cats and dogs

If I had to categorize myself, I would have to say that I am a dog person. I love dogs, all dogs. I don’t necessarily hate cats; I just don’t find them as agreeable or compatible with humanity as many do. And many do.

Humans have been hanging out with cats for 4000 years, it was the ancient Egyptians who first kept them to control vermin and protect food stores. Perhaps it is because of their links with this mysterious culture that cats got a reputation by “new agers” for being mystical creatures, some owners do not think of their pets as animals at all (of course, these are the same people that generally believe that sitting in a healing circle channelling information from dolphins could be a) possible and b) useful; which I suppose it would be, if you wanted to catch a vast amount of tuna.)

The Ancient Egyptians took cats seriously, they worshipped them as hunters and gods, which when you think about it you would if they were the only creature between the harvest you have just broke your back (or the backs of your slaves) to cultivate and armies of hungry mice. They imposed a death penalty to anyone found guilty of killing a cat, and cats were mummified before being buried.

Other civilisations soon caught onto the convenience of the domesticated cat (is this an oxymoron?), the shorthaired cat spread across the world from Egypt (longhaired cats from Turkey and Iran and India) into Italy where they slowly crept around Europe, China and Japan and eventually ended up in the New World with the pilgrims. By the late 18^th century, cats had become popular household pets worldwide.

Thought to evolve from the African wildcat, there has only been one short period of persecution in the Middle Ages when cats were associated with the devil or misdoings of any kind. Yet superstition has evolved around them quicker than the plague spreads from sewer rats. Black cats are associated with witchcraft, black magic and are one of the strongest emblems of Halloween. And in modern culture, who could forget the images of Blofeld stroking his white Persian cat while expecting Mr Bond to die?

There is something very anti-establishment about owning a cat, and for that reason alone I have often considered getting one. 

I digress.

Asides from being accused of being aloof and selfish (by owners and none owners alike), cats are also praised by many as somehow possessing a higher intelligence than say, dogs. Could a cat guide a blind woman across the road? Or have the incentive to hunt in the mountains for days to find victims of a plane crash? I rest my case.

It is because there is a refinement to a cat’s behaviour that we analyse it as superior (when compared to a dog), and I am not disagreeing that the reflexes of a feline are not awe inspiring (enough to credit them as kings and queens of jungles), but so is the dexterity of a squirrel, and no one is handing out intelligence credits to them.

Simply put, it is not cats that fascinate me; it is cat owners. Dog owners, on the whole, seem a great deal happier with their lot. Of course, there is the teething months when there seems to be nothing you own that has not been chewed and “presents” frequently appearing upon the floor. 

But once house training has set in, owners are never left with the impression that their four-legged friend does not love them. Of course its not all a walk in the park, dogs are powerful and need to be treated well and handled responsibly in order to be safe in society. Yet a dog trainer friend of mine insists that he is not training the dog to behave; it is the owner that needs to learn.

Horror stories about dogs mauling children and turning on adults are not as wide spread as you would think, considering how many dog owners there are in this country. But when a tragedy does occur, it is often due to gross negligence on the owner’s behalf, mistreatment of the animal and no regard or respect for its nature.

Dogs are devotion on four legs. Owners become so attached to them that they start talking to them like children (it’s weird how many people call their dogs their babies and carry them around as hand luggage), and if a dog responds to a command, a celebration of rewards is bestowed upon it. Dogs cannot hide nor control their excitement at the possibility of food, and humans being the vain self-loving creatures that we all are at heart, love to bolster our egos when we are low with a loyal fan, no matter what it's incentive.

As Jack Dee once remarked, if a dog watched you putting up a shelf he would think it was the work of genius. If a cat watched you, you would feel like the DIY manual itself was judging you.

Cat owners always seem to be asking the question “Does my pet love me?” , or justifying to people like me that there cat is after more than food and shelter, no matter how little affection they demonstrate. There are millions of websites out there dedicated to people who love their cat, and thousands of forums clogged up with pictures of children and devoted owners squeezing their moggy’s close in a Kodak moment. Usually accompanied by some banner reading “ssooooo cute!”

The resentful look in the humiliated cats eye tells a different story nine times out of ten. Are cat lovers simply hopeless romantics with a notion that one day their love will be requited?

I have never been able to reason with it.

That’s why I’ve never owned a cat.

rosary in the onion; open the mind

It’s amazing how many things we take for granted. Our mind is a truly amazing thing for allowing us to do so.

No invention of mankind even comes close to the raw computing power of your brain.  Every thought, emotion, sneeze, action, dream or nightmare comes from an incredible 1.5kg convoluted mass of tissue hovering in your head. It is thanks to the remarkable power of your subconscious mind that you have a heartbeat and the ability to digest food; and it never rests, never sleeps, 24/7 it is on the job of you.

So it bothers me to think that I, at the pinnacle of the evolutionary scale, have an instrument of genius operating behind my forehead, yet at times I am completely stupid.

I was a highly imaginative child often prone to play for hours on my own with imaginary friends (entire villages of them). Perhaps it was because I lived in a make-believe world that I became so naïve, and I mean, truly naïve.

