ethical or moral behaviour of the participant in their dealings with others? If you want to address behaviour that is wrong, you need to be able to articulate why it is wrong, not just take the transgressor by the hand and share a quiet moment together. In fact, couldn't it be argued that indigenous cultures had plenty of time for ritual, yet some treated people (women, children and rivals) in pretty appalling ways. The abundance of ritual did not obviously make them more "moral" societies.

Blackburn makes the point that the "proof in the pudding is not my beatific smile but how I behave." For the religious at least, how you behave should surely be significantly influenced by your intellectual understanding of what your religion is about, not just your emotional experience of participating in ritual or worshipping mystery for the sake of mystery.

Bored? Sorry.

UPDATE: Jesus, Mo (& Moses) explain why Armstrong's approach is unappealing.

What art students do for fun

Dezeen - Tantalus Dinner by Ioli Sifakaki

Royal College of Art graduate Iola Kalliopi Sifakaki designed a dinner service cast from her own body and then invited a dozen of her male friends to feast from the tableware.

The dinner service, and the dining furniture Sifikaki designed, are based on the Greek myth of Tantalus, in which Tantalus boils his son Pelops and offers him up as food to the gods to appease them.

OK, but was there any particular need for the male friends to turn it into what looks like a food fight? It has way too much of Peter Greenaway art wankery about it, if you ask me.

Scrapping cap and trade

BBC NEWS | 'Time to ditch climate policies'

An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change.

The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail....

LSE Mackinder programme director Gwyn Prins said the current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading in emissions permits had led to emissions continuing to rise.

He said world proposals to expand carbon trading schemes and channel billions of dollars into clean energy technologies would not work.

"The world has been recarbonising, not decarbonising," Professor Prins said.

"The evidence is that the Kyoto Protocol and its underlying approach have had and are having no meaningful effect whatsoever.

Dot Earth has more about this. It appears that these particular critics think Japan can teach us a thing or two about worthwhile policy. They are quoted as follows:

....the last thing one would do is invent layers of regulatory bodies requiring international accord and transparency in arenas like energy policy, where countries traditionally go it alone. As Professor Prins put it in a statement, “Worthwhile policy builds upon what we know works and upon what is feasible rather than trying to deploy never-before implemented policies through complex institutions requiring a hitherto unprecedented and never achieved degree of global political alignment.”

Hear hear.

Sort of a win for Israel?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaza conflict: Views on Hamas

OK, who knows how representative the views of three people in Gaza really are, but the the comments of 2 of them indicate that many don't exactly feel that Hamas did them a favour by provoking Israel's last attack. The first guy in particular:

"Hamas and the Jews both did this. Hamas don't have the power for war - so why did they launch rockets at Israel? Israel needed war here, but who gave Israel the key to come here? Hamas.

Thank you George W

Obama to Russia: stop Iranian nuclear weapon and US will scrap missile defence - Times Online

I think I have made the point before, but if this strategy works, shouldn't someone be thanking the last president for providing this one with an effective bargaining chip?

Oh the irony...

World needs to be saved from spending spree: PM | The Australian

Market saturated?

Tough times hit scooter sales

Well, I wouldn't have guessed this:

TWO years ago they were the darlings of the roads: sales were up 400 per cent in three years, and hip new riders were taking to the streets every day.

But in the first six months of 2009 scooter sales collapsed, as economic times got tougher and petrol prices eased.

..... scooter sales slumped 29.3 per cent, recording sales of 5592, compared with 7915 over the same six months in 2008.

Guessing the future strength of markets is evidently tricky. I mean, I still wouldn't mind one, so what's wrong with the rest of you?

Explorer Royale

A new journey of exploration for Michael Palin - The Independent

Palin is the new head of the Royal Geographical Society.

It is entirely appropriate that the man who first went Across the Andes by Frog should receive this honour.

Nuts

Husband and wife share home with pythons that roam freely - Telegraph

Fortunately, they have no children.

Reasons to become a priest

The Sci Fi Catholic: Deej to Seminary, Part 2

Sci Fi Catholic, who is currently a young archaeologist, has decided to train for the priesthood. He has quite a funny explanation as to why, at the above link.

