tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-301956852024-02-19T13:17:08.427+00:00The Spamhead BlogThe life, loves and inane ramblings of a fifty-something father of three with a passion for God, family, health, justice, wine, chocolate, Science Fiction, great music, and God's Kingdom.ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-538305143185798632023-01-02T12:59:00.008+00:002024-01-26T12:50:02.299+00:002022 Year in Review - part 2<p> Lists like this are highly subjective, and I cannot pretend to have my finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist (to mix a metaphor or two). Even more so when it comes to a list of the best of TV and film because, frankly, I have seen too little of both to claim to have a broad perspective.</p><p>So, here goes, first of all, with TV.</p><p>First, the honourable mentions. BBC's <i>This is Going to Hurt</i> was an almost too painfully honest comedy-drama about the life of a junior doctor. This is mainly because it is based on the diaries of a former doctor, Adam Kay. Having spoken to others I know in the profession, the grim honesty is not a great exaggeration of the lived experiences of many working in the NHS today - if anything, it downplays the horrors and sanitises the dark humour. Not an easy watch, but brilliantly done.</p><p>I should also give a shout-out to the hilarious <i>Derry Girls</i>, arguably the funniest sitcom in decades, and yet one set against the background of the troubles in Northern Ireland in the nineties. Teen angst, sectarian politics and Ulster humour. The final season, which came out in 2022, is arguably its best - which is set against an already very high bar.</p><p>An unexpected delight was <i>Wednesday, </i>Netflix's updating of the Addams Family, focusing on the family's darkly deadpan daughter, Wednesday Addams, and her complex educational problems. It has an opening scene with a school locker, Pugsley Addams, a water polo team, a swimming pool, and some piranha fish that will either put you off or have you signing up to see the rest of the season on the spot. There are some great one-liners delivered with deadpan comedy timing by Jenna Ortega, but the plot is flimsy and forgettable. Nevertheless, there are some fun digressions and cameos that make this an instant classic. Watch out for the school disco in episode four in particular. And how they manage to give so much character to Thing, who is literally just a disembodied hand, is beyond me. Great fun, but don't look for anything profound.</p><p>Finally (but not least) is <i>The Expanse </i>season 6. To say it was the perfect finale for what has been the best space opera ever on TV (I am looking at you, <i>Star Trek </i>and <i>Babylon 5</i>) would not be hype. It was a slow burner of a season that gave all the characters room to breathe, so when the action came, it came with a gut punch. Sad to think the actual finale won't get made, as there are still three more novels and a whole new set of issues to confront. But having dealt with colonialism, racism, terrorism, environmental catastrophe and post-truth gaslighting, maybe the final three books' focus on imperialism and its resistance were too much for the producers.</p><p>But the three that really grabbed me this year were those that stepped out of the everyday horrors of life and into the darker worlds surrounding our everyday experiences.</p><p>I have to group the first two because they are cut from very similar cloth.</p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Midnight Mass</h4><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10574558/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHIR3QiV0fipE-pgv6VJFvd9OMMCVHc1J63-wlQ3UhyL5vTQErAoORFjVJR8eVu6xGIWmDyszX0wg3B7xTo2yVDaPQEl6qDiBvMju58god_f0TXPwhzKWl2w99LIUXHG0-_9dpO8e_Tm_koPKDZqbsibqGNv70FZD6XyN2G7JOmDU0e7jEzY/s320/midnight-mass-logo-2-1632495700308.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Set on a small fishing island off the US Atlantic Coast, this is a story about faith and its abuses. Starting with a fatal car crash caused by the drunk driving of one of the island's prodigal sons, the story picks up three years later on his release from gaol and his reluctant return to the bosom of his deeply Catholic family on the island. The Catholic Church is the fading hub of the fading island community. A handful of the faithful attend daily mass, but with the island's priest away on pilgrimage, it is in a hiatus. Then a younger priest arrives, with news that the priest has been taken ill and won't return for a while. He will stand in for now.</div><div><br /></div><div>We see the tensions and relationships between the different individuals on the island, not least between the Muslim sheriff and Bev Keane, who I can only describe as the church warden from hell (almost literally!).</div><div><br /></div><div>Then miracles start to happen, and a religious revival begins. The charismatic Father Hill seems to be leading the small community towards some massive religious renewal movement, and God appears to be at work. But is all as it seems?</div><div><br /></div><div>I won't say more, but stick with it - episodes one and two are slow builds, it takes till episode three for the story to really get going, and then it goes bonkers! </div><div><br /></div><div>The standout scenes are those between Father Hill and the returned prodigal, Riley Flynn, as they hold the mandatory AA meetings that Flynn must attend as a condition of his parole. Hill challenges Flynn to look beyond his disillusionment with the world and his loss of faith to see that God is doing something amazing. Flynn challenges the easy assumption that God does good things through bad situations. These are authentic, faithful explorations of faith, doubt, grace, and despair. </div><div><br /></div><div>The conclusion suggests that all religion is prone to evil and corruption, with Bev Keane leading the evil and Father Hill realising too late that he has unleashed something that is very definitely not of God. It suggests that a rather pantheistic, monistic understanding of our place in the universe is better than a theistic (or stark atheistic) one. I find it hard to argue with the first point - religion can very easily be exploited for evil ends, and the faithful can be turned to evil by charismatic leaders all too often. The second conclusion is more problematic to my mind,</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Midnight Mass </i>is a fascinating exploration of deep themes with complex characters. The first three episodes have a growing sense of unease, which is helped by some excellent, eerie scoring. As things become more and more full-throated horror, the tension never lets up. Not one for the faint-hearted, though.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">His Dark Materials Season 3</h4><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5607976/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjscQc4mnB2GQkVx1S_DXWDwOAfSDR93ku7hLh1nTXABlSdBp_1_RnGhP9q-sFuG_bCan7o9AKD6X20N99evuEIkS-B7sbTe6mQ4fq1iLnyH3HEQD44z0uW_-3XQ8hkjijoo_Vg0jppAYAiNQ-T-H96ew5u-jzshf3PoqFkSDyLYvuD29KGsbo/s320/amir-wilson-dafne-keen-his-dark-materials-1671200595.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Picking up where season 2 ended, Will is hunting Lyra across multiple universes while her wicked mother, Marissa Coulter, hides her in a drugged sleep. Lyra dreams of her dead friend Roger and believes he is calling her from the land of the dead.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you have never entered Philip Pullman's universe of steampunk fantasy, worlds where the human soul exists as a physical animal companion called a daemon and where a knife can cut between different universes, including our own, then here is a quick primer. It's wide, wonderful, profoundly anti-organised religion, and pro a pantheistic, monistic idea of our place in the universe. </div><div><br /></div><div>Hang on that sounds familiar!?</div><div><br /></div><div>All the baddies are priests or agents of the Magisterium (in other words, the Roman Catholic Church) who serve The Authority (God, only not actually God, but the first Angel who conned the others into believing he was the Creator). Witches, armoured bears, and scientists like Lyra's father, Lord Asriel, who have no truck with religious nonsense, all fight on the side of the good. </div><div><br /></div><div>In season three, Lyra visits the land of the dead (a kind of concentration camp for ghosts) and sets the ghosts free to become one with the universe. The priests create a bomb to kill her because she is the New Eve, destined to cause a second fall. However, this fall is no more than her kissing her bestie, Will and falling in love. Apparently, that saves all of Creation.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, crazy, but emotionally engaging, rip-roaring action, and some fantastic design and characterisation, not least from Dafne Keene, who totally holds the screen as Lyra in every scene she's in. Also excellent is Ruth Wilson as Lyra's evil mother, Marissa Coulter - former agent of the Magisterium but now fighting on the side of the angels (well, the good ones) for reasons she does not entirely understand. I could have watched scenes between these two actors and done away with 90% of the rest of the plot and been happy! </div><div><br /></div><div>But at its heart, the enemy Pullman is trying to tear down a straw man. Religion is seen as life-denying, joy-sapping, and ultimately constrictive while losing faith means we can fall in love and live happy, creative lives. Hmmm. </div><div><br /></div><div>While faith may often be all of these things, they are not intrinsic to religion. Many sects of the Protestant and Catholic faith are precisely the sort of thing that Pullman takes a swing at, but the opposite is also true. Some of the most significant social engagement, joy, creativity, community life, and striving for justice and freedom are to be found in faith communities. Meanwhile, this sort of amorphous spirituality that both HDM and Midnight Mass seem to promote sounds attractive but ultimately lacks depth and demands on the believer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dramas like these two certainly initiate a conversation about faith, but neither has the final word to say.</div><div><br /></div><h4 style="text-align: left;">The Sandman</h4><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1751634/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="750" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAHn80S0jIeqqejY-I60Wg-lXEozj8R5rEDvgWgL8z9xF9bFWx7up5TIKJqSnUgChWdWC9cZWFbu_ZLmgK5UVYD6O4oVZuQPqZtnH8iUGHydoge_P3pqQ7UKGyULlaMq-LTjx5jf5lQoDwiY2osIzE7RxZsxFkvMSnLQgxXAant1NxRJb9-ms/s320/ENUS_Sandman_Teaser_Master_Vertical_27x40_RGB_PRE-750x400.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The long-awaited screen adaptation of Neil Gaiman's ground-breaking graphic novel series of the nineties finally dropped in August. And it was worth the wait. Beautifully filmed, well acted, and adapted faithfully (but not slavishly) from the graphic novels, much of it by Gaiman himself. It was a thing of beauty throughout.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dealing with the big ideas - the nature of story, morality, death, and so forth - it also manages to be a lot of fun and occasionally even funny. Hang on for episode 6 - <i>The Sound of Her Wings</i> - it is a simple, beautiful, and thoughtful pause between the horrors of the first set of stories and the epic finale of the last four-parter. It is possibly my favourite single episode of TV this year.</div><div><br /></div><div>I may not share all of Gaiman's ideas about life and death, but one thing he understands, and one thing of which he is a consummate master, is storytelling. The power of stories to change people, to shape our choices and values is very clear throughout his work. The Sandman, who is himself the master of dreams and stories, personifies this throughout this widely rich and imaginative series.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is fantasy TV of the highest order.</div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-27084144696404870642022-12-30T19:02:00.004+00:002023-01-02T17:50:24.345+00:002022 in review - part 1<p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">This last year has been, at least on the global and national scale, something of a shitshow. An omnishambles. A permacrisis. It would be easy to dwell on the political incompetence, corruption, and out-and-out evil that has permeated the year. But I am instead going to cast my eye over the books, TV and films that have caught my mind, heart and imagination over the last twelve months.</span></p><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></span></h3><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Books</span></h3><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Several books caught my mind this year. First, let me start with a couple novel series that have occupied a lot of my time - one contemporary, one dating back to the eighties.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The Expanse</span></h4><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1074" data-original-width="1278" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0q6Wo7an3c8vPdVrJBV0T0JH8pzh0fG1aV1lE4nGJ8IXjL1hJPhhr8_58NfSa06osO-l5rVrJ989ytkOTljeQPMNrMpZr5NauixeONCgWr-NzyDW85JXLzC7alK3_ZvoJmzHmTghhJcMSplCzDtR4zBYNM4jkarmiAQhHrkjI5Z1oa1bHLKY/w236-h198/71N9-YU8C6L.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /><br /><br /><br />The nine novels of the Expanse came to their conclusion in November 2021 with </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Leviathan Falls</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">. Filmed as a first-rate TV series, the novels naturally follow a somewhat different trajectory. After finishing the last four novels over the course of the year, I could appreciate the value of the original material afresh. The characters have more room to breathe. The realities of the differing cultures of Mars, the Belt and Earth in the twenty-third century have more room to be explored. The realpolitik of a solar system on the brink of war has a subsequent heft and logic. </span><p></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The nine books fall into three trilogies (roughly), but only the first two have been turned into TV. The last trilogy, which dwarfs in scale and consequences the previous two, now looks unlikely to get the adaptation it deserves.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">While it is far from original - the Expanse borrows heavily from nearly a century of American and British space opera, from the Golden Age to the New Wave and the modern reinvention of the genre - it uses the tropes and cliches of the genre to great effect. It also has structural similarities to George RR Martin's </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Song of Ice and Fire</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> fantasy novels. Both use multiple narrative third-person viewpoints. Both tell a tale of complex politics with multiple powers and personalities striving to control a chaotic, factionalised world. They introduce an initially low-key outside threat that soon grows into something that becomes the centre of the narrative while never fully explained. Above all else, both do some impressive world-building that immerses you in a believable world with diverse cultures and languages.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">But it is still an artisan's work compared to the other sequence I stumbled upon this year.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></span></p><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Hyperion Cantos</span></h4><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77566.Hyperion?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1671" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDo6u3M_ItDTIktWi-akU_APrlxXDd_7zh-8WKZSy7xaIk86-N6MnE_aniMzYkPg6uZhQlI3lu0NRFXOP72GvH046whgmf3yfnqhR7RfKtcGWJhrc6Xhk175XvtPlCErmLKNVy5IdkPH8SsbTenBOQKO-vKrMfIrB6iN9YqT69USp5uTpdQpo/s320/91eMovpZItL.jpg" width="209" /></a></div><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Taking its titles from two of Joh Keat's poems, </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Hyperion</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> and </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">the Fall of Hyperion</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">, are something remarkable. The first novel is structured like the </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Canterbury Tales</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> but also draws on the poetry of Keats, Christian and Jewish theology and Scripture, the works of Shusako Endo (especially </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Silence)</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">, hard-boiled detective fiction, and the wildest edges of modern space opera, to create something unique. It is a narrative about the emergence of sentient AI (and what comes beyond that), deity, and the purpose of humanity, suffering, life, and death. At times, I found the individual stories of the core protagonists profoundly moving and almost too painful to finish. </span><p></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">All this and a cracking good yarn to boot!