When I was a teen a friend told me that vegetarians were people who didn’t want to harm vegetables (believed that for years), another convinced me her goldfish drown.  I was embarrassingly old when I found out about Santa Clause (the only thing that has ever popped a childhood balloon for me with more severity was finding out Walt Disney was a fascist) and throughout my life I have believed 90% of the lies ever told to me.

Interestingly, my radar works perfectly when spotting lies from politicians, tabloids and corporate leaders, Estate Agents and through the grace of 20/20 hindsight. I digress. But make my point at the same time, as no matter how spotless our minds are our thought processes are far from perfect.

The infinite intelligence of our subconscious mind is highly impressionable. In his book, the Power of the Subconscious Mind, Dr Joseph Murphy says, “Your mind reasons in syllogisms. In practical terms, this means that whatever major premise your conscious mind assumes to be true determines the conclusions your subconscious mind will come to, no matter what the particular question or problem may be. If you premises are true, than conclusions must be true.”

No matter how incredible the subconscious mind is it cannot discriminate between what is true, and what is not.  It is your conscious mind that acts to protect you from false impressions; whatever the conscious mind of a person believes (through the power of repetition) the subconscious mind will accept and act upon. It has no power to argue or disagree, and no control whatsoever over the premise you imprint on it.

Anyone who repeats to themselves that they are a failure, fat, ugly, born on the wrong side of the tracks, or unlucky, impregnates the subconscious with negative thought, and it acts accordingly. As the genie in the lamp famously decreed, your wish is its command. You are what you think about, or at least, how you think about it.  (Instead of “I think, therefore I am”, it is probably more accurate to say, “how I think defines who I am” when considering the power of the subconscious)

So, when someone says think positive, it really isn’t such a bad idea. Negative reinforcement in the mind leads to negative belief and therefore your subjective experience of the world is negative. And according to Dr Murphy, the opposite is also true: “If it is your major premise that virtues are praiseworthy, and kindness is a virtue, you will believe that kindness is praiseworthy and behave accordingly.” 

This is how we create our own “reality”, and we do, for every step we take in this world is taken by the mind first. No mind is of itself evil, just as no force of nature is evil. No one is born with the drive to massacre 92 innocent people, or incite a holocaust or fly an airplane over a remote village and destroy entire populated landscapes with bombs in the name of freedom.

There are problems of biblical proportions in this world because of the lengths some people will go to in order to prove how much they believe in what they believe. It is not because they are evil (have you ever considered that evil is live backwards?). It is because they’re major premise is negative.

 A belief is just a thought you keep on thinking, it’s true power lies in how much you choose to believe it is relevant to you. So often God’s will/power is mistaken for our own, and the devil is blamed for our misadventures. If we took more responsibility (which is, after all, the ability to respond well) over our own thoughts and where they take us, we would have no reason to blame any external forces for the problems in our world. This would be a huge step towards peace.

Each person’s mind begins perfectly. Yet just like every car you drive out of the showroom is perfect, most people pick up bad driving habits (often from others) that damage the value of the machine.

To illustrate, there is a superb phenomenon that happens in the brain called Pareidolia. Pareidolia (asides from being a word that sends spell check a little crazy) is when random images or sounds are perceived as significant.

For example, seeing the Virgin Mary in a sliced tomato (you may laugh, in 2004 someone paid $28,000 on EBay for a piece of toast with the Virgin Mary on it.  The owner said she was, “blessed by the holy toast”), or hearing obscured messages from the devil when playing Neil Diamond songs backwards, are both phenomenon caused by Pareidolia.

These may be far out examples, but as Guy McCardle outlined in a fantastic online essay, “when you consider the smiley logo is just a yellow circle with two dots and a curved line, its remarkable how much we fill in the blanks to make a face.”

It’s all about perception really. Believing is seeing and it is never the other way round. Your subconscious mind is the power that keeps you alive, but it is your power to choose that directs that life. Everyone is responsible for his or her own free will.

Open the mind.

brandalism: banksy on the iphone

The work of French street artist Xavier Prou (aka Blek Le Rat) is probably more familiar to you than you would first think. Born in 1951, Prou was one of the first graffiti artists of the aerosol boom in Paris in the early 80’s, and is commonly referred to as the originator of stencil art; the inventor of the life-size stencil and the first to transform basic lettering into pictures.

Prou’s trademark became the rat (the RAT in his pseudonym is thought to be a anagram for ART), describing the rodent as the “only free animal in the city,” and one that “spreads the plague everywhere, just like street art.”

If reports are true then Banksy would have been 7 years old when Prou was first tagging the underground of Paris and later became involved in Bristol’s graffiti revolution1992–1994 as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew. He began as a freehand graffiti artist apparently changing to stenciling when he realized how quickly he could finish a piece (this inspiration came when he was hiding from police under a lorry, and noticed the stenciled serial number.) And it did not take him long to make his mark.

