I had a much longer post here detailing these books and what I felt about them but the interface decided to be silly and I lost my edit so in disgust there is just a list, sorry. These are the books I read between September and December, they were all great :)
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
Guards Guards
Absolute Sandman Vol I, II and III
Watchmen Graphic Novel
The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Lucifer 2: Children and Monsters
Up early to catch the train to go to London, well Milton Keynes actually where Malcolm will be picking us up to go to Harpenden to visit and attend his daughter's christening where I am a Godparent. Never very bright in the mornings (like so much of the rest of the time to be honest) and my erratic sentence structure style, so variable at the best of times, completely falls apart as thoughts juggle for room in an already compressed space.
Random news report indicated that many of the breed of recent quad bikes and other utility/recreational vehicles are sold without proper safety instruction or in fact training of any type. There has been a spat of deaths arising from people driving them unsafely.
As usual my dark sarcastic side beat my compassion to my mouth and mind and I was more concerned that we should be focusing our collective emotion on more worthy causes than people who think that bombing around at high speed without safety equipment and proper training is fun and safe.
Clearly it isn't.
Part of me is worried for very young children who take little notice of their own welfare and safety, which is why we should have responsible parenting. The rest of me thinks we should set up special areas for the people who care little of their own safety and the welfare of others, we could set up special cliff zones called extreme ride parks and let them ride off them. Fast, quick and clean. Just dig a big hole at the bottom so they can bury themselves in it, we can cover it over when it's full and move onto a new site.
Okay so maybe a little too dark.
A lot of me is thinking that some of this is a Social Darwinism at work. People who live in a safe society like ours are now subject to ignoring their own safety and that of others. We live in a sheltered world where the need to think about your own safety and that of those around you is reduced by sensible safety measures, legislation and good health care. I feel convinced that to some this means they can disengage that part of their brain that tells them riding at eighty miles an hour along a muddy track with no helmet on and waving at your mates is unsafe.
So do we mourn these people or do we give them a much greater rush and fire them out of a canon and into a wall that's five feet away.
Well onto the train on time. Managed to grab a table seat opposite a couple, that has a working power outlet so the lapcat has juice, always preferable. The woman opposite spots the stickers on lapcatty's shell and asks "should I be worried about that?" to the sticker that says "I'm not normal". I grin at her and mumble, "not necessarily" and point to the "Kill all Humans" sticker. This one doesn't seem to phase her and she politely asked "do we get to choose who?" I found it too amusing that she was more worried about me not being normal as opposed to killing to point out that she and I were both inclusive to the 'all' part of the statement. Must get new sticker, that replaces this with "kill most humans, vote here :)".
-sigh-
Anyway Nan Knows Rhino, w00t....
So the book list for June and August started with a mini-series and their inspiration. I read Wicked, Son of a Witch and the Wizard of OZ...
I enjoyed all three of these books, it was a bit strange reading the Wizard of OZ after being immersed in a modern re-imaging (crappy term I know but there you go) of the story, but could see where he took his inspiration and how he twisted the tale he told from that book and using the imagery presented in the very popular film. i highly recommend all of these books and it makes a good preview to the fact that I intend to see Wicked the musical when i am in London in November.
After fantasy worlds I returned to the worlds of Sci fi and finished The Prefect and Pushing Ice by Alistair Reynolds. I have a big fondness for Reynolds writing now, I am particularly fond of big ideas and wide scope sci-fi (space operatics in fact) and he manages to write in this area with style and gusto.
So Auntie Beeb now has an updated article clarifying the dear professor's comments:
"He also added a clarification on his position regarding creationism in schools.
"Some of my comments about the teaching of creationism have been misinterpreted as suggesting that creationism should be taught in science classes. Creationism has no scientific basis.
"However, when young people ask questions about creationism in science classes, teachers need to be able to explain to them why evolution and the Big Bang are scientific theories but they should also take the time to explain how science works and why creationism has no scientific basis.
"I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview'; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility.""Well that's alright then isn't it? Not (sad but I used it).
I want to update my article, when I said that the number three was a type of tomato and should be taught in Biology I was misunderstood, what I meant was that the number three is not a tomato in a biological sense but if asked why random integers are not covered we should teach in biology the principle of number-fruits, how this differs and why numbers are not biologically fruits.
Sorry, but you are sir, still an idiot. But I like the way you moved out of that argument, were you misquoted or misinterpreted? The jury remains out until the Beeb updates the article with further revision.
So Professor Michael Reiss wants Creationism to be taught in Science lessons in the UK (BBC article), and he uses the rather abstract reasoning that, "should be seen as a cultural "world view". Well I have another cultural view for him. Mine: he is a plonker, a doik, a moron, an idiot, a stupid arsehole, a git, a goit, a twonk and an unsufferable ass.
Science is not the place for religion and rather than allowing people to explore beliefs it will in fact just muddy what a science lesson is about.
How about this Professor bollock-brain: I think the number three is irrelevant to Maths and in fact is a type of tomato, so biology should now discuss why 3s grow on trees resemble a vegetable but are in fact a fruit, and the sequence of integers is 1 2 4 5... No, clearly not, and this is preposterous, like your argument.
Why do people keep confusing evolution, a natural process that we can OBSERVE in action with the various beliefs for the Creation of mankind? Whether or not man was created by God or the FSM, whether or not God exists is f*cking irrelevant in terms of Science. We can observe evolution in process, we can see the changes and record them. There is no doubt about it.
(This allagory is stolen from my wife)
It is like the apple under the tree. If I see an apple under a tree I might presume that gravity made it fall from the tree, whereas you may presume that somebody put it there, neither of us can be absolutely sure who is correct as neither of us directly observed what happened, but we can both still agree that gravity exists, just because the apple was placed doesn't mean that gravity ceases to exist (for soft twonks like Professor Reiss man is the apple btw).
Now I have no idea whether Professor Plonker (a biologist) believes in mans' evolution or creation (I guess the latter by the fact that he is a CofE Minister), but he must know that evolution is observable, therefore taught as a science, I don't give a flying f*ck whether man evolved by this process or not, and I don't think we need to teach evolution in context to man as there are far easier examples of evolution to use, but I do expect science to be taught in a science class, not belief.
Otherwise at the same time can we also teach about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
(Apologies for the harsh rhetoric, but arguments like this serve no purpose at all and in fact cause more harm by muddying the waters and confusing a process with a belief.)