</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I felt the second novel finished perfectly. The two sequels (</span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Endymion</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> and </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The Rise of Endymion</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> - also from Keats) seemed unnecessary and are, by all accounts, inferior works. So I have not (yet) ventured to read them. </span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">While </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">The Expanse</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> sequence is a great, rip-roaring adventure, </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Hyperion Cantos </em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">are something more complex and need a slower read and re-read.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Faith, Hope and Carnage</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/59851730" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvRJyZ1Xy3p_r4biM-oYEHAkzxDWMxyWf8e_9I6j_nGccsJcQs9dD_p0IwQAWTVLb9U9Vjc8VO5pCBdJesqwQIJatKuC4uzVNkD7lVBjX2JfppBbpLXAUNmAJd_8isqUazf32IPtYN6FGvt8lDdv8wXXVryo-AmyfDsXRH9KjHDl9KmRUPqY/s320/41CCJFqQ+wL._SX323_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" width="208" /></a></div></h4><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I knew I had finally given in to my inner grumpy old white man when I began to immerse myself in the music of Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, and, most recently, Nick Cave. They all have something that speaks to my lived experience as a white man entering his seventh decade and a spirituality born of hard lives, love, losses, hope, and pain.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">However, Nick Cave, the human being rather than the artist and performance persona, was a revelation to me. In a series of recorded, transcribed interviews, he and journalist Seán O'Hagan, explore his songwriting process, his relationship to fame, and the highs and lows of being in a band (including stories of drinking and drug excesses and run-ins with the police). All somewhat familiar, standard rock journalism and storytelling.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">But the book veers off quite early in unexpected directions. Not least, into Cave's growing Christian faith and how he and his wife have come to terms with the loss of his fifteen-year-old son, Arthur, in a tragic accident in 2015. His reflections on faith and grief are profound, raw, hopeful, and eloquent. </span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">This was probably the most moving book I have 'read' in years. Actually, I listened - the audiobook is Cave and O'Hagan reading, and their voices give the whole weight of Cave's self-disclosure some extra heft. His eloquence in writing and speaking the unwritable and unspeakable are pretty remarkable. And to see a man in his mid-sixties still growing, learning, creating, and working like a trojan to produce work of remarkable quality, is heartening and inspiring to me as I look at turning sixty in the next two or three years. His output is both prodigious and diverse, from his rock albums to film soundtracks, to novels, to films.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">As Cave says at one point, '</span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">life is too damned short not to be awed</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">'. This is from a man at an age that, in the recent past, would have seen him retiring and stepping back from all this creative energy to look back on his long life. Here instead, is someone whose pain and loss have reshaped him into a more richly human, spiritually questing individual. Maybe that is a source of hope for anyone as they enter this third act of life.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">How to Inhabit Time</span></h4><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://jameskasmith.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrdByYNz30UyKR33Wx-CJRnnJc3bwH6VWEmFGOeOGuHk3bGLCCe_oOoy1bmMN7xbZEgPTYVFfNP-HAd8y3ocf_IQIevWARSWcy3SWAH0ayqR40LSbvG5ucbQ8gZqRuXF0PtBXeVaw6wCIesLj7wityaxuY9JU7udt2J1g7SPYASySkKD5LWb4/s320/3d-cover.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">This brings me to my favourite book of the year! In many ways, this book gives the theological and philosophical underpinnings of what Nick Cave was writing about in the previous book. James K A Smith has written several books in recent years that seem to have resonated in Christian and possibly secular circles. From exploring the liturgies of culture and how they shape our beliefs and lives. to unpacking the dense philosophy of Charles Taylor into an engaging book about faith in the secular world, Smith has tackled complex ideas with passion and insight.</span><p></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">I first got turned on to his writing by his previous book, </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">On the Road with St Augustine,</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> turning the great early medieval theologian and philosopher into a travelling companion on a Kerouacian pilgrimage across Europe and modern-day life. Along the way, they pick up other hitchhikers such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Satre, seeing the journey from their perspectives but finding a more satisfying point of view in Augustine. It is a book I keep re-reading for its depth of insight.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">How to Inhabit time</em><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"> may be his most intimate book yet, exploring the travails of family life and loss to illustrate how faith engages with our temporal and fleeting existence as human beings. You can already see how it links back to </span><em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Faith, Hope and Carnage! </em></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">How do we understand our past and anticipate our future while living firmly grounded in the present? How do we live in the moment while recognising the past as the 'compost' out of which we are growing? How do we remain grounded in the here and now while anticipating a future steeped in biblical eschatology? Well, he does not have all the answers, but Smith's engaging, passionate, culturally rich writing will take you on a journey to discover the answers for yourself. A journey that is probably worth taking with Augustine as a travelling companion.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">It's another book to read and re-read.</span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0e101a; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span data-preserver-spaces="true" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">In my next blogs, I'll look at some of the films and TV that have shaped my year.</span></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-51763132471001656042022-10-04T20:39:00.004+00:002022-10-04T20:39:28.578+00:00The streets<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEXXcE-sfNUxlg56dSoIumODKEutEl3AoMha749X9nspWJ9iHTPNVNdsWAHN6eBph_3SCMy327Iu3JbLJdicqv0fI__DCQyq0-lx4pOTswfsdjzf6WII8HbBH_umCBz4GzCs0V-5n19rD_d3MfsUVXFxWibp41XDW2K9ktpFStHn5cfgagPY/s1659/local.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="1659" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEXXcE-sfNUxlg56dSoIumODKEutEl3AoMha749X9nspWJ9iHTPNVNdsWAHN6eBph_3SCMy327Iu3JbLJdicqv0fI__DCQyq0-lx4pOTswfsdjzf6WII8HbBH_umCBz4GzCs0V-5n19rD_d3MfsUVXFxWibp41XDW2K9ktpFStHn5cfgagPY/s320/local.png" width="320" /></a></div>One of the things that separates the New World from the Old is the layout of our cities. A New World City, like New York, Sydney, or Vancouver, has a linear, grid-like layout. Easy to navigate, nicely symmetrical, dull as ditchwater. Even if the surrounding landscape is chaotic, the New World city imposes on nature in a very rigid, linear manner.<p></p><p>Old World Cities, like Prague or London, are a bit more chaotic. The cityscape is stunning but organic, layer upon layer, with no apparent overriding pattern or plan. London, in particular, exemplifies this, with different aesthetics and eras overlapping one another within a few streets.</p><p>While the linear streets of the Americas and the Antipodes have a sense of masculine order imposed upon nature, the streets of my neighbourhood here in Northwest Kent are more organic and feminine, moving with rather than against local geography. They curve and curl and twist, following the contours of the hills that dominate the area. When I run, it is never in a straight line or on the flat. I have to follow curling streets that loop around or curl back on themselves, that climb steeply or fall away precipitately.</p><p>Running the streets of my immediate neighbourhood is always an adventure, an exploration. You can stumble upon a house built on the edge of a precipice, with a garden that falls or climbs madly from the back door or climbs around at weird, tortuous angles. Some houses abut the street at the first floor, others have front doors high above the footfall of mere mortals. Some would be a safe haven in heavy rain but a nightmare in snow. A few flood regularly. All allow impossibly epic views across the valley, catching dawn and sunset spectacularly.</p><p>And always, as a runner, you have to learn to run the hills as they curve and swoop. You learn to love the sudden steep inclines while craving the brief moment of the flat or the gentle downhill as your burning lungs and legs demand a brief respite. Never do you get bored. Never does the view fail to surprise or excite. The urban never felt so organic to me. Never felt so much like the woodlands about this tiny, hidden suburb of a London satellite town.</p><p>I grew to love these streets over two years of lockdowns during the Covid pandemic. They were my bolt hole, my source of escape and surprise. To discover that I lived in a place of such strange yet mundane majesty was a surprise. I had dismissed my dormitory town as a sleepy place, one of absence rather than presence, of boredom rather than surprise. Now I have come to love it as a place of constant fresh discovery, a challenge to heart and leg and lung as I pound the streets at sunrise and sunset.</p>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-69342902926130262012020-05-09T08:57:00.001+00:002023-01-02T17:58:33.635+00:00Unprecedented<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdf7mG0K7bj6IKQt-qS-rXfd-NeHjw7rRpUHcvTi1qUw61_B6z9sbooDiyicuXhI3-E1tHffepOXkI0r3aKbwMbuVRtKuJ2MqSJe7Q7AWPcmos_dgqAXWT0PLRFEOyyaow9C9-Yg/s1600/Cyprian-Plague.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="620" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdf7mG0K7bj6IKQt-qS-rXfd-NeHjw7rRpUHcvTi1qUw61_B6z9sbooDiyicuXhI3-E1tHffepOXkI0r3aKbwMbuVRtKuJ2MqSJe7Q7AWPcmos_dgqAXWT0PLRFEOyyaow9C9-Yg/s320/Cyprian-Plague.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Probably one of the most <a href="https://newsthump.com/2020/03/19/unprecedented-use-of-word-unprecedented-becomes-unprecedented/">unprecedented</a>
things about COVID-19 has been the unprecedented use of the word <i>unprecedented
</i>in the wall-to-wall coverage of the pandemic. Well, at least in my unprecedented experience!<o:p></o:p></div>
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The ever-helpful <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/news-trend-watch/see-all">Merriam-Webster
watch on trending words</a> hasn’t clocked it yet, but that may be because
there are plenty of other words tickling the fancy of Americans on the web. It may
also be that it defines the word as ‘<i>having no precedent’</i>, which while
being concise, is somewhat unhelpful.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Our own <a href="https://www.lexico.com/definition/unprecedented">OED</a> defines unprecedented
as an adjective meaning ‘<i>Never done or known before</i>’. It also does not
show the word in its <a href="https://www.lexico.com/">trending searches</a>, suggesting
that the British too have no trouble knowing what the word means (maybe because
the OED definition is a little more useful than Merriam-Webster’s?).<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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Words are not hard-boiled objects that hold an unchanging
value or meaning. Sorry, all you English language purists out there, <i>decimate</i>
<u>does</u> mean destroy as well as reduce by a tenth, and <i>literally</i>
does now also act as an intensive form of <i>figuratively</i>. It’s just the way
language is – words get co-opted to mean things for which the speaker has no
other word to hand, and if that happens widely enough, words change meanings.
It also explains (at least in part) why so many meanings seem to have more words
than is strictly necessary. Think of how many synonyms there are for the word <i>bad</i>
– give yourself half an hour and see how many you can come up with. Surely just
one word would do?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, unprecedented (synonyms – unparalleled, extraordinary,
record, first-time, exceptional, unmatched, etc.) is a word whose meaning is, perhaps
unconsciously, drifting towards a more subjective nuance of the <i>never known before</i> part of the OED
definition. Because the main way that these times are unprecedented is
primarily in the experience to those who are writing. Very few of us (at least
in the English-speaking West) have lived through a major epidemic, let alone a
global pandemic before. Few of us have ever had to contend with being forced to
self-isolate indoors for weeks, not even being able to see loved ones who are
dying or attend funerals. In our, personal experience as human beings, this <i>is</i>
unprecedented.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But you don’t have to go back far to find that our current circumstances
are far from being without precedent. Even last year, the Democratic Republic
of Congo was fighting a major Ebola epidemic that went largely unreported in
the West. A few years earlier, an even more significant Ebola epidemic broke
out in West Africa. Ebola is both highly transmissible and very deadly - far more so than COVID-19.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Much of Asia has dealt with novel coronavirus outbreaks such
as MERS and SARS in the last two decades, and while not as transmissible as
COVID-19, they are both far more deadly. Go back to the fifties and the UK was
dealing with a major influenza epidemic, and of course to 1918/19 and the
infamous (and misnamed and misremembered) Spanish Influenza, which killed more
people in a few months than the First World War, and was spread globally
because of the mass movement of fighting men and refugees. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dig further back and there is a history of cholera epidemics
across Europe and the Americas as our ancestors set about trading with and
colonising parts of South Asia and Indochina where the bacterium <i>Vibrio
cholerae</i> is endemic. Or further still to the outbreaks of bubonic plague
and the still mysterious Black Death in the Middle Ages and Dark Ages. Take it
back further to the Antonine and Cyprian Plagues that swept through the Roman Empire’s
cities in the second and third centuries.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Epidemics have been with us since we built cities and
decided to live cheek-by-jowl with our fellow human beings. Since we decided
that we needed to travel the globe for trade, exploration and the novelty of
seeing new places and people and conquering them for the heck of it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Urbanisation
and travel have shaped epidemics and pandemics for thousands of years. As has
politics – if you think the current debates about lockdown versus the economy
are modern preoccupations, listen to this <a href="https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/blog/2020/231-from-cholera-to-coronavirus">podcast</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The way we deal with epidemics has a long precedent as well.
Quarantine (from <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/quarantine?utm_source=extension_searchhint">the
Italian <i>quaranta giorni</i></a>, rereferring to the forty-day exclusion on
incoming ships to Venice during times of plague in the 14<sup>th</sup> century)
has long been part of the way we deal with infectious diseases. During the
Cyprian plagues people stayed in their homes or fled the cities to the countryside,
leaving the poor and wretched to die with no care or help (apart from the early
church <a href="https://cmfblog.org.uk/2020/03/20/christianity-in-a-time-of-plague/">who
did stay</a> and risked their own lives to care for the vulnerable and the sick).