Known for his contempt for all things corporate and governmental, Banksy’s work features anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment messages that scream for attention while he remains in the shadows.  Featuring images of rats, policemen, soldiers and children along with slogans that provoke all to, in his words “step out of the box, collapse the box and take a sharp fucking knife to it.”

His anonymity (asides from being needed to keep him out of the reach of the long arms of the law) not only adds to his “street reputation”, but also ensures that the only thing we can talk about with absolute certainty is his work. And it more than speaks for itself.

It is because he takes such tremendous risks (such as tagging the Gaza wall, and installing an inflatable Guantanamo prisoner next to one of the most popular rides in Disneyland, and hanging fake pictures in the Louvre) that his work generates so much interest across the world.

He has truly turned the art world on its head. Never before have art auctioneers attempted to sell street art on location, and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder!  And his brand of aerosol anarchy and installations have also brought a new form of vandalism to the streets, as it would seem some people would do anything to get their hands on his originals (if they can’t afford the asking price)…even if it means taking down a wall!

"The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages” Banksy

Banksy does not reserve his spite for “the system”, like Le Rat, his commentary on the masses is hardly flattering or hopeful. The theme of the human rat race frequently appears in his earlier work, yet his hope for us breaking our habits (or from our “leaders”) is slim, as he said, “a lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to."

Yet one of the issues the elusive artist is most outspoken on (especially verbally) is what he calls the age of brandalism:

"The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

“The people who run our cities don’t understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit... the people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours, it belongs to you; it’s yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."

"You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs."

With this in mind, how do you think Banksy feels now that a new iPhone application has arrived helping punters to locate his artwork all over London? Happy? I don’t actually know…

It is a credit to the popularity of his work, but pays no dues to the statement he is trying to make. However as demonstrated through his hilarious film Exit Through The Gift Shop (for which he was nominated an Academy Award for Best Documentary: does nothing this man touch not turn to gold?) not everyone gets it.

The documentary tells the story of a French immigrant (Thierry Guietta, aka, Mr. Brainwash) living in LA, and his obsessive-compulsive need to film every single moment of his life.  We follow the strange Guietta on a remarkable path of fortunate encounter, beginning with his cousin (the street artist Invader) and ending when fate handed him Banksy.

Long story short, it is plainly obvious from the film that what Guietta lacks in humility and talent is more than made up for in determination and will, yet it is not very difficult to see why so many artist interviewed in the mockumentary may have been made to feel bitter and resentful by his success.

None more so than Banksy who initiated the idea for Guietta to become an artist, but since claims that he is now more reluctant than ever to encourage anyone to do anything creative.

Credit where credit is due, Guietta risks everything to make his show work, even though he did not lay so much as a single brush stroke on a canvas, and admits on film that his work consists of scanning and photoshopping, all done by enlisted artists working under his “supervision”. He did, however, break an ankle and re-mortgage his home and business, pushing his own family to the brink of bankruptcy (not the usual trademark of genius, closer to the fine line of madness).

Before the curtain lifted on Life is Beautiful, Guietta had managed to alienate almost every artist working for him, and again, if it had not been for Banksy sending in two top PR agents at the eleventh hour, he would have failed to open at all.  

There is nothing original or particularly interesting about his work, most of his pieces are almost carbon copies of work produced by Shephard Fairey, but critics and punters alike raved over his success, and in the space of only a week, he netted over $1m.

Guietta comments at the end of the film that only time can be the judge of whether he is a true artist.  I’m not quite sure what this says about modern art today, probably nothing more than Warhol was saying in his day: “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

Does this mean the IMF could put forth a candidate for the Turner Prize? Could McDonalds install a 50ft clown in the Tate Modern? Could Nike sponsor Tracey Emin’s next piece? I suppose only time will tell.

uncle sams debt: america's financial crisis

According to the views Jeff Randal of Sky News, whatever actions US politicians do or don’t take this week, America is already bust.  We live in the times when Uncle Sam has fallen into the ranks of the terminal shopaholic; now forced to beg for a higher limit on his plastic.  Without a deal to raise the country’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, the US will default on August 2.

It is quite remarkable that it has come to this, that the world’s largest economy and home of the financial systems reserve currency can only pay its bills if it borrows more money. America needs to increase its credit limit by $2.5 trillion simply to get through to next year’s presidential election. How did that old saying go…look after the pennies and the trillions will look after themselves?

As Randal outlined: “The bad news is that on top of the $9.7 trillion Washington must repay to outside investors ($1.1 trillion to China), it has $60 trillion of unfunded social security and Medicare obligations, such welfare pledges to its own citizens for which there is no pot of savings, only the taxes of future generations.

“Last year, the difference between what the US paid for imports and received from exports was almost $500 billion. This year, the trade gap with China alone is running at $25 billion a month. As a result of ambitious welfare programmes and military adventures, the Obama administration is running a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion.”

America’s military hegemony comes at a terrifyingly high price to the taxpayer. The total cost of war since 2001 is a figure that increases by the thousands every second. As I write this, the war in Iraq has cost the US taxpayer (since 2001) is $788,799,048,902. The cost of war in Afghanistan is estimated at costing $437,866,800,788. As mentioned, these figures rise exponentially every day.

