Thursday, October 22, 2009
Pearl Jam's new song, 'The Fixer' rules
Lyrics: (a lot of Yeah's, but still cool)
Yeah, hey, hey
When somethings dark, let me shed a little light on it
When somethings cold, let me put a little fire on it
If somethings old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When somethings gone, I wanna fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
When somethings broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin on it
When somethings bored, I wanna put a little exciting on it
If somethings low, I wanna put a little high on it
When somethings lost, I wanna fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it
If there's no love, I wanna try to love again
I’ll say your prayers, I’ll take your side
I'll find us a way to make light
I'll dig your grave, we'll dance and sing
What's saved could be one last lifetime
Hey, hey, hey
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Fight to get it back again, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Education for the 21st Century - National's approach
Interesting news piece regarding the importance of diverse and broad approaches to education curiculum were linked to by Labour MP Phil Twyford. Gordon Campbell's piece on National's new focus on the three R's'(Reading, Writing, Arthimatic) and National Standards testing (one size fits all test to measure kids abilities... As if all kids had the same access to information/support/learning etc) and taking away funding for Science, Arts and Physical Education. Campbell points to a new study by Cambridge University which shows just how defunct this approach to education in the 21st century. This is the same message I've heard all year at Teachers College. National Standards testing have been heavily critised in the US as well (see, for example, this). Teachers continue to put emphasis on the three R's while recognising the broad spectrum of skills students need to learn. Furthermore, students who perform badly early on at school (no result on teaching but more perhaps cultural capitial they bring with them) are put off schooling, with devestating effects for later chances at education. As with Law and Order, it seems National is more concerned with political posturing and looking to be doing something, while really just blanketing black and white solutions to complex, dynamic problems.
See also this NYT piece by Thomas L. Friedman on what education needs to be for American public schools in the 21st century...
See also this NYT piece by Thomas L. Friedman on what education needs to be for American public schools in the 21st century...
Things about the place
Found these two articles interesting:
Diana Butler Bass comments on some churches in Nigeria killing children who they believed to be withces, justifying it with the verse in exodus. Makes for interesting reading in the romatising of African churches by conservative Western churches, which she argues began around Phillip Jenkins landmark book, the Next Christendom (rightly, i think too). I think she makes a case for the critical approach to the bible, not just a contexual one. More importantly, i think she rightly points out how glorfiying African churches is wrong. Furthermore, I'd argue that it is actually very paternalistic of conservative Churches to do this. These churches admire their African churches because they seem simplier, more pure, traditional.
The second is from Archbishop of Cantebury, Rowan Williams, on the environment and our need to get in touch with our humanity and our co-dependence on the environment. Worth a look.
Hat Tip to Brian McLaren for these findings...
Diana Butler Bass comments on some churches in Nigeria killing children who they believed to be withces, justifying it with the verse in exodus. Makes for interesting reading in the romatising of African churches by conservative Western churches, which she argues began around Phillip Jenkins landmark book, the Next Christendom (rightly, i think too). I think she makes a case for the critical approach to the bible, not just a contexual one. More importantly, i think she rightly points out how glorfiying African churches is wrong. Furthermore, I'd argue that it is actually very paternalistic of conservative Churches to do this. These churches admire their African churches because they seem simplier, more pure, traditional.
The second is from Archbishop of Cantebury, Rowan Williams, on the environment and our need to get in touch with our humanity and our co-dependence on the environment. Worth a look.
Hat Tip to Brian McLaren for these findings...
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Capitalism, Christianity, Selfishness and/or Self-Interest
I've usually had a pretty stock standard response to this question. Obivviously Jesus is not a capitalist and wouldn't support such a system. For all the reasons Michael Moore makes clear in his post on Huffington.
Then I read this from Michael Ruse, posting on Jesus Creed about the difference between selfishness (being self-interested at the expense of others) and self-interest (looking after yourself without expense of others). The example he uses is in teaching your kids to brush their teeth, you are teaching them to be self interested, not selfish.
At any rate, I found it interesting to read Michael Moore take a position on all this, especially within his conservative evangelical US cultural context. I had no idea he was Catholic. And as Brian McLaren points out, both himself and Michael Moore, are publishing things within the very system they are critiquing and therefore either they're oblivious to irony, or their opinions are more naunced than simply being black and white... I guess i think that a system that allows 1% of the world to own more wealth than the bottom 95% COMBINED needs to be dismantled. And quickly.
Then I read this from Michael Ruse, posting on Jesus Creed about the difference between selfishness (being self-interested at the expense of others) and self-interest (looking after yourself without expense of others). The example he uses is in teaching your kids to brush their teeth, you are teaching them to be self interested, not selfish.
At any rate, I found it interesting to read Michael Moore take a position on all this, especially within his conservative evangelical US cultural context. I had no idea he was Catholic. And as Brian McLaren points out, both himself and Michael Moore, are publishing things within the very system they are critiquing and therefore either they're oblivious to irony, or their opinions are more naunced than simply being black and white... I guess i think that a system that allows 1% of the world to own more wealth than the bottom 95% COMBINED needs to be dismantled. And quickly.
Some perspective please Harvard....
(This is from my girlfriend Rosemarie, quoting the Harvard article and the newsfeeds...)
we are working hard to minimise the impact of the global financial downturn....
“disproportionately affected…”
“[due to the economic crisis]..the World Bank estimates that high food and energy prices have pushed another 100 million people into poverty this year alone.”