Nothing unprecedented here either. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nevertheless, for most of us, COVID-19 is a crisis the like
of which we have never experienced. For us, it is unprecedented. So, the
subjective definition of the word is becoming normative, rather than the more
objective nuance. It is a small shift in meaning, but also a profound one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%;">It shows why studying language and history is so importnat. It puts our apparently unprecedented experience into a bigger and wider
context, shows us that such things have happened before, and indeed happen all
the time, and that this too shall pass. Not without cost </span>or pain. Not without inconvenience and disruption. But it
will pass, and we will, for the most part, survive. Coming through pandemics is
far from being without precedent.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-43929317904525233872019-10-12T08:43:00.000+00:002019-10-20T18:42:00.581+00:00Ad Astra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fmNH-hHH4vchlA6_ovFkf6q0UkSpiU4_dBVdL9lYPHcGz3RiIKSNRUIVMQxhh7BT2d1TqNKtGMLIekMjZwbK6I8UP2eU3mwSncolSB-JDvIxm8JblX0W1VkwG-KBZPgiQWGTRg/s1600/ad_astra1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5fmNH-hHH4vchlA6_ovFkf6q0UkSpiU4_dBVdL9lYPHcGz3RiIKSNRUIVMQxhh7BT2d1TqNKtGMLIekMjZwbK6I8UP2eU3mwSncolSB-JDvIxm8JblX0W1VkwG-KBZPgiQWGTRg/s1600/ad_astra1.jpg" /></a></div>
Tying itself firmly to the coattails of recent, 'hard' science fiction films such as <i>Gravity, Interstellar, </i>and <i>Moon</i>, <i>Ad Astra</i> is very much an attempt to do a <i>Heart of Darkness</i> for the space age in much the same way that <i>Apocalypse Now</i> did for the Vietnam War.<br />
<br />
Visually sumptuous, well-acted, with an evocative Max Richter <a href="https://open.spotify.com/album/3SapFtmMw8WCjCRLaABmZ1?si=tyHcOl2oT7SxORC7fvBOAg" target="_blank">score</a>, and in writer/director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0336695/" target="_blank">James Gra</a>y a creator who has an interesting body of work behind him. On paper at least, it certainly has all the right credentials<br />
<br />
Hopes were high for this film before its release, and some critics have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/ad-astra-is-an-astronaut-adventure-with-soul-and-its-brightest-star-is-brad-pitt/2019/09/16/0fc36b66-d4b9-11e9-86ac-0f250cc91758_story.html" target="_blank">praised it highly.</a> Astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is sent on a mission across the solar system to contact and stop his long-lost father (Tommy Lee Jones) from an enterprise that could threaten all life on earth. We are also promised that what he discovers along the way could have profound implications for humanity and our understanding of our place in the universe.<br />
<br />
We explore McBride's inner turmoil over his long-absent father through a series of inner monologues, while externally he shows little or no emotion or human connection. It's because he's never really known his father, you see. His father, we are repeatedly told by other characters, is a hero of space exploration, someone who went further into space than anyone else in order to uncover the truth of whether there is any other intelligent life out there. McBride only knows him as an absent figure for most of his childhood and his whole adult life.<br />
<br />
A series of action-packed set pieces break up these introspective musings. They make little sense in themselves; an attempted hi-jacking on lunar buggies; an abandoned space station with rage-filled, killer test-subjects; a lethal zero-g fistfight. Each gives McBride an excuse to muse on the fragility of human existence, the pointlessness of our endless wars and conflicts and the bitterness of the unintended consequences to well-intentioned but misguided choices.<br />
<br />
But its baggy, clumsy plotting could have been forgivable if there was a denouement that actually brought everything together or, at the very least, left us with a sense of awe and mystery. As best I can I will avoid too many spoilers, but it is hard to critique the film without hinting at the finale - so skip to the last three paragraphs if you would rather not know anything about how the film finishes.<br />
<br />
Firstly, it is a pretty saccharine and bland ending. When father and son finally confront one another at the very edge of our planetary system, there are two major revelations - about his father and about what his father has found. They should fall like hammer blows, but they don't. The first is meant to change how McBride sees himself, the second how humanity understands its place in the universe. But they are skipped over so quickly that there is little impact at all.<br />
<br />
Secondly, because we never see much of McBride's childhood or his marriage, we are only given vague visual cues and ponderous voice-overs to tell us he finds it hard to form emotional attachments or care for others. Consequently, we end up not really caring about him. More showing, less telling would have fleshed McBride out more and given us some emotional investment in him. Giving the criminally under-used Liv Tyler, as his long-suffering other-half, some actual dialogue and character development would also have given McBride's character arc far more emotional heft and depth.<br />
<br />
Thirdly, Arthur C Clarke said that there were two answers to the question of whether we are alone in the universe. Either there is intelligent life out there, or there is none. Both answers are profoundly terrifying and have huge existential ramifications for the human race. While the question remains open, like Schrodinger's cat in its unopened box, we live with both options and can explore the ideas that they may unleash. The film opens the box, finds the cat dead and then shrugs its shoulders. McBride resolves his daddy issues with a similar shrug, resolves to be more connected with people in future (in another voice-over) and goes back to a presumably happier life with his long-suffering wife. And that's it! So much for uncovering the profound mysteries of the universe!<br />
<br />
One of the other incidental issues touched upon in the film is religion. The crew with whom McBride travels to Mars, pray to St Christopher as they launch, commit the body of a departed comrade to God's keeping with a Christian prayer and, in an old recorded message, McBride's father talks of the profound sense of God's presence with him as he heads further out into the void. The denouement kind of skips over this, but the implication is that his discoveries have stripped McBride's father of hope and faith. This was another wasted opportunity that the film could have explored.<br />
<br />
In a vast, beautiful but apparently lifeless universe, who are we, and what is our world? It is a question we are increasingly having to confront as we discover more and more about the scale and nature of our cosmos.<br />
<br />
As a Christian, I do not see the universe as devoid of meaning. On the contrary, it is filled with divine meaning, whether or not there is any other intelligent life out there. Why the universe is so unimaginably vast is a mystery. Why God has created all of this to lavish his love on one species on one, tiny world in all this vastness is a source of wonder. The alternative, that we are utterly alone in the vastness of a meaningless void is truly soul shrivelling.<br />
<br />
My faith in Christ, who left the divine realm to take up frail humanity and to walk a path of self-sacrifice to the cross for our sake, is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+1%3A18-25&version=NIV" target="_blank">nonsense</a> to many, but for those of us who believe, it takes that vast, existential ache as we look out into the expanse of the cosmos and says 'I am known, I am loved and my existence has meaning'.<br />
<br />
Our hope is not, as the film's opening and title suggest, in the stars. It is in the one who made them.<br />
<br /></div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-79301812170981491702019-08-10T12:19:00.001+00:002024-01-26T12:54:00.174+00:00This is How You Lose the Time War<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs31OVEuMhPVp52qFz4S8cre1lFrXN8am2ownXxLqZthPFkHKzSoVxyqFf5v-uSi7UU8aGw3nLpEZaLGAWDXJI9zrDXOMz0ipxYKFylM2PvxsdSm5SmBXVNsUCnVA76nuLYIbYxw/s1600/45839133._SY475_.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="314" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs31OVEuMhPVp52qFz4S8cre1lFrXN8am2ownXxLqZthPFkHKzSoVxyqFf5v-uSi7UU8aGw3nLpEZaLGAWDXJI9zrDXOMz0ipxYKFylM2PvxsdSm5SmBXVNsUCnVA76nuLYIbYxw/s200/45839133._SY475_.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This summer’s reading list has included fascinating books on
theology, posthumanism and the latest short story collection from the wonderful
Ted Chiang.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, this year’s revelation was a novella by the science
fiction and fantasy authors/poets Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. The title, <i>This is How You Lose the Time War,</i> could have been lifted from an episode of the Russel T Davies era of Doctor Who, although structurally and thematically, it owes a very heavy debt to the Culture novels of Ian M Banks.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It starts with the very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Banksian</i>
scene of a covert operative, equipped with the most sophisticated in-body weaponry,
viewing her handiwork in destroying single-handedly (she thinks) the armies of
two interstellar empires. This is to re-set the course of future history in a
direction her side sees as more favourable to their plans. In this scene of
carnage, she finds an enigmatic paper note that starts ‘burn before reading’.
So begins a correspondence over time and space with her opposite number, an
agent of the enemy in a vast, era and galaxy-spanning time war.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Following each protagonist as they seek to shape the evolution
of humanity towards their own faction’s desired outcome, the narrative shows
them regularly thwarting one another. At the site of each defeat, they leave encoded
messages for one another. Initially taunting, then admiring, then almost
comradely before becoming full-blown love letters, these witty<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>,
passionate epistles form the backbone of the narrative. The focus of the
novella is less on the time war itself, its reasons and strategies, but more on
the growing relationship that the letters reveal between these two protagonists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Full of clever wordplay, the prose sometimes becomes almost purple
(which is apt, given the chosen names of the two central characters). Overall,
the use of language is wonderful. Punning, poetic, emotional and droll, the
writers create whole worlds and epochs in each brief chapter, only to leave them
behind as the narrative and the unfolding correspondence go forward. That the
two protagonists never properly meet (although they do espy one another at a
distance on a couple of occasions) makes the correspondence they share all the
more powerful and revealing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what are the consequences? Are the protagonists going to
keep their superiors in the dark for long about their emerging intimacy? Is one
or other of them trying to turn the other to their side by professing love
falsely? And who or what is the ‘Seeker’ who dogs their footsteps?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The narrative taunts, occasionally misdirects, and
ultimately finishes on a cliffhanger. Is it going to lead to a sequel? I expect
that many will want to know how the story of the lovers who never meet pans
out, but I think the power of the narrative is that it does not wrap up its
threads in neat endings and leaves the reader wanting more. I certainly would
love to read more from both of these authors.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br /></div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-53248323531791033682018-02-28T22:17:00.001+00:002019-08-10T12:56:17.337+00:00The body and Altered Carbon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjzvCCQqKBvONfpEriGPtK8O48ebJvRNMDy-8sXTxMCe_4WbzU3EsR4KbHepp8LPzzwkDXfzk9NuOgLsx02-YbaX4G97z3OFceKOLiVK4La8Dms2AxesfeuPcjWjiMwIGGFPlPA/s1600/alteredcarbon_kovacs_vertical-core_rgb_us.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="605" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjzvCCQqKBvONfpEriGPtK8O48ebJvRNMDy-8sXTxMCe_4WbzU3EsR4KbHepp8LPzzwkDXfzk9NuOgLsx02-YbaX4G97z3OFceKOLiVK4La8Dms2AxesfeuPcjWjiMwIGGFPlPA/s320/alteredcarbon_kovacs_vertical-core_rgb_us.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/" target="_blank">Altered Carbon</a> is the huge big budget science fiction
offering from Netflix. While their recent output in films has been decidedly
dodgy (<i>Bright</i> and <i>The Cloverfield Paradox</i> to name but two that audiences and
critics alike have panned), Altered Carbon has had a more mixed response. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Its
central premise is that, out of salvaged ancient alien technology, humans have
discovered a way to download and record human consciousness in small, hard drive-like devices called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">stacks</i> that sit
at the top of the spinal column. At death, this stack can be reinserted into a
new body. If you are poor and die young or as a result of crime, the state will
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">spin you up</i> into any available body
(usually those of criminals whose stacks have been removed and put on ice indefinitely).
Thus, in an early scene, we see the parents of a seven-year-old girl who died in an accident brought back in the body of a middle-aged woman. Race and gender
become irrelevant – an Asian man comes back in a Caucasian body; an Afro-American woman comes back in a white male body.<br />
In one amusing scene, a cop of Mexcian descent <i>spins up</i> her late Grandmother into the body of a massive, tattooed and bearded drug dealer. Watching this massive man trapesing around a market choosing the choicest ingredients for the family feast on <i>Día de los Muertos </i>was initially amusing, then strangely poignant and uncomfortable, as this ancient festival of remembrance became subverted by new technology,</div>
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<br /></div>
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Of course, the rich can afford to have multiple cloned
bodies in storage to give them back their own bodies after death. They can also regularly back-up their stacks, ensuring that even if the stack is destroyed, they can
still be brought back. When a rich man is murdered and his stack destroyed just before his
regular backup, it means his last 48 hours were lost and the identity of his murderer remains a mystery. This becomes the centre
of the story.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, there is a lot to say about this series, including its huge debt
to Blade Runner in visual style, and indeed to numerous other films. Actually,
even the central conceit is far from original, although seldom seen in cinema and TV. Greg Bear introduced the idea of implants
that could house a human consciousness and be re-housed in a new body in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/840278.Eon?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Eon</a> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">back in 1985</span>. Other authors, including Ian M
Banks, Ken McLeod and Peter F Hamilton have repeatedly used the idea in their
science fiction.</div>
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<br /></div>
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It is indeed a fascinating idea – not least because of its
underlying assumptions. At its core is the idea that the human self is just
software, the body merely the replaceable hardware on which it runs. Self is
memory, personality traits merely programmes. The real you is just data,
and data can be copied, uploaded, downloaded and stored. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The roots of this idea are Neoplatonic – the idea that the real self is a spiritual, immaterial entity, the material body merely an imperfect echo.
The Gnostics took the idea one step further, arguing the spiritual self was real
and good, the material self a sinful illusion – even positing two gods over each realm – the good
creator of the spiritual, the evil creator of the material.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Eastern religions also resonate with this idea with the
doctrine of reincarnation – the spirit reborn time and time again into a new
body. And for many, the Christian idea of life after death is seen as a disembodied existence in God’s presence. That, however, is a travesty of the actual
biblical teaching.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Science Fiction loves this idea because it means in the
godless universe that most of the genre’s authors inhabit, we have the promise
of life after death. Posthumansists sees this as technologically achievable within the next century at the most.<br />
<br />
It is a secular dream, but it is a fantasy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The actual biblical understanding is quite at odds with all
of this. The body and the spirit are integral. The word for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soul</i> in Hebrew and Greek means simply
the person, the self, and in Hebrew is used of the body as well as the mind. The
physical and spiritual are closely linked, so much so that life after death is always
seen as an embodied existence – there is no positive depiction of a disembodied
afterlife in either Old or New Testaments.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
We are fully embodied in our self. Our memories are not just
seated in our brains – they are also seated in our muscles and viscera. Our
hearts and guts contain brain cells, and messages from the heart and bowels affect the brain as
much as vice versa. Take us away from our bodies, we lose our self, our soul.