On a domestic level, it is residents of California and Hawaii whom are the most indebted individuals in America, the average Californian owing $336,169. Residents of Oklahoma were said to be the least in the red, averaging at $127,027 per consumer. As Addison Wiggin and Bill Bonner said in their best seller Empire of Debt, “not many people can afford to live like Americans; the trouble is, neither can they.”

So what is the answer?

Princeton’s Paul Krugman and British-born David Blanchflower, professor of economics at Dartmouth College, have at the core of their fiscal philosophy the belief that government spending sparks growth, and is the essential conditioner of life, liberty, and debt reduction.

But if this were true, why did Greece require 2 multi-billion Euro rescue packages? Was the government guilty of criminal thrift? Or was it because Athens was allowed to borrow recklessly to bribe an electorate with promises of pots of gold the country could never produce over a million rainbows? As Randal stated, America is only different to Greece in two ways: it’s vastly bigger and so are its debts.

According to Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff “Politicians everywhere like to argue that their country will expand its way out of debt, [but] our research suggests growth alone is rarely enough to achieve that with the debt levels we have today.”

Some even argue that America is already bankrupt, such as Boston University’s Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who believes US debt is much greater than has been declared: “Congress has been very careful… to label most of its liabilities as ‘unofficial’ to keep them off the books and far into the future… This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.” Of course, when the young are being killed in droves of thousands in unnecessary wars every year, the promises are a little easier to keep.

A Ponzi scheme (named after Charles Ponzi who became notorious for using the technique in 1920) according to Wikipedia,” is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.”

In short, unless America is able to attract increasingly bigger contributions from ever more participants willing to partake in their “dream”, they will collapse under the burden of impossibility. This is where America is heading. It is beyond the point at which it can cut benefits or raise taxes sharply enough to prevent exponential debt growth.

For me the answer is glaringly obvious: The American Government must stop investing in war machines, stop invading other countries, and look after their own people’s domestic needs. American’s need their government to come to peace now, or else, there will be no one left whom they can accuse of hating them for their freedom.

priests in labcoats

Ottoman Palestine. Wikipedia defines Kabala as “a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an eternal and mysterious creator and the mortal and finite universe (His creation). Kabala seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence.”

Actually, it is staggering how many ideas passed through these esoteric teachings are now seriously considered as plausible by modern science (it would take a blog the length of a book to list them all). Kabalist teachings refer to a space/time continuum in the 16^th Century, when the first reference to space/time as a mathematical concept was not made until 1754 by Jean le Rond d’Alembert.

In Kabala there is a model called the tree of life; a diagram used to describe the path to god and the way god created the universe. The “tree” is composed of ten circles forming three triangles: the highest points up, two triangles pointing down, and a single circle hangs pendant at the bottom.  

There is an allegorical story demonstrated in the model of the tree that proposes we all began as limitless light, until for some reason (perhaps curiosity) god allowed a tiny part of itself to shrink out of the universe, the (w)hole divided into two, and thus god was able to know itself as itself. Creation, according to Kabalist teaching, was just part of an almighty domino effect that escalated from this point: as soon as god was able to have awareness of itself as itself, infinity was created (for god could only experience itself as the infinite). The ten circles, or Sephiroth are said to represent the ten emanations (including time/space) through which god creates and continues to create infinitely, manifesting an everlasting chain (of which we all are a vital link) from the metaphysical to the physical dimensions.

It was a Belgian priest, Georges Lamaitre, who first proposed the Big Bang theory in 1931. Lamaitre believed the universe arose from a singularity of virtually no size, which gave rise to the dimensions of space and time, in addition to all matter and energy. Scientists now believe that all of the universe-to-be existed as a point of no volume prior to the Big Bang and at least 9 dimensions of space existed as what is called a singularity.

Whether this universe was created by accident in a bang, or under the behest of the divine will, I just find it interesting to consider the points where mystics and scientists agree. Perhaps modern science is the new religion and the only credible way we can ever prove the infinite mysteries of god, our churches are now labs and our priests in lab coats; god is in the test tube and it is left to all of us to conclude on the results.

 “A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein. 

CHAPTER ONE: Church of NINE

This is the first chapter of my novella, Church of Nine. I'll be publishing a chapter every week. Hope you enjoy...

0

The winter of 2012 had been the coldest ever recorded in Simple City. It had snowed for two months, and there were no signs of thaw. But the City made from millionaires pursuits for millionaires’ pleasures still smoked, if time was money – this was infinity.

At 9.45am on November 18th, an immaculately dressed man strolled unnoticed into the marble-lined lobby (furnished in keeping with a crossing of the Rubicon theme) of McGrew Towers.

It was the tallest, the widest, the most powerful building in the City.  700 people worked there like rats in a daily marathon that never ended, never ceased, and only one person ever gained ground from, the most powerful and cold-hearted organ grinder that ever sat on the throne of executive power; Andrew McGrew.

