Simon's Space

My Amalgamation

2007-07-27T19:51:00.001+10:00

Like the local governments of QLD I've amalgamated my websites into a new single site that incorporates aspects of them all and will be able to provide further interactive aspects that I've been thinking of implementing for a while.

My new site currently has a blog and a section where I can share my University papers and other writings. I'm also going to include a photo gallery, some audio clips of my band and some solo recordings of myself. The University papers and other writings section is still being populated, however, as the blog is fully functional I will be shifting my attention from this blog to my new one.

So, finally, where is this new site to be found? Head on over to

www.simonives.info

and do leave a comment or email me and let me know what you think and possibly pass on some ideas and suggestions.

Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" and Windows Vista Ultimate

2007-07-09T11:39:00.000+10:00

The following is a video of some of the features of Windows Vista Ultimate alongside an Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" install running Beryl. Watch the following clip and remember the price tags of the two operating systems...Windows Vista Ultimate is very expensive while Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" with Beryl is completely free! (and open source :)

Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" on my Compaq V3000

2007-07-08T19:30:00.000+10:00

UPDATE: This website is no longer maintained. This guide has been migrated to simonives.info where you will find any updates. Please post any questions or comments at the new site.

This weekend I decided to take the plunge and install a Linux distro on my notebook PC. The reason I had not done so by now is because this particular notebook is well documented as being problematic under Linux, particularly the WiFi card as it is completely proprietary with no Linux drivers being available. I am now posting this using Linux while watching a DVD over a wireless network protected with WPA, the DVD is stored on a Windows XP machine running NTFS...I must have done something right. The following is a guide as to how I got Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” running with full functionality (actually better but more of that later) on a Compaq V3000 (V3118AU) model notebook.

Installation.

After downloading the Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” iso and burning it on a CD I booted into the live distro. If you're using the same model notebook as me, or a Broadcom WiFi chipset, you'll notice in the boot procedure that there are two errors. The first error says 'PCI BUS BUG #81 [49435000]' and the second says something like 'error 983 with BCM43xx'. I've no idea what the first error means and I doubt that it's important, I'm still getting this error now and my system is functioning well. The second error is the one that we need to address. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” comes with a generic BCM43xx (Broadcom WiFi) driver but it lacks the firmware files so fails to load. I'll address these two errors later.

Once the live CD boots up you can play around if you like or just move right on to the installation. I put 10GB aside for the install so just followed the instructions on installing Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” into the free space. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” installed without any problems and I booted into it fine, with the same errors as mentioned before. To my surprise the only hardware not working 'out of the box' was the Broadcom WiFi card and the audio. In fact, I discovered that I have a working Bluetooth and IR system (tested both) that didn't show up under WinXP.

WiFi

The first step was to get the WiFi working as I could then work on everything else. As the wired LAN was functioning I plugged into my router and downloaded NDISWrapper (I did first attempt to just add the firmware to the BCM43xx driver but it took too much effort and didn't function stably) -> System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager -> Search for NDISWrapper, click the check box and then Apply. Before you proceed make sure you have the Windows driver for the Broadcom card. You need to extract the .sys and .inf files from it. I placed mine on my Desktop.
Now pull up a terminal and type 'sudo rmmod bcm43xx'. This unloads the Broadcom driver from the system.
Type 'sudo rmmod ndiswrapper' to unload any instances of ndiswrapper that my be running. Type 'sudo ndiswrapper -i filename.inf' where filename.inf is the location of the driver, mine was ~/Desktop/filename.inf.
Type 'sudo ndiswrapper -l' and if the driver installed properly then you'll get a nice little list saying so.
To load NDISWrapper at startup type 'sudo ndiswrapper -m'.
Restart the computer and there you go, a working Broadcom WiFi. Mine picked up my WiFi from inside my main house and my neighbours WiFi signal too. I also get better signal strength than under WinXP. Also, I connected fine with WPA encryption thanks to the Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” network manager.

AUDIO

The audio was a hassle as the card and driver were loading correctly at startup, I just got no audio. The first step I took, now that I had WiFi, was to update Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn”, this apdated ALSA. The correct driver for my hardware is the intel8x0 so I entered 'gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base' which opens the alsa configuration file. I then updated the snd-hda-intel entry to my driver, snd-hda-intel8x0 and rebooted. While the computer was just starting I went into the BIOS and disabled the audio options there. When Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” started back up I had audio.

VIDEO

Strictly speaking the video works with Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” with no mods. However, if you want 2D and 3D acceleration you need to install the nVidia driver. This couldn't be easier. All you need to do is select -> System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager and hit go, if you have a net connection that is. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” downloads the current nVidia driver and installs it. After a restart you'll have full featured graphics.

MISCELLANEOUS

The shortcut keys on my notebook all worked out of the box. The mute key and the volume keys work better than in WinXP as there is no delay in their actions. There is actually one key that appears not to work, the media centre key. This key actually does work, it is just not assigned any action, I assigned mine to open xmms. The touchpad is turned off on startup but if you have no mouse all you need to do is to hit the touchpad power key. Everything else works a treat. The two inbuilt microphones work well, the firewire and usb have no issues. My USB drives all auto mount and the five in one card reader works well.

OTHER APPLICATIONS

Some other applications that I have found useful with this Ubuntu “Fesity Fawn” distro have been:
Thunderbird is a powerful open source email client. I use Thunderbird on WinXP and copied the profile folder over to my local Thunderbird directory. Now I've got all my mails and filters etc.
Beryl is a window manager with a difference. For the best GUI experience you'll get try Beryl...if you think Win Vista has good visuals then you'll be blown out of the water by this.
ALLTray is an app that will let you minimise any application to the task bar. I'm having troubles with ALLTray and Beryl though.
XMMS is a multimedia player that just works. Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" does come with Rhythmbox but I just prefer XMMS as it is small, has many plugins and I've been using it for years.
Wine is an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator and allows (some) Windows based apps to run under Linux.
Azureus is a bit torrent client.
Bluefish Editor is a web site creation tool that works with all the major web based programming languages such as PHP/MySQL, HTML/XHTML etc.
Audacity is an audio recording and editing environment. It's a fantastic tool.
Filezilla is a full featured ftp client from Mozilla.
Gnome Baker is a CD/DVD creation environment.

So if you think that Linux isn't for notebooks then think again. At least with Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” you can have a fully featured Linux distro that will work on even the most proprietary of systems.

P.S. This is my 100th post so happy birthday to me!

UPDATE: This website is no longer maintained. This guide has been migrated to simonives.info where you will find any updates. Please post any questions or comments at the new site.

Busy Week

2007-06-30T18:02:00.000+10:00

What a week it's been. I've just finished drafting a letter to the Social Security Review Tribunal to appeal a decision regarding some money I think I'm owed...fingers crossed.

But what's really been consuming my time has been my new website I'm working on. You'll find the test site HERE if you feel inclined to take a look but it's not up-to-date and many of the features aren't working Live. I'm really testing everything well before I upload it. My intention is to update the test site every Friday at midnight AEST so, for example, all the revisions and additions I completed today (Saturday) won't be posted until next Friday.

Updates to the test site this week include:

A new site-wide theme.
A new Blog that incorporates this theme.
All new MySQL database design for faster and more reliable access.
A search feature in the header - currently searches the blog from the blog page and searches google from the home page.
New PHP 5.0 page design that allows for faster site-wide updating.
Implemented a neat little footnote script in the blog.

Updates that missed this week's review:

The new graphical navbar missed addition this week as I'm still tweaking the a:hover state of the buttons. The new navbar replaces the Photos link with Media.
I'm still using a separate Internet Explorer style sheet until I'm comfortable with the one I'm using on my localhost.
The Uni Paper's database is not live so the cool home page I'm working on on my localhost isn't available. The home page on my localhost so far includes a most recent Blog Post section and a most recent Uni Paper section.

What I'm working on this week:

Getting the style sheets to a single sheet for ie and other browsers.
Getting all my font styles the way I want. I'm open to suggestions regarding the font colours/faces in the body.
Writing the PHP code for the Uni Papers pages (expected to take more than a week).
Tweaking the Home page code that displays the most recent entries for Blog Posts and Uni Paper's. Uni Paper's is the tricky one as I have five separate tables that need to be referenced with the most recent entry amongst the five being displayed. I've no idea how I'll achieve this at the moment so I'm open to suggestions.

Once all of that is completed I'll move on to populating the Uni Papers database and creating the PHP search files for the Uni Paper's site so that I'll have a functional Uni Paper's Site, a functional Blog Site, and a functional Home page.

After all of this I intend to move on to creating the media site where I'll host photos, videos, audio and some other papers and documents that I've written such as my Beginning the Tabla book. I'm not even thinking of how I'm going to lay this site out yet so don't ask, although, like above, I'm open to suggestions.

Orientalism in Australia: the Middle Eastern Mongrel

2007-06-23T21:54:00.000+10:00

This morning I was enjoying myself at one of our local markets when my wife and I overheard some fellow market goers talking about a shopkeepers dog. Being the eavesdroppers that we are, my wife and I adamantly listened in. This group, the fellow market goers (I'll call them a group, I assume that's an appropriate collective noun for market patrons), some middle aged to elderly ladies, were discussing 'what was in the dog'. By this they were attempting to discern what 'breeds' of dog were present in this apparent mongrel. As an aside, the dog in question was a very healthy and happy looking creature.

My wife and I were unable to listen in to the entire conversation as the group moved along but this got us talking. My wife is a Sociology/Community Development major so she's quite interested in a lot of the same concepts as I. We were both of the same opinion that this was a case of 'othering' or 'orientalism'. I put it this way: The group attempted to put the dog into a 'class', in a sense labeling the dog. This then allows them to discuss the value of the dog in relation to other designated 'classes', maybe in relation to the 'class' we would call 'purebred'. From this division of 'classes' and value distinctions we are left with a social system created entirely by the observer.

It is easy to observe a correlate 'racialisation' in the contemporary world, particularly Australia at present. We (I use this term loosely) assign characteristics to this 'other' no matter how diverse they may possibly be. I'll use the example of the Middle East here as it is particularly relevant. Middle Eastern people have been racialised in Australia in a very similar way to mongrel dogs. Despite their diverse social systems, religions, and ethnicities, they are lumped in to a socially constructed mongrel class. As Scott Poynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar and Jock Collins show in their recent book Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other (2004, p.49), 'Middle Eastern [has] become conflated with Arab, Arab with Muslim, Muslim with rapist, rapist with gang, gang with terrorist, terrorist with 'boat people', 'boat people' with barbaric, and so on...'. Now while all of these characteristics may not be applied to all Middle Eastern people all of the time most of them are. It is an interesting exercise to ask people on the street to define the Middle East. Most people point to a geographical area on a map, most of these people, however, disagree where the boundaries are. It is interesting, or perhaps sad, to see this though; many people will include India in their Middle East map and many Australians, and I can only assume people of other nationalities too, are loath to include Israel, although most do if they are pointing to a map that isn't labeled. You see Israel is geographically part of the Middle East but is ethnically separate, or so they say...(Maybe more on this another time)

But the entire Middle East is a diverse area. There have been, and continue to be, numerous religions present and the diverse social systems can be quite contrasting. Even throwing the label Muslim around is part of the same problem, mongreling this Middle Eastern other. The Middle East is a 'Western' Orientalist experiment gone wrong; because the diversity was never recognised, even to this day, the Middle East is simply a mongrel.

Like the mongrel dog at the market today, the Middle East and the many and diverse people who reside there, and the many and diverse people who reside here in Australia, Australian citizens...people born here, people with Middle Eastern heritage, will never be fully valued. By making this statement I am in no way claiming that people who are from the Middle East, or who's ancestors were/are, are in any way to be thought of as a dog, I am simply saying that Australian society treats them that way, as a mongrel. We have created a single class of people from a diverse social group and assigned them characteristics that many of them have never possessed. Australia created the Middle Eastern other in our national psyche, it is not an organic feature of the world. Australia has created the Middle Eastern Mongrel.

The Neverending Story

2007-06-21T10:47:00.000+10:00

...
"Something has happened in Moldymoor" said the will-o'-the-wisp haltingly, "something impossible to understand. Actually, it's still happening. It's hard to describe--the way it began was--well, in the east of our country there's a lake--that is, there was a lake--Lake Foamingbroth we called it. Well, the way it began was like this. One day Lake Foamingbroth wasn't there anymore--it was gone. See?"

"You mean it dried up?" Gluckuk inquired.

"No," said the will-o'-the-wisp. "Then there'd be a dried-up lake. But there isn't. Where the lake used to be there's nothing--absolutely nothing. Now do you see?"

"A hole?" the rock chewer grunted.

"No, not a hole," said the will-o'-the- wisp despairingly. "A hole, after all, is something. This is nothing at all."

The three other messengers exchanged glances.

"What--hoo--does this nothing look like?" asked the night-hob.

"That's just what's so hard to describe," said the will-o'-the -wisp unhappily. "it doesn't look like anything. It's--it's like--oh, there's no word for it."
...

(taken from Ende, M 1983, The Neverending Story, trans. Manheim, R, Penguin, London, p. 19)

Fan's of The Neverending Story will enjoy the following story.

LINK

Richard Rorty

2007-06-16T13:52:00.002+10:00

As most of us are now aware, Richard Rorty, the eminent American philosopher and Professor of comparative literature at Stanford University, died this week (June 8). I'm not going to write anything here as whatever I could, or perhaps could not, write just couldn't do the man justice. What I will direct the reader to, however, is the fantastic program The Philosopher's Zone that this week dedicated an entire episode to Rorty. The presenter, Alan Saunders, and Paul Redding, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, discuss Rorty's life and works. The entire transcript is now available and for the next four weeks the audio is available to either listen to live or download. LINK.

Downer Keeps Fingers Firmly in Big Brother's Pie

2007-06-15T16:05:00.000+10:00

The crisis in Darfur has been occurring, in one form or another, since the fourteenth century when Islam was introduced as the 'state' religion. Conflicts ensued from this right up 'till Britain, yes Britain, incorporated the Darfur region into neighbouring Sudan in 1916. This just led to further problems, the same sort of problems that occurred in other 'created' nations, problems such as economic marginalisation and no right to self determination. In 1983 and 1984 there was a major famine in Darfur which killed an estimated 95,000 people. Because of this, the then government was overthrown.

Move forward to 2003 and we find ourselves in the early stages of the current conflict. Two groups, The Justice and Equality Movement and The Sudan Liberation Movement, made the claim that the government was favouring Arabs and mistreating non-Arabs. This led to an attack on an area known as Golo by a group called The Darfur Liberation Front which, in turn, led to an attack by The Sudan Liberation Army on an area known as Al-Fashir. This humiliated the Sudanese government and what has resulted has been widely called 'The Darfur Conflict' with an estimated 400,000 people killed to date (2003-2007), among many other human rights abuses.

This week the Sudanese government agreed to let the United Nations send in peace keepers to try and diffuse the conflict. Now whether UN peace keepers are the best method to end this conflict is not what's at issue here. This is a major step forward with the Sudanese government recognising, internationally, that there is a fundamental problem that needs addressing and that it (the Sudanese government) cannot fix the problem on its own (it is widely acknowledged that the Sudanese government is killing and abusing more people than the various rebel groups).

Now today (15 June) we have Alexander Downer claiming that Australia cannot contribute to the UN mission...the 'numbers just don't add up'. What damn numbers does he need to see? Is not 400,000 dead people and uncounted human rights abuses not large enough? We certainly didn't need such large numbers to go and 'help' the Americans in their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor did we need such numbers to keep our friends in power in the Solomon Islands.

No, the only numbers that Downer could possibly be referring to are financial numbers. They are the only numbers that are lower in relation to the other conflicts we've either participated in or helped start. It is simply not profitable enough for Downer's government to engage in this conflict.

Believe me, I was a little surprised when I heard this news as participating in a UN managed peace keeping force aimed at preventing death and human rights abuses, deaths and abuses that are actually documented, would seem to be a politically smart move by a government that is facing certain defeat later in the year. I, naively it seems, assumed that helping innocent people escape from certain death and/or abuse would gain widespread public sympathy for the government. Perhaps in the elections due later in the year the coalition government is going to pull one of those alterity campaigns again. You know, the ones where the government claims that we need to fear the 'other'. We know how successful these campaigns are, our government is well practiced at pulling them off. Maybe we can't help the UN because African's will be the new Iraqis in this election, the 'other' that needs to be feared. Surely the government can't both help and slander the same people.

I would wager, however, that had Australia's big brother, you know the one, the Yanks, had said 'we're going into Sudan to help those God-forsaken Darfur residents, want'a lend a hand?', little John, along with Downer, would have almost ejaculated at the offer. We'd be in there quicker than the gleam that that appears in Howard's eye when Bush's name is mentioned. This is one of the reasons I chose to keep my New Zealand citizenship when I became an Aussie. You've no idea how embarrassing it is saying to people overseas that you're from Australia.