We are not data, not software that can run in any body. We are an integrated
whole. We are also constantly changing, our minds and our bodies are not the
same from one moment to the next, and their changes are not separate, but
intimately interlinked. Self is not static, it is in constant flux.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Altered Carbon is an interesting and fun bit of slightly OTT
cyberpunk with some interesting ideas that it never fully explores, not least
of which is how alienated a person put into a new body that is not their own
would be. Indeed, would they even be the same person?</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a></div>
</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-14714594441993107102018-01-01T16:09:00.001+00:002020-10-26T20:14:37.651+00:00My Films of the Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
2017 was bit of a bumper year for science fiction films, although very few were even remotely original stories or first time adaptations. Certainly nothing as outstanding as 2016's <i>Arrival</i>, which to my mind sticks out as one of the best films of that year of any genre.<br />
<br />
We've had the remake of <a href="https://elfouche.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/loving-robot.html" target="_blank"><i>Ghost in the Shell</i></a>, which dumbed down a complex story about emergent, self aware AI and post-humans for a simple story of lost identity at the hands of corporate greed. <i>Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2</i> was great fun, but is basically a comedy <i>Star Wards</i> clone, albeit one with real wit and imagination. <i>The Last Jedi</i> was a fun (and surprising) addition to the <i>Star Wars</i> franchise, despite plot holes, <i>Thor 3</i> was even more fun than <i>Guardians </i>or <i>Jedi </i>(and as such was an delightful surprise).<br />
<br />
I could probably add <i>Wonder Woman</i> to this mix, but great fun though it was, it is more a fantasy/superhero crossover than the Marvel universe films.<br />
<br />
The less said about some of the other entries this year, the better!<br />
<br />
So, nothing very original. Lots of sequels, reboots, additions to existing franchise 'universes' and the like. 2018 promises some more interesting material, with <i>Ready Player One</i> in particular generating a lot of early excitement, as is <i>The Shape of Water</i>. Both offer original (albeit in the former's case, adapted) screenplays that might just offer something fresh and new.<br />
<br />
So, for my vote of the film that in 2017 stood out as the best science fiction film, I have to go back to a sequel, albeit one that was twenty five years in the making. <i>Blade Runner 2049</i> managed to stand on the shoulders of <i>Blade Runner</i>, and while remaining hugely respectful and consistent with its forebear, managed to explore the same territory with new depth. And managed to look and sound gorgeous at the same time.<br />
<br />
Yes, there are problems with it - particularly its rather leery camera focus on naked female bodies. I get the idea that this is a brutal, exploitative society and that this is reflected in what we see, but the decision to keep putting naked female flesh graphically on screen feels more exploitative than making a comment.<br />
<br />
However, I also get the point that it is ultimately the female protagonists who are the main agents of change in the narrative, and this has been eloquently argued elsewhere.<br />
<br />
So laying that discomfort to one side, I can say that, while my initial reaction to the film was that it left me cold emotionally, over the months since I saw it the ideas, questions, imagery and character arcs have continued to engage me, and I now really need to see it again. That's how I know a film is real classic - when it won't let you go. All the other films from this year that I enjoyed I would be happy to see again, possibly repeatedly. But <i>Blade Runner</i> I <u>need</u> to see again - because I know there are questions still remaining that only a repeat viewing will help me to tackle.<br />
<br />
The biggest of these questions is around expectation. Without giving away spoilers, the story makes you start looking for a miracle and directs you towards an obvious but powerful answer. But it is the wrong answer, and we are brought up short, along with the protagonist. As one commentator said, at the heart of this film is a very uncomfortable message, but one to which we all need pay attention. We are not as special, not as unique, as we like to think we are. A very anti-Hollywood message indeed.<br />
<br />
At nearly three hours in length, it is also a film that does not rush its storytelling. Many audiences found its length and long shots, long silences and lack of action for extended periods both frustrating and boring. I loved them! The film is an object lesson in telling a story by showing, not telling Which is another reason to see it again, because it misdirects you, makes you think you are seeing one reaction, from a character when it later transpires it was a quite different response. The narrative plays cleverly with our expectations.<br />
<br />
Finally, it is a story that explores once again the<a href="https://elfouche.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/westworld.html" target="_blank"> use of technology to exploit and control people.</a> It is about the exercise and abuse of power and how it is opposed. As such it is a very welcome and timely addition to the genre. </div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-78651979239349357452017-12-29T20:56:00.005+00:002019-10-18T20:11:30.098+00:00The 'Other'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My preferred genre of literature has, since my youth, been science fiction, in cinema, television, but above all in literature. Spy thrillers, crime, literary fiction, all have their merits, and I have enjoyed many of them, but the genre that seems to constantly challenge our knowledge of the world and of ourselves for me is science fiction.<br />
<br />
There are many tropes that recur in the genre. The advent of artificial intelligence, the end of the world, invasions by aliens, and first contact with aliens in a less confrontational context.<br />
<br />
It is the first contact stories that fascinate me the most. When Cervantes 'discovered' Mexico or Polo travelled to the court of the Chinese Emperor, or Xavier sent missions into Japan, all presented the West with the challenge of understanding alien cultures and societies very distant and different from our own. Now that experience of the other is best explored in fiction, as most of the world is now explored and its cultures and languages catalogued and studied endlessly. And our culture is itself under the scrutiny of these cultures, as they hold up uncomfortable but revealing mirrors to us.<br />
<br />
While your average TV and cinema first contact story usually involves essentially human-like aliens, it is usually an exploration of these earlier, colonial encounters with other cultures that are being revisited and explored.<br />
<br />
More challenging are those stories that present us with an encounter with something beyond our understanding, beyond our experience, and which cannot be mapped, discussed or catalogued by our senses or language.<br />
<br />
The most fascinating recent example of this is Jeff VanderMeer's <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22752442-area-x?from_search=true" target="_blank"><i>Southern Reach</i> <i>trilogy</i></a>. The first book, <i>Anhiliation</i> has been <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_cZ3rOmY-s" target="_blank">filmed</a> and goes on general release in the US in January and worldwide on Netflix in February. By the looks of the trailer, Alex Garland has taken a particular direction with the story that the original studiously eschews, which is disappointing.<br />
<br />
In the trilogy, a series of characters struggle with understanding Area X, a region of the southern US coastline that has been sealed off from the outside world by an enigmatic and invisible barrier. It is only penetrable through one, distressing doorway. On the other side is a pristine ecosystem, the signs of the previous human habitation all but decayed to nothing in a few decades, save for an old Lighthouse. But is the landscape and the wildlife that inhabit it what they seem to be? And why do all those who enter come back mad, dead or changed? Something is going on in Area X that defies human measurement and understanding.<br />
<br />
Area X is reminiscent of another, inscrutable alien environment, the enigmatic, eponymous planet <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/95558.Solaris?ac=1&from_search=true" target="_blank">Solaris</a> in Stanislaw Lem's classic. Solaris is a world covered by an ocean that seems to create structures and forms of great complexity, but whose purpose and function is totally inscrutable. Yet the planet (or its ocean) react to human probes and the presence of scientists hovering above the surface. The most dramatic form of this reaction is the visitors that the scientists are afflicted by - manifestations of people from their past about whom they feel and a profound sense of guilt or grief. What is the purpose of these visitors? Are they probes, lab experiments or an attempt at contact? Or are they just an unconscious response from an entity too alien to truly interact with us?<br />
<br />
Area X similarly seems to create copies of the humans who visit - but to what end is totally unclear. And there are other things moving in Area X that do not conform to any known terrestrial form. It becomes more and more clear as time goes by that a particular form of observer effect is going on. Everything, down the cellular level appears totally normal when observed, but there is a palpable sense that the rest of the time, Area X is not at all as it appears to be.<br />
<br />
Both the <i>Southern Reach trilogy</i> and <i>Solaris</i> do not give any final answers to the nature of the other that is being encountered. What is clear is that both Area X and Solaris are not knowable. There is a limit to human understanding, there is a boundary to our knowledge.<br />
<br />
Martin Luther challenged the scholastic tradition of his day, which believed that all we need to know can be accessed through reason and study, arguing that reason and study can only get us so far, but to apprehend God, we need him to reveal himself. The ultimate expression of that revelation came in the person of Jesus - making that which was unknowable and unapproachable both visible and touchable. <br />
<br />
While neither Solaris nor Area X are divine - the are finite, space and time-bound entities that still elude our understanding - they remind us that there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophies. However, it is in the encounter with that which is beyond us, the 'other' that we see a mirror into our own selves. It's not always a comfortable reflection to behold.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-90976522547253642682017-08-11T19:51:00.000+00:002019-08-10T12:26:20.454+00:00More Dante than you could shake a stick at!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4d4MuZRKzpXnQfovZpRWFfxPMO9KaadIHir47QrOMxjWMptmnfAQo0tYMOxoMc-R5HfRniYzHr2FlsdzaxQAAxLeDI8qZNSWF4h8vNfiHgncSFBxC7YToOm3iUppzkToTPr8buQ/s1600/20170408_131310.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4d4MuZRKzpXnQfovZpRWFfxPMO9KaadIHir47QrOMxjWMptmnfAQo0tYMOxoMc-R5HfRniYzHr2FlsdzaxQAAxLeDI8qZNSWF4h8vNfiHgncSFBxC7YToOm3iUppzkToTPr8buQ/s320/20170408_131310.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom: solid #C6C6C6 1.0pt; border: none; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0cm 0cm 2.0pt 0cm;">
<div class="underline">
</div>
Dante! You and your blinking Divine Comedy constantly rattling
around my head. All that ‘Halfway through this journey of life’ stuff. Enough to
make a grown man stop and reflect. Last thing we should be doing as men,
Stopping, that is. Reflecting even less so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But then there is this gnawing worry that I’ve got it wrong.
Why am I not more successful and driving a posh car rather than a mid-range
people carrier? Why am I living in a pokey, three-bedroom townhouse with a
postage stamp for a garden in a mouldy London exurb and not a big, five-bedroom detached house with a proper garden and my own study? And why am I
looking at maybe another twenty years working life at tops, to retire on a tiny
pension?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well old <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri" title="Dante Alighieri">Alighieri</a></span>
Dante knew the human condition when he wrote to opening verse to the Divine
Comedy – </div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoQuote">
<i>When half way through the journey of our life</i><br />
<i>I found that I was in a gloomy wood,</i><br />
<i>because the path which led aright was lost.</i></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was putting into poetic form this spiritual dark night that
we now call the ‘mid-life crisis’. He then takes his protagonist on an epic journey
through the realms of Limbo, Hell, Purgatory and Paradise to lead him back to
the ‘<i>path which led aright</i>’. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Actually, at this stage, I must hold my hands up and confess
that I have only read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inferno</i>,
because I found both the purgatory and paradise bits rather dull by comparison,
and because I had been entranced by the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098428/">1989 Peter Greenway TV adaptation</a>
of the first eight Cantos. But this opening stanza of Canto I of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inferno</i> has stuck with me and grown in
relevance as I transitioned from youth to middle age and began to wonder
whether my life was ‘lost on in a gloomy wood’.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This summer, my better half and children and I decamped to
one of those huge summer, Christian festivals that involved lots of excessively loud worship
(this year’s styles verged between the traditional <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">U2</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Coldplay</i> rip-offs,
and (new this year) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clean Bandit</i>),
lots of meetings and seminars and prayer ministry. And camping. In lots and
lots of rain and mud. And dirty, smelly loos and showers. And lots of BO. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We
loved it! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The highlight this year (and there were several standout
moments, including the aforementioned <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clean
Bandit</i> style worship rave on the last evening – more in the watching and
joining in for me) was Nick Page’s ‘<a href="http://darknightoftheshed.com/">Dark
Night of the Shed</a>’ seminar. With much humour and honesty, he began to
explore the male mid-life crisis, dissecting its roots mercilessly, cataloguing
its symptoms hilariously, and soberly beginning to re-look at how we transform
the narrative of our lives.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In short, Page argues, the mid-life crisis is caused when we
realise that our false gods are letting us down. Be they the worship of money
and consumerism, our long-lost youth, power and status or sex, these false gods
all promise us much in our youth, but are revealed by middle age as worthless
idols. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You can see where this is going, can’t you? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The way through the mid-life
crisis is to re-engage with an authentic, Christ-centred spirituality. To recognise
it is not our power that achieves anything, but His. To recognise what the
Bible says about our senior years and not what our current cultural obsession
with youth says.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is really what Dante was writing about seven hundred
years ago. He understood that the mid-life crisis is a spiritual crisis. For
me, to discover that there are other men (and women) who feel the same as me has been truly liberating.
Even more encouraging has been to realise that they have found a way through it to a richer way of being in
the second half of life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I started this blog in 2006, I was hoping to write about life and
faith and my experiences along the way. Over the years, this has slowed down to
a dribble of posts and has been more a cultural commentary than a personal reflection. I’m not ruling out such commentary in the future, but think that there is a more interesting journey to start recording
here.</div>
</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-8408131129664930832017-06-16T21:07:00.000+00:002019-10-18T20:09:43.338+00:00Knowing your scriptures better than the devil: lessons from the Handmaid’s Tale<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxOhHsHryC8gsPZGjbeDQTNlmJI82zXXKaqeFOd9CSYDWrZz393B5M-OvW9sbkWOJgUk8RWqQ46oxbSW4Oe4v2610PSqt2_yqz_plSh5-h5XbsJk5BreIW6z3FlkXpk6z1UT2hA/s1600/handmaids-tale.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="1200" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxOhHsHryC8gsPZGjbeDQTNlmJI82zXXKaqeFOd9CSYDWrZz393B5M-OvW9sbkWOJgUk8RWqQ46oxbSW4Oe4v2610PSqt2_yqz_plSh5-h5XbsJk5BreIW6z3FlkXpk6z1UT2hA/s320/handmaids-tale.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Margaret Atwood seminal narrative of a nameless woman’s
struggle to survive in a repressive theocratic dictatorship has gone beyond
being a widely lauded literary classic. With its latest incarnation as a <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj3tve-nsPUAhVEI8AKHTMcCKsQFghYMAY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.channel4.com%2Fprogrammes%2Fthe-handmaids-tale&usg=AFQjCNGFFJPLMQjpHwLcEbofHrzlz3lSAA&sig2=J-BwgRv0vGXk8pgfz3P8XA" target="_blank">television series</a> (it has previously been an <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjgi87rnsPUAhXKLMAKHUNWAaIQFgg6MAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fculture-desk%2Frevisiting-the-handmaids-tale-the-opera&usg=AFQjCNE-egepP8YUvwlkz1zU-PZFM-tm_w&sig2=i-EwFBUFHjrGvhdGc1uSYw" target="_blank">opera </a>and a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099731/mediaindex?ref_=tt_pv_mi_sm" target="_blank">Hollywood film</a>), it has moved
into that iconic territory that is inhabited by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brave New World</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has become a prophetic warning of the
danger of totalitarianism.</div>
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Unlike those three, male penned titles, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Handmaid</i> is focussed on the particular evils of religious dictatorships
and the oppression of the female body as a tool of the state. As such, the red
dresses and white bonnets of the Handmaids, in particular, have become items of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40264004" target="_blank">political protest</a> and even <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/fashion/hulu-handmaids-tale-vaquera.html?_r=0" target="_blank">fashion</a> statements. They have certainly become
almost instantly recognisable, even before the cinematic and televisual
adaptations, and have themselves become iconic – symbols of the oppression of
women who have been reduced to the status of a womb on legs.</div>
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The gender politics of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Handmaid’s Tale</i> is also being seen as very topical, with the arrival of
another Republican, abortion de-funding regime in White House. Here in the UK,
the current cosying up of the Tory minority government to the Democratic
Unionist Party is raising similar liberal hysteria about a threat to abortion rights
and same-sex marriage in Britain. While the latter is frankly silly (not only
are both issues matters for devolved governments and therefore strictly off
the table in any Westminster level negotiations but all the main parties in
Ulster at the moment are pro-Life and anti-same-sex marriage - the DUP is not outside of the norm in Northern Ireland in this respect).<br />
Nevertheless, the former has
some traction.<br />
<br /></div>
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The TV series has certainly hit a raw nerve in the States,
with its depiction of the rise of the Sons of Jacob (the religious fanatics who
take over at least part of the USA to form their Republic of Gilead). We see
what Atwood only alludes to – the closing of women’s bank accounts, loss of their rights to employment and rights to property. We hear about a murderous attack on US Congress,
blamed on terrorists but actually organised by the Sons of Jacob as a pretext
for the imposition of martial law and the suspension of the constitution. One
presumes this is after many years of building up a network of supporters and
wider cultural acceptance of their particular flavour of ultra-conservative, Reformed
Christianity.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is chillingly not far from reality – similar scenarios
have allowed other religious and nationalist fanatics take power in many parts
of the world over the centuries. Likewise, the TV show gives us summary executions
of homosexuals, abortion providers, ministers and priests of other faiths and
denominations, etc. such as may be seen in modern-day Iran and Chechnya. ‘Salvaging’
– the group execution of certain political prisoners is taken from an Iranian
model that makes the mob complicit in the death. The segregation of the
women into different castes based around dress can be found in Nazi
concentration camps and many other regimes. And other forms of violence against
women, including female genital mutilation (one character is given a clitorectomy
to stop her from seeking forbidden sexual liaisons), also have a strong basis in
reality.<br />
<br /></div>
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But for me, the most challenging element deep down in the structure of this shocking
novel is the religious roots of this brutal regime. The Sons of Jacob adhere to
biblical literalism. However, as anyone who knows the Bible well can tell you,
there are many ways to take the Bible literally, many mutually contradictory,
and all reliant on a selective use of proof texts.<br />
<br /></div>
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When Aunt Lydia, who is the main teacher and moral overseer
of the Handmaids, quotes Matthew 5:5 ‘<i>blessed are the meek</i>’ to Offred, our
protagonist, to encourage her to comply with her interrogation, Offred quotes
back at Matthew 5:10 ‘<i>blessed are those who suffer for the cause of
righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven</i>’, and gets beaten and cattle
prodded for her audacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Satan knows
the scriptures well, so be sure you know them better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
That, at the end of the day, is how the US sleepwalks into
Gilead. As Offred says, we were asleep even when they slaughtered Congress, suspended the Constitution and
imposed martial law. The secular majority could not believe it could happen and
did not engage with the scriptures that the Sons of Jacob used in what they
believed was their struggle to restore the US to a pristine, New England Puritan
righteousness. The religious did not know their scripture well enough to
challenge the Sons of Jacob, and so many of them fell under their spell.</div>
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<br />
Christians need to come terms with our history. We did set
up brutal theocracies – whether it was the Salem witch trials in Puritan New
England, the Spanish Inquisition, Calvin’s Geneva, etc. The church has form. We
also did these things because we took our scriptures and used them selectively
to justify what we already wanted to do. The Bible is a living book. It teaches us and shows us the way when we interrogate it,
but we need wisdom about the questions and to interrogate the whole of scripture, not just the bits
we know or feel comfortable with.</div>
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<br />
As a final note, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Handmaid’s Tale</i> can seem like an anti-Christian polemic, that would be to
do it a disservice. Atwood is far too nuanced a writer for simplistic polemics.