 18 elevators catapulted employees between the 666 floors of the Headquarters of his Empire, secretaries and brokers danced urgent caffeinated quick steps around each other on their way to their next important meeting.

They didn’t notice the immaculate man because he was in no hurry. He had all the time in the world. He meandered into a lift only one man could use, and whistled off key along to the sounds of Simon and Garfunkle drifting in his mind, as he headed to the top. He was often accompanied by the Sound of Silence, but could never get past the first line “hello darkness my old friend…” before blanking out.

Travelling up, he had time to consider how it was possible to hear a song over 100 times and still not know the words. Yet, other songs could pop into your head without the slightest tug on recall. Some tunes stick, some don’t, he concluded contently continuing to whistle; memory had never been an essential part of his life.

The platinum plated elevator door opened at his final destination, presenting 9 heavily armed guards with semi automatic weapons waiting and aiming to fire at him.

“Get on the floor! Face down.” Came the bass command from a 9ft security agent. He looked accustomed to making the demand.

The immaculate man smiled and casually lay down. Handcuffs were snapped on his wrist and he was pulled from the floor by the fine thread of his suit in 5.8 seconds.

“No one uses this lift except Mr McGrew.” The agent shoved the man against the wall. “State your name and purpose!”

“My name is Harold Masters. I am here to see Mr Andrew McGrew.”

“There are other lifts. No one uses this lift apart from…”

“Mr McGrew, I get it. I’m sorry. My mistake.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Oh, I don’t need one.” Harold winked.

His guard remained stoic. “Oh yes you do. Jack. Paul.” Two stubby men, made entirely of muscle and psychosis, stepped out of the crowd.

“See to it that this man is seen out. Now.”

“Oh” said Harold calmly. “Really, you do not want to stop me from seeing Mr McGrew. Not if you want to keep your job.”

He leant in and smiled with the charm of a Cheshire cat. “I think you will find that if you tell Mr McGrew I am here, and also tell him that I have the Prize he has been seeking, that you may very well get a raise. But if you don’t, well, I’m sure men of your size and power could find a job terrifying people again in no time.”

Harold smiled. This was not a threat; it was a certain promise.

The agent read him well. “Wait there.”

Three minutes later, Harold Master’s was ushered in.

gay marriage: wedding bells in New York

There is a fantastic episode of the West Wing called “The midterms”, where President Bartlett (Martin Sheen) is annoyed by a talk show host that refers to homosexuality an "abomination", quoting the Bible, Leviticus 18:22.

In his speech to defy the ignorance of the host, Bartlett rallies: “My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?

“Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

"Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

"Think about those questions, would you?"

Today was an historic day for human rights in America as the first gay marriages took place in New York. With 19.4 million residents, New York is the sixth and most populous U.S. state to legalize gay marriage, and they did it in style, marrying 823 couples on a day when they were usually closed (a detail I simply love).

What is an incredible victory for gay-rights advocates is also a tremendous boon for humanity, as it has almost doubled the number of Americans free to marry either gender to 35 million. One small step for man…but progress is still held up by the religious hang-ups of mankind.

While thousands of people flooded to the streets to celebrate the rights of human beings to be with, and marry, whomever they love; so too did thousands of protestors opposing gay marriage because of what a book (the same book that speaks for forgiving enemies, turning other cheeks and loving neighbors,) instructs them to think.  

The first five books of the Bible referred to as the Old Testament or Five books of Moses, tell the history of the Israelites from the creation of the universe, through the exodus from Egypt and the revelation at Mount Sinai to their entry into the Promised Land.

When these five books (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy,) were first written is a matter for debate, but the traditional view is that Moses was the sole author. There are several variants of this explanation, some believing the text was dictated to Moses by God direct, others believe that Moses (rather than being dictated to) was “divinely inspired”, while some argue that Moses was the sole author, but that there was nothing “divine” about it, except in a sense that all works of literature are inspired.

According to Richard Elliot Friedman “Mosaic authorship would mean the five books were written around 1280 to 1250 BC, the most commonly accepted range of dates for the exodus from Egypt, give or take 30 years. It has long been recognized that there were a few problems with the traditional view of Moses as author. The text reports the death of Moses--how could Moses have written of his own death? It also describes Moses as "the most humble man who ever lived"--how could Moses write that about himself?”

There are many irregularities in these books that lead scholars to believe that this book is the work of more than one author (the multiple author view has became known as the Documentary theory), and there are many inconsistencies that many academics have used to reject the ideas of this book being co-authored God. As Friedman outlines:

“Several stories are repeated… There are three stories of a patriarch traveling among pagans and pretending his wife is his sister. There are two stories of Moses striking a rock to produce water. There are two versions of the Ten Commandments (one in Exodus, one that Moses recaps in Deuteronomy) with slightly different wording. There are, in fact, a lot of these doublets.