Islam and a New Mufti for Australia

2007-06-10T17:39:00.000+10:00

Islam arrived in Australia long before Christianity did, it was a mere twist of fate that Christianity became the dominant religion in the country. More than two hundred years ago Islamic fishermen from nearby Indonesia visited the north-western coastline of Australia mingling with Australia's Indigenous inhabitants. Even to this day there are words and concepts in north-western Indigenous Australian languages that are distinctly Islamic.

Move forward a couple of hundred years to just after the second world war. During this time there was a great deal of immigration to Australia and one of those immigrants was the then twenty three year old Fehmi from Lebanon. In 1957 Fehmi and a small band of friends formed the first Islamic prayer group in Melbourne which eventually led to the formation of the Islamic Society of Victoria which, in 1976, appointed Fehmi as Imam. Fehmi's first project was fund raising for a large Islamic centre in Melbourne's north, a place called Preston. To this day Fehmi has run the Preston Mosque although Fehmi is now more reverently known as Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam.

Some of you may remember earlier in the year there was created an Australian National Council of Imams who are most well known for their position on the then Mufti, Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali . They effectively told the Sheikh that his tenure as Mufti of Australia was up. Today this same council, despite their earlier statement, reappointed Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali as the Mufti of Australia. Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali , however, turned down the position instead declaring that Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam should be the next Mufti of Australia. So, for the next two years, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam will be known as Mufti Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam, the Mufti of Australia.

It will be interesting to see the nation's response to the new Mufti, someone who has resided in this country for longer than many other people and someone who has undoubted talent in community building. Gary Bouma, Professor of Sociology at Monash University, claims that 'He is very able to present Australia to the Muslims and Muslims to Australia. He's been very good at presenting these two communities to each other, in a way that promotes co-operation, promotes understanding, promotes mutual interest and reduces fear.' Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam certainly seems to be a very good choice for the Mufti of Australia, I doubt that anyone else with his qualities could be found in this country.

Perhaps the greatest concern with this appointment is the new Mufti's age. Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam is currently 77 years old. I've already heard criticism claiming that due to his age he will be out of touch with the community, both the local Islamic community and the wider national community. Do remember though that Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam played a very important role in shaping the Islamic community of Australia and is well known for his work in interfaith and faith/secular dialogue. If anyone has any doubt as to his credentials then turn to the Order of Australia; Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to multiculturalism and to the Muslim community, particularly through the promotion of community harmony and tolerance and to multi-faith understanding. I don't think that a better man could have been given the job.

How 'Humane' is Your City?

2007-05-11T09:28:00.000+10:00

How 'humane' is your city? Well if you live in the United States of America you may be one step closer to finding this out. It's a shame that we Australian's don't have anything similar to go by, although I'm fairly certain that all our cities are 'in-humane', however, the Humane Society of the United States has undertaken a study to determine the most 'humane' cities in the USA. You can find the study HERE, and, if you're not inclined to follow the link, San Francisco came out on top and Chicago came up with the wooden spoon.

But is this study accurate or even necessary; is it even logically valid? Now, I'm not pretending to have access to the methodologies employed in the procedures of this study nor am I claiming that I even have access to the uncollated information, what I am claiming, however, is that according to the Humane Society's published information (link above) there are quite a few holes. It seems that there were only twelve criteria identified for a city to be measured against which all seem quite emotive in their focus. Quantity of 'seal protectors' for example or 'puppies in windows'. Euphemism is a general tool for hiding inadequacy, not something that an international organisation should be promoting.

Perhaps the most fundamental issue, however, is in the use of the word 'humane'. What is meant by this term? Is it relative? How do we judge its application appropriately? I think that the term 'humane' is logically inconsistent and is nothing more than an overt expression of prejudice and chauvinism. Most critics of the Humane Society seem to focus on some inconsistent claim like that we should not be treating animals 'humanely' because that would entail us treating them as if they were humans. This, I think too, is illogical, prejudiced and chauvinistic. Why devalue an animal's uniqueness by equating it with a human? Humans and most other animals are innately different and these differences are, necessarily, irreconcilable; they will likely remain so until someone, at least, answers Nagel's question 'what is it like to be a bat?'.

No, my hang up is in the question 'what is it like to be human?' Obviously the term 'humane' is to be seen in relation to the term 'human' but what do we mean when we use the term 'human'? From a brief exploration of the Humane Society of America's website, focusing on mission statements etc., it seems that what it is to be human is the possession of reason. I completely agree! This seems to be where the the Humane Society gets confused (Maybe they aren't confused however there are no documents on their website pointing otherwise). Their statement of Principles and Beliefs includes '...[w]e seek to forge a lasting and comprehensive change in human consciousness of and behavior toward all animals in order to prevent animal cruelty, exploitation, and neglect, and to protect wild habitats and the entire community of life...' So, to the Humane Society, the term 'humane' means a procedure of changing reason to make it more in line with a Moral Universalist's perspective. This universal morality places equal weight on the rights of animals as to the rights of humans.

I'm not going to make a claim here either for or against Moral Universalism however the Humane Society really needs to go over their statements and get some things straight. If I'm going to argue for a universal morality and a universal morality that limits reason, because reason will have no place in this universal morality as what is and isn't morally valuable is already decided, then how can I call this humane? Of course, as I've mentioned, the Humane Society seem to equate the term 'humane' to such a definition, one in which reason becomes limited, but this is not, at least in my opinion, what it is like to be human. Human = ability to reason not I will tell you what you can and can not reason about.

If you're going to remain logically consistent the please remove the term 'humane' from your name.

Ustad Rafiuddin Sabri - Tabla Solo - Teental

2007-05-10T17:38:00.001+10:00

This tabla player is from Delhi and is simply amazing. In this recording the audio and video are slightly out of sync, as with most recordings of drut laya, but this doesn't detract from the quality. The timing is spot on and and Sabriji has such control over his fingers, wrists and, in effect, his entire upper body. Playing in drut laya for any duration of time is difficult for anybody!

Chain Reaction

2007-05-10T12:21:00.000+10:00

How difficult is it to boil a bucket of water? I wasn't certain until I found this interesting video while browsing the net today. Have a look for yourselves.

Body and Mind Essay

2007-05-07T23:16:00.000+10:00

I received my result for my Body and Mind essay on Homunculi-Headed Robots and I received a Distinction. While usually I'd kick and scream over such a grade I'm not going to this time. The reason you may ask, I'm not that happy with it myself. You see, because I had a holiday and didn't get as much work (Uni work that is) done while I was away my essay suffered. So in this case a Distinction is fine. If anyone cares to read the essay you'll find it on my Uni Papers Site under the Philosophy heading or, only if you're lazy, click HERE.

P.S. I've also uploaded a Buddhism essay on Mahayana to my Uni Papers Site too. I haven't updated the Religion page yet but if anyone's keen to get a sneak preview you can download it by clicking HERE.

The 'Terrorists' are loosing

2007-05-06T20:20:00.000+10:00

According to <--THIS--> the 'Terrorists' are finally loosing popularity. Apparently their leader is 'stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes'. Take a look for yourselves if you're interested.

How Do You Organise Information?

2007-05-05T19:57:00.000+10:00

With the amount of information available on the net now browser based bookmarks just don't cut it anymore. Even with the widespread use of broadband services page load times and navigational issues still cause many upsets. For example, every morning I like to check the weather forecast, my calendar, various news sites, my blogs for comments, other's blogs for new posts or replies to comments that I've left, pod cast updates, my university discussion boards and my various email accounts. It is easy to see how all of this could fill up a lot of time.

So how does one manage all of this? For a while now I've been using iGoogle but I was growing tired of the lack of features and customisability that someone like me, a non-programmer, could accomplish. Where I turned was to netvibes. So what do these (free) services offer that can reduce the time for me to finish all the tasks listed above? Let me see if I can describe it for you.

Both sites are relatively similar with both offering customisable home pages with tabs where dynamic content can be stored. For example, on my netvibes page I have ten tabs of sorted information. These tabs are Home, News, Personal Blogs, Friends Blogs, Philosophy Blogs, Religion Blogs, University, Pod Casts, MySpaces and Mail. I think you get the idea as to what content I place under each tab. Let's look at a few of these tabs so you get the idea of how such a service operates.

The News tab contains custom 'modules', little boxes that display dynamic content, in columns. In each 'module' I subscribe to a different news feed, a dynamic process that 'feeds' the news content to my 'modules'. The module then displays the news headlines as links which you can then follow for the entire story. iGoogle and netvibes handle this linking process differently but I'll discuss that more below.

The Personal Blogs tab displays 'modules' just like the other tabs but link to the 'feeds' from my personal blogs. I have this tab configured with two columns, the column on the left has my posts and the column on the right has comments on my posts. The other blog tabs are configured in the same manner. This way I can look at all of the posts and all of the comments on all of the blogs I'm interested in from a single page without having to load all of the individual graphics etc.

The pod cast tab has, you guessed it, 'modules' that subscribe to pod casts. What I like about netvibes over iGoogle with the pod cast subscriptions is that with netvibes I can opt to download or stream the audio/video from the module itself, no funny business.

Lastly the mail tab includes 'modules' that link to all of my email accounts, gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and POP accounts etc. I can see if I have any new emails, who they are from and their subject lines all from one page. A huge time saver.

Now, why have I opted for netvibes over iGoogle? Well, many reasons actually. On the tabs of the netvibes page a little number will display indicating how many unread feeds are present in that tab. For example, if I have 12 unread emails the email tab will have a number 12, the same goes for all the other tabs. Also, netvibes is so much more customisable. There are more themes, more 'module' options, more tab options, a great wizard for creating your own 'modules' and to add 'modules' you don't need to leave your page. iGoogle just can't compete with this.

I mentioned above about links to entire news stories or complete blog entries etc. and this is something that netvibes really have sorted. When the user clicks a link in netvibes you don't leave the page. The entire blog entry or news story etc. appears in a new 'module' in your page. What's more is that an archive of stories/feeds from the blog, news site etc. also appears so you can read other entries without leaving your page. Of course you can navigate to the blog, news site etc. page if you so desire.

There are also many more options that I haven't mentioned but I'd rather you take a look for your self. You'll find netvibes HERE and iGoogle HERE.

US 'Terrorists' hate Iraqis

2007-05-05T10:23:00.000+10:00

Reading this mornings news <--link--> I was shocked to see the results of a survey of American military troops (hereby known as terrorists) on their attitudes towards Iraqis. The survey claims that one tenth of these terrorists have mistreated Iraqi civilians at some point in their 'service' and that one third condone torture to protect the life a one of their fellow terrorists.

Now this survey is credible, it was conducted by the terrorists' own mental health advisory team. This seems to be a common tactic of terrorist organisations, such as the United States Military, claiming that they don't value the life of any 'other'; 'you're either with us or against us' the leader of these terrorists has been quoted as saying. Fear is a fundamental aspect of terrorist politics.

So what else did this survey uncover? Well, more than 50% of the terrorists would not report a fellow terrorist for unethical behavior. This is shocking because of the limited definition of ethics that the terrorists already hold. If the terrorist holds 50% of the ethical concepts that I hold as, in fact, being ethical, and more than 50% of these terrorists would not report an unethical act then I can rest assured that less than 25% of the acts that I would deem unethical (and most other people too, I would assume) are currently being reported.

I'd love to post more of the survey's findings but the damn terrorists have censored it. It seems that just letting a little of their insanity out of the box creates more fear than if we knew the depths of it. Exploring in the dark is always more fearful than in the daylight but lets hope that this small torchlight of information helps to uncover the breadth of the terrorists' psychoses.

Centrelink is a Bastard

2007-05-03T22:50:00.000+10:00

That's right, a bastard. Maybe not in a literal sense but that organisation has certainly pissed me off this week. For those readers not familiar with Australian social security have a look <--HERE--> for some background.

For a while now I've been receiving Disability Support Pension for an injury that prevents me from doing a lot. Not too long ago I received notification that the pension I was receiving was up for review so I attended the review interview and, to my disgust, found out that it was one of little Johnny Howard's neo-liberal 'get people off of their arses and supporting themselves' drives. I was asked, basically, to show cause as to why I should continue to receive the pension. The Centrelink officer in charge of my case gave me some forms for my doctor to fill out. No problem? Big problem! My doctor had recently retired so I was expected to see a doctor who had no knowledge of my disability. Naturally he was reluctant to fill out the form so just indicated that he was unsure.

This wasn't good enough for Centrelink who needed more information so they gave me a whopping whole month to find it. You see, neo-liberalism is all about removing the individual from this sort of process; there is no scope for my claim to be given 'special consideration', I am the same as every other number on the Centrelink database. Neo-liberals really need to discover the difference between qualitative and quantitative. Anyhow, I inquired about what would happen to me if I was deemed ineligible for the pension. My case manager happily informed me that I would be placed on another payment that I was eligible for. As I'm a full-time student I wasn't too worried at this point as I would be entitled to a student benefit; still, not the pension. You see I needed some 'special consideration' as my treating doctor (funnily enough 'treating doctor' is the name of the form I needed filled out. Absurd that I don't actually need my treating doctor to fill it out) had retired and the orthopedic outpatients department of the State hospital that I was receiving specialist treatment from had a two year wait list.

Sadly, I decided that I'd just accept my fate (although I'll never vote Liberal now no matter how rich I become John!) and be transfered over to Austudy. This is where the real problems began. I wasn't transfered! I went to the bank last Thursday to make a withdrawal and discovered that my bank account was empty! I hurried on over to Centrelink to see what was going on and was promptly informed that I was no longer a client of theirs; I had been canceled. This was a shock, I was supposed to be transfered, were my study details not apparent? Even so, why hadn't I been transfered to Newstart, the payment for the unemployed? After two days of being shrugged off between person to person, department to department I was informed that I wasn't to be transfered over to another payment, I never was. It turns out that my previous case manager had been lying to me; this never happens. I was informed that I had to reapply for a payment and that this process takes 21 days. I explained that that would mean that I would have no income for six weeks all up but, as mentioned above, neo-liberalism is unkind to the individual. My appeals fell on deaf ears.

So this is where I currently lay; poor and pissed off. Centrelink has a fiduciary duty to its clients, of which I was one (and, fingers crossed, soon to be again), that was flatly abused. I am in the process of making formal complaints about this situation to all levels of Centrelink management and all levels of Government but I'm not hopeful for a positive outcome. Frankly I just don't mean enough. I'll post all my letters of complaint here, and any replies that I don't expect to come, with the tag 'Centrelink Bastard if anyone cares to follow my predicament. It'd be nice to get paid soon though, I've got text books to buy for next semester. It's interesting how Centrelink is so happy to jeopardise a situation that will remove its clients from welfare dependency in the long term for such short term triviality.

Home

2007-04-24T20:14:00.000+10:00

Home at last!

What a trip home that was; the flights were OK but the train journeys were a nightmare! To begin with the train from Udaipur to Mathura was over booked and we were wait listed, likewise with the Mathura to Delhi train. By the time the tickets arrived we had been allocated seats however. But this is only where the problems began.

When we seated ourselves on the Udaipur to Mathura train we were pleasantly surprised; the train was new and seemed quite comfortable. There were few people on the train, which did seem a little strange as just a few days prior it was overbooked, and there were two women and a small child sitting opposite us who seemed quite friendly. What a mistake that assumption was. These two women insisted on staying awake for the entire train journey as they were worried about missing their stop. They chatted as loud and fast as only Indian women can and insisted on leaving the light on in our compartment. The chatting wasn't too bad as both Craig and I had earplugs but as I had the upper birth the fluro light was only 20cm from my head. Try sleeping 20cm from a fluro on an Indian train; damn near impossible!

As expected we arrived at Mathura station rather tired and as we had a 12 hour wait for our connecting train we decided to store our bags in the railway's cloak room and head to nearby Vrindavana for the day. But more problems. As our bag's zips did not all lock the railway's cloakroom refused to store them. We were faced with a dilemma, either sit at Mathura railway station for 12 hours or take our bags into Vrindavana with us. We didn't like either option. Mathura is a dirty city, to say it as nicely as possible, and the reason we wanted to go to Vrindavana was so we could go and visit the many temples as the day we had arrived was Chandana Yatra so it was extra auspicious. We decided that we'd employ the services of a rickshaw walah to find us a uber cheap hotel on the way to Vrindavana where we could store our bags for the day. We settled on the third hotel we stopped at called the 'Hotel Braj', very original I know, where we got by far the dirtiest room I have ever seen for 200 rupees. Fine for storing our bags though.

So from here we made our way to Vrindavana which was well worth the trip. We visited ISKCON's Krishna Balarama Mandira for all the morning programs and ran into our friend Hari Bhakti Dey who happened to have been in Vrindavana for the last few months. After the morning program we went into Loi Bazar to by some gifts for our family. I was pretty damn tired at this time so I just made a commitment to go straight to the shops where I'd made successful purchases before. After an hour of battling the Vrindavana heat I had four shirts for Jodie and India, three carvachas for Jodie and India, A set of whomper catatels for Vishalini, and 19 sets of Tulsi malas. Yep, 19 sets. The price was 20 rupees a piece or 100 rupees for the lot. I said that I wanted five pieces so how about I get five for 20 rupees. This was obviously illogical as the price for five was 100 rupees, five 20s being 100. I pointed out that the salesman would make a greater profit by selling my five for 50 rupees as otherwise I would by all 19 for 100 rupees but he wouldn't budge so I just took the 19 pieces.