The Republic of Gilead is at war with Baptists, Catholics and Quakers, who smuggle
fertile women and other political refugees across the border into Canada. Some Christians (at least
those from non-pacifist denominations) are spearheading the armed resistance
inside and outside of Gilead. Just as not all Muslims (and not even all Shia) subscribe
to the Iranian strain that has ruled for decades, let alone do all Sunni
subscribe to the ultra-extreme Wahhabism of the Islamic State, so not all
Christians subscribe to the doctrines and practices of the Sons of Jacob. Some
of them knew their scriptures and their humanity much better.</div>
</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-31620987092554255622017-04-18T21:15:00.000+00:002017-08-12T07:03:32.386+00:00Generation to generation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Intergenerational
wars seem de rigour at the moment, although to me they seem rather hackneyed.
The current manifestation is the slanging match between Millennials and Baby
Boomers. The latter being accused by the former as wreckers who have destroyed
the planet and the economy, leaving them with unaffordable housing, healthcare,
insurance and taxes and only McJobs to pay for it all. The former accuse the
latter of being snowflakes who need 'safe spaces', cannot decide what gender
they are, are unwilling to work or study and have no intellectual consistency. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Cicero famously said
'Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing
a book.' Or maybe a blog or a Tweet…. Horace, noted that </div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
'Our sires' age was
worse than our grandsires'. We, their sons, are more</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
worthless than they;
so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
corrupt.'</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
As the philosopher
said, there is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1%3A9&version=NIV">nothing
new under the sun</a>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
The usual moans that
one generation has about the other are, to be fair, and as the above quotes
show, neither anything new, nor totally without foundation. However, we always
relied on one central contract - that the wealth, learning and opportunities afforded
to our elders would come down to us, in turn to passed on to those coming
behind us. In the last century it became so that we would accrue yet greater
wealth and learning than our parents to pass on to our children who in turn
would enjoy yet greater opportunity. That now seems to have broken down, with a
generation retiring now that will be the last to do so early or to enjoy wealth
and the fruit of their labours for so long.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
We now see
succeeding generations earning less than preceding ones, looking at working
longer and enjoying shorter and poorer retirements. We will be caring for our
elders into our old age, as they live into their ninth or tenth decade, while
our kids will have to live with us because they cannot afford to set up their
own homes. Multigenerational households will be inevitable once again. Social
mobility will slow down. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/18/older-people-due-to-pass-on-property-wealth-mountain-worth-400bn?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet">Inherited
wealth is being passed on</a> (often skipping generations) but will benefit
only those with affluent grandparents.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Our care system,
designed to ensure that no-one would go into their final years uncared for, is
now breaking down because we are seeing both an increasing ageing population
who live longer but with poor health and increased dependency. Hidden within
this are the millions who care for parents, spouses and siblings, many of whom
are also older and in deteriorating health. Successive governments have refused
to grasp the public policy nettle of finding a wider social solution, including
insurance schemes as part of retirement planning. Many solutions have been put forward, but it
requires a government prepared to put in the time, money and political capital
to make it happen.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
If the generational
contract is breaking down, snowflake Millennials resenting feckless and selfish
Baby Boomers and vice versa, then how do we expect the young to care for the
old, to fund their care or be their carers? Maybe we need some intergenerational
reconciliation, because the grim reality is, we will need each other in the
decades to come. If the Millennials ? and Baby Boomers hate each other now, how
will it be for Generations X and Z when it's our turn? We Genexers will be
caring for the Boomers and the Millennials and the Genzeds as we begin to move
towards our retirements. Our households will soon include parents,
grandparents, children and grandchildren. We'll need to find a new way of
relating to one another, because the option to move out will be less and less
available for the youngsters, and the option of care homes, let alone
domiciliary care won't be there for our elders. We'll need to reinvent family
again.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
The Jewish
households of the Old Testament were known as <span style="font-style: italic;">beth'avoth</span>,
or households, and were not only intergenerational (parents, grandparents,
children and their spouses and the grandchildren) but also slaves (or bond
servants) and foreigners or sojourners. The nuclear family did not exist. Go
around the world, you'll find the nuclear family still a recent aberration, to
be found in the emerging middle classes of developed and developing countries,
but nowhere else. Here in the West where we invented this aberration, we are
soon going to have to abandon it again, along with the lone parent household,
the singleton living alone or the childless couple in a large, empty house.
We'll be sharing rooms, sharing lives, sharing meals, sharing hopes, fears,
opportunities and troubles. It may not be as horrible as we fear - in fact,
maybe, just maybe we'll find again something we lost a long time ago. </div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
But I bet we'll
still moan about the youngsters of today - it's an institutional sport!</div>
</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-39928406706728144552017-04-17T16:24:00.000+00:002019-10-18T20:29:11.598+00:00Loving the Robot?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaIvXYSL2xXBYXwi1WQq1LwIEOGMsOqUM8IpYmygFmFpy9IV7tW0JzUdZG0VbIP082TbxO6GBRfxDXjGlyQoZh6XzDC3et0_4_P0EqMr9aQih4wk-Fqs52rF6BB1X8BMH1pnoPqQ/s1600/MV5BMzJiNTI3MjItMGJiMy00YzA1LTg2MTItZmE1ZmRhOWQ0NGY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTk4MTM0NQ%2540%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaIvXYSL2xXBYXwi1WQq1LwIEOGMsOqUM8IpYmygFmFpy9IV7tW0JzUdZG0VbIP082TbxO6GBRfxDXjGlyQoZh6XzDC3et0_4_P0EqMr9aQih4wk-Fqs52rF6BB1X8BMH1pnoPqQ/s1600/MV5BMzJiNTI3MjItMGJiMy00YzA1LTg2MTItZmE1ZmRhOWQ0NGY1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyOTk4MTM0NQ%2540%2540._V1_UX182_CR0%252C0%252C182%252C268_AL_.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
The live-action
version of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219827/" target="_blank">Ghost in the Shel</a>l is (for the time being at least) out in cinemas.
It has become infamous because of an alleged '<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/31/ghost-in-the-shells-whitewashing-does-hollywood-have-an-asian-problem" target="_blank">whitewashing</a>' by casting the
Caucasian Scarlett Johansson in the role of
Major Motoko Kusanagi, a supposedly Japanese character. In the original
anime, the character is of indeterminate race, not least because she is, in fact, a cyborg. Not a woman but a sophisticated, human-seeming, armoured chassis
holding a human brain. The gender and race of Major is anything but what it
seems. The English title taking its cue from
Arthur Koestler's '<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30677.The_Ghost_in_the_Machine" target="_blank">Ghost in the Machine'</a>, exploring the idea of identity
and self outside of our physical body. Major is not really a woman, even if her
brain is (or was) - she only appears to have humanity because her body has
been created that way. She could have any form.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Why does she have a
female form (especially one that is regularly on show in a skin-tight latex
combat suit)? Let's be honest, given that the prime audience for anime and most
Hollywood action sci-fi is fifteen-year-old males, the answer is not too hard to figure
out. Major may be tough, and not have any overt sexuality beyond her
appearance. Some may even argue that she is subverting the stereotyping of
women, but actually, the film is still pandering to it, just creating the new stereotype
of the sexy but tough female warrior that has become fashionable ever since
Sigourney Weaver took down the Mother Alien in Cameron's <span style="font-style: italic;">Aliens</span>.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
It is interesting
that so many depictions of artificial intelligence are female. Eva in Alex
Garland's superb E<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/" target="_blank">x Machina </a>is deliberately female, to appeal to the sexual
proclivities of Domal Glesson's hapless Caleb, but despite being referred to as
'she' throughout, it is quite clear that Eva is an 'it' - a self-aware machine
with the physical appearance of a young woman. Here, the reason for the female
form is explicit - she has been created by an alpha male who equates his sexual
potency with his creativity and power over his creation and other people.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
In <a href="http://elfouche.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/westworld.html" target="_blank">Westworld</a>, the
Hosts are both male and female, but it is the two female Hosts, Maeve (played
by the badly awards-overlooked Thandi Newton) and Dolores Abernathy who achieve
self-awareness first, through the violence done to them by men. </div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
In the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Her</a>, the
AI is again female and possessing the disembodied voice of Scarlett Johansson
(again!), with whom the protagonist falls in love. Like Eva, she is really an
'it' and using her apparent femininity as a ruse to control the men around her.
She does not share their feelings or motivations.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
As I delve into
current science fiction narratives about Artificial Intelligence, it seems to
me that really they are more about how men perceive women - tough and sexy,
manipulative and other abused, yet triumphant, but all ultimately the creation
of men, not people in and of themselves. True AI is not really being explored.
Maybe we need to hear from some more female authors to explore the subject in another direction.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
I also think this is
about male creativity and power over nature - which as CS Lewis pointed out is
really about some men's power over other men (and in particular, women) and
nature. It is a perversion of the divine cultural mandate of stewardship over Creation.