“There are internal inconsistencies. The number of days of the flood story doesn’t add up. At one point, Noah takes two of each animal; at another point, he takes two of some, seven of others.  Joseph is sold into slavery to Ishmaelite in one verse, to Midianites a few verses later. The Mountain of Revelation is sometimes called Sinai and sometimes Horeb. Moses' father-in-law is sometimes called Yitro and sometimes Ruel, and so on.”

Is this really a book we should be basing our modern moral standards on? Or is God above the details of consistency, as stated many times, he does work in mysterious ways.

Truth is, no one really knows who wrote these first five books, and the predominant view is that many of the stories were handed down orally through the generations before being written down. In the Book of J by David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom, it is even argued that one of the authors may have been a woman (enter Dan Brown’s next blockbuster)

So my question is simple: if we can not find out who wrote this book, and it is in serious question that it is the word of God direct, why should we legislate upon its testimony? Or for that matter, swear by it in our courts of law, promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

In 1966 it was illegal for interracial couples to marry in America, which seems archaic to us now even though it was only 45 years ago. Thankfully, we live in changing times. I hope the same will be said about gay marriage laws soon.

tabloid hypocrisy: the winehouse reaction

It is true that sometimes the human condition requires you to deeply embrace your inner hypocrite. The leaders of our “free world” exemplify this, as Iskander Mirza said: “Democracy is hypocrisy without limitation”

So it came as no surprise to me when President Obama came forth to condemn terrorist attacks on Oslo while his own country is currently engaged in war with at least three countries on his watch (who knows what the death toll will be from these misadventures). There would have probably been more of a stir if he hadn’t.

What really sticks in my throat is how the tabloid newspapers are now heralding Amy Winehouse as a “legend”, and as someone who will be “sadly missed”. Of course this is accurate for a lot of people (especially her friends and family); but I can’t help but think that all the tabloids will miss is an opportunity to smear her name to sell their newspapers; I cannot remember them saying a kind word about her before now, and deeply suspect their “kindness” today is not motivated by anything other than a need to generate public interest to sell newspapers. 

Like Joplin, Hendrix and Cobain, Winehouse had been slowly killing herself in front of the world for years; now she has tragically passed aged only 27, the sinner has apparently turned saint. But the sad reality is that Winehouse was never allowed to live in peace.

She obtained a court injunction against paparazzi in 1997 under the Protection From Harassment Act, where the court banned a leading photographic agency from stalking her. Photographers were also banned from following her within 100 meters of her home, or photographing Winehouse in her home or the homes of her friends and family. According to a newspaper report, sources close to the singer said legal action was taken out of “concern for the safety of Winehouse and those close to her.”

If a court was forced to intervene to protect the star in life, how much compassion can the tabloids expect us to believe they have for her tragic death?

Paparazzi feed from the misery of others; the more miserable their subject, the more money they can demand from the newspapers that want to publish the bad news. That is the way it works.  Winehouse was a sensation and sensations sell newspapers. They fed off her disease and added to her pressure, as Francois de La Rouchefoucauld said: “Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.” I think this is particularly true in this case.

Winehouse, like Joplin and all of the other stars whose lights went out too soon, was a victim of media pressure.  Of course, I do not blame the tabloids for her problems; but they sure as hell did nothing to support her, or educate any of her young fans about how to avoid a similar fate in their lives (as any responsible press would have); they simply made her a target of ridicule for their own profit.

Drug addiction and alcohol abuse is a serious problem in this country. Four years ago the Independent on Sunday ran a feature on a young 16-year old girl, Hayley Nash, who had been an alcoholic since she was 12 (drinking 8 cans along with a bottle of Vodka every day).  Although this is an extreme example, the article went on to say “Hayleys situation is being mirrored throughout the country as young people drink more alcohol than ever before, prompting calls for the scale of the problem to be acknowledged.”

“Amid growing concerns over 24-hour drinking, soaring rates of liver disease and police forces unable to cope with drunken disturbances on the streets, there is a dramatic rise in children admitted to hospital because of alcohol-related illnesses. The biggest increase is seen among girls under 16 years old, and the problem is getting worse.” When asked why she felt she needed to drink so much, Hayley freely admitted that it was a “coping mechanism.”

At this time, it is estimated that over 300,000 people in the UK alone are addicted to Heroin, a drug that is known to cause strong feelings of warmth, wellbeing and euphoria, as well as eliminating physical and psychological pain.

Are these stories not telling us something about our society?  Drug addiction is a symptom of those who cannot cope (for what ever reason) with the pressures of this world (and this is not an excuse, it is a reason); if our children are being driven to drink to cope, and our role models are dying of suspected overdoses, how does this comment on the compassion and love in our society today? Somewhere, (if we were ever headed in the right direction) we have made a seriously wrong turn towards the path of our humanity.

Everyone has a mental concept of how they perceive an addict to be: I have met people who believe that alcoholics and “junkies” are simply cowards who can’t face life. I think it is us who are the cowards, because time and time again we refuse to take responsibility for the well being of everyone, equally, everywhere.

No one can really come to terms with why such a beautiful and talented woman with her whole career ahead of her would end up this way. But I don’t think her talent makes her any less of a tragic a figure than Hayley, or any of the other addicts who are currently suffering, or make her families loss less than the suffering of families and friends who are coping with the death of loved ones due to addiction.