After Loi Bazar we went back to the MVT guest house where Hari Bhakti was staying with his wife, Sharmi, and their two children. When we arrived though we discovered that they were out to lunch. Not to be deterred though we opted to find a nice shady tree in the grounds of the MVY, the nicest place in Vrindavana, and have a little nap, being tired and all. We found a great little spot and curled up for a sleep, which unfortunately came slow and short, for me at least. In about an hour we heard Sharmi's voice so we got up in a hurry and rushed over to Bhakti and Sharmi's place. What a great decision that was, their place had two AC units, fresh water and a sitar. Comfort for the remainder of the day. It was great to see Bhakti and Sharmi's children who are just gorgeous. When it got to five PM, however, we had to say our goodbyes and find a rickshaw to take us the hour long trip back to Mathura to get our bags and then onto the railway station for the final train back to Delhi. We were silently looking forward to this last train as we were to be in the AC section.

Well we got our bags without a hitch and were dropped off at the railway station with little fuss. Just a one hour wait 'till the train was due to arrive. After plenty of chai and a few puris and subji that Craig enjoyed our train arrived. We promptly asked where the AC section was but as I glanced at our ticket, which was poorly printed, I discovered that we were to be in the non-AC chair section. No worries we thought, only two hours or so to Delhi. Our minds were soon changed though when we found our seats and, more importantly, what was under them. Vomit. That's right, little kid vomit. There was a sick kid opposite us who had been eating large amounts of junk food and the movements of the train had coerced his stomach into surrendering it's contents. The train was packed and most definitely uncomfortable. We eventually arrived at Nizamuddin station in Delhi, headed straight for a taxi (we weren't going to take a rickshaw this last leg of the journey after these two train trips) and directed the driver to Parharganj. Once in Parharganj we ran (well almost ran) for the cleanest hotel we knew of, the Cottage Yes Please, where we secured a clean AC room with pay TV and a fantastic bathroom. We didn't mind forking out the 900 rupees at this point either. What a sleep I had that night!

The next day was our flight home, well the first of two as we had to stop in Singapore again. I spent until 2pm sleeping and watching pay TV. I watched the snooker world championships and also a bit of a program called House that I'd never seen before and I doubt I'll take the effort too again. After 2pm I went and did a little last minute shopping. I started at the shoe shop to pick up some sandals for Jodie. I wasn't worried about getting the wrong size as Jodie had previously given my a cut out of her foot, something the shoe salesmen thought was hilarious. I also headed over to Janpatha to see if I could find some particular skirts for Jodie and too my surprise I found them, and for a good price too.

After finalising our packing we hopped into our taxi for the airport. What a trip that was. Our taxi driver was great! He insisted on singing for us the entire trip and was so happy. He was eager for any tips on his driving and wanted to know our opinion on his driving ability and also his English. Both were quite good. Craig took a video of him so I'll see if I can get a copy to upload here. On arrival at the airport I gave the driver a 100rupee tip, he was pretty pleased with this. No dramas at the airport, there rarely is in India. Craig and I just found a comfy seat and watched the cricket while drinking mochachinos.

The first flight was fine. We were flying Air India to Singapore and the plane had about 30 people on board. The meal was great and the movie wasn't too bad either; Don, staring Shah Rukh Khan. Singapore wasn't too bad either. Craig and I were expecting some sort of interrogation as when we came through a couple of weeks prior we were stiffly interrogated about our intentions in Singapore and flatly refused entry. We talked the guy around that time but we weren't sure what to expect this time. As we weren't leaving the airport this time there were no dramas of this kind. Craig got himself some medicine from one of the many airport pharmacies and we used up the remainder of the credit one the phone card he'd bought last time. We got on our flight here with no dramas but this one was full.

We flew with Singapore Air from Singapore to Brisbane but we didn't get to sit near each other this time. Our meals were wrong again (last time we went with Singapore Air they gave us chicken, apparently chicken is vegetarian in Singapore!) But we were lucky enough that they had a couple of spare strict veg meals. I settled into a game of Mario brothers while waiting for the plane to refuel and had a little chat to the guy next to me. This flight wasn't too bad other than the bad turbulence just outside of Singapore and the tight stuffy conditions. I watched three movies on this trip, one was OK, the other two terrible. I saw A Night at the Museum, Casino Royale, & Fearless. Probably a waste of time but I had nothing else to do.

Customs was incredibly quick and caused no fuss with the items that both Craig and I declared. What was on our minds, however, was who was going to be at the airport to collect us. I'd organised for my mother to pick us up but she pulled out a couple of days prior and we hadn't been able to confirm with anyone else. If there was no one there we could catch the bus but that would take hours and after so much travel we were hoping that this would not be necessary. On entering the arrivals lounge we were overjoyed to see our friends Keith and Adam waiting for us; what a relief. Keith drove us straight home, dropping Craig off first and hen myself. I managed to have a little rest and now I find myself here.

Time to start getting back into my Uni work again. I sent some work off while I was in India but I'm not sure if it was received, dodgy PCs there, that's for sure. Anyhow, I'll sort that out in the morning.

Some Randon Pics

2007-04-16T21:11:00.000+10:00

Craig on Suresh's bike.

Singapore haircut

Concert Two

2007-04-16T20:54:00.000+10:00

Here are some new photos from last night at the Shiv Niwas again. (15/04/2007)

Concerts

2007-04-16T16:13:00.000+10:00

These pics are from the Shiv Niwas gradens in the city palace Udaipur. Craig played yaman on the sitar in tin taal. (13/04/2007)

India Pictures

2007-04-14T18:39:00.000+10:00

Views from our room

Udaipur

2007-04-13T21:51:00.000+10:00

Finally a decent PC!

We're now in Udaipur which is just amazing. The lake is full and we have the best room around. OK, maybe not the best room but a pretty good one. We are paying 600 rupees per night and our room actually extends out over the lake. There were a few other rooms we looked at but this one had the best outlook for the price.

The train trip from Jaipur to Udaipur was fine; we shared a 8 bed compartment with only one other guy so there was heaps of space to stretch out. The train was brand new too. Tomorrow I hope to get some photos up on here; Craig has taken some really nice shots.

Tonight Craig and I are performing at the city palace in the Shiv Niwas gardens. There may also be a French Canadian girl playing as well, she plays the bansuri. Craig and I have been having three hours of one-on-one lessons every day with Sureshji who was also kind enough to lend us some instruments to practice on in our own time. Today I learnt a great new peshkar that I hope to have mastered enough for tonight's performance. Both the King and the Prince will be at the City Palace tonight so the pressure may be on!

I'll have to leave it at that for now as I need to go and organise some train tickets back to Delhi and I don't want to miss out.

Jaipur

2007-04-11T17:46:00.000+10:00

First of all please excuse any spelling mistakes as this keyboard has no letters on the keys.

We arrived in Delhi with no dramas; leaving Singapore caused no problems like trying to get in. We got a van into Parharganj and found a little room for 300 rupees that wasn't as bad as I first thought it would be. The only disapointment in Delhi was that we went to vist the Akshardham Mandir but it was closed, maybe we'll get a chance to go back before we fly out.

We arrived in Jaipur last night (10/04) and wen't straight to our friend's hotel - Hotel Pearl Palace - where we had to take the most expensive room 'cause there were no others. The room is really comfortable though with Air Con and a fridge, all for 500 rupees. Today in Jaipur was fantastic, we spent the morning visiting temples. We took darshana of Govinda Devji, Radha Damadora, and Gopinatha. It was a grerat experience seeing all three mandirs on the one day.

Tonight we leave for Udaipur where I know that I'll have access to a better computer to keep you all updated and get some private messages off.

Untill then, take care.

Blogging in Singapore

2007-04-08T16:32:00.000+10:00

Just about to leave Singapore airport for New Delhi after a fairly un-eventful day browsing around little India. Un-eventful 'cause it is Sunday and most places were closed and there was also a power outage that kept business quiet. We nearly wern't alowed through customs because we were suspected of being members of the ' hare rama hare krishna' cult, quite a confronting situation really. Well, not much else to say so I'll cut it short and see if I can find a computer to post again from New Delhi.

Off to India

2007-04-07T16:22:00.000+10:00

I'm just about to head off to the airport on my way to India so wish me a good flight. I'm actually stopping over in Singapore for about ten hours so that should provide a nice bit of relaxation time. I'm not sure when I'll get an opportunity to post again but hopefully I'll get some pictures up as well.

Portable Applications for India

2007-04-04T16:23:00.000+10:00

As most of you now know I'm off to India this Saturday for a few weeks.

I've been wondering how I'd go accessing computer applications and all my web services while away 'cause I'm in mid term at the moment and still have some assessment and course content to complete. My fears have been allayed today with my discovery of Portable Apps.com, a fantastic site that creates installers for many popular desktop applications so that these apps will run from a USB drive, for example. There is even a Windows start menu lookalike application that provides an organised list of all of your applications and files.

I've now got Thunderbird setup with my few email accounts' details installed and also Firefox with foxmarks installed that syncs all of my bookmarks with my other computers. Other than this I've installed Miranda IM client and set it up with my IM log in details so I should be able to IM chat from any web accessible PC. I've installed many other programs including a media player and the Open Office Suite.

Now I've just got to hope that I won't encounter any firewall issues while in the subcontinent! I needn't worry about slow internet connections as I live in Australia, we have the worst internet of any country I've yet visited. If I can do it online here then I can anywhere!

John Butler Trio: Ocean

2007-03-31T00:56:00.001+10:00

And another.

John Buttler Trio: Funky Tonight

2007-03-31T00:52:00.001+10:00

Damn I like this guy, he makes it seem just so easy to play that song!

Exams

2007-03-29T16:56:00.000+10:00

I just got my results for my mid-term test for PHI220: Body & Mind and, to my delight, I received 100%. The test was simple and consisted of five questions in multiple choice and short answer which I'll post below with my answers.

Q.1.

Epiphenomenalism is the thesis that:

A) Mental properties are causally inert
B) We don't have privileged access to our own mental states
C) Mental states are neither material nor immaterial
D) It is a category mistake to think that 'the mind' refers to a substance
E) All mental states are phenomenal states

Q.2.

J.J.C. Smart advances the identity theory, according to which sensations are brain processes, as:

A) an a priori claim whose truth can be established by an analysis of mental concepts
B) a claim that we can see must be true even if we have no idea how it can be true
C) a claim that must be true because its denial-dualism-is unintelligible
D) an empirical speculation that has little chance of being true
E) a plausible empirical claim

Q.3.

Explain why Putnam discusses the mental life of other animals-such as the octopus-in arguing against the claim that mental states are brain states.

Putnam argues that the brain-state theorist, to make good his claims, needs to specify a physical-chemical state so that any organism is in pain, necessarily and sufficiently, if it possess a brain of a suitable physical-chemical composition and its brain is actually in that physical-chemical state. This is not limited to just mammalian brains but any organism that has the potential to experience pain which, while sufficiently including mammals, also includes reptiles and molluscs (octopus), for example, as well. Putnam uses this example to illustrate the ambitiousness of the brain-state hypothesis claiming that the brain-state theorist does not just claim that pain is a brain state but that all psychological states are brain states. Putnam claims that if we can find a single psychological state that can be applied to both a mammal and an octopus, for example, and that the physical-chemical correlate is different between the two then brain-state theory collapses. Putnam thinks that this is 'overwhelmingly probable'.

Q.4.

Explain in a few sentences how the functionalist account of mental states differs from the behaviorist account of mental states.

Ned Block describes Functionalism as 'a new incarnation of behaviorism' because while there are many similarities between Functionalism and Behaviorism there is a difference in their ascription of mental states. For Behaviorism to be met a mental state consists of a disposition to act in certain ways relative to a certain set of input-output relationships, however Functionalism goes further. Functionalism also requires that internal (mental) processes will have a causal relationship with other internal (mental) processes and, at the same time, have a causal relationship with external input-output relationships. Functionalism therefore claims that mental states may be seen as causal 'objects' while Behaviorism only sees sensory inputs, or external causes (input-output relationships), as causally significant.

Q.5.

Block uses the example of the homunculi-headed robots to argue that functionalism is wrong because it:

A) is too liberal in its ascription of mental states
B) has no plausible account of mental causation
C) reduces to behaviorism
D) cannot give a plausible account of privileged access
E) is consistent with dualism

The Ethics of Microsoft

2007-03-29T12:53:00.000+10:00

Ethics and Microsoft in the same sentence seems almost oxymoronical no matter what Bill Gates does with his own money. But that's all about to change courtesy of the Mexican Government. That's right, the Mexican Government, that too sounds almost oxymoronical. But thanks to Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, the ethical situation of both Microsoft and Mexico are looking up.

In a bid to reduce the terrible crime situation in Mexico the Government is offering a weapons buy-back scheme. Instead of cash, however, the Government is offering Microsoft XBox's in exchange for weapons. The Government is also considering exchanging complete PC's for the more powerful larger weapons, no doubt running one of Microsoft's notorious operating systems.

But will this scheme actually reduce crime? In countries such as the USA, Brittan, and of course Australia it is often argued that video game use actually increases the rates of crime. Those first person shooter (FPS) games have a horrible reputation for promoting violence. You can commit acts in some of those games that many would never conceive of in reality.

It remains to be seen whether this new XBox exchange scheme will reduce any violence within Mexico; maybe it will get even worse! Let's hope that the introduction of violent video games into a society that could not afford to purchase them, in large numbers, previously does not fuel the already raging crime fire.

Australia's Dental Health

2007-03-29T09:53:00.000+10:00

A short while ago my partner Jodie wrote to numerous ministers in our Governments, Local, State, and Federal, about the lack of dental care in this country. Over the next few weeks I hope to post the replies, if she's so lucky as to actually get any, that the ministers give. Stay tuned.

New Layout...Again

2007-03-26T22:57:00.000+10:00

I've changed my layout again. I know, I know, but this time I think I can make some changes that I'm happy with.

MQPhil Group Philosophy Blog

2007-03-22T23:13:00.000+10:00

I really enjoy reading the many and fantastic group philosophy blogs on the net and now there is another one that you should all check out. MQPhil is a group philosophy blog by undergraduates from Macquarie University Australia. Looks like there will be some interesting entries soon.

<--LINK-->

Pandit Anindo Chatterjee: Tabla Solo

2007-03-18T23:08:00.001+10:00

I just had to post this as it is amazing.

National Inter-Faith Festival

2007-03-12T13:27:00.000+10:00

The National Inter-Faith Festival was held this weekend. It was well represented by many different religious and faith groups and had some great music. Tenzin Chogyal from Tibet is always great and there was also this great Iranian group performing with five or so Dafs; just amazing.

The first day, Saturday, began with an Arati in which I provided the tabla accompaniment. The Arati was performed for Gaura-Nitai, Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, and was filmed by representatives of all the national media. After the Arati we performed Bhajans for about another hour. I say we as I (sorry) have forgotten the woman's name who was singing and playing the harmonium. Anyhow the bhajans were well received except by a particular Catholic priest who prayed for us the whole time. It seems he was a bit freaked out by the Buddhists too.

On the second day, Sunday, we also performed a fire yajna (sacrafice) for shanti (peace). The second day also saw a few forums too. I attended a couple of the forums and I would have to say that, at the least, I was a little disappointed. I expected the forums to be of a higher standard and I was hoping to learn something new. I was particularly upset with how the representatives of Islam were treated in the forums. While a common question for the Christian representative, for example, would focus on love most of the questions fielded to the Islamic representative were phrased in a way that the representative would need to be defensive. For example most people only asked questions of the Islamic representative relating to the treatment of women. This was sad to see particularly at a National Inter-Faith Festival.

I would have to say that the festival needed better advertising and also better facilities so every religious/faith group could have the opportunity to engage publicly with their philosophy. It would seem that even at the National Inter-Faith Festival there is a hierarchy of religions. Such a pity seen as on the Sunday for half the day more than half the marques weren't even being used. These could have been used, as on the Saturday, by the different groups in ways they saw fit. Also, if you took your kids along then you would have discovered that there was nothing to keep them occupied. There are only so many religious forums and musical performances that children are willing to sit through.

My main criticism though is the disregard the organisers showed towards the practices of the different religious and faith groups. The example I'll give is of the Arati and fire yajna that we performed. By we I am referring to ISKCON here. We were told that were we to participate we needed to perform a ceremony. This may seem fine however a ceremony is not a necessary condition of religion and Arati and Yajna are not the main focus of ISKCON. The organisers should not assume that every religion or faith has ceremonies that are able to be publicly displayed, especially in only 20 minutes, and they should be willing to accept the practices of the religious and faith groups that they invite. Don't ask people to perform ceremonies and other actions just for public display when they are not part of the mainstream, often practiced 'methods of worship' of the particular religion or faith. Religion does not deserve to be essentialised in this way, or any other way for that matter, and especially not at a National Inter-Faith Festival. I heard one of the organisers complaining that the community at the festival were essentialising Islam but the way the festival was organised essentialised the religious and faith groups as it was.