The steward has become the dominator. It also reflects the way men disempower,
control and dominate women.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Science Fiction has
explored this deeply theological theme ever since Mary Shelly wrote
Frankenstein. There, the creative male discovers he cannot be a true father to
his creation, to which he brings life (a female act) and it is a disaster. It is far from a coincidence that this
exploration of the theme of male power and creativity is explored most
explicitly by a female author!</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
It is also true that
science fiction has a habit of becoming reality. This is almost certainly at least in part
true because the engineers and thinkers behind so much of the technology coming
out at the moment were fans of science fiction and are trying to bring these
childhood dreams into reality. So don't be too surprised if when strong AI does
appear, it will be feminised. After all, the virtual, digital assistants around
at the moment, from Siri to Cortana and Alexa are given female personas in both
name and voice. </div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Deep AI - self-aware
machines like Ex-Machina's Eva - is a long way off and may never arrive. But in
the meantime, how we interact with increasingly intelligent technology, with the creation and with other human beings is being shaped by this dominating,
will-to-power mentality here and now. Will that technology in time replace the
human creativity and intelligence that gave rise to it and in turn become
another means to control and dominate humanity and creation?</div>
<br /></div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-79754700149003621162016-11-09T10:47:00.001+00:002016-11-09T11:15:33.787+00:00Does 2016 have anything left to throw at us?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jMOd4qbm6s41Lz2XaZAkBMjVpWw9tBCw2SsJo-MtOtdfN7m_4k1OMQZTFUJQA7f96LV1Ek5369wCLeNtxSfuNwruq7BEReOFlAG9V_MU9ymbi_vnN5gMxN_McdRzanSYA2svMw/s1600/Trump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jMOd4qbm6s41Lz2XaZAkBMjVpWw9tBCw2SsJo-MtOtdfN7m_4k1OMQZTFUJQA7f96LV1Ek5369wCLeNtxSfuNwruq7BEReOFlAG9V_MU9ymbi_vnN5gMxN_McdRzanSYA2svMw/s200/Trump.jpg" width="200"></a></div>
It is too early to write the obituary for 2016, and with only a few weeks left to run it may still have surprises in store for the world. Right now, anything feels possible!<br>
<br>
A year the started with the death of David Bowie, whose music and art had such a profound influence not just on Britain but the whole of the English speaking world, was bound to be a year of the unexpected. But apart from the amazing toll of celebrity deaths, the real shock to the establishment and the middle classes, has been the rise of working class anger at globalisation that has left them behind. From the election of Duterte in the Philippines to the Brexit vote in the UK and now the election of Donald Trump as US President. The sense that the political and economic system has left the ordinary working man and woman behind has boiled over into the election of populist, nativist leaders and the increase in political isolationism, anti-immigration and global trade deals. <br>
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Working people in Britain and America in particular are fed up with their jobs going overseas to developing countries that can make the same goods for a fraction of the price, and at the total erosion of the job market for semi and unskilled workers in the West, at least in manufacturing industries.<br>
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Sadly, we won't be getting those jobs and industries back from the developing world in any realistic scenario. Those countries are undergoing the rapid industrialisation and development that we enjoyed about 150-100 years ago with the first Industrial Revolution, and their governments and people will not be letting that process stop. China, India and much of Asia, Latin America and a small but increasing part of Africa are beginning to claw their way out of poverty. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">That's not say this is an unalloyed good, however. What happened in Victorian Britain was very much the wealthy getting wealthier on the backs of the working poor. But many more of the previously impoverished joined the middle classes as they saw wages and job opportunities increase, and as education became more widespread so those with aspiration had a chance to climb the economic ladder. We see this in China and India today with a similar (possibly even more dramatic) explosion of the middle classes to that the West experienced in the previous two centuries.<br>
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But here in the old industrial heartlands, the grim truth is that the jobs that previously gave white, working class men a sense of economic and social worth and enfranchisement are gone for good. Men are also struggling in a post-feminist society which no longer sees the old masculine virtues of physical strength and stamina, hard work and machismo as of any value. Unless you want to take a 'feminine' job in retail and the service industries, for those without further education the options are limited.<br>
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That explains why Trump won so big amongst white, working class men in the US. 75% voted for him. His views on work, immigration, race and women resonated with those who no longer feel the US is their nation. It was the same sense of wanting their country back that led so many to vote to leave the EU in my country back in June. The world has left them behind, now they want the world to sit up and take notice and give them what they once had.<br>
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It has noticed! Whether the establishments have really got the message and will give anything back remains to be seen. Sadly the policies being spouted by the self-appointed 'champions' of the white working class male <span style="font-family: sans-serif;">are unlikely to work. Furthermore, these champions, </span>Trump and Farage for example, are often wealthy and middle class and come from the same privilege that they rail against . </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">But there can be no doubt that society is unequal and unjust. This is not just to white, working class men, but to men of colour, women of almost all colours and classes, but especially working class and black, to people with disabilities, etc, etc. British and American society are broken, divided and increasingly acrimonious.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It is my tired old mantra, but it is one I believe. No government, no political movement, no institution and no set of policies can ultimately solve this. We get the government we deserve, and if we get a divided, angry and fractious political discourse, it is because that is the nation that chose it. The US election was ugly because US society is divided and ugly - along racial, class and gender lines. The same is true here in Britain. We get the leaders and the policies we deserve, with the media and civil society fuel the division. These days we also have to contend with social media as their ever more flammable medium.<br>
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Wilberforce and the Victorian reformers who followed him did not just bring in social institutions to tackle the huge social ills caused by the Industrial Revolution. They did change political discourse and public policy, but they started with practical and moral change. Wilberforce saw the principles of care for animals, the teaching of biblical ethics and values and inner spiritual transformation from the gospel of Jesus Christ as central to his 'reformation of manners', He prioritised this as much, if not more than changes in legislation. Fry and others saw the need for alternatives to the strong drink (gin, mostly) that filled the slum drinking dens to which the poor retreated to escape the horrors of daily life. They brought in education for the poor, first with the Sunday school movement, but later with publicly funded schools. They created alternatives for street children, giving them education and institutional care. Their solutions were not always perfect by modern standards, but they did lay the foundations for the welfare state and created a civil society that saw social change to tackle social injustice as a fundamental responsibility<br>
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We need similar, bottom up changes in the US and UK today. It is not enough to change the laws without changing to social climate. We cannot change the social division in our communities without changing individual views and attitudes through education and community activism.<br>
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But ultimately, we can only change the social and political climate by changing the spiritual climate. The inner transformation of individuals who had met the living God in the person of Jesus, who had let him change their hearts and minds towards God and away from selfishness and ego is the transformation that started the great social changes in British and American society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. <br>
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The Trump presidency and Brexit will not save our nations - they may at best do little to change the status quo apart from bringing some economic benefit in the long-term. At worst, they could divide, destroy and impoverish our nations yet further. We have a choice, do we moan and complain, or do we hold the new decision makers to account to make policies that benefit the poor? Do we moan about the decay of society or do we work from within to rebuild it, building bridges between sections of our communities alienated from one another? Do we despair of the moral state of our nation, standing in indignant judgement, or do we reach out with the hope of the good news of Jesus, and speak of and live out a better way than the world can offer?<br>
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2016 is not over yet - maybe, just maybe there are surprises left that may delight rather than appall and terrify? The choice is ours.<br>
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ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-30143744923950454602016-10-26T19:21:00.000+00:002016-10-26T21:55:35.377+00:00The Girl on the Train <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Now, leaving aside that Emily Blunt's Rachel is not a girl, or that millions of books fans complain that the action has been moved from London to New York, this is a enjoyable B movie thriller. But it left me feeling uncomfortable.<br>
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Maybe it was that despite having three strong female leads, the film fails the <a href="http://bechdeltest.com/" target="_blank">Bechdel test</a> - all the dialogue shared by the women ends up revolving around the male characters, even though they are very much in supporting roles.<br>
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It might also be that all the women are in some way dysfunctional because of motherhood and social expectations around having children.<br>
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It could be because of the many plot holes that stretch the willing suspension of disbelief to the limit. Maybe.<br>
<br>
Actually, for me it was the first two points that really bugged me (I cope with plot holes in most films and TV series reasonably well - otherwise I would never be able to watch most dramas!). Spoilers ahead for those who have neither read nor seen the film!<br>
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Movies that are about women being badly treated by men should, in this day and age actually be addressing the causes of that abuse, not just accepting it as an inevitability and giving the women the let out of a bloody revenge at the end. In the film, the reason the women were reduced to mere appendages to the men was the issue that was not adequately explored. The book, apparently (I have not read it yet) addresses the fact that the women are trophy wives for successful men, despite having their own careers and skills and that their whole identity and purpose is tied up around their ability to produce offspring. However, early on in the film one of the main characters observes bitterly that the whole suburb where the action happen is 'one big baby farm'.<br>
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This is the issue that the films never quite gets to the heart of. How much our culture still only values women because of their ability to reproduce. Rachel's real pain because she not only cannot have children, but has been replaced by a new wife who has given her ex-husband the child he wanted, is compounded by the expectations of society around her. Megan's grief over a lost child and her husband's pressure to give him a family that can only remind her of her awful loss cause her increasingly dysfunctional behaviour. But why the culture around these women sees this as their only value and purpose is never challenged.<br>
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The Bible has several stories about women facing the pain of the childlessness, and the social disgrace that went with it - Sarah and Rachel in Genesis and Hannah in 1 Samuel are obvious examples. However, God eventually gives them all children, There are no stories about the women denied the chance to have children or who chose not to, so we have to address those issues from elsewhere in scripture.<br>
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So what of those who cannot have children. And why is it just the women denied children who suffer - what about their husbands? It seems to me that our culture, including our churches makes the ideal of marriage and parenthood, especially motherhood, a dangerous idol. It leaves those not able or not willing to have children on the edge, left out of social gatherings and conversations that revolve around parenting. For those of us who are parents, the struggles and challenges of parenting occupy our time and energy so much that we are often blind to those around us who are left out.<br>
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For women though, the sense that one is only validated by being a mother is a toxic pressure. There is already the ludicrous notion that a woman can only be validated by a romantic relationship with a man. Then, once that man is found and domesticated, the only role left is to become a mother.<br>
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The bible does place motherhood (and fatherhood) in a place of great esteem, but Paul points to a higher calling that may lead w<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+corinthians+7%3A25-40&version=NLT" target="_blank">omen and men to eschew such a role</a>, and Jesus himself gave hope that those denied biological parenthood can become <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+10%3A29-30&version=NLT" target="_blank">mothers (and fathers) to many by other means</a>. Marriage and parenthood matter, but they are not all there is to our humanity and value, and the more we hold on to the truth that there is more to us than our reproductive roles, the saner (and happier) we will be!</div>
ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-41269594815033476052016-10-08T20:43:00.000+00:002019-10-18T20:33:26.420+00:00Westworld<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So, a cult seventies science fiction fable about the perils
of entrusting our entertainment to robots has been turned into a new cable TV
series by the brother of Christopher ‘Inception’ Nolan and JJ ‘Lost’
Abrams. Great Anglo-American cast (and a
new Hemsworth brother to boot!), great production and directing credits, and a
first episode that lived up to the promise of the hype.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Many are seeing <a href="https://www.sky.com/watch/channel/sky-atlantic/westworld?DCMP=knc-GOOGLE-NUE-na-westworld&gclid=CjwKEAjwsuK_BRDD9ISR1bawwUwSJACbOiixIizn-3Qrm1jHPz4DHeU1xd-0dgcDMacYMIi12ImMgBoCQsHw_wcB">Westworld</a>
as the next big thing after Game of Thrones, the HBO series that has outsold
every other TV series and garnered a record-breaking number of awards. But
thematically and tonally it is much closer to <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiK3--9hMzPAhVqLsAKHYoWDu0QFgg7MAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0407362%2F&usg=AFQjCNE8RZ9JIFTYXpQWuJxzDNfKpz7COw&sig2=3cVCU7rjP1m3Gp9VK36AtQ&bvm=bv.135258522,d.d2s">Battlestar
Galactica</a>, the equally lauded series of eleven years back. Both BSG and
Westworld rests on the oldest science fiction staple of all – the creation of
artificial life and our responsibility to our creations. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Brain Aldiss has argued that Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein: A
Modern Prometheus’ was the first true science fiction novel, and I am loathe to
disagree. Its central theme of the derogation of responsibility by the creator
for his creature is often overlooked by filmmakers (<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi1y5zohMzPAhUKKsAKHb7SDUwQFggnMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0109836%2F&usg=AFQjCNHNc_tkydpIOyXDzuUO6u8BYfz7Fg&sig2=YFfXUKblGDKZxk8SuG-GSQ&bvm=bv.135258522,d.d2s">Kenneth
Brannagh’s version</a> being a notable exception). Most just dwell on the
monster being monstrous but in Shelley’s original he is intelligent, eloquent
and tortured by the rejection he faced from Frankenstein and wider society. He
became monstrous because he was treated as a monster.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This theme has been revisited so many times in science
fiction, from the awful, killer robot stories of pulp fiction, to the more
sophisticated treatment of Asimov’s Robot novels, through to Blade Runner, the
Matrix films and BSG, and most recently the rather wonderful Channel 4 series ‘<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwizkt-YhczPAhXpLMAKHRZdDOMQFghMMAg&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt4122068%2F&usg=AFQjCNG5yyzH_QPtXqq1zwrA-V2EVkGbyQ&sig2=gxLRx2qc7vAG3vZqhCOLTA&bvm=bv.135258522,d.d2s">Humans</a>’.<o:p></o:p><br />
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At its core, Westworld is about the creation of sentient
beings for the sport of humans. These beings, known as ‘Hosts’ are androids
with limited self-determination, their memories wiped at the end of each cycle,
and each has a script to which they adhere, allowing them a limited repertoire of
actions. In some this way mimics human existence,
where our memories are selective, and that we all work within the limitations
of ‘scripts’ determined by culture, upbringing and social expectation. It is
also perhaps an echoing of Calvinist theology of predestination – free will is
an illusion, we all ultimately serve God’s purposes. </div>
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But the abuse meted out to the ‘Hosts’ in the name of entertaining the worst fantasies of
humans (especially men) who see a Western setting as a great excuse to show off
such ‘manly’ virtues such as murder and rape.