If anything, I hope this ladies death raises the debate that celebrity and fame does not equate to happiness: just because everyone has seen your face or bought your album, does not mean you are accepted or lucky. It simply means you have money; and as every addict will tell you, money cannot buy you love.

Amy Winehouse

I sat for twenty minutes looking at this blank screen, wondering what words I could use to sum up the absolute tragedy of Amy Winehouse’s untimely death.  I’m unsure at this point if those words will ever come satisfactorily.

There is a red carpet of cliché furnishing this sad story; Winehouse now joins Cobain, Joplin, Hendrix and Jones as the latest star to supernova at 27.  Many have commented that this was inevitable; perhaps this was because she was never afraid to show her vulnerability through her music. Somehow, I always hoped she would straighten out. But this is a day when a great talent has left the world stage.

It was no secret that the lady had troubles. Like Joplin, Winehouse was almost as well known for her self-destructive behaviour as she was for her incredible singing/ song writing talent. She fought a long and hard battle against substance abuse, and although police have said her death is not yet explained, most people presume to already know that if it was not the drinking, it was the drugs that killed her.

But lets focus on what she did achieve in the short space of time that she was here.

Winehouse was born September 14, 1983, in Southgate, North London and had incredible drive from a very young age; at 8 she trained at the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School, and later attended the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School. She began writing music at the age of 14, but it wasn’t until a former boyfriend sent a tape of her singing to an A&R man that she took her first steps towards the limelight. It led to a contract with the Island/Universal record label and a publishing deal with EMI.

She co-wrote all but two of the songs in her debut album Frank (2003), winning an Ivor Novello songwriting award for Stronger Than Me, and was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize for best album in 2004. All this aged just 20 years old.

In 2006 Winehouse released her incredible album Back to Black, (inspired by her break up with boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil, who she later married in secret in 2007) reaching number seven in the British charts with the hook-infested autobiographical floor filler Rehab. The song, about her refusal to attend an alcohol rehabilitation centre generated huge publicity, paparazzi loving every opportunity they could to snap the feisty soul singer drinking on stage or in pubs. Winehouse was now established as the wild child of the British scene.

In February 2007 she was awarded best British female prize at the Brit Awards and, four months later, she picked up song of the year at the Mojo Awards. Winehouse was again nominated for the Mercury Prize and went on to be named artist of the year at the MTV Europe Music Awards in November. The fairytale was coming true, but the nightmare was also unraveling.

It seemed, as it did with Cobain, that Winehouse simply did not suit stardom. She was stunningly beautiful and stylish as well as talented and phenomenally unwell: a perfect combination for tabloid gutter press to feed on. As her popularity soared, so her health (mental and physical) began to deteriorate.

She made TV appearances on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and The Charlotte Church Show whilst drunk in 2007(or at least, under the influence of something stronger than Horlick’s), and punched a female fan at a gig in London. She confessed to self-harming (once carving her boyfriends name into her belly with a shard of glass in front of a US reporter), and battling with eating disorders.

In May 2007 she secretly married Fielder-Civil but it was far from the Disneyland myth of happy endings; they were both arrested in November of that year for GBH and attempting to pervert the course of justice (no charges were brought against Winehouse.) Later that year, when photographs were smeared over the tabloids of a woman they claimed to be Winehouse smoking crack cocaine, Winehouse finally said yes to rehab.

But it was becoming very clear for all to see that the grueling schedule of promotional appearances in the US and UK, and her dysfunctional life off stage was beginning to have a severe effect on the singer’s ability to perform.  In 2008 she played at a slew of festivals, with one critic calling her act at Glastonbury of that year “dismal”. 

In the two years that followed Winehouse made only a handful of low-profile gigs, but the turmoil of her private life seemed to continue as Winehouse was admitted to the Priory for treatment in Feb 2011. The final nail in her career came when she was jeered off stage in Serbia, too drunk to perform, and pulled out of her European Tour.

As with so many other young, talented artists that have died before their time, Winehouse could only give us a glimmer into what could have been. The sky was the limit. But like the other tortured souls, her demons got the better of her. Let’s not remember her as an addict, lets remember her as someone who sang with the soul of a fallen angel, made us dance to her rhymes of love and passion, and above all, entertained us like only a true star can.

R.I.P Amy, I hope you have found your peace.

Norway's PM: an example to world leadership

I once read somewhere that responsibility is the mark of someone’s ability to respond well. I keep reminding myself of this as the reactions to the terrible events in Oslo are now being broadcast around the world.

The ghoulish aftermath of the shooting and the bombing, both now accredited to the twisted actions of one man, leave me with a sense of shell shock.

 The images of the children that huddled desperately together on Utueya Island, all too young to ever deserve this (not that any age qualifies you), makes it hard for me to imagine how life can go on for them.  It can never be the same.