Odd weather

Drought alert as El Nino works up double whammy | The Australian

Brisbane is having its wettest winter for ages (I heard that rain of up to 50 to 100mm may be expected over the next couple of days,) and its dams are up to 77% full, yet all the warnings are that an El Nino is forming, with drought on the way.

Not that I wish it for this reason, but a repeat of a 1998 El Nino hot spike would at least stop the current wave of triumphal-ism amongst the AGW skeptics.

Under the kilt problems in Scotland

Gay minister inducted at service

The background:

Mr Rennie, 37, a divorced father-of-one, was minister at Brechin Cathedral but was appointed to Queen's Cross earlier this year, where he is expected to preach his first sermon a week on Sunday.

He has been open about his relationship with his partner and plans to live with him in the manse in Aberdeen.

Some sections of the Church of Scotland feared Mr Rennie's appointment could cause the greatest divide since the Disruption of 1843, when part of the Kirk broke away to form the Free Kirk.

Just noting the story...

UPDATE: If a minister is divorced and was wanting to live with (as opposed to marrying) his new girlfriend in the manse, I would have thought that would be a major problem. (You really want your ministers just shacking up with their girlfriends?) If you say "well, the problem for this guy is that he can't "regularise" this relationship by marrying, even if he wants to, so we shouldn't penalise him," then isn't the issue to do with the Church's understanding of marriage? In other words, if the Church does not permit marriage as a sacrament for gay couples, how can it say this Minister's relationship is not a problem?

Where's the outrage?

Israel has right to hit Iran: Biden

Can you imagine how quick the outrage would be at Huffington Post if this had been said by a Vice President Palin?

As far as I can see, no Huffpo post on it yet. (Lots and lots of talk about Palin quitting though.)

Lucky for Andrew Sullivan

'Denial of pregnancy is not classified as a psychiatric illness' France 24

What will he do if Palin doesn't keep a high profile? He'll have withdrawal symptoms, I have no doubt.

Adelaide revisited

By virtue of some very cheap airfares from Tiger Airways, (I find them a good, no nonsense airline) my family and I had a long weekend in Adelaide last week. Here's my list of good things about Adelaide:

1. North Adelaide. I don't think any other city in Australia has such a concentration of impressive 19th century mansions, houses and public buildings as Adelaide does in North Adelaide. I had lived in Adelaide for about 2 years in the 1980's, so I knew North Adelaide was a nice area, but I had forgotten just how impressive the buildings are. (Have a look at this Flickr set which contains quite a few from the suburb.) This visit, we in fact stayed in North Adelaide in a little 1870's cottage which, sad to say, had a hot water system which suited its era, and an airconditioning system which did not keep the living room warm. But still, it was in a great location and is without doubt the oldest building I've ever stayed in Australia, so that counts for something:


Doesn't seem to be haunted, either.

2. Eating. We enjoyed a great tapas style dinner at Sparrow Kitchen and Bar in North Adelaide. It's only been open since Christmas, apparently, but it seems terribly popular, and justifiably so. I can't recommend it highly enough - at least for tapas and its Spanish wines.

3. Cheese. Look, even Queensland does cheese well now, but we did particularly enjoy the cheese from Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley. Our favourite: a washed rind goats cheese from the Barossa Valley Cheese Company which is gooey straight out of the fridge, with that powerful, hard to describe washed rind flavour.

4. The Adelaide Hills. Seems to have a lot of wineries now, and is a significantly prettier drive than the Barossa. Here's a shot of cows in the mist, at least showing how green it is at the moment:


My photos of the Barossa don't look all that different, I guess:


But trust me, much of the Barossa is more like an open plain, and it's hard to see how it ever got the name "valley" attached to it:


I know from past experience that, in summer, those baked brown plains are not particularly attractive. Barossa Valley towns are also nothing special to look at. Angaston is probably the pick. (And it has that cheese.)