The food was great but of course I'd say that. Krishna prasadam is always the most popular food at any festival. I'm not sure if the rabbit stew at the Gypsy stall had much success though.

Overall though I had a good time at the festival, even if my expectations weren't met, and I am looking forward to participating again next year.

Diu

2007-03-08T16:46:00.000+10:00

I love this picture.

India

2007-03-05T12:44:00.000+10:00

I was scanning some photos today to add to a forum for a Buddhism subject I'm doing this semester and I stumbled across a couple of pictures I really love. Maybe you won't like them as much as I do but they really sum up the locations that the pictures were taken in.

The first picture is a couple of chai cups that we'd just drained while waiting on the train at Mathura station. The cups are made of clay and are unfired. At the end of every day, or perhaps more than once per day if it is busy, the cups are all smashed into a pile, wet, and molded into new cups again. Such an efficient practice.

The second is of some Mani Stones along the street that runs alongside the Dalai Lama's temple complex in Upper Dharamsala. I like this picture for a number of reasons. To begin with it reminds me of my childhood growing up down the road from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and seeing similar stones; even making them myself. I also like this picture because it reminds me of the..energy I suppose, of the Tibetan community in Upper Dharamsala. The colours, the brick work, the writing. I also love the wild vines growing over the wall.

My house is an Improvised Farm!!!

2007-03-04T20:51:00.000+10:00

I've had so many animals in my house this weekend. I came home on Friday night to a 1.5 - 2.0 meter Diamond Python (that's a snake for you New Zealanders) in my dining room. I removed the snake into my front yard near a tree in the hope that it would find some safety there. Really quite a beautiful snake and Wiki (click here) have a pretty good article on them if you care to find out more, including a pretty gruesome picture too.

On the Saturday morning we all woke up to a pretty bad smell coming from the kitchen. I searched everywhere and couldn't find a thing. I even took apart the oven to see if there was anything dead in there. There wasn't. What I did find though was a cute little gecko (Wiki article) in the kitchen sink. We have quite a few geckos as they eat all the cockroaches (Wiki article) and what the geckos don't get the huntsman spiders do (Wiki article). Other than the geckos we have quite a lot of skinks (Wiki article) who eat all the other insects.

After a little nap I decided to really pull apart the kitchen to find the bad smell. I pulled out the fridge so I could get under the cupboard and that's where the smell was coming from. I found a dead rat. We have quite a few rats and mice here as we live in a country area and there are a lot of farms around me. THIS is where I live. My house is directly above the blue squiggly line.

Well I went outside to my guest house to find some sort of tool that I could reach under my cupboard to get the dead rat out. While looking for the tool I stumbled across a baby bush turkey (Wiki article). Well I found the tool, actually a mop, and went back inside to get the rat out. I removed the rat and put it in the back garden and now, to my delight, the bad smell has gone.

I wonder what animal I'll stumble across before I go to bed?

Re: That Magical (Ethical) Bullet

2007-03-02T10:54:00.000+10:00

I've put in a new entry for the philosophy blog war on my Simon's Space: Philosophy and Religion blog called That Magical (Ethical) Bullet. Please, if you have a second or two, vote for my entry.

My Uni Papers

2007-03-01T17:02:00.000+10:00

Many of you leave this site for my Uni papers site, over 20 of you per day actually. Well be sure to check it out again as I've upgraded the site today. It is much more user friendly now. I'm yet to add the Google analytics code for it yet so I won't know how many of you are going there for a while and do be aware that the new search function is only working on the home page at the moment. I hope to have this fixed over the next couple of weeks. If any of you find any more bugs be sure to give me a yell.

Trillian Behind USC's Proxy.....Not

2007-03-01T09:38:00.000+10:00

For a while I've been trying to get around the proxy server at USC so I can use the Trillian IM client. Originally I thought that the web admins used port blocking as it took me ages to get my pop email client working (not working anymore though 'cause USC have recently upgraded to wireless networking behind a VPN and I can't seem to get POP working with this setup...yet). I've tried and scanned thousands of ports but even with the open ones I can't get Trillian to connect for more that 5-10 seconds.

I've now concluded that USC scans for IM session headers and blocks them. This is why I think that I can connect for up to 10 seconds before being disconnected. I've no idea how to get around a system that scans for session headers locally. I can connect remotely to my home PC and use Trillian that way but that kind of defeats the purpose. If anyone has any idea then feel free to let me know. I'll post the proxy configuration script here too.

USC Proxy Configuration Script -->

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
if (isPlainHostName(host) ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".usc.edu.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".lnq.net.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".bne099u.server-web.com"))
return "DIRECT";
else
if (isInNet(host, "141.28.216.132","255.255.255.255"))
return "PROXY usclinux2.usc.edu.au:8080";
else
return "PROXY uscproxy1.usc.edu.au:8080";
}

My Next Holiday

2007-02-26T22:11:00.000+10:00

As I alluded to (hehe, I think it may have been more than an allusion) in my previous post I am off to India in April with one of my friends for a holiday. A few of you have asked when I'll be going and where I'll be staying and as I just received my flight itinerary I thought I'd post it here. I'll be spending all my time, outside of transit, in Udaipur. I'm actually starting to get a little excited now.

Itinerary-

Saturday April 7 - Depart Brisbane for Singapore.

Sunday April 8 - Depart Singapore for Delhi.

----

Saturday April 21 - Depart Delhi for Singapore.

Sunday April 22 - Depart Singapore for Brisbane.

Philosophy, Morality & Society - Major essay - Pt. 2

2007-02-26T20:04:00.000+10:00

Another semester down, phew. For whatever reason, well actually many reasons, I was just overwhelmed this semester. It's not that the work was too hard or anything similar I think that it has more to do with the fact that I've not had more than a single weekend off for over a year. My plan to remedy this: an international holiday. That's right, I'm off to India in a few weeks. I thought that unless I just make a booking I'll never give myself a break so that's what I did.

I got my final essay in today. I had quite a bit of trouble reducing that argument to so few words. There is just so much more information I wanted to include but I had to leave it out. If anyone wants to read my essay you can find it HERE or browse through some of my others by clicking |uni papers| above.

This semester I'm studying three subjects: An Introduction to Buddhism - Body & Mind - Business & Professional Ethics. I'm looking forward to all three but I am perhaps more eager to get back into the religious studies subject and the Body & Mind subject looks quite good too. Having said that I'll probably end up enjoying Business & Professional Ethics more :)

Now to get back to the Buddhism lectures.

Philosophy, Morality & Society - Major essay

2007-02-22T16:58:00.000+10:00

I'm having one hell of a time writing this last essay for Philosophy, Morality & Society and it is not just the crappy word count. Well, the word count is pretty limiting; with only 1500 words I'm not sure how anyone can do justice to any question! My essay question is to describe how Professor Peter Singer argues that the interests of animals should be given equal consideration with the interests of Human beings and to outline whether I think that there is a moral divide between human and non-human animals. I think that there isn't any morally significant difference but how am I supposed to answer this question in only 1500 words!

Secondly, I received a telephone call from Centerlink, Australia's state welfare agency, the other day and I was advised that I am being cut off my meager pension. The reason, basically, is because of a loophole. I'm on disability pension (DSP) and, it seems, that to be eligible for DSP the candidate doesn't only need a debilitating medical condition but that condition needs to be being currently treated and stabalised.

Now this seems adequate on the surface but in my case I seem to slip through the cracks. Let me explain. I have a debilitating back condition. I usually describe it as a broken back but no vertebrae are in fact damaged. I have a perforated disk. The fluid in this disk has since drained out and I've been left with a mass of scar tissue surrounding the disk. The problem with this is that the disk itself has no nerves, and for good reason. If the disk had nerves every time you moved you would aggravate those nerves as each vertebrae slid around. Scar tissue has nerves so every time I move my spine I get quite severe pain. Surgery is out as the disks above and below are showing signs of weakness and were surgery to be performed the pressure on these disks would increase exponentially and hence increase the risk of them deteriorating further.

Now, on the surface, this would seem like a pretty good case for DSP but this is where the loophole comes into question. The criteria states that the condition needs to be stabalised and being currently treated. I've had masses of treatment and the outcome was, basically, that there is nothing that can be done other than some physio to slightly increase my mobility. Since then I have received no treatment, because none is available, and my condition isn't stabalised, it's in fact getting worse, because of there being no treatment available.

So because there is no treatment available for this condition I am not entitled to DSP. Now this seems absolutely absurd to me. My only option is to seek out the same, expensive, treatment that I've already had so I can reapply for DSP. It seems absolutely absurd that people with treatable conditions are eligible for DSP but people with medical conditions of which there is no available treatment are not entitled to DSP. In my opinion I think that this should be reversed if anything. What a way to clog up our health system; have possibly thousands of people with un-treatable medical conditions receive treatment that will do nothing just so they can get the pension that they need because they have limited-to-no access to work.

So this is my dilemma this week. I have this essay to complete but I'm also battling state bureaucracy and back to receiving daily treatment that I not only don't need but have to take time out of studying to travel to.

Bloody Centerlink. Your admin really need to go and read some Rawls.

Second Philosophy Essay

2007-02-20T17:10:00.000+10:00

I received the comments back for my second essay this semester and I would have to say that I'm in complete agreement with them. Usually I'd disagree and pick the markers comments apart but this time I'm fine with them. I knew I wasn't perfect...this time.

You see, I'm having trouble answering the essay questions with such a tiny word limit - 1500 words. The question for this last essay was 'What are the central claims of moral relativism? Is moral relativism a plausible meta-ethical theory? Answer with reference to both objections to the theory and defences of it'. To me, at least, I had no idea how to answer this question, coherently and justly, in only 1500 words; and this seemed to be the only criticism of my essay, in essence.

I have two sets of comments for this essay, the first set from the guy who marked it and the second from my tutor. Both were almost identical. My arguments were clear, my exmples were unique and interesting, and the essay shows 'shows abundant research, passion, and understanding'.

The negative criticisms were uniform too and basically said that I was too ambitious and tried to cover too much ground with too few words; and I totally agree - I am ambitious!

Now, at least, I know where I need to focus for the next essay.

Peta's Chicken Adds

2007-02-16T23:02:00.000+10:00

The results are in for the add competition that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA, were conducting. The competition was aimed at people with advertising and/or artistic skills to produce an add addressing the plight of chickens in the world. There are some fantastic entries but don't just take my word for it, have a look yourself. LINK

Milk Gone Wild!

2007-02-16T23:00:00.000+10:00

I'm vegan, how about you?

University of the Sunshine Coast

2007-02-16T22:16:00.000+10:00

Today I was at the University of the Sunshine Coast talking to my friend at the Student Union 'cause they (the Uni) have been advertising for at least four years that in their Bachelor of Social Science (community work) degree the student has the option of taking an international placement. Jodie went to see the coordinator to organise this international placement and it turns out that it is not actually available. While it was once an option it is no longer; no one has been able to do an international placement for at least four years. The University still advertises that it is an option however, hence getting the Student Union on their case.

It seems a little strange that since the University has known for four years (at least) that NO student is able to do an international placement that they still advertise it as an option. It would seem that their advertising guys, or girls, are not afraid of euphemistic lies.

The University of the Sunshine Coast has great academics and, now with wireless networking, pretty good facilities too. I say pretty good because the car parking is the worst on the coast. It is such a shame that their second, or third, rate administration is letting them down. If you're going to advertise yourself as a University with such high standard academics then get some better administration staff to go along with it. Administration is pretty vital to be accepted as your weakest link.

Work

2007-02-13T21:08:00.000+10:00

I started working back at Govinda's Vegetarian Cafè today. For those of you in the area, or who are just curious, this is the location on Google Maps --LINK-- I was a bit worried that I'd have forgotten my recipes, or more that I may be a bit slow and not have everything ready in time, but it all ran smoothly. I cooked a Potato, Cauliflower and Zucchini vegetable curry, Mixed Vegetable Pakoras, a special Dhal (it was actually a bit of a compromise but special sounds better), A Mango Semolina Halava, Papadums and Plain White Rice. I'll be back working there tomorrow as I'm now doing Tuesdays and Wednesdays but I'm yet to know what I'll be cooking; just have to wait and see what veges are available. I would have preferred more spices to work with too but I think I went okay considering the outcome.

To Those of you who have been asking for recipes and cooking advice, I'm considering starting up a web page where I'll host my recipes and cooking advice. Probably a bit of simple food related philosophy too. When I get some time and get all this together I'll let you all know the URL.

Anyhow, back to researching this Peter Singer essay.

Re: New Blogger Three Column Layout pt. 3

2007-02-09T13:38:00.000+10:00

I got it figured. Damn that took ages. No to just adjust some of the styles etc.

Re: New Blogger Three Column Layout pt. 2

2007-02-09T10:47:00.000+10:00

It seems that the code didn't display. Anyone know how to display all the html code in a blogger post?

New Blogger three column layout pt. 2

2007-02-09T10:28:00.000+10:00

Thanks Been for helping with the new three columns. The two sidebars are now good and the center column is now dynamic but only sideways. I've had to change the overflow to auto so the content would show. With overflow on hidden or commented out it just displayed what was on the screen and nothing more. Strange seen as there is no height property. Still need to adjust the margins a little too. I'll wait 'till the columns are done first though. I'll post the code here just in the off chance someone stumbles across this post who knows what to do. I wish I could have just started from scratch.

<!-- The code -->

<data:blog.pagetitle/>
* -----------------------------------------------
* Blogger Template Style
* Name: Mr. Moto Rising (Ellington style)
* Designer: Jeffrey Zeldman
* URL: www.zeldman.com
* Date: 23 Feb 2004
* Updated by: Blogger Team
* ----------------------------------------------- */

p.navigation-bar {background-color: #ffffff;}

p.navigation-bar {background-color: #ffffff;

text-align: center}

p.navigation-bar {background-color: #ffffff;

border: medium #ffffff solid;

text-align: center}

p.navigation-bar {background-color: #ffffff;

border: small #ffffff solid;

padding: 1%;

text-align: center}

p.navigation-bar a:link

p.navigation-bar a:visited

p.navigation-bar a:link {color: white;

text-decoration: none}

p.navigation-bar a:hover {background-color: #D3D3D3;

color: #ffffff;

text-decoration: none}

/* Variable definitions
====================
type="color" default="#ffffff" value="#ffffff">
type="color" default="#555555" value="#555555">
type="color" default="#ffffee" value="#ffffee">
type="color" default="#ffffee" value="#ffffee">
type="color" default="#999988" value="#999988">
type="color" default="#bbbbaa" value="#bbbbaa">
type="color" default="#555544" value="#555544">
type="color" default="#555544" value="#555544">
type="color" default="#555555" value="#555555">

default="normal normal 100% 'tahoma Trebuchet MS', lucida, helvetica, sans-serif" value="normal normal 100% 'tahoma Trebuchet MS', lucida, helvetica, sans-serif">
*/

/* Primary layout */

body {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0;
text-align: center;
color: $mainTextColor;
font-size: small;
}

img {
border: 0;
display: block;
}

.clear {
clear: both;
}
/* Wrapper */

#outer-wrapper {
margin: 0 auto;
border: 0;
width: 100%;
text-align: left;
background: $mainBgColor url(http://www.) top right repeat-y;
font: $bodyFont;
}

/* Header */

#header-wrapper {
*/background: #bba url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_mr/headbotborder.gif) bottom left repeat-x;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0 0 15px 0;
border: 0;
}

#header h1 {
text-align: left;
font-size: 200%;
color: $pageHeaderColor;
margin: 0;
padding: 15px 20px 0 20px;
background-image: url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_mr/topper.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
background-position: top left;
}

h1 a, h1 a:link, h1 a:visited {
color: $pageHeaderColor;
}

#header .description {
font-size: 110%;
text-align: left;
padding: 3px 20px 10px 23px;
margin: 0;
line-height:140%;
color: $blogDescriptionColor;
}

/* Nav Bar */

#navbar-wrapper {
padding: 0 16px;
}

#navbar {
width: 100%;
float: left;
}

/* Inner layout */

#content-wrapper {
width: 100%;
margin: 0 auto;
padding: 0px 0;
}

#main {
position: fixed;
padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px;
top: 200px;
left: 226px; /*Set left value to WidthOfLeftFrameDiv*/
right: 226px; /*Set right value to WidthOfRightFrameDiv*/
bottom: 0;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: auto; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#sidebar, #sidebar-l {
position: fixed;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
left: 0;
width: 226px; /*Width of left frame div*/
height: ;
overflow: vhidden; /*Disable scrollbars. Set to "scroll" to enable*/
}

#sidebar {
left: auto;
padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
right: 0;
width: 226px;
color: $sidebarTextColor;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

#sidebar-l {
color: $sidebarTextColor;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}

/* Bottom layout */

#footer {
clear: left;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 20px;
border: 0;
text-align: left;
border-top: 1px solid #f9f9f9;
}

#footer .widget {
text-align: left;
margin: 0;
padding: 10px 0;
background-color: transparent;
}