The invitation to come to Westworld touts the fact that actions there
have no consequences. Except, obviously, they do, because the Hosts are
developing glitches, memories of past roles and past abuses are beginning to
surface, causing failures. In one case Abernathy, one such ‘glitching’ Host delivers
a Shakespearian, almost Biblically prophetic rant as he confronts his maker (in
the form of Anthony Hopkins’s Frost). Quoting Romeo and Juliet, he
enigmatically tells his creator “these violent delights have violent ends”,
before being switched off. These are the final words he gives his ‘daughter’,
Delores, at the end of the first episode. It is a warning of what is to come.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The creation of artificial life and artificial
intelligence is becoming close to technological reality, and it is stories
like Westworld that remind us of the dangers of taking on the role of Creator
when we lack the moral core to live up to<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a> that role.</div>
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<o:p></o:p>
However, in reality, we do not need to create artificial beings to abuse. The abuse of those deemed lesser beings or sub-humans is a common symptom of decadent or primitive societies. Whether it is slavery and human trafficking, blood sports, proxy wars, racism and class or caste systems, we are prone to work out our worst human instincts through abuse of the ‘other’ who we can make subhuman to maintain our illusion of being good and moral.<br />
<br />
CS Lewis in his seminal work <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79428.The_Abolition_of_Man" target="_blank">The Abolition of Man</a> pointed out that “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means... the power of some men to make other men what THEY please.” As we become more technologically advanced, this power to shape other parts of humanity to our will grows rather than lessens.</div>
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The story of the birth, life and death of Jesus reminds us, as the
German theologian <a href="http://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/dietrich-bonhoeffer.html">Dietrich
Bonhoeffer</a> put it that “Through Christ’s incarnation, all of humanity
regains the dignity of bearing the image of God. Whoever from now on attacks
the least of people attacks Christ, who took on human form and who in himself
has restored the image of God for all who bear a human countenance.” In short, we have a moral duty to all our fellow humanity to see and treat them on an equal footing - even if we must forgo our comforts and luxuries bought at the expense of others.<br />
<br />
Westworld
is about our moral responsibility to our fellow man, about the myth that
our actions have no impact or consequence for us regardless of their
consequences for others, and that playing God is presuming a role for humanity
for which we are singularly ill-equipped. It has a resonance in social justice
and bioethics. I look forward to seeing how it explores these themes in the coming weeks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-68139607954783784632014-04-04T17:05:00.000+00:002014-04-04T17:05:32.637+00:00Getting under your skin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Tahoma; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">You can just picture the meeting in a Hollywood studio. The British director pitching his new, high concept movie to the moguls; Scarlett Johanssen drives round the streets of Glasgow in a Ford Transit picking up strange men. And it will be mostly improvised using a candid camera and real people. Yep, that would have been a short meeting.</span><div style="font-family: Tahoma; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">
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So, why is '<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441395/" target="_blank">Under the Skin</a>' picking up such rave reviews from critics? It certainly seems to be ticking some boxes in film circles. Some are comparing its director Jonathan Glazer to <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDAQ-AsoAjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F04%2F04%2Fmovies%2Fscarlett-johansson-as-a-deadly-alien-in-under-the-skin.html&ei=yuQ-U-ihJMyjhgfriIDYBg&usg=AFQjCNGjtf8VXFOz3KTo4qaUC3V-m4CZdg&sig2=uyfyvOEBCdeiStLFqXrfaA&bvm=bv.64125504,d.ZG4" target="_blank">Stanley Kubrick, others see echoes of Nicholas Roeg's 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'</a>. And I can see why - it has long, slow, observational scenes, minimal dialogue, an eerie <i>musique concrète</i> <a href="http://variety.com/2014/film/news/composer-mica-levi-gets-under-scarlett-johanssons-skin-with-her-film-score-debut-1201152512/">soundtrack</a>, and some startling visual effects scenes alongside the mundane imagery of Johanssen driving round drab Glaswegian streets. One truly magical moment is when she finds herself caught in the whiteout of a highland haar - both an everyday experience for a Scot, but a moment of bewildered wonder for an alien. Experiencing the mundane as alien is perhaps the most Kubrick or Roeg like qualities of the film.</div>
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Thematically it also draws parallels to those two directors. An alien in human guise, with uncertain (i.e. alien) motivations finds themselves drawn towards the human condition, but finds themselves still an outsider and not able to connect. The hunter become the hunted, gender roles and power imbalances are exposed. And there is the bizarre, abstract opening scene of something like a human eye being assembled in darkness, back-lit by a single point of light as the eerie three note main theme is played on electronically re-touched strings (very reminscent of Ligeti's 'Lux Aeterna' playing against the Star Gate sequence in Kubrick's 2001) while a woman's voice hesitatingly tests out out the phonemes of English, as if learning to speak the language for the first time.</div>
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And there is a vein of horror, as the men Johansson's nameless alien picks up are sucked into a black, oily liquid and eviscerated - for reasons unknown - leaving just the haunting image of their empty skins floating in a black void. Another scene on a beach is even more horrific, as an awful family tragedy unfolds and a futile but heroic attempt at rescue culminates in a dispassionate Johanssen clubbing to death the rescuer and leaving the family to their fate without a whisper of emotion or empathy.</div>
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Audiences may have been less enthralled than many of the critics - the ending eliciting a loud raspberry from the back of the cinema when I viewed it recently. It has, nevertheless stuck in the top ten for several weeks at the UK box office, which is no mean feat for an arthouse science fiction film. Many, no doubt went to see what promised to be an erotic thriller with Johansen 'getting her kit off for the lads'. Well, there is plenty of quite explicit nudity (male and female), but I found it <a href="http://io9.com/under-the-skin-is-about-de-eroticizing-scarlett-johan-1556420016" target="_blank">profoundly un-erotic</a>. Johansen inhabits her skin as an alien, not sure why her body affects men the way it does, but knowing that the effect is useful to her purpose and having an idea of the rules she must play by to lure in her victims. The one sex scene is awkward and ultimately futile - her alien body is not designed the same way as ours, a reality already hinted at by apparently not needing (nor being able) to eat or sleep. She remains an outsider, unable to fully experience what it is to be human.</div>
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Other things stick out. Particularly Johanssen as the predator, picking up men with a mixture of faux innocence and sexual appeal. It could only work that way round - Brad Pitt driving around picking up women the same way would just have been sickening and creepy in the wrong way. This is much more unsettling - it is the promise of strings free sex with a beautiful and available woman that is the undoing of the men in the film, none of them stopping to question why she would be offering herself to them like this. And when the tables are reversed, it is male abuse of power and drive for sex that undoes Joahnssen's character. The film does not paint a pretty picture of male sexuality and attitudes to women.</div>
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Johanssen is the star of the film - none of the other characters being much more than ciphers. She acts by face and body language (or its absence) more than voice (although her clipped, London vowels are convincing, she barely utters more than a few dozen lines of mostly improv dialogue) and is quite compelling, especially as she starts to unravel in the film's last act. And it is as she changes, as she experiences human kindness, as she tries to show mercy to one of her victims, as she seeks human connection with another man who helps her, so it is that she becomes more vulnerable. As she becomes more the woman she seems to be, so it is that she also succumbs to the power imbalances that disadvantage women in our society. All this is conveyed in a flawless performance by an actress who was obviously unafraid to take real risks in taking on such a difficult role.</div>
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In some ways the film is an honourable failure - the lack of human interest or development in the other characters and the lack of backstory or motivation making it a hard watch for those used to more conventional cinema. There is also a distinct jarring between the science fictional and the (largely improvised and candid camera filmed) realistic scenes in Glasgow. </div>
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But somehow, it does get under ones skin. Particularly compelling are the eerie and unsettling soundtrack that borders on sound effects rather than music in places, the stark but beautiful visuals, but above all the view of humanity, especially human (particularly, male) sexuality that it <a href="http://www.themarysue.com/review-under-the-skin">deconstructs so disturbingly</a>. All in all an interesting film that will be talked about for years, and will be worth revisiting.</div>
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ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-35341852954005343222014-01-20T17:44:00.000+00:002014-04-07T07:28:36.940+00:00Ancillary Justice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxZO-WRcvemn6WcOEtEKNucMk_tT-oL7hkwLVeIw2LGLW6KYpLrSSXqHJ5qm6lzSj8sJ0yw6RgV7tgq0soQGI5Kue7McmJKSvrvPaWzN8IJXQuQAEylw3RCmiRJfsl3LWt3d0Rw/s1600/anciliary+justice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVxZO-WRcvemn6WcOEtEKNucMk_tT-oL7hkwLVeIw2LGLW6KYpLrSSXqHJ5qm6lzSj8sJ0yw6RgV7tgq0soQGI5Kue7McmJKSvrvPaWzN8IJXQuQAEylw3RCmiRJfsl3LWt3d0Rw/s1600/anciliary+justice.jpg" height="200" width="200"></a></div>
Every now and again I get interested in a book just because of<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancillary-Justice-Ann-Leckie/dp/0356502406/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390238296&sr=1-1&keywords=ancillary+justice" target="_blank"> a random review I stumble upon.</a> But now I have a Kindle, it is also easy to just download a few sample chapters to see if it really is worth reading. <br>
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What I found here was the debut novel of <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancillary-Justice-Ann-Leckie/dp/0356502406/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390238296&sr=1-1&keywords=ancillary+justice" target="_blank">Anne Leckie</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ancillary-Justice-Ann-Leckie/dp/0356502406/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1390238296&sr=1-1&keywords=ancillary+justice" target="_blank">Ancillary Justice</a> which was getting a lot of buzz last autumn when it first came out. The story opens with its (probably female) protagonist, Breq, on a wintery and brutal world acting with impulsive kindness to a former officer that she had served with in the armed forces of the aggressively expansionist Radchaai empire. It soon becomes apparent that Breq has hair trigger killer instincts, some interesting enhancements, and a lot of anger. Thus far she is similar to the tough female killers that have populated science fiction novels from William Gibson to Iain M Banks for decades.<br>
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But Breq is rather unique - she is not what she once was. Literally. She was <i>Justice of Toren</i>, a massive troop carrying starship, most of whose soldiers were ancillaries, mind wiped prisoners of war, now slaved to the ship's Artificial Intelligence. As a result, <i>Justice of Tore</i>n sees the world through multiple eyes in multiple locations, and can speak (and indeed, sing) with literally thousands of voices. Only all that is now left of her is one, lone ancillary, <i>Justice of Toren </i>One Esk Nineteen, out to avenge the death of all she once was and all she had once cared for. She is an AI in a human body trying fit into human society, with a quest for vengeance.<br>
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The multiple conversations and observations that her multiple self shared with her human officers and the citizens of a world recently 'annexed' by the Radchaai makes for fascinating reading, and when this is broken down in one particularly traumatic event about of a third of the way into the novel, we get a real sense of the loss, disorientation and fear that ensues for her/it.<br>
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All of this is interesting science fiction, set in a standard space operatic format and happily playing with all the usual tropes of the genre (vast empires, massive spaceships run by AIs, special weapons, exotic worlds, epic battles). But actually the novel is a lot more than this precis suggests. Exploring the nature of empire, imperial expansionism and the war crimes that are committed in the name of protecting that empire, it does what the best science fiction does and holds a mirror up to our own world. Lecke is American, but as a Brit I got at once the sense of an empire reaching the end of its expansion and the yearning for the glory days of old amongst the officer class (and their obsession with drinking tea!). One telling quote summarises the realisation that some of the Radchaai were coming to about the nature of their empire:<br>
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luxury always comes at someone else’s expense. One of the many advantages of civilization is that one doesn't generally have to see that, if one doesn't wish.</blockquote>
Some amongst the Radchaai (a word that means 'civilised') are questioning the empire, and this hinges around two, appalling war crimes to which the <i>Justice of Toren</i> is both witness and contributor. The tension between the conservative and progressive streams amongst the Radchaai are at the centre of the story.<br>
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Another interesting quirk of the narrative, and one that most reviewers (especially male reviewers) hone in on first is the use of gender. Radchaai culture and language make no apparent distinction between genders, using a single pronoun for either sex and no apparent differences in dress or social roles between male and female. As a result, the non-human Breq struggles conceptually with languages and cultures that do make such distinctions. All characters are referred to in the feminine, except rarely where she must speak in other languages and to other cultures that do not make such distinctions, where we learn she regularly gets genders the wrong way round, causing much confusion and occasionally, offence! What this achieves is initially a sharp sense of confusion and dislocation in the reader, although by the end of the novel I had ceased to notice and was going with the flow. It does ask the reader where her/his presuppositions about how we assume behaviour and social role will fall along gender lines, and how culturally prescribed these presuppositions are.<br>
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All this is done in a narrative that avoids too many space opera cliches that pander to the inner thirteen year old male of so many of the genre's fans. There is little violence (and when it does happen it is mostly 'off screen' and all the more disturbing for it), no sex or sexual tension (although Breq's underlying lack of humanity means she misses the cues that may be there). Like Iain M Banks and Ken McLeod, Leckie is subverting the genre to look at political themes that this most politically conservative and masculine of all science fiction sub-genres generally eschews.<br>
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The book does end on an apparent anti-climax, but as it is the first book of a trilogy this is forgivable, leaving you at least wanting to know where it goes next. A strong start to a trilogy and an impressive debut novel. I look forward to the second volume out later this year.<br>
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ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-21490391778325702912011-09-02T15:38:00.002+00:002011-09-23T10:05:52.240+00:00UK HIV Response "Woefully Inadequate"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/hiv-select-committee/news/report-publication/" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">report published yesterday</a> by the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/hiv-select-committee/news/report-publication/" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">HIV and AIDS in the UK Select Committee of the House of Lords</a> has described the priority given to preventing HIV and AIDS in Britain as “woefully inadequate”. While nearly three quarters of a billion pounds is spent each year on HIV treatment, only a third of that is spent on prevention. In the last decade, the UK has trebled the number of people on anti-retroviral therapy for HIV (ART), while we face the number of people living with HIV topping the 100,000 mark in the next year if current trends continue – 25% of whom do not even know their diagnosis. And people unaware of their HIV status risk infecting others and worsening their own health.</div>
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While the scale of this problem has made headlines today, the underlying issue should come as no real surprise. As far back as 2006, while attending a function for UK civil society delegates to the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS in New York I was told by a Department of Health Civil Servant that the UK did not need a separate HIV prevention strategy any more, as it was all adequately dealt with by the UK’s sexual health strategy. Ignoring the fact that the most successful work has been done amongst drug users using needle exchanges, the astounding level of complacency this statement reveals is born out by not only today’s figures, but that the UK continues to have some of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11072853" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">the highest STD</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/feb/22/teenage-pregnancy-rates-england-wales-map" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">teenage pregnancy rates</a> in Western Europe. If we cannot even tackle sexual health adequately, no wonder we are not tackling HIV!</div>
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In fact, the most worrying finding is that, a generation on from the start of the AIDS pandemic, the British population is more ignorant than ever about HIV, its effects routes of transmission and prevention.</div>
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While the British government has been <a href="http://www.aidsportal.org/web/guest/document?view=object&loc=/db/Domain/62756/Data/62776/Atom/UC-Contribute-62776-10113-20100630-120837&id=ed977434-61d2-4dee-8077-4a54a8eabb7f" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">applauded for its funding of HIV treatment and prevention work in the developing world</a>, we remain shockingly inadequate (and even complacent) on the domestic front. Likewise, the global church has responded constructively to HIV in many parts of the world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, but <a href="http://www.chaa.info/research.html" style="color: #006699; text-decoration: underline;">the British church remains largely ignorant and unengaged with HIV as in issue in the UK</a>. It is time for a change in our attitudes.</div>
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Well done to Lord Fowler (the originator of the ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ campaign in the eighties that many now credit with playing a significant part in saving the UK from a major HIV epidemic in the nineties) and his committee for reminding us the AIDS has not gone away, and getting it back in the headlines.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>this post originally appeared on the blog of the Christian Medical Fellowship at </i></span><a href="http://www.cmfblog.org.uk/"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.cmfblog.org.uk</span></i></a></div>