5. The South Australian Museum: it shows up how inadequate the Queensland Museum is. I've been meaning to do a whole post on this topic, but the Queensland Museum is just terribly inadequate. For example, it devotes just about a whole floor to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island stuff, but it feels mostly empty. The Adelaide Museum has a much better indigenous section, where you can actually learn things, although the lighting is keep extraordinarily dark and "moody" for some reason. In the oldest part of the museum, they have a very old PacificIsland section with such fun bits like decorated skulls and talk of headhunters. Yes, children can learn the lesson from a museum like that their modern Western culture is a considerable improvement over some of it predecessors!

They have some interesting science stuff too, including a mini cloud chamber which lets you watch radioactive particles zipping by in front of you. But the only photo I'll include is one of a space suit Australian astronaut Andy Thomas wore on one trip. Not that you can tell from the photo, but he must be pretty short:


6. A new airport. Gone are the days of it being an overgrown shed. It's really quite a lovely airport now.

7. Coffin Bay oysters. They seem pretty cheap and plentiful. Maybe a bit too big for my liking, but not bad.

So, even though I really disliked living there in the 1980's, a short visit in the 21st century proved to be quite enjoyable.

Update: I forgot to mention:

8. Smoked fish. There seems to be a big interest in smoked fish in Adelaide; much more so than in Brisbane. We picked up some (cheap) smoked tuna in a fishshop in the Adelaide Central Markets, and were suitably impressed. (But let's face, I like just about anything smoked. Shoe leather probably tastes good done that way.)

9. Adelaide Central Markets: well, I've been talking about food so much, you probably already knew that I went there and liked it. One practical feature I admired: a big carpark with cheap fees adjoins it.

Now, there must be something to get this list to 10. I'll put my mind to it...

Speaking of bargains...

Anyone with an interest in visiting Japan can do so at the moment at incredibly low cost. It would appear that the Jetstar "two for one" sale is still on 'til tomorrow, which promises two people can get there for under $400. (Whether you can find a flight back at the same cost is perhaps another question.)

But even with one person travelling, it looks like you can still get there for about $800 return, if not cheaper.

Even JAL has got a Sydney to Tokyo sale fair of $907.

I can tell you, it's been a long, long time since you've been able to get to Japan so cheaply.

Must visit bottle shop....

Australian wine prices driven lower than water | Business | News.com.au

Major wine retailer Dan Murphy's is currently selling cleanskins for $1.99 a bottle - cheaper than some bottled water - due to the oversupply crisis that has led to some vineyard owners leaving grapes to wither on the vine.

Deep thoughts for a weekend

Philosophy Now | Kant By Default

Here's a summary by the author of what his book is about:

The central question is whether morality can be understood apart from the outcomes we expect to ensue from our actions. ... The consequentialist says that whatever results, intended or not, decides the morality of what you did. This is why, for example, theft is morally wrong: the relative net results of theft are usually negative, that is, worse than not stealing. The nonconsequentialist demurs: theft could be wrong even if the relative net results were positive. And why is this? In other words, if not consequences, then what does make something right or wrong? The answer depends on which kind of nonconsequentialist one asks. A Divine Command Theorist would claim that God’s commandments make something right or wrong. A Kantian, such as myself, would claim that the criterion of morality, or ‘categorical imperative’, is whether anyone (including an animal) is treated merely as a means: if they are, then the action is wrong, and otherwise not. But whether it’s God or the categorical imperative that is calling the shots, the actual outcomes don’t affect the moral quality of the action. Thus, if following God’s commandment or avoiding treating someone merely as means led to a catastrophe, it would still be the right thing to do, according to these views.

He then says:

Laid out in that abstract fashion, one or the other of the opposing positions may strike the reader as compelling. I think that both are compelling for all of us, but at different times and to different degrees.

This is too deep for Saturday morning thoughts, but the switching between the two different views makes some sense, I think, even from a Catholic perspective which has to be (at the meta level) nonconsequentialist.

For example, sexual infidelity may be clearly immoral, but if you decide to have the affair anyway, surely the consequentialist argument that it is better to limit the possible negative consequences by using a condom makes sense.

The problem is, the Pope doesn't want anyone to sin, so he doesn't want to talk about preferable ways to sin. But really, I can't see the sense in not being a consequentialist as to the consequences of sin.