The same can be said for the victims who wandered like blood-drenched zombies in the streets of Oslo, and in London, Madrid, Iraq, New York, Afghanistan, Libya and Oklahoma. The fall out from this attack will be yet another marker in our sad times to show how innocent people get in the way of madness.

It is understandable why some would want to let slip the dogs of war for such an event, and possibly why many jumped on the bandwagon of blaming al-Qaeda; the west’s scapegoat in wolfs clothing.  Our presumption is always that the enemy is them not us. A deeper chill does run down the spine to think that a Norwegian national is suspected to have done this to 92 of his own people.  I don’t know why it makes a difference, but it does. Perhaps he hated them for their freedom. Who knows?

One thing if for certain, Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has set a new example to the world for responsible leadership.  Before all of the details were released about Anders Britvic, he went on record to say that Norway’s answer would be; “More openness, More democracy.”

A far cry from the Bush (albeit delayed) reaction to the events surrounding 9/11.

He met with grieving parents today, saying many who died were his friends, giving him more than enough reason to take this extremely personally. If this had happened in America effecting friends and family of the current White House occupants, the death penalty debate would already be on the table.

Instead, his staggering remarks were; “The answer to violence is even more democracy, even more humanity. No one can bomb us to be quiet; no one can shoot us to be quiet. No one can ever scare us from being Norway.” I would be treble proud to have a spokesman like that for my country. If more leaders took this stance, 90% of all wars would not be happening today. As Gandhi said: An eye for an eye makes the world go blind.

Andre Breivik

On April 19^th, 1995, a 27-year old security guard detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in the blast and injured 450 in the deadliest act of terrorism in the U.S, until 9/11.

I remember exactly where I was when the 9/11 attacks took place, the day 2’753 people lost their lives in the most controversial act of terrorism ever played out.  The same feeling of disbelief, shock, and anger gripped me then as it did when the images of Madrid (191 killed and 1’800 injured in 3/4) and London (52 died in 7/7) flooded out.  Yesterday was no exception.

When the first droplets of information were filtering through about the Oslo attacks, everyone twittering jumped to the conclusion that this was an international act of terrorism. And although I tried to remain open, there was part of me that was waiting for the list of usual suspects to come forward and take the twisted credit.

It was not long before it was rumored that a terror group Ansar al-Jihad or the Helpers of the Global Jihad were thought to have claimed to be responsible (the claim was never confirmed by police).

Not many would have considered that the country that awards the Nobel Peace Prize could have been a target for al Qaeda, however, according to Elisa Marla there are several reasons why Norway maybe marked for terrorist attack: “Norway is a member of the NATO alliance and has a small fighting contingent in Afghanistan. It was one of several countries named by Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda, as potential targets for attack. In 2006, Norwegian newspapers reprinted Danish cartoons that angered Muslims by lampooning Muhammad.”

It must be said here that Muslim leaders in Norway immediately and vehemently opposed the attacks, as did every other man and woman of faith alive (no matter what religious beliefs their faith registered with.) Terrorism is not the act of the holy, it is the act of the religiously mislead.

The explosions in Oslo would have been quite enough to stitch up the events of the bad news day for Norway, but the horror escalated to nightmare proportions when it was reported that a man, dressed as a police officer, strolled into the Labour Youth Summer Camp on the island of Otuya, off the coast of Oslo, and opened fire.

Over 80 children, no older than 16, were killed at point blank range, and more were forced to swim and run for their lives as Andre Breivik, 32, shot at them indiscrimenatly.  It was 30 minutes before a SWAT team could get on the island, and if anyone has seen the pictures of devastation, one can only imagine what fear those poor children endured. It is harder to imagine how, for the ones who survived, this is going to have effect on the rest of their lives.

Breivik was seen in Oslo before the bomb was detonated, and because further undetonated explosives were found on the island where his massacre took place, police believe he is responsible for both atrocities. He is now in custody.

Since McVeigh, there has been no murderer to even touch the same scale, until now.

It is impossible to rationalize with the actions of madmen, looking for the real reason anyone would be driven to do something like this is the job of highly trained and skilled experts. That doesn’t stop us all from trying.

McVeigh went on record to say that the Oklahoma bombings were revenge on the federal government for their handling of the Wako disaster and like Breivik, was thought to hold right-wing views. Breivik has posted various vitriolic anti-Muslim rants on Christian Fundamentalist websites.

A statement issued by police said Breivik was “clear on his point and wanted to explain himself.” I think the one misleading word from that statement is clear. If his motives were religiously mislead why would this man target his own government if they were also on the target list of al Qaeda?

It is impossible for me (holding the faith I do) to see how anyone could come to the conclusion that god wants you to blow up a building, open fire on children, or hate any other persons right to believe how they choose. For me the fundamental principle of god is benevolence, and with that comes compassion.

All people of every faith will be preying, hoping and feeling the greatest compassion for the people of Oslo and Norway at this time. This madman may have his excuses and believe that his warped ideals live up to them, but he is very much alone.

If you have been affected personally by this utter tragedy, my thoughts and love goes out to you, along with the rest of the world. I hope Oslo finds it’s peace and can rest again soon.