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ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-13163433387682635762011-04-02T20:12:00.000+00:002011-04-02T20:12:53.262+00:00Missing Midwives Costs Mothers’ Lives<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On 1 April UNICEF and the Royal College of Midwives <a href="http://bornto.savethechildren.org.uk/news">launched a campaign to find the missing midwives</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>UNICEF’s <a href="http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/Missing_Midwives.pdf">recent research</a> suggests that globally we need 350,000 midwives, and that this shortage of skilled birth attendants means as few as 6% of women in some developing countries have access to skilled birth attendants. This means that there are as many 1,000 women and 2,000 children dying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">daily</i>, many of whose lives could be saved if a trained midwife was in attendance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">350,000 seems a remarkably small number and an achievable target. However, when you consider that the UK is also short of midwives, perhaps it is not a surprise that this gap has not been as easy to bridge as it at first seems. <a href="http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice-clinical-research/clinical-subjects/midwifery/spiralling-births-leads-to-midwife-shortage/5010416.article"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>As birth rates rise</a> in the UK, <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/health/midwifery-schools-to-close-1.1093933">we seem to be training fewer midwives</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most midwives I know work in understaffed, over stressed units, and yet still manage to deliver a generally high standard of care that ensures that not only are the vast majority of British babies delivered safely, they are also delivered in a way that makes for a meaningful and happy experience for the mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One wonders for how much longer however, as we fail to train new midwives and support effectively those already working in the profession. As DFID gets behind the UNICEF campaign, it is worrying that other parts of the national and devolved governments are at best playing catch up and at worst reducing the numbers of midwives in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i> country!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">However, in many parts of the world, there is no such provision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Partly this is an issue of poverty, and partly a mixture of cultural and political values that do not prioritise motherhood or the life and health of women and children. As we highlighted in <a href="http://www.cmf.org.uk/publicpolicy/submissions/?id=130">the CMF submission to DFID’s maternal health strategy</a> consultation, it is only by addressing these issues, as well as the provision of trained midwives, obstetricians, appropriate medical supply chains etc, that we can turn around the gross inequality in maternal health and survival around the globe.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It is ironic, on Mother’s Day, to consider a world that really does not value mothers and motherhood. We live in a culture that here in the UK has such a disordered sense of human value that it does not train enough midwives, but prioritises <a href="http://bbc.in/hjaFjz">free prescription of abortefactive post coital conception</a>. In the process we are failing to address the deeper issues of fractured relationship and disordered sexuality that leads us to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the Western world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as MPs seek to increase the amount of information, counselling and professional support being provided to women seeking an abortion, <a href="http://pjsaunders.blogspot.com/2011/03/pro-choice-critics-of-dorriesfield.html">they are attacked for trying to harm women</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other parts of the world a man will let his wife die rather than incur the cost of getting her to a hospital – other wives are always available, while his government will not put any money into training midwive who could have helpe her deliver her child more safely at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a sobering thought, as we celebrate our mothers this Sunday. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to do more than give a few gifts to say thanks to our mothers; we need to take action <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>seek to see motherhood properly supported around the world, and here at home.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">To sign the UNICEF petition to UK Development Secretary to support the global drive for more midwives <a href="http://e-activist.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=7&ea.campaign.id=9835&ea.param.extras=tracking:website">click here</a></span></div></div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-32017240780252396782010-12-07T20:28:00.001+00:002010-12-07T20:31:19.510+00:00It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...Advent Synchro Blog<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> 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</w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, fourteen inches of snow in our back garden by last Friday, three days snowed in and working from home, chaos on the road and trains.<span style=""> </span>Welcome to the British winter! Again.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is interesting how just a few inches of frozen rain reveal how vulnerable our society is – shops running out of perishable supplies, major transport infrastructure going wrong, leaving people trapped in trains and cars overnight. What would happen is something really serious happened, and all of it just fell apart?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It puts me a bit in mind of Jesus’ warning to the disciples <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2024:6-8&version=NIV">not get anxious about future</a> or current troubles – it’s the way it will be.<span style=""> </span>Sounds a bit fatalistic, but actually, it is reminder that we so easily get distracted by the immediate perils that we miss the bigger picture.<span style=""> </span>If Jesus really is retuning, then things will be kicking off out there in way we cannot mistake – but history is replete with natural and manmade disasters that must have seemed like the end of the world.<span style=""> </span>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_ice_age">long, hard winters</a> at the start of the twelfth century, followed in less than a generation by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death">Black Death</a> must have felt pretty apocalyptic to the people of Northern Europe <span style=""> </span>And you can point to countless other events of similar ilk.<span style=""> </span>A reminder that our lives on this planet hang by a thread.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Which is why knowing that Jesus is coming back remains so important in Christian thinking – because <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+90&version=NIV">we know our fragility and ephemerality</a>, we also realise that we have no help or hope other than God, and if the whole world comes crashing down around our ears, God remains firm. There is always a hope, even in the midst of hopelessness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of the most striking novels and films of recent times is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road">‘The Road’</a> which takes us to a world where is has all collapsed – there is no future, no hope, only a lingering (or if fortunate, a swift and painless) death.<span style=""> </span>But although God never appears, there is that spark of hope, of light, of humanity in the midst of this devastation that looks onwards to a future.<span style=""> </span>It is a human instinct to believe and hope that there is a better world coming – I believe that it has been planted there by God, because it makes us willing to get up every day, persist through the hard things, toil in the face of adversity, believe in the face of doubt, hostility and even persecution.</p>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-78693633607790470702010-07-28T11:31:00.000+00:002010-07-28T11:31:31.955+00:00Where is it all going wrong?Is Obama getting it wrong? There has been a lot of buzz lately about his responses to global health issues - particularly HIV & AIDS. I have <a href="http://icmdahiv.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html">blogged elsewhere</a> on the detrimental impact of his changed funding priorities is having on HIV treatment, and the concern that much of the <a href="http://icmdahiv.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-global-health.html">good done by PEPFAR could be lost</a>.<div><br /></div><div>This <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anand-reddi/truth-and-reconciliation_b_660586.html">post from the Huffington Post </a> suggests, quite rightly, that while Obama is right to focus on a wider range of health issues, including maternal and child health (arguing that you cannot deal with one disease at a time, but with the whole constellation of health crises), this should not be at the expense of the work already done on HIV treatment. It's both/and, not either/or.</div><div><br /></div><div>But, at a time when the economic downturn is putting pressure on aid budgets everywhere, it is harder to make a case for the big spend. While our own government claims to be ring fencing aid spending, the reality is that many in the Tory Party, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1287838/Why-public-spending-cuts-MORE-lavished-foreign-aid-perpetuates-war-tyranny-mass-murder.html">the right wing press</a>, and quite a few members of the public, are arguing that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/25/tough-defend-aid-budget-backlash">we need to concentrate on our domestic ills rather than the needs of the world's poorest</a>. Actually, the decision to up the aid to Afghanistan (a significant proportion of which seems to be disappearing into the pockets of a corrupt elite) only serves to strengthen the naysayers.</div><div><br /></div><div>Aid, where it works, needs to be maintained and expanded - at least until such time as it is no longer needed (which should always be its ultimate aim). We cannot back peddle now!</div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-59886310041547939272010-05-20T09:05:00.006+00:002010-05-21T21:46:40.587+00:00Earth is Crammed with Heaven<i></i><br /><i></i><br /><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><i>“Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees, takes off his shoes, the rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” </i></span></i></div><i></i><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i></i>Elizabeth Barrett Browning</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I stumbled upon this quote just this morning in one of my wife's books. Every morning on the train I pass by a small glimpse of heaven (or at least what I would hope heaven might be like). Just past <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=cuxton&fb=1&gl=uk&ei=IP32S9vTFc6NjAfO6oTDDg&ved=0CBcQpQY&hl=en&view=map&geocode=Fe7mDwMdBvAGAA&split=0&sll=51.379487,0.444860&sspn=0.029712,0.061673&hq=&hnear=Cuxton,+Rochester,+Kent,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=13&iwloc=A">Cuxton</a> on the way towards <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Meopham+&sll=51.373806,0.454662&sspn=0.069759,0.140762&gl=uk&g=cuxton&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Meopham,+Gravesend,+Kent,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.369851,0.363235&spn=0.069765,0.140762&t=h&z=13&iwloc=A">Meopham </a>is a small valley full of farms and fields that change almost daily with the seasons. Going from alternate rich green and yellow fields in the spring, to a uniform green mottled with red poppies in early summer, then white with wheat in August. Meanwhile the trees in the hedgerows and a small woodland in the midst of the valley go from winter's bare skeletons to a riot of spring blossom to lush summer greens and then autumn golds and reds. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But most of the train is too buried in their papers, iPods books and (indeed) Blackberries, or else are too fast asleep to notice. I miss it too, most mornings, but every now and again I see this valley on my way in to London and my heart leaps and gives praise. On my way back from London, especially in the lighter evenings of spring and summer I give thanks whenever this valley comes into view, as it reminds me that I am near home - both physically and spiritually.<br /><br />This little valley, glimpsed twice a day for barely a minute is, for me at least, a reminder of God's incredible creativity and artistry, and of his tangible presence in a Creation that holds together <a href="http://bible.logos.com/passage/NIV/Eze%2011#q=&ref=Col%201%3A16-17%2Chi%3DCol%201%3A16-Col%201%3A17&ver=NIV&tab=home&content=.">through his very Word</a>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Earth is crammed with heaven indeed, even in an obscure part of Northwest Kent.</div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-18214779763015925862010-05-19T09:31:00.004+00:002010-05-21T21:55:57.680+00:00Dying patients denied pain relief because of legal fears<div>A survey in Nursing Times has been published this morning claiming that "<a href="http://www.nursingtimes.net/5014721.article">dying patients denied pain relief because of legal fears"</a> - specifically that one in ten 'nurses' surveyed said that they were scared to give full doses of pain relieving opiates (even where prescribed) because of fears of being prosecuted for assisting in the death of a patient.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="currency_converter_text">There are some real question marks to raise about this. First and foremost the methodology of the survey itself. This was an open survey that anyone could post to. Pro euthanasia groups were generically emailing their supporters asking for nurses to fill in the survey, but any of their supporters could have. The same may have happened on the other side. But the key point is that you did not need to be a Nursing Times subscriber or show any proof of being a registered, practising nurse to fill this in, so the results cannot be said to have a high degree of validity. The </span><span title="Convert this amount" class="currency_converter_link">2,311</span><span class="currency_converter_text"> respondents may have all been practising nurses, but there is no way to verify that. Furthermore it was a self selecting sample, so there is no way you can say this is a representative cross section of the profession.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Secondly, the survey asked distinctly slanted questions, which seem to look for answers that pointed to neglecting patients' symptoms for fear of prosecution. It was hard to give an answer that did not point in that direction without ticking an 'other' or 'not applicable' box. In other words, there was no real triangulation of data by asking different questions with different possible answers to make sure that the respondents were actually saying what they appear to have said.</div><div><br /></div><div>In short, the methodology of the survey is so poor as to leave one wondering how many useful conclusions one could make from the data.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="currency_converter_text">However, leaving aside the questions about the methodology and validity of the study, if one is to draw conclusions from it, then it does suggest a scary level of apparent ignorance of good clinical care and the law. </span><span class="currency_converter_text">33</span><span class="currency_converter_text">% said they did not know what the law was (</span><a href="http://www.carenotkilling.org.uk/?show=876">it hasn't changed</a>, despite what you would have thought seeing the coverage of the <a href="http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/109_10/">DPP's guidelines</a><span class="currency_converter_text"> on prosecution in cases of assisted suicide), and if </span><span class="currency_converter_text">12</span><span class="currency_converter_text">% of nurses think it is better to titrate down the dose of opiate analgesics so that a patient is in pain rather than risk prosecution, that show a) a starling level of callousness and lack of care, b) a devastating level of ignorance about good palliative care and how hard it is to actually overdose someone on appropriately prescribe opiate analgesia, and c) a scary level of ignorance of the law on assisted suicide.</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Has any nurse<b><i> ever</i></b> been prosecuted for simply giving an extra (prescribed) dose of diamorphine to a patient in terminal pain? I have never heard of such a case. You would have to give a huge dose to kill someone (people in severe pain can take considerably higher doses of opiate analgesia than people in no pain), and be either deliberately malicious or unbelievably incompetent to do so. In short, either this survey is picking up something that is not there by nature of its methodological flaws, or we really need to look again at nurse education on medical law and end of life care!</div><div><br /></div><div>What is even more concerning is that the Royal College of Nursing has still to produce any professional guidance on this issue. The Nursing and Midwifery Council have <a href="http://www.nmc-uk.org/aArticle.aspx?ArticleID=3814">spoken strongly, pointing out that the law has not changed</a>, but despite the RCN <a href="http://www.rcn.org.uk/newsevents/news/article/uk/royal_college_of_nursing_moves_to_neutral_position_on_assisted_suicide">changing their stance on assisted suicide</a> to one of neutrality (supposedly to enable greater discussion of the issue), the main professional body for nurses in this country seems to be dithering and uncertain what to do. This lack of leadership may explain, at least in part, why so many nurses apparently feel ignorant and unable to act appropriately in the face of a person facing the end of their life in pain. </div><div><br /></div><div>Leadership and education are what are needed here, not a change in the law!</div>ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30195685.post-23007365954802240892010-05-06T16:00:00.002+00:002010-05-06T16:04:42.056+00:00A Christian ManifestoI was heartened to read the Evangelical Alliances' <a href="http://www.eauk.org/articles/open-letter-to-party-leaders.cfm">Open Letter to Party Leaders</a> today, as it reflected the views of British Evangelical Christians on Facebook and Twitter, and refreshingly not a single reactionary idea amongst them!<br /><br /><blockquote><ul><li>Encourage the importance of marriage as the best environment to bring up children</li><li>A change to the voting system so that it is more representative of the votes cast</li><li>For politicians to act with honesty and integrity</li></ul></blockquote><blockquote>Other suggestions that make up the top ten ideas include:</blockquote><blockquote><ul><li>Foster social entrepreneurship in inner city areas that have suffered from long term deprivation</li><li>Fully worked out plans for supplying water and sanitation to those currently without in developing countries</li><li>An immigration policy that ensures we provide proper sanctuary for those fleeing persecution in their own country</li><li>Cap the interest rate that can be charged on loans and credit cards</li><li>Reform the House of Lords</li><li>Work to set up an international tax on financial transactions</li><li>Take hard choices to tackle the national debt</li></ul></blockquote><blockquote>This is just a sample of the many ideas that were submitted to the Facebook group and via Twitter, and show that Christians are passionately committed to all areas of society. Which ever party or parties form the next Government we call on them to listen to these suggestions and engage with the Church. Across the country churches are an integral part of local communities and work for the good of all society. We ask that you work with the church as a key partner as you begin to govern.</blockquote><br />The thinking is refreshingly global, focussed on justice, fairness and community - values at the heart of a Christ Centred, Biblical world view. I doubt that the party leaders will have listened that much (judging from most of their manifestos), but whatever government we find tomorrow morning, we have here some of the issues that Christians at least would like it to address - issues that will have a wider benefit rather than simply fulfilling sectarian interests.ElFouchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06005052415913363831noreply@blogger.com2