/* Default links */

a:link, a:visited {
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
color: $linkColor;
background: transparent;
}

a:hover {
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: underline;
color: $hoverLinkColor;
background: transparent;
}

a:active {
font-weight : bold;
text-decoration : none;
color: $hoverLinkColor;
background: transparent;
}

/* Typography */

.main p, .sidebar p {
line-height: 140%;
margin-top: 5px;
margin-bottom: 1em;
}

h2, h3, h4, h5 {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

h2 {
font-size: 130%;
}

h2.date-header {
color: $dateHeaderColor;
}

.post h3 {
margin-top: 5px;
font-size: 120%;
}

.post-footer {
font-style: italic;
}

.sidebar h2 {
color: $sidebarHeaderColor;
}

.sidebar-l h2 {
color: $sidebarHeaderColor;
}

.sidebar .widget {
margin: 12px 0 13px 0;
padding: 0;
}

.sidebar-l .widget {
margin: 12px 0 13px 0;
padding: 0;
}

.main .widget {
margin: 12px 0 0 0 ;
}

li {
line-height: 160%;
}

.sidebar ul {
margin-left: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-left: 0;
}

.sidebar-l ul {
margin-left: 0;
margin-top: 0;
padding-left: 0;
}

.sidebar ul li {
list-style: disc url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_mr/diamond.gif) inside;
vertical-align: top;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}

.sidebar-l ul li {
list-style: disc url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_mr/diamond.gif) inside;
vertical-align: top;
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}

.widget-content {
margin-top: 0.5em;
}

/* Profile
----------------------------------------------- */

.profile-datablock {
margin: 3px 0 5px 0;
line-height: 140%;
}
.profile-textblock {
margin-left: 0;
}

.profile-img {
float: left;
margin: 0 10px 5px 0;
border:4px solid #ccb;
}

#comments {
border: 0;
border-top: 1px dashed #eed;
margin: 10px 0 0 0;
padding: 0;
}

#comments h4 {
margin-top: 10px;
margin-bottom: -10px;
font-weight: normal;
font-style: italic;
text-transform: uppercase;
letter-spacing: 1px;
}

#comments dl dt {
font-weight: bold;
font-style: italic;
margin-top: 35px;
padding: 1px 0 0 18px;
background: transparent url(http://www.blogblog.com/moto_mr/commentbug.gif) top left no-repeat;
}

#comments dl dd {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}

.deleted-comment {
font-style:italic;
color:gray;
}

.feed-links {
clear: both;
line-height: 2.5em;
}

#blog-pager-newer-link {
float: left;
}

#blog-pager-older-link {
float: right;
}

#blog-pager {
text-align: center;
}

/** Page structure tweaks for layout editor wireframe */

body#layout #outer-wrapper {
padding-top: 0;
}
body#layout #header,
body#layout #content-wrapper,
body#layout #footer {
padding: 0;
}
]]>

From here everything is just contained in its own div.

Three Column New Blogger

2007-02-08T10:07:00.000+10:00

How's everyone liking the my new three column layout? I wish Blogger.com had a three column template as it would have saved me quite a bit of trouble. This is when I wish I was a programmer! Sites still getting a once over so there'll likely still be few posts here for a while. Be sure to check out my other blog by clicking Philosophy and Religion in my new nav bar above.

Changes to come will hopefully be some dynamic sizes for my containers, not sidebars though, and......well, I'm not really sure at the moment.

Prize!

2007-02-08T10:04:00.001+10:00

Today I found out I won a prize; it's a CD but I'm not sure by who. I wrote a short opinion piece for a magazine on sport as a religion and, it seems, the editors liked it. Here's hoping that I like the CD.

Blogger Problems

2007-02-04T15:23:00.000+10:00

It's been a while since I've posted and the, main, reason is that I've been having a few problems with Blogger.com. I'm not entirely sure whether the problem is with my PC or the Blogger.com site itself; maybe I've just made the code too heavy, hmm.

Well, I've created a temporary blog over at Word Press that you can find <--HERE--> but I've not yet posted over there. Hopefully I can sort this issue out soon and have the blog back up and running.

You'll likely notice some changes going on here as I play around with starting this blog anew.

My New Notebook

2007-01-17T11:35:00.000+10:00

I'm not the most motivated person around and as I study from home I often find myself doing something other than study. I might watch some TV or have a sleep for example. Cleaning the house would probably be a valid alternative to study, sometimes, but for whatever reason I rarely find myself cleaning rather than studying.

Well, the solution that I've decided upon is to get myself a Notebook PC. Not so I can study from anywhere on my property, although that is a plus, but so I can now go and study at the local Uni's library. Peace and quiet and few distractions. The net's filtered through a proxy so I can't even play interactive games etc. Although I did manage to get Messenger and Skype working through the proxy. Only 100MB per day, but hey, it's free! And I get a speed of 5000 down AND up!!!

So, my new Notebook is a Compaq Presario V3000 and I'm running both XP and an install of Fedora 6 that's tweaked a little. Makes networking with my desktop all the more enjoyable.

Now I've just got to figure out what all these new glowing buttons do and how to get rid of this dreaded Norton crap!

Mera Tabla Guruji Suresh Kumar Prajapati

2007-01-10T18:45:00.001+10:00

Yaha mera tabla guruji, Suresh Kumar Prajapati, Udaipur mein hai.

Reasons for Absence

2007-01-08T14:35:00.000+10:00

As some of you have noted, I've been absent for a while and I thought I'd just give a short little reason.

Well, first of all I had a few more family, and non-family, members drop in over the Christmas / new-year week and that took a little of my time but the main reason is that my computer died. That's right, died. Well, it didn't die in the sense that one of it's organs failed but it certainly had temporary organ failure and when I managed to wake it back up it was suffering from amnesia. I usually have Fedora running alongside XP but I'd installed the final beta of Windows Vista x64 over the top and as any of you who have tried the beta of vista x64 it's pretty damn impotent.

Well, to make a short story shorter I had a power surge that messed with my registry settings so bad that recovery console couldn't even find the install! I've spent the last......while..... re-installing XP with all the service packs etc. and all my programs again. The worst problem I had was that I didn't update all my bookmarks and email addresses; well I did but they were on the same drive as my XP install.

I've now gotten rid of that pathetic Vista x64 beta and put the latest Fedora release back on.

So those of you who I usually email etc. please contact me so I can get in touch with you again.

A Morally Relative New-Year's

2007-01-04T11:40:00.000+10:00

Well, it's been a while since I've posted on here. Being busy with holidays and summer school, southern hemisphere remember. I hope you enjoy my philosophical take on new-year's. And do remember to VOTE FOR ME!

Writing a Philosophy entry that has a new-year’s theme really got me thinking. I was really quite stumped as to how this time of year, or the concept of this time of year, had much to do with philosophy at all. What I have chosen to write about I stumbled across while reading my course material for a subject I’m currently undertaking at University. This has little to do with the ‘stuff’ of new-year’s but much to do with the concept, I suppose. What I am going to be discussing is meta-ethical moral relativism. I don’t particularly agree with all of the premises of moral relativism but I will use it, here, to illustrate the new-year’s concept.

It may be put, and validly so, that morality, or more specifically moral relativism, has little to do with the concept of new-year’s. I’m sure there will be little debate that moral theory could be applied to the happenings of new-year’s though. I am sticking with moral relativism, though, because it effectively illustrates the limited aspects of new-year’s and the ethical/moral concepts that govern it. Moral relativism, generally, sees no universal moral principles that govern all people.

New-year’s, to a Western audience, is temporally situated at the moment when December 31 becomes January 1. This does reflect on many of the cultural and ethical principles and practices of our society. New-year’s in China, and again India, for example, are different too and reflect the same principles and practices of those societies. I will use the Western new-year’s and the traditional Indian new-year’s as an example to suit my thesis of moral relativism. A Western new-year’s is only accepted if one accepts the Gregorian calendar; and likewise an Indian new-year’s is only accepted if one accepts the Indian lunar calendar, and probably religious concepts too.

So, what are the moral consequences of this? Well probably nothing if we take new-year’s explicitly as a date change. However the date change, while of explicit importance, has many implicit characteristics that are morally relevant. Let me provide some basic illustrations.

With a Western new-year’s, the concept is explicitly secular. As a matter of course there are numerous religious characteristics too but these, in a post-modern Western world, are secondary. The change of date that is a Western new-year’s supposes no new creation, no new life, no divine intervention, and no anniversary of religious (or even secular) events. These characterise the beliefs of those societies that adhere to this Western concept of new-year’s. These societies, generally, follow on from a post-Nietzsche philosophy beginning with the death of God. Moral characteristics of these societies are, generally again, based on reason, and not just ordinary reason but largely empirical reason. When Foucault ‘cut of the King’s head’ it was replaced by reason alone in these societies. So we get morality and ethical theory in these societies from reason and they (moral/ethical claims) are all, usually, reducible to reason.

Looking at the example from India we are confronted with an entirely different paradigm altogether. New-year’s in India, this year, will fall on the 3rd or 4th of March. New-year’s in Indian philosophy is governed by the moon. An Indian concept of new-year’s may be equally valid as either secular or religious; it is an empirical fact that after the set number of moons it will become a new year but the reasons behind this, the concepts, are more explicitly religious. In Indian philosophy new-year’s does suppose new creation, new life, divine intervention, and religious anniversaries; as opposed to the Western new-year’s mentioned above. We can see how morality in a country that believes in divine interaction with the world and it’s inhabitants would be different from a secular model such as the Western paradigm mentioned above. While reason has pre-eminence in Western contexts, revelation may be seen as equally important in Indian contexts.

Now as I’m trying to keep this short for an online context I’ll briefly discuss the fundamental aspect of this piece; moral relativism. From the two above mentioned examples we can, I hope, see that there are two different moral/ethical codes of interaction with the world/self. Which moral or ethical claims, therefore, should we view as true? What makes a moral/ethical claim true? Now I mentioned I would look at this from a moral relativist’s perspective and I’d first like to point out that I will not be mentioning vulgar relativism.

How I would like to peruse this issue is with, crude, reductionist theory. You see, many, if not all, of the moral and ethical claims of the two societies, while not agreeing on origin, have the same, or very similar motivations, even if other contradictory beliefs are, too, present. Treatment of dead bodies for example. Dead bodies are regarded as a form of pollution in India so are avoided. This pollution may be both material and spiritual but what we are here observing is that they (dead bodies) are viewed as polluted. Similarly, In the West dead bodies are avoided because of the bacteria present in decomposition, they are viewed then, too, as polluted. This is a crude example but an example at least.

What many modern moral relativists take from this is that there are some universal moral principles that, while not explicitly, are followed by many different societies. Many modern philosophical theories, such as utilitarianism, follow such reasoning. The job, then, of the philosopher is to ‘discover’ these primary universal moral principles and base a moral theory on those.

I do have some objections and noted limitations on moral relativism but I’ll leave those for discussion for who ever so chooses to discuss them here with me.

About

2007-01-01T10:25:00.000+10:00

Welcome to Simon's Space, an online journal where you’ll find thoughts, arguments, rants, essays and more relating to my life as a philosophy undergraduate.

Simon's Space is a blog maintained by me, Simon Ives, a Philosophy undergraduate at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. I'm particularly interested in philosophical issues relating to Morality and Ethics particularly relating to Religion.

You will also find out more about me on my MySpace page here.

PLEASE NOTE that If you use Internet Explorer you may have some issues with this site. While I will try to make this site's layout as simple as possible, Internet Explorer is not a standards compliant web browser and, as such, may experience difficulty rendering some of this site's CSS. If you experience problems here or elsewhere on the web then switch to a standards compliant browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

Pronoun Absurdity

2006-12-20T09:52:00.000+10:00

I have problems with comma placement. Most of the time it's due to not proof reading my work, other times it's due to my lack of grammatical training. What I have noticed this week, however, is how many people have problems with pronouns. This week I had a piece of assessment due for a philosophy subject I'm studying and I had the opportunity to view some other students work. I have read 14 pieces of assessment so far. While on the most part these essays were of a good quality there was a general problem, that being the use of pronouns.

I think this problem is due to the response to a particular students question relating to the use of the personal pronoun I. You see, my tutor advised against using this (another grammatical quirk I've noticed recently is the use of said or former as pronouns to refer to a previous subject, not strictly 'wrong', I know, but still not necessary especially when the reader will need to read previous sections of text to gather the meaning again) pronoun so the essay would remain neutral. While there's little wrong in many circumstances with avoiding personal pronouns in academic writing the directive of the tutor seems to have shocked many students into absurd pronoun usage.

You see there is a general rule governing the usage of pronouns and this rule states (Do you like my use of states? This is not grammatically correct either. rule is an inanimate object. I should perhaps have said - this rule of which is stated, but I'm not that idiomatic), a pronoun requires a true antecedent. Nearly every essay I read used it without an antecedent, which in itself may not be wrong but it is subjectively governed. For example, if I say "Epicurus offered to theorise but it was not accepted" then it is not governed by a true antecedent. I would need to say "Epicurus offered his theory but it was not accepted". Maybe I'm being to idiomatic here but ambiguity is the worst enemy of academic writing.

Another common mistake that I've noticed focuses on the use of he. There is also nothing wrong with using the word he but this pronoun, whether he, him, his, refers to the subject of the sentence. Notice I've used the word sentence here as this is important. You cannot use the pronoun he etc. in a sentence if the subject is yet to be identified in the sentence or if there is more than one applicable subject. I cannot say "Epicurus is a classist. He is, therefore, evil" because the he is not adequately governed. It makes sense audibly but not when read. I could write "Epicurus is a classist and he is, therefore, evil". I should probably even write "Epicurus is a classist so he is evil". I cannot, also, say "Locke describes Epicurus as a hedonist so he is, therefore, evil". The he in this sentence doe's in fact govern Epicurus but it is ambiguous. I may have been attempting to slander Locke. English is, as far as my knowledge extends, the only language that is ambiguous with he type pronouns. Latin has two he type pronouns with only one being subjective and my other language, Hindi, has three or perhaps more he type pronouns.

Antecedents to pronouns are necessary and do keep them in mind. There may be cases where you can place the antecedent after (I know it sounds absurd placing an antecedent after a pronoun) the pronoun but these are extremely limited. Look at this statement, "If the baby does not thrive on raw milk, boil it". It is here plain to see for all.

I won't go on and mention all the pronoun errors. I've likely made many myself. I know I've placed many commas in incorrect locations in previous works so I'm not the best person to comment on grammar. I just received an essay back today and while I did receive a HD I have found seven misplaced commas. One of these misplaced commas changes the meaning of the sentence drastically but my tutor either didn't notice or agreed with the alternate meaning. I won't comment on my essay that I've just submitted because my tutor may read this and....well you get the picture.

Open Philosophy Forum

2006-12-06T23:22:00.000+10:00

I've just enrolled in a philosophy course over summer as it is a prerequisite for some other philosophy subjects I'm doing next year. What's interesting is that there are quite a few students who've previously completed other philosophy subjects and the online discussion was, therefore, getting a bit too much for the first year students. Oh yeah, did I mention I study externally? Well, to address this problem the course co-ordinator has set up a forum so we can debate the course content, and anything else philosophy related, as much as we desire as this is a voluntary forum. Best thing though, it's open to all. Come on over and have a look and join up and post a message. The forum is called Open Philosophy and you can find it HERE

New Creative Commons License

2006-12-06T20:29:00.000+10:00

I'm not a huge fan of licensing material but I've had to put a creative commons license on my page. I've been plagarised by some fellow Uni students (who knows what of any value they've gotten from my site!) and the teachers have asked me to place a license on my site to clear up any ambiguity. I'll put one one my other site -link to the right- where I share my University papers too but I'll get to that when I can be bothered 'cause I dont have a web site program and I need to edit the source. Short reason, I can't be bothered at the moment! I hope the license here will suffice for now as this blog is the only link to my Uni papers site. If you hate the license I hope this reason at least explains why I put it up.

Exams Over With

2006-11-29T20:16:00.000+10:00

I am so relieved to get home today. I had five hours of exams today and four hours of train travel to get to the study centre and back! Great to have them over with. My first exam was for PTR110 Structure, Thought and Reality and was so much simpler than I was expecting. Two questions, Q1 was a short answer of around five hundred words on Foucault's Power and Knowledge relationship and Q2 was an essay of around 2000 words on what consequences will flow on from thinking of globalisation and the War on Terror as socially produced concepts. Two hours for this exam and finished it in 1.5. Easy. Next exam was for PAC10 An Introduction to Asia and was in three sections. Even easier! this exam was for three hours and I had quite a bit of time left over. I must admit though that after hand writing more than 6000 words in one day I'm a little tired.

I had some good news from Griffith as well. some of you may know that I've had a little trouble with them of late but today I received my marks back from my new tutor and I received a HD. I couldn't be more pleased.

Those of you from PHI110 I have to appologise for not posting much today, the exams killed all my time and energy.

Kazakhstan Human Rights Abuses

2006-11-24T11:46:00.000+10:00

I thought it was about time I pasted this on my blog. Some Vaisnava devotees in Kazakhstan have been being persucuted solely because of their religious affiliation for many years. We never seriously thought it would go this far with numerous Human Rights orginisations observing and wide spread condemnation from Europen Governments such as the British and the French.