“suffered…”
A further 22 million women could fall into unemployment this year as a result of the current global economic crisis, the International Labour Office (ILO) has predicted.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/women.htm
“It was a big shock…. Not getting their nutrients – a solid meal”
For the first time, more than 1 billion people are chronically hungry, according to the U.N. FAO…Malnutrition is also the underlying cause of 3 million child deaths each year.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7WMS6D?OpenDocument&query=food%20crisis
“the loss is especially hard…”
“f the global economy were to rebound in 2010, sub-Saharan Africa would still be one of the world's poorest and most vulnerable regions, and have more than half its food insecure people, says an examination of the impact of the economic slowdown on food security.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85293
“despite its budget problems, Harvard has increased financial aid to students to $145 million this year”
Non-profit organisations and NGOs are laying off staff and cutting back aid programmes as the global recession bites, and the prospects for 2010 also look bleak… "In 2009, we’re estimating that giving from foundations will decline in the range of the high single digits to the low double digits," said Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center, a leading US authority on philanthropy, noting that foundation assets declined double that amount, almost 22 percent, in 2008.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84023
“We understand we have to give up something,” Mx. Flores said. “But students want to be able to say what they’re willing to give up and what they want to protect. As long as that’s part of the discussion, I think the process can be done peacefully.”
Tensions have remained high in Akobo County of Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, a week after inter-ethnic clashes left at least 185 people, mainly women and children, dead.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85669
we are working hard to minimise the impact of the global financial downturn....
“disproportionately affected…”
“[due to the economic crisis]..the World Bank estimates that high food and energy prices have pushed another 100 million people into poverty this year alone.”
“suffered…”
A further 22 million women could fall into unemployment this year as a result of the current global economic crisis, the International Labour Office (ILO) has predicted.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/women.htm
“It was a big shock…. Not getting their nutrients – a solid meal”
For the first time, more than 1 billion people are chronically hungry, according to the U.N. FAO…Malnutrition is also the underlying cause of 3 million child deaths each year.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/AMMF-7WMS6D?OpenDocument&query=food%20crisis
“the loss is especially hard…”
“f the global economy were to rebound in 2010, sub-Saharan Africa would still be one of the world's poorest and most vulnerable regions, and have more than half its food insecure people, says an examination of the impact of the economic slowdown on food security.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85293
“despite its budget problems, Harvard has increased financial aid to students to $145 million this year”
Non-profit organisations and NGOs are laying off staff and cutting back aid programmes as the global recession bites, and the prospects for 2010 also look bleak… "In 2009, we’re estimating that giving from foundations will decline in the range of the high single digits to the low double digits," said Steven Lawrence, senior director of research at the Foundation Center, a leading US authority on philanthropy, noting that foundation assets declined double that amount, almost 22 percent, in 2008.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84023
“We understand we have to give up something,” Mx. Flores said. “But students want to be able to say what they’re willing to give up and what they want to protect. As long as that’s part of the discussion, I think the process can be done peacefully.”
Tensions have remained high in Akobo County of Jonglei State, Southern Sudan, a week after inter-ethnic clashes left at least 185 people, mainly women and children, dead.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=85669
Harvard has to cut back cookies for professors due to recession...
No, this isn't an Onion article. It's a serious article in the NYTimes about Ivy league schools having to cut certain things for students. It's so riduclous that you could be forgiven not being shocked by the offense of it. The highlight for me is:
"just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings."
and...
“Everyone is worried,” said George Hayward, a junior who lives on a part of campus, the Quad, that lost its library to the cuts. “It could be anything next; nobody really knows.”
Well, we find out what else they've lost... It's warm hot breakfasts!
"Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library"
"just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings."
and...
“Everyone is worried,” said George Hayward, a junior who lives on a part of campus, the Quad, that lost its library to the cuts. “It could be anything next; nobody really knows.”
Well, we find out what else they've lost... It's warm hot breakfasts!
"Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library"
A Chemical Party
This is so awesome. I want to be a science teacher for one period, just so i can do this... Though i have no idea what the different elements even do, so my chemical party would be lame... This however makes science awesome. Now, if only i could do something similar in history.... Have to find some guns and uniforms.
100 Greatist Hits of Youtube in 4mins
FYI this is my cultural history right here. History professors take note
Christianity's Dangerous Idea
I've just finished Alister McGrath's a new history of the Protestant Reformation. As i haven't read much of the "old History", i'm not sure how new it is. For long sections he repeats himself and the book is much longer than it needed to be. However there were some interesting points made. Some are already well known, but i'll list what i thought was particularly interesting.
1. The prostestant reformers focus on justification by faith alone, and sola scripture, led to a desacrilisation of the present world. Hence the rise of atheism and secular society was a result of and partily exists within a society which has desacrilised the material (thought not always successfully). I think this is the point Charles Taylor has made in a Secular Age.
2. That Protestantism is not an arrived at destination or even really a set of doctrines or dogmas, rather it is a method.
3. That there was no one reformation, rather multiple reformations at once.
4. That the reformation was in some sense a radical democractic act, democracising faith, and the justification for that faith.
1. The prostestant reformers focus on justification by faith alone, and sola scripture, led to a desacrilisation of the present world. Hence the rise of atheism and secular society was a result of and partily exists within a society which has desacrilised the material (thought not always successfully). I think this is the point Charles Taylor has made in a Secular Age.
2. That Protestantism is not an arrived at destination or even really a set of doctrines or dogmas, rather it is a method.
3. That there was no one reformation, rather multiple reformations at once.
4. That the reformation was in some sense a radical democractic act, democracising faith, and the justification for that faith.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
C.S. Lewis
CS Lewis Poem, taken from this blog response by Brian McLaren:
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to thyself divert
Our arrows aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to thyself divert
Our arrows aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at their word.
Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
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