On November 21, however, the Kazakhstan Government decided that they would 'take back' the land that these devotees have established a farm on. What's worse is that the houses were demolished while people, predominantley women and children, were still inside. All media and Human Rights observers were banned from the area and were threatened with force and violence if they did not comply. All photographic material was confiscated.

During this 'procedure' there were no officials present which is required under Kazakhstan law and no one is willing to take responsibility for the actions. Not a single police officer or demolition worker would wear their name tag or identify themselves either. The leader of the operation, the Hakim, even said to one of the Human Rights observers

'If I see you here again, I will personally crush Your eyes, even though I am the Hakim.'

I'm going to post the few videos that are available in my humble attampt to make this issue more widely known.

This is part of the demolition and police response.

There's still more if you care to look. Click HERE to see.

Tabla in Udaipur

2006-11-23T17:19:00.000+10:00

As some of you already know, I'm off to India in April for some further extensive Tabla classes. My Guruji, Suresh Kumara Prajapati, lives in Udaipur and I thought I'd post some old pictures of Udaipur for those of you who have been before.

This is the City Palace -

This is the entry gate into the City Palace looking up from where Jagmandir is -

This is view from what is now the clock tower looking towards the City Palace. The temple in the foreground is Jagmandir and the smaller one off to the left is the Radha Krishna Mandir -

This is a view looking towards what is now the clock tower from the market -

This is a view of Jagmandir looking from the City Palace side -

This is a view of Jagmandir looking up from the market place. I'm not sure what the temple on the left is -

Jagmandir is also known as Jagdisha Mandir not to be confused with jagmandir island in the lake.

The Qualia Dilemma

2006-11-21T11:02:00.000+10:00

I'm feeling a little less creative for this weeks Philosophy Blog War having been writing too many essays of late. This week I'm going to post a 'dilemma' and see if anyone can help me out with it. Remember to VOTE FOR ME.

Imagine a series of women, all called Mary, who have been afflicted from birth with a weird physiological condition—if they see colours they will die. (Maybe it is a curse.) They are given goggles that convert all colours into black-and-white images. They are given televisions and bedrooms and offices and laboratories in which everything is black-and-white, so they can take off their goggles (provided they wear black-and-white cover-alls).

Some of these women become fascinated by colour vision, precisely because they have not experienced it yet. They hope that their physiological condition will eventually be cured, and then they will see colours for themselves; but in the meantime they decide to study everything that has been written about colours. They collect and read virtually everything that has been written, not only about the science of wavelengths of light, but also about how retinas and brains respond to different patterns of stimulation from different wavelengths of light, about what poets and art critics say about colours, and so on.

Collectively, the Marys come to know everything relevant, anything that anyone could possibly tell anyone, about colours, and about what people say about colours, and about what goes on in people's brains when they think about colours, and when they experience colour vision. If one of the Marys has a ‘blind spot’, some relevant physical fact that she is somehow unable to know because it is about herself, then one of the other Marys can generally be counted on to have the knowledge, of that first Mary, which that first Mary lacks. The Marys also have helpful friends. For any scientific discovery that can be put into words (even if it is something that could only have been discovered by people with colour vision), this discovery is recorded in language, is found out by friends of the Marys, and then is communicated to them—in black and white.

Then one day, one of the Marys develops a cure for their condition. She gives herself the antidote, takes off the goggles, leaves her rooms, and sees red for the first time. Her brain undergoes various changes in response to the new stimulation, and she says, ‘Wow, so that's what it is like to see red! That is what people with colour vision have been experiencing. That is what we Marys have been missing out on.’ She tells the other Marys that the experience is great.

The other Marys have been watching their black-and-white video monitors, which have shown them exactly what went on in the first Mary's brain when she first saw red. Then the second Mary takes off her goggles and sees red, and all the remaining Marys watch their black and white screens again, to see what happens in the brain of Mary II. More or less the same thing happens in her brain as in Mary I's brain, and she too exclaims: ‘Gosh, so that's what it's like to see red!’

When we get to the nineteenth Mary, she knows almost exactly what is going to happen in her brain when she sees red for the first time. She takes off the goggles, and what happens in her brain is just what she predicted would happen. Her brain goes into a series of states almost exactly as she knew it would. The few unpredictable physical differences are definitely not ones that would cause her to say ‘Wow!’ or ‘Gosh!’

Virtually everything physical that happens, after Mary XIX takes off the goggles, is something that she already knew would happen when she took off the goggles. She gains no significant new knowledge about what physical properties are instantiated in the physical world. Yet she too, like the others before her, says, ‘Wow, so that's what it's like to see red!’—just as she expected she would. (Bigelow & Pargetter 2006, pp. 356-357).

Now these are my questions.

Does Mary gain 'new' knowledge?
What is 'new'?
What is the knowledge?
Since Mary already knew of all the material properties She was going to experience is the knowledge immaterial?
If the knowledge is 'new' and and not physical what is it?
Finally, how would a materialist or a non-dualist reconcile their views in light of such Qualia?

Of course you can just post your own thoughts into the matter as well

And

Remember to VOTE FOR ME!

References

Bigelow, J & Pargetter, R 2006, 'Re-acquaintance With Qualia', in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol 84, No 3, pp. 353-378).

Failed Streaming Media

2006-11-16T20:39:00.000+10:00

Looks like the links in the last post are down again. Go to THIS PAGE for track one and THIS PAGE for track two. DISREGARD THIS (I Think) THE LINKS BELOW ARE WORKING AGAIN. I POSTED THE FILES ON ANOTHER SERVER AND THEY SEEM TO BE WORKING OKAY.

Streaming Rehersal for Ben and Craig

2006-11-16T12:23:00.000+10:00

Last night's rehersal went well and I ripped the two recordings off of the Mini Disk player without a hassle. There are a few places on the recording where it skips though. Maybe you paused it Ben? I'm just not sure. Craig, the sitar didn't come through very loud at all. The Microphone was far to close to the tabla and it dominates the recording. The santoor is clear but also soft. I'm fairly happy with the tabla sound but it gets a bit monotonous being so loud. I should have played more solo. Overall, not bad. Lets just hope you can get that multi track mixer for the concert Craig so we can limit the volume of the tabla and/or increase the volume of the two lead instruments, specifically the sitar. Track one is in Kherava and Bhajani Tala while track two is in Bhajani tala and Kherava.

Track One -

Track Two -

Bloody free internet hosting services. I posted some m3u files on my web page linking to the audio but the free hosting server appears to change the file names every once in a while. The above players should now work. Third time lucky hey!

Does anyone know of a FREE site, like YouTube, that I can post audio clips on? My web space with my service provider is only 10mb so I can't even fit one of these files on there. Just post a comment if they stop working again

Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa

2006-11-11T21:01:00.001+10:00

I also thought I'd post this video that I found of probably my favourite tablaji - Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa. I am of the same tabla gharana as ustadji. Enjoy.

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Rag Charukeshi

2006-11-11T20:49:00.001+10:00

This is also the Late Ustad Allah Rakha Khan Sahib with Panditji Ravi Shankar in Jhap tala but Panditji is also playing sitar in raga Charukeshi. Enjoy.

Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha - Tabla Solo in Jhaptal

2006-11-11T20:46:00.001+10:00

This one's for all you tablaji's out there. I'm quite a fan of the late Ustad Allah Rakah Khan Sahib and I hope you all enjoy this jhap tala with Panditji Ravi Shankar.

Fast Food Nation

2006-11-10T09:07:00.000+10:00

I'm a fan of the book Fast Food Nation and while I live in Australia and our farming and processing practices are slightly different I just had to post this LINK for any Americans who may be reading.

Hi All

2006-11-09T10:55:00.000+10:00

Hi all.
I won't be submitting an entry for the Philosophy Blog War this week; too much Uni work to do. To keep you all interested though have a look at THIS article about an abattoir in India.....disgusting!
Also, in America this week the Frito-Lay company unveiled a new range of crisps...vege crisps. Now I thought this wasn't such a bad idea however Frito-Lay CEO Al Carey voiced his.....um....concern. He stated 'God help us all, would you look at these flavors, weren't Sun Chips healthy enough for you, you goddamn hippie bastards?' If that wasn't enough he described his company's product to his share holders as 'some shit that's made from beets'. and furthered that with 'I hope you're all happy now that you have your precious beet chips with the recommended daily serving of fruit, or vegetables, or whatever the hell a 'beet' is'. I'm sure his share holders would have left having new found confidence in their company's new product. Here's a picture of what their delivery van will probably look like for the new product.

Prosthetic Cow!

2006-11-04T18:44:00.000+10:00

I stumbled across this picture by Chris Kidd in the Courier Mail on Wednesday (November 1, p. 25) and wondered what was going on. Apparently in an Australian first a prosthetic leg has been fitted to a cow. I was quite pleased when I saw this thinking that we Australians are becoming more compassionate. However dear reader, I was wrong. Upon reading the article it seems that the cow was only fitted with the prosthetic leg so its owner can keep on making money off its milk and I suppose its calves. Its a shame that we treat animals as mere commodities and the owner of poor Theresa shown above would have just as easily killed her had she not been able to effectively produce more milk for his business.

Tin Tal Kaidas and Thekas

2006-10-31T17:11:00.000+10:00

I've got another rehersal tonight for an upcomming festival and have just packed up my tabla. This reminded me that I did say I'd post some simple tabla Kaidas and Thekas etc on here so this is something simple that I start rehersing/playing with. You can vary the amount of times you play each segment, it's up to you. Enjoy.

Da Din Din Da - Da Din Din Da - Da Tin Tin Ta - Ta Din Din Da

Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da Tin Na - Ta Ta TiRa KiTa - Da Da Din Na

Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da Tin Na

Na Na TiRa KiTa -Na Na TiRa KiTa -Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da Din Na

Da Da TiRa KiTa - TiRa KiTa TiRa KiTa - Da Da TiRa KiTa - Da Da Tin Na

Na Na TiRa KiTa - TiRa KiTa TiRa KiTa - Na Na TiRa KiTa - Da Da Din Na

Da Din Din Da - Da Din Din Da - Da TiRa KiTa Ta - Ta Din Din Da

Da Din Din Da - Da Din Din Da - Da TiRa KiTa Ta - Ta TiRa KiTa Da

Da Din Din Da - Da Din Din Da - Da TiRa KiTa Ta - TiRa KiTa TaKa TaKa

KaTa TaKa Da _ - TiRa KiTa TaKa Da - _ TiRa KiTa TaKa - TiRa KiTa TaKa TiRa - KiTa TaKa TiRa KiTa

KaTa TaKa Ta _ - TiRa KiTa TaKa Ta - _ TiRa KiTa TaKa - TiRa KiTa TaKa TiRa - KiTa TaKa TiRa KiTa

TiRa KiTa TaKa TaKa - TiRa KiTa TaKa TaKa - TiRa KiTa TaKa TaKa - TiRa KiTa TaKa TaKa

Da Tin Tin Da - Tin Tin Da Da - Tin Tin Da Da - Tin Na Ka Ta

Ta Tin Tin Ta - Tin Tin Da Da - Tin Tin Da Da - Din Na Ka Ta

Da Tin Tin Da - Tin Tin Da Da - Tin Tin Da Da - TiRa KiTa Tin Na

Ta Tin Tin Ta - Tin Tin Da Da - Tin Tin Da Da - TiRa KiTa Din Na

These are some simple Kaidas, Thekas and a Rela all in Tin Tal.

To Pork or Not To Pork

2006-10-31T17:00:00.000+10:00

I was really looking forward to seeing some adds appear this week in particular Australian magazines such as Marie Claire, Good Weekend, and Delicious about the Australian Pork Industry. Two magazines, The Australian Women's Weekly and Women's Day, have pledged to continue with the adds however. The adds are a unique attempt to illustrate the cruelty of the Australian Pork industry.

I’m vegan and proud of it!

2006-10-24T10:57:00.000+10:00

This is a post for the Philosophy Blog War and you can vote for me HERE.

I’m vegan and proud of it!

I haven’t always been this way though. I used to be vegetarian and before that, when I depended on my parents for my daily meals, I ate meat and eggs. I’m often asked why I’m vegan, what on earth do I eat, and how I reconcile my views with the dominant western ideology of the necessity of meat eating.

Well, the primary reason I’m vegan is moral. I certainly know that it is not universally accepted that animals are moral agents but I believe they are. I’m certain that here in Australia our Government believes they are as cruelty to animals is against our laws. Before I became vegetarian my first job was in a chicken and pig abattoir so I know first hand the degree of cruelty and blatant torture that goes on behind closed doors. I’ve witnessed chickens being scalded and plucked alive and once I saw a chicken being eviscerated alive! I know of few people who would accept such cruelty. Animals are not just things to be exploited in any way what-so-ever just so we can have cheap meat, eggs, and milk.

Most people will respond to such a moral argument by stating that because the animal industry is so ingrained in our society, my ceasing involvement in the animal industry will have no noticeable effect on animal welfare issues. Is it a valid argument to claim that people can only be morally culpable if they commit perceptible harm? To this I have to turn to Jonathan Glover and what I’ll call ‘Glover’s Problem’. ‘Glover’s Problem’ is as follows:

Glover imagines that in a village, 100 people are about to eat lunch. Each has a bowl containing 100 beans. Suddenly, 100 hungry bandits swoop down on the village. Each bandit takes the contents of the bowl of one villager, eats it, and gallops off. Next week, the bandits plan to do it again, but one of their number is afflicted by doubts about whether it is right to steal from the poor. These doubts are set to rest by another of their number who proposes that each bandit, instead of eating the entire contents of the bowl of one villager, should take one bean from every villager's bowl. Since the loss of one bean cannot make a perceptible difference to any villager, no bandit will have harmed anyone. The bandits follow this plan, each taking a solitary bean from 100 bowls. The villagers are just as hungry as they were the previous week, but the bandits can all sleep well on their full stomachs, knowing that none of them has harmed anyone (Singer 1998:67).

Each of us, even though it may not be perceptible, is responsible for the collective damage we cause.

To this one may validly state that I am just one out of the 100 bandits so 99 beans will still exist, however, in our increasingly global society one cannot know whether one is the first bandit or the 100th bandit. Even if I was the 80th bandit the villagers would still suffer. I may go into the supermarket and decide to purchase some pork chops and rationalise that I am not committing a moral offence because the pig would have died anyway and it’s likely that my not purchasing the pork chops and instead choosing TVP will cause no difference to the supermarket’s purchasing pork chops next week. This may be correct, however we will never know how many pork chops the supermarket, or pig farm pigs, need to sell to make it viable to purchase or produce more next week, and the same for TVP. Maybe I’m the deciding customer.

The meat industry is the world’s largest environmental hazard. It is the world’s largest consumer of water and the largest consumer of fossil fuels. Using just under ten kilograms of grain protein to produce one kilogram of meat protein is absurd. If we stoped feeding grain to animals used in the production of meat and instead made bread we would have enough grain to feed every person on earth with the equivalent of seven loaves of bread per day!

It takes 50 kilograms of water to produce one kilogram of wheat while it takes up to 50,000 kilograms of water to produce one kilogram of beef! Stop complaining of a drought Australia and become vegan, the whole world will be better off for it.

As for what I eat. Well being a vegan chef I find that question quite easy and I’ll even provide a simple recipe for you all to try.

Simon’s Asian Noodle Soup

One 250 Gram packet of dried flat egg free noodles
Five dried shitake mushrooms
Half a cup of soy sauce
Half a cup of mirin
Half a handful of chopped shallots
Two tablespoons of sugar

1. Boil the noodles until cooked, strain and rinse under cold water

2. Boil the mushrooms in half a cup of water

3. When mushrooms are softened remove from water, slice and put back in the pot with the soy sauce and mirin and cook for another five minutes

4. Add the sugar and stir well

5. Combine the cooked noodles with the sauce and sprinkle with shallots

Singer, P 1998, 'A Vegetarian Philosophy', in Griffiths, S & Wallace, J, Consuming Passions, Manchester, .pdf

We're Not Happy John!

2006-10-19T12:20:00.000+10:00

You see, Australia is one of the countries that supports the Iraq war and I'm not ashamed to say that this is one of the reasons why I opted for dual citizenship when I became an Aussie. Our Prime Minister, John Howard, has long declared that we will leave Iraq when our 'job is done'.

Apparently, we went to Iraq to dispose of Saddam 'cause the blighter was creating a stockpile of nuclear and biological weapons to use against us. I know, isn't that a great word, us, just who is that exactly? I love Little John's alterity.

This morning, after the opposition Labor party hounded the little guy for over a week, John Howard has come out of his closet, or should we say 'walk in robe'? It'd have to be pretty large to keep all of those euphemisms and blatant lies in there! Anyhow, it would appear our job description has changed. Little John has said Australia will leave Iraq when democracy has been established. Was this our original objective? It would seem likely as there were no chemical or nuclear weapons found in Iraq.

Our Little John, it seems, has become a neo-colonialist who's aim is to take over other Nation States that the original colonialists failed in creating. Most people argue these days that Iraq was a strategic move to control oil. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, I just don't know.

What I am now certain of is that John Howard has become, always was, an ideologue. He seems convinced of the ideology of the Nation State and maintaining the Nation State, even when the Nation States in question were created by colonialists and not the citizens (a very democratic procedure indeed!).

Little John is definitely an ideologue when it comes to neo-liberal democracy. His 'coming out of the walk in robe' statement this morning shows him for all that he is. Little John wants to establish democracy in Iraq, undemocratically, for the sole purpose of getting what he, and the other neo-colonialists George Bush, Tony Blair etc. want.

Little John, stop harassing us University students for being ideologues when we mention Marx or apply the theory of orientalism to contemporary society. You are an ideologue yourself and what's worse is that your ideological actions are destroying the lives of thousands and your influence, however unfounded, is influencing millions of people who know no better.

Wake up little John! We all know your political career is drawing to an end so out with it. Come out of the closet John and let Australia know who you really are! I promise we wont treat you like Fraser.

Dead Vacuum

2006-10-19T12:14:00.000+10:00

My vacuum cleaner just ran out of batteries. That's right, I use a battery powered vacuum cleaner and while it's charging up I thought I'd take the opportunity to write on my blog again (it has been a while!) You see I have an assignment due tomorrow and one every Friday now for the next six weeks and then two exams the week after that. I decided that today I'd clean my house before I started, something I don't usually do, and 'cause my vacuum has a flat battery and I haven't finished cleaning my house I couldn't start studying. So I've come on here to write 'till the damn things charged.

Back in the blogosphere

2006-10-05T10:15:00.000+10:00

Just announcing that I'm back in the blogosphere! I've been snowed under with quite a heavy workload lately with assessment pouring out my ears. I even missed this weeks Philosophy Blog War! I hope everyone who's heading over to my University Papers page (link in sidebar) from here is liking what they see. There are around 70-80 of you per day and it seems that HST140 and PHI120 are the two most popular destinations with around 200 downloads each over the last three weeks. Hope I'm being of some help.

Simon.

Some reasons why I'm vegan..well, sort of

2006-09-26T10:26:00.000+10:00

Some of you may know that for quite some time I've been vegetarian and fairly recently I've extended that to vegan. While I'm not going to go into detail here I thought that these couple of links might shed some light on it for you. Link One & Link Two.

How many dead cows does it take to save a dog?

2006-09-19T21:06:00.000+10:00

Yesterday while visiting my local IGA supermarket there was a group of 'animal welfare' people rallying up support for a campaign to stop cruelty to dogs. The group in question are called paws. Now I'm not against animal welfare at all but these guys were raising money by having a sausage sizzle. What I fail to understand is why they see it as okay to mistreat cows, slaughter them, process them, and then capitalise off of their sale and in the same breath see it as not okay to mistreat dogs? I'm sure that those sausages weren't made of dog meat!

On a different note, I'm slipping in votes in this round of the Philosophy Blog War. Please take the couple of seconds to vote for me by clicking here. Much appreciated.

Do Trees Have Rights?

2006-09-14T16:36:00.000+10:00

I've finally gotten around to posting my first philosophy blog war entry. I hope you all enjoy and I'm sincerely looking forward to your comments. To vote for my post click here

Do trees have rights? Do other in-animate ‘life’ forms have rights? These questions are too often over looked by predominantly ‘western’[1] post Socratic philosophers and scientists often unjustifiably and without any reason other than heritage. Ethics and Moral ‘codes’ are fashioned around a human-centric view of the cosmos and extend only so far as to include other conscious creatures that have a relative similarity with us. Arbor (1986, p336) illustrates the key foundation of ‘western’ ethics as:

[o]nly the conscious states and interests of sentient being[s] can be valuable in themselves. Other things are valuable only in so far as they bring about desired conscious states or promote these interests.

This statement assumes that one can do whatever one desires to anything that is not classified as a ‘sentient’ being as long as it causes no direct or indirect harm to the interests of other sentient beings. Is this an ethical position to hold? Can I go out and mutilate any non-sentient being I desire? Well, it depends on who I am and how I identify myself with my world.

In Japan there is a long tradition of an art known as Bonsai. Arbor (1986, p336) uses this as an example to argue that mutilating a tree is ethically wrong. He presents a conditional proposition that gave rise to Bonsai; if trees are deformed by natural forces then trees can be deformed by un-natural forces. Arbor then presents an analogous argument stating that if trees are deformed by natural forces and it’s okay to extend that to deforming trees by un-natural forces then it follows that if humans are deformed by natural forces (birth defects, genetic illnesses etc.) then it should likewise be okay to deform humans by un-natural forces. This would be opposed by most and this opposition would rightly sit with the above mentioned definition of ethics. Does this make it right though? There is an air of a bourgeoisie, colonial, or even chauvinistic character in this definition. Let us look at another example.

There is much dispute over whether it is ethically correct to expose certain animals, such as apes, to laboratory tests for the benefit of humans. The most fundamental ethical claim put forward by those conducting these tests is that the creatures, while certainly being sentient, have no conception, or at least a very limited conception, of their future well being. They live in the here and now and that causing suffering to them is not upsetting the definition given above because their interests are not being inhibited. Remember, the claim is that they have a limited conception or none at all of their future so they therefore have no self interest. Can we extend this claim then to other sentient beings such as humans? When a human child is born it cannot identify itself with this world nor have an interest in its future. It can be argued, however, that the child will develop these characteristics with age. Sometimes, however, humans are born with, or develop, mental disorders where they cannot identify with their surroundings or with themselves and they have no conception of their interests or their future. Can, in this instance, humans be subjected to the sort of treatment that laboratory animals endure? Most people will argue that no matter what, humans cannot be tortured or undergo laboratory tests such as grafting an ear of another species on her back. Some will even state that euthanasia is ethically wrong in such a case. What is the basis for such an argument? Treating these humans in this way would certainly fit with the definition of ethics given above but most still object. This is obviously a case of 'humanism', stating that being human is the characteristic that provides us our ethical liberties and not something that makes us human.

How does this example of comparing lab animals with humans of similar mental capacities, whether right or wrong, relate to whether trees have rights you may ask? Well, the fact that trees seem to be outside the scope of ‘western’ ethics is an ideological distinction. The fact that the ethics we have in ‘western’ society derives from a post Socratic weltanschauung, by definition, cannot be thought of as universally relevant. Because some may think, according to their ideological heritage, that trees have no rights does not mean that all people think that trees have no rights. In traditional Indigenous Australian philosophy even rocks and other inanimate objects have rights; traditional Indigenous Australians act ‘ethically’ towards such objects. What makes someone human, makes them alive, makes them ethically valuable, is the same as what makes a tree a tree or a rock a rock; some inanimate objects and places are even considered more important than humans. I can just imagine a ‘western’ scientist saying we can torture humans but we mustn’t even look at that rock. What seems absurd to us may be undeniably true to others.

Do trees have rights? I think so. But my reason for this position is that my ideological position is different from the generic ‘western’ model presented above. It is the dominant ‘western’ scientific ideology that reduces ethical nature, the nature of life, to sentience, to consciousness. I believe that there is a uniting force, an anima if you will, that is common in all life; in humans, in animals, and in trees. The ethical rights I give myself and to other humans I extend to all that shares what I share. If you declare that the definition of ethics given above is what you believe then that is fine, however, please remember the heritage of that position and the validity of other ethical view points as well. After all, ‘western’ thought, including science, can be argued to be just another social construction.

References

Arbor, JL 1986, ‘Animal Chauvinism, Plant-Regarding Ethics and the Torture of Trees’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 64, no. 5, pp. 335-339.

[1] I’m not overly happy with the term ‘western’, I may have used ‘northern’ or something similar to describe the ideological system adhered to by the group in question, however, ‘western’ remains the most widely understood term in classifying this ideological system.

IE changes

2006-09-11T16:09:00.000+10:00

Just updated my page for all those who use IE and complained that the sidebar was dropping below the main window. Hope it helps. It may look a little strange in firefox now as the gap between the main window and the sidebar is larger now.

Rehersal

2006-09-05T12:14:00.000+10:00

Last night I had a rehersal for a concert I'll be performing at this weekend. I've attached a couple of pictures of the group. I'm on tabla, Craig is on Sitar, and Ben is on Santoor.

Got it Figured

2006-09-04T15:00:00.000+10:00

Got it figured now. I'm new to this CSS thing.

2006-09-04T00:38:00.000+10:00

Does anyone know how to edit my pages background image settings so the header, sidebar, and posting area remains clear/white?

Broken Link

2006-09-04T00:30:00.000+10:00

That previous link will no longer work. If you are interested point your browsers here.

History

2006-09-03T00:35:00.000+10:00

Finaly got my last History paper in. I'm not very happy with it but I'm glad to have it over with. I've just got one more paper to complete - Religion. It's not such a bad topic but I just need a couple of days off. If anyone feels like going over my last history paper and giving me some criticism you can find it here.

ARGH!

2006-08-29T23:24:00.000+10:00

I'm still slaving away here over last semesters final papers with an exam looming on Friday and what's worse is I started a new semester yesterday and haven't even had a chance to go over the course material yet. I have just finished hand writing my final Philosophy paper for last semester and I just need to type it up now so thats a relief. I do need to extend an apology to those philosophy blog warriors out there, I did hope to get a post up this week and maybe I still will but with being so consumed with these papers I haven't even had a chance to think of a sbject to talk about. I was hoping to post my Philosophy paper to get some ever helpful comments but I'm not to sure if many people out there desire to read 6000 words of analytical logic so I guess I'll just have to trust my limited ability and hope for the mercy of my tutor. Regards to all

Islam Question

2006-08-22T20:33:00.000+10:00

Explain why the Qur’an is so central to the life of the Muslim.

Islam extends itself throughout the world; it does not discriminate. It exists within the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor nations, it exists simultaneously where ultra-liberal ideologies reside and amongst super-conservative dictatorships. Islam is present in all corners of the globe.

The uniting force within Islam, no matter whether one identifies as Sunni or Shia, or liberal or Sufi, is undoubtedly the Qur’an. Muslims believe that the Qur’an is the final revelation from God, known as Allah[1], to Muhammad thus superseding the Torah of Moses and the Gospels of Jesus (Crotty 2005, p.145). The word Qur’an means ‘recitation’ and the Qur’an as a book consists of 114 chapters, known as suras. Muslims assert that Muhammad is the Prophet of Allah and that the Qur’an is the preserved version of Allah’s directions to Muhammad through his ambassadors (Welch 1997, pp.164, 177).

The life of every Muslim contains five intrinsic rituals, the Pillars of Islam. The first ritual, shahada, is a public display of faith asserting that Allah is the only God and that Muhammad is God’s messenger. Both of these statements occur in the Qur’an (Welch 1997, p180). The second ritual, salat, is the earliest of all the Islamic rituals. It is a prayer given everyday, originally by Muhammad alone, but extended to the entire Islamic community in the Medinan sections of the Qur’an upon the creation of a new religious community (Welch 1997, pp.181-187). The third ritual, zakat, was fundamental in the development of an Islamic welfare system. It is a system of alms giving quite similar to a tax. The Qur’an states (2. 219/217) that the amount to be paid is your surplus (Welch 1997, pp.191-192).

The fourth ritual, fasting during the month of Ramadan is described by Welch (1997, p.192) as having its roots in a war victory in Ramadan to the Muslims. Fasting during this month is mentioned in numerous places in the Qur’an, most notably Sura 2. 185/181 and Sura 2. 187/183 (Welch 1997, p.192). The fifth ritual is a pilgrimage to the Hajj and corresponds with other rituals exercised along the journey. These rituals in full, apart from the first which is in segments, are found in the Qur’an.

These five Pillars of Islam illustrate the centrality of the Qur’an to the life of the Muslim. The Qur’an is a mirror of things past, historical events and sacred times associated with Islam such as the Muslim’s victory in Ramadan; a guide on how to conduct ones life in the present in accordance with the will of Allah; and presents insight into the future, giving certainty to the daily practices of Muslims. The Qur’an codifies the identity of the Muslim, it describes all that a Muslim is or should desire to be. The Qur’an defines and unites the Islamic community, not through a process of alterity but through quite the opposite. It is not apologetic. A passage highlighted by Crotty (2005, p.158) from the Universal Islamic Declaration, 1976 highlights this well:

Islam is a complete code of life suitable for all people and all times, and Allah’s mandate is eternal and universal and applies to every sphere of human conduct and life, without any distinction between the temporal and the spiritual.

With the influence of western ideologies and European colonial rule over many Islamic ‘nations’ in modern times many diverse and at times seemingly contradicting responses have occurred. Islamic nations have been established, many along western democratic guidelines while others advocate traditional and some times fundamental Islamic policies (Welch 1997, p.208). Some Islamic groups have dealt with this change by placing an emphasis, like Ibn-‘Adb-al-Wahhab[2], on removing any external influence upon Islam and focusing on the Fundamental principles of the Qur’an. Others, such as Muhammad ‘Abduh[3], maintained that rationalism and science were congenial with Islam and the Qur’an (Welch 1997, pp.208-213).

Islam has played witness to enormous change within the world having enormous outside pressures placed upon it at many points of history. While Islam itself has indeed modified itself to suit the beliefs, culture, and ideologies of those who follow its teachings; a Muslim, whether Sunni or Shia, or liberal or Sufi, still places the most fundamental importance of their identity and certainly their faith upon the Qur’an.

Bibliography

Crotty, R 2005, ‘Islam’, in Religion Studies: The Long Search Study Guide, University of South Australia, pp. 141-160.

Welch, AT 1997, ‘Islam’, in Hinnells, JR (ed.) 1997, The New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, Penguin, Camberwell, pp. 162-235.

[1] From al’ilah – ‘The God’. This became ‘Allah’ (Crotty 2005, p.141).

[2] Ibn-‘Adb-al-Wahhab was an Islamic reformer from Arabia (Welch 1997, p.210).

[3] Welch (1997, p.212) describes Muhammad ‘Abduh as a leading Egyptian modernist thinker. He died in 1905.

Philosophy Blog War

2006-08-22T00:32:00.000+10:00

Just a quick note to all those philosophy blog warriors out there, I will post an entry but not untill I've completed my assessment. I have a History paper due on Wednesday and then a Religion and a Philosophy paper due on Friday. If i get all these done on time I'll post on Saturday, if I don't get these done on time I'll post when ever I get the chance.

History for those who asked

2006-08-21T23:50:00.000+10:00

This is my last History tutorial paper on Euripides’ Bacchae for all those who asked to see it. I hope it helps.

In what ways are Pentheus and Dionysus different?
In what ways are they similar?

As outlined in the beginning of Euripides’ Bacchae[1] (pp.805-806) Pentheus and Dionysus have common heritage on their mother’s side to Cadmus, their Grandfather and previous ruler of Thebes (Segal p.178). This is where overt similarities cease[2]; Pentheus and Dionysus couldn’t be presented as more diametrically opposed. Not only do these two cousins assert their Kratos[3] from different parental heritage[4] but Euripides seems to have used the two characters to assert bipolar opposites in Greek thought; In the case of Pentheus, an immature concept and application of rationalism and a deficiency of Apollonian values ultimately leading to Hubris[5], and in Dionysus an illustration of all that Greek society labels as other (Harris & Platzner, p.749).

Why does Pentheus see Dionysus as a threat to civilisation?

The relationship between Pentheus and Dionysus reflects binary oppositions of masculine/feminine, rational/emotional, and civilised/uncivilised natures. Pentheus views this contrast between himself and Dionysus as hazardous to not only his own character but the Greek world he represents[6]. No doubt Pentheus sees himself as the protector of Greek heritage trying with all his very limited ability to preserve the Greek culture from this ‘other’ non-Greek influence personified through Dionysus and his followers. Pentheus outlines his disapproval of Dionysus and his threat to civilisation with an attack, from a very conservative perspective, in his opening passage in the Bacchae[7] (Euripides, pp.806-809).

To whom is Dionysus dangerous?

From a prima facie perspective, it would seem that the Bacchae presents a classic dichotomy of good versus evil but on further introspection deeper social themes develop (Johnston, p.3). The Greek Paradigm, represented by Pentheus, is deeply ethnocentric and through extreme exclusionism defines the ‘other’[8]; all those outside the Greek Ethos, represented by Dionysus. It is therefore not those who are in direct material opposition to Dionysus himself that are at threat but those who through their ethnocentric principles refuse to accept the limitations of their own world view and the value of the alternative that Dionysus is presenting[9].

Does Euripides’ tragedy provoke criticism of Dionysus?

Dionysus, as the head of the bacchants, is an easy target for criticism as he seemingly represents a religious movement vastly polarised from an orderly city existence. The Bacchants are driven to not only depose of the city but to establish themselves on moral principles seen as filth in the eyes of Pentheus (Euripides, p.806). This view asserts that Dionysus represents the menace of religion[10] (Johnston, p.4). The obstacle here is that Euripides alternative, namely Pentheus and the Greek world he represents, offers no better solution; it can be effectively argued that Pentheus is as much a danger to society as Dionysus[11].

The Bacchants was first performed in 406 B.C. Briefly discuss the theatrical and historical context in which the play was first performed. In what ways might Euripides be using the myth in this context to reflect upon his view of Athenian and or Greek society?

The Bacchae is one of Euripides’ final plays and was composed while the Peloponnesian war was drawing to a close[12] (Harris & Platzner, p.748; The Peloponnesian War). By this time Euripides had disenfranchised himself from Greece[13] (Johnston, p.6). The Bacchae can easily represent Euripides views on the society he was living in[14] as numerous features of the play, such as dissatisfaction with the political leadership and the inability of traditional methods of military control to ensure political stability existed throughout the Greek world particularly during the period of the Peloponnesian war that the Bacchae was composed in[15] (Hornblower, pp.166-170).

References

Euripides, (n.d.), ‘Bacchae’, in Harris, S & Platzner, G 2004, Classical Mythology: Images and Insights, 4th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 800-853.

Harris, S & Platzner, G 2004, Classical Mythology: Images and Insights, 4th edn, McGraw-Hill, New York.

Hornblower, S 1983, The Greek World: 479-323 BC, Methuen, London.

Johnston, I 2001, An Introductory Note to Euripides' Bacchae, viewed 23 July 2006, , Malaspina University-College, British Columbia.

Roberg, J 2003, Heritage Studies: An Odyssey in Learning, Carthage College, Kenosha.

Segal, C 1997, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ Bacchae, 2nd edn, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

The Peloponnesian War, 1998, viewed 23 July 2006, .

[1] The Bacchae, circa 406 B.C, is one of 19 surviving plays composed by Euripides. It is named after the Bacchants, the women devotees of Dionysus. Euripides is famous for his psychological illustrations of distraught characters suffering because they fail to recognise their true identity (Harris & Platzner, pp.748-489; Roberg, p.11).

[2] Throughout the play Pentheus is struggling to deny any similarities that he may have with Dionysus, this will eventually be his downfall as Dionysus recognises that Pentheus is more alike to him than he would like to think. Dionysus antagonises these repressed similarities that Pentheus holds.

[3] Kratos is used in this context and by Segal (p.178) to mean royal power.

[4] Pentheus is the ruler of Thebes through the (inferior feminine?) heritage of his mother Agave whereas Dionysus asserts his Kratos not only through his mother Semele, sister of Agave, but more importantly through his father Zeus, King of the Gods (Segal, p.178).

[5] Hubris is presented by Harris & Platzner (p.749) to mean excessive pride.

[6] Thebes, of which Pentheus is the ruler, is the birthplace of Greek civilisation (Johnston, p.2).

[7] Right from the very beginning of the Bacchae, in a major departure from the traditional Greek hero story, it is blatantly obvious that Pentheus has some personal psychological motivation in his opposition to Dionysus. His emotive reaction to the arrival of Dionysus, such as excessive military force and his apparent obsession with Dionysus’ looks, appear as an illustration of his psychological inadequacies (Johnston, p.2).

[8] On numerous occasions Pentheus ridicules Dionysus and what he represents as inferior and foreign. Pentheus terms the Dionysian cult a travesty (Euripides, p. 806) and filth! (Euripides, p.807), and many times mentions or infers that the culture Dionysus is bringing is foreign (Euripides, pp.806-809, 813 etc.).

[9] This is not to say that the alternative presented by Dionysus is any more meritorious, in fact Euripides constantly illustrates its destructive nature. The argument is that because of ethnocentric ideologies the possibility that anomalies may exist within native Greek thought or that other cultures may have something valuable to offer is ignored, disaster befalls.

[10] At least fanatical superstitious religion lacking in the principles of rationalism.

[11] Of course this entire argument can only be seen as a single aspect of Euripides play as if the fundamental aim of the Bacchae was to convince the audience of the dangers of superstitious religious practice a more appealing alternative would have been presented (Johnston, p.5).

[12] The war began on 4 April 431 B.C. and it ended on 25 April 404 B.C. (The Peloponnesian War).

[13] He was actually now living in Macedonia (Harris & Platzner, p.738).

[14] If the play is to be interpreted from a historical context.

[15] Numerous other parallel features exist with enough correspondent features to effectively assert the conclusion that Euripides based his play on his observations of the Peloponnesian war. Dissatisfaction with political leadership and direction was becoming widespread, along with the sometimes rapid retreat of Greek Democratic systems of government therefore Greek government was becoming less influential overseas. This produced a climate whereby Greek citizens began to open up to and even actively search for other political systems and personal saviours. Eventually the Greek City States began to fail in their attempts to stop their citizens experimenting with foreign ideas of leadership and eventually crumbled (Hornblower pp.166-170). If we take, as mentioned earlier, Pentheus to represent Greek ideology and Dionysus to represent foreign or non-Greek ideology then this historical interpretation competently explains many, if not most, of the attributes of the Bacchae.

Christian Paper

2006-08-21T21:39:00.000+10:00

I'm posting the 700 word paper I wrote for Christianity. I'll probably post the Islam question tomorrow some time.

In what ways is fundamentalism a response to modernity? Is it accurate to say that fundamentalism is only a defensive and negative response to modernity? If not, in what positive ways does fundamentalism respond to modernity? It is clear that fundamentalism is a way in which conservative and evangelical groups are emerging into political action. What issues are typical issues for such groups to be drawn to? What are the positive concerns in such political issues? Are there any reasons for thinking that groups that might have been slower than others in beginning political engagement must remain slower?

Christianity has existed at least since 35-40CE and hence been witness to enormous social, cultural, and political changes (Walls 1997, p.55). Different denominations and sects have dealt with these changes uniquely throughout history with some being more prevalent than others.

Perhaps the greatest change that Christianity has had to deal with has been Modernity[1]. Modernity is a complex of ideas and is generally accepted as having begun with the great transformation[2] around the 17^th century. During this time great progress was made in industrial production and scientific understanding diverting the dominant discourse away from the church and towards a progressive, rationalist understanding of the world and humanities place within it (Van Krieken et al. 2000, p.9; Weeks, Toole & Crowe 2005, p.125). This created a climate within church circles of discontent particularly as religion retreated to personal experience and the authority of the church was overshadowed by the creation of the nation state (Van Krieken et al. 2000, p.9; Weeks, Toole & Crowe 2005, p.128).

It may seem that the Fundamentalist movement exists only as a response to modernity as it overtly opposes many of the doctrines central to modernity. This is likely true as, in the words of Pinnock (1990, p.44) “fundamentalism arose in order to defend the authority of the Bible… [the] foundation of Christianity”. Fundamentalists, generally, are not opposed to change if it can enhance or at least not hinder Christian principles; Changes such as University education have been welcomed by most Fundamentalists[3] (Pinnock 1990, p.45).

Fundamentalists can be described as apologists for the Bible; they assert that the Bible and hence their movement is above fault and does not deviate from the Bibles literary message (Pinnock 1990, p.47). They are not, however, only defensive and negative. Walls (1997, p.144) states that Fundamentalists “use… the Bible as an instrument for problem solving…”. Fundamentalists believe in the preservation of freedom and that they should be the moral example for humanity, not the moral imposer (Pinnock 1990, p.50).

In the political sphere many Conservative and Evangelical Christians are active; this is evidenced by the President of the USA George Bush,[4] himself an Evangelical Christian. These Conservative and Evangelical Christians goals are primarily moral in character and seek not to change the democratic fabric of western society, Pinnock (1990, pp.53-54) says that at least the Fundamentalists have an “unabashed love… for their democratic society”, but to influence the moral development of its citizens. Examples of moral issues Conservative and Evangelical Christians advocate are a commitment to life in regard to abortion and an opposition to pornography and homosexuality (Pinnock 1990, pp.50-54). This is not to assume that other political motivations do not exist; it is well known that many Conservative and Evangelical Christians have an absolute support for Israel (Pinnock 1990, p.54). By engaging in political discourse these Conservative and Evangelical Christians are sending a positive message that the unadulterated[5] teachings of the Bible are not only still valid but still valuable in today’s complicated world. Many abuses of liberal ideologies have occurred, such as a culture of drug abuse that the moral stance of Conservative and Evangelical Christendom would oppose. They are demonstrating to more moderate and liberal Christians that the message of the Bible does not need to be diluted or revised in order to be a moral and contemporary Christian today (Pinnock 1990, pp.53-55).

Now to the final aspect of the question, are there any reasons for thinking that groups that might have been slower than others in beginning political engagement must remain slower. It seems absurd to assert that the speed of initial engagement in political discourse determines the progressive and ultimate speed of engagement. Pinnock (1990, pp.49-50) cites the progression of the Reverend Jerry Falwell from an individual with no interest in the political sphere progressively changing into an advocate of political engagement. The Reverend Jerry Falwell began his political agenda as slow as can be described and is now the leader of the Moral Majority, one of the largest Fundamentalist movements and an organisation that openly asserts its influence within political discourse.

These modern developments of Christianity and the attitudes developed towards the change the world has been displaying are deeply complex touching all denominations and ideological preconceptions. The development of Fundamentalism and its use as a vehicle for political engagement has been crucial in the development of Christian Conservative social and self identity.

Bibliography

Pinnock, CH 1990, ‘Defining American Fundamentalism: a Response’, in Cohen, NJ (ed.) 1990, The Fundamentalist Phenomenon: a View From Within, a View From Without, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Michigan, pp.38-55.

Van Krieken, A, Smith, P, Habibis, D, McDonald, K, Haralambos, M, Holborn, M 2000, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest.

Walls, A 1997, ‘Christianity’ in Hinnells, JR (ed.) 1997, The New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, Penguin, Camberwell, pp. 55-161.

Weeks, I, Toole, M & Crowe, J 2005, ‘Christianity’ in Religion Studies: The Long Search Study Guide, University of South Australia.

[1] For a more detailed discussion of modernity see Van Krieken, A, Smith, P, Habibis, D, McDonald, K, Haralambos, M, Holborn, M 2000, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest., pp.9-10.

[2] For a short discussion of the great transformation see Van Krieken, A, Smith, P, Habibis, D, McDonald, K, Haralambos, M, Holborn, M 2000, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest., p.9.

[3] This and most other change would most probably be opposed by the ‘Strict Fundamentalists’ as Pinnock (1990, pp.43-44) calls them.

[4] For an interesting look at Fundamentalism in politics see Giroux, HA 2004, George Bush’s Religious Crusade Against Democracy: Fundamentalism as Cultural Politics, .

[5] At least as they see it.

Everywhen is finished!

2006-08-21T13:56:00.000+10:00

Just posting my short paper on everywhen. I hope the few footnotes display properly as I've just cut and pasted this from a .doc document.

What ideas was Stanner attempting to explain by using the term 'everywhen' in reference to the Dreaming?

The Dreaming is a complex array of themes and perspectives relating to the universe and humanities role within it. It is simultaneously a cosmogony and a cosmology from which life as we know it derived. In attempting to explain the complexity of The Dreaming, Stanner said “one cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time: it was, and is, everywhen (Stanner 1990 pp.225, 228; Edwards 1990 p.12).

In using the term ‘everywhen’, Stanner was effectively describing the temporal location of The Dreaming in language that can appeal to a ‘western’ weltanschauung focusing on, as Edwards (1990) asserts, “beginnings, dates, eras and endings”. The indigenous inhabitants of Australia temporally placed The Dreaming simultaneously in the past, present, and the future which people in every generation can relive through involvement in everyday and ceremonial existence (Edwards 1990 pp.12-13). This has been described as being an example of a circular concept of time; however Edwards, while agreeing that the concepts present in The Dreaming share more similarities with a circular model as opposed to a linear model maintains that The Dreaming is too delicate a concept to be associated with either of these concepts (Edwards 1990, pp. 12-13).

Both the linear and circular concepts of time are too discriminatory to account for many of the subtle, and at times overt, concepts present in The Dreaming. In the article composed by Stanner[1] where he first used the term ‘everywhen’, he grapples with the ideological differences present in ‘western’ systems of thought as opposed to the thought processes of the Indigenous Australians; the concept of time becomes a major issue. Stanner describes that in a modern ‘western’ weltanschauung ideologies such as alterity arise by identifying contrasts within the world such as ‘body’ vs. ‘spirit’. In relation to The Dreaming Stanner (1990 p.227) notes that “man, society and nature, and past, present and future, are at one together…” and Edwards (1990 p.13) states that “places and people today are conceived of as embodying the beings of that era [The Dreaming]” indicating that the ontology is not just a contrast of accepted logic and rationalism but exists within a completely different paradigm altogether.

The Dreaming is often described as the beginning or formation of the world; while this is undoubtedly true the concept is entirely different from a creatio ex nihilo understanding as there was a pre existing fabric upon which The Dreaming occurred (Edwards 1990, p.13). Stanner (1976, p.21), in reference to Professor Strehlow, describes that at the time[2] of The Dreaming a single family existed[3] (father, wife and children) who were self-existent and eternal. There were also other ‘sky beings’ whose presence was felt through the stars. These beings had no interest in, or power over, the earth. It is fair to say that the existence of the ‘sky beings’ is fair evidence that much of substance existed at the time of The Dreaming activity. In the activity of The Dreaming[4] many ‘sometime sleepers’, eternal beings similar to humans of today but described as ‘superhuman’, simultaneously awoke and proceeded to mould primordial masses of barely human substance into distinct human individuals and taught them the way of life. These sometime sleepers, before returning to their sub terrestrial slumber, proceeded to shape the physical landscape that we experience today; some even became the landscape. The immanence of the sometime sleepers and their legacy is what Edwards (1990, p.13) was referring to when he said that people have a direct link to The Dreaming.

Indigenous Australians identify themselves and their world as part of The Dreaming. Certain landmarks represent not only the ancestors in the form of the sometime sleepers but family members and people still living today. Even birthmarks, marks left by ritual, and hunting injuries may be identified with an Ancestral being (Edwards 1990, p.17). Edwards (1990, p.17) describes the events of The Dreaming as a stage where People today re-enact The Dreaming “according to the pattern laid down by the ancestors”.

The Indigenous Australian concept of time, especially in relation to space, present in The Dreaming has rightly bewildered commentators trying to describe it with language more at home in western discourse. It was not only right but also essential for Professor Stanner to introduce a new word free of inherent ideological meaning into the discourse surrounding the study and understanding of Indigenous Australian religion.

Bibliography

Edwards, WH 1990, An Introduction to Aboriginal Societies, Social Science Press, Wentworth Falls.

Stanner, WEH 1976, Some Aspects of Aboriginal Religion, The Charles Strong Memorial Trust Inaugural Lecture, in Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies 1976, Colloquium, pp.19-35.

Stanner, WEH 1990, ‘The Dreaming’, in Edwards, WH (ed), Traditional Aboriginal Society: A Reader, Macmillan, South Melbourne, pp.225-236.

[1] See bibliography under Stanner, WEH 1990, ‘The Dreaming’.

[2] I use this word loosely by attempting to refer to the temporal location of these events.

[3] While existed is in the past tense I am not asserting that these beings no longer exist.

[4] For a more detailed description see Stanner, WEH 1976, Some Aspects of Aboriginal Religion, The Charles Strong Memorial Trust Inaugural Lecture, in Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies 1976, Colloquium, pp.19-35.

Paper Not Complete

2006-08-19T23:56:00.000+10:00

I didn't get my paper finished to a level I would have liked so tommorrow I'll post something in that regard. I'll prob just put up my answer to the everywhen question.

Religion Assignment

2006-08-19T18:53:00.000+10:00

I'm working tonight on compiling the final draft of my paper for my religion course. Once again the word limit is quite a....limit. I have only 2100 words to answer three 'questions', about 700 words each. Question one is: What ideas was Stanner attempting to explain by using the term 'everywhen' in reference to the Dreaming? Question Two is: In what ways is fundamentalism a response to modernity? Is it accurate to say that fundamentalism is only a defensive and negative response to modernity? If not, in what positive ways does fundamentalism respond to modernity? It is clear that fundamentalism is a way in which conservative and evangelical groups are emerging into political action. What issues are typical issues for such groups to be drawn to? What are the positive concerns in such political issues? Are there any reasons for thinking that groups that might have been slower than others in beginning political engagement must remain slower? Question Three is: Explain why the Qur’an is so central to the life of the Muslim. If I do get 'em finished tonight I'll see if I can post my answers, if not I'll do it tommorow.

Introduction

2006-08-17T13:14:00.000+10:00

I've succumbed and finally created a blogger.com blog space. I won't be adding much, if anything, over the next two weeks as I have five pieces of assessment to complete over that time. Hopefully I will be able to post more frequently then. I have attached a photo of myself in Pushkar, India just because I can I suppose. Nah, it's really 'cause it's the only way in the documentation to publish a profile picture if I have not already published online somewhere else. Anyhow, I'd better get back to my papers; I'm writing a paper at the moment on everywhen in relation to Australian Aboriginal religion. The question goes: What ideas was Stanner attempting to explain by using the term 'everywhen' in reference to the Dreaming?