Citizenship Education

I am advised that the UK government plans to drop "citizenship" teaching from the curriculum. Given that many young folk today grow up with no idea of the responsibilities of citizenship, let alone the duty owed by every citizen to the nation/state or people they are a part of, I doubt this is a good idea.

A new initiative called, appropriately, "Hands up who's bored" is aiming to try and close the gap and engage young people and interest them in politics and the processes of government. An idea of what its all about can be got from the YouTube link below and those who feel this should be supported by government might want to try the petition link.

The target group is ages 11 - 16 and the organisers are approaching schools to talk to the young people in their care. It has the support of O2 and a national campaign is getting under way to "save the Citizenship Education programme."  An advert is now appearing in Cinemas across Britain and can be see on YouTube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6hvKnSTchs 


More information on the project can be found here: http://whosbored.org/  there is also a picture petition there.
Maybe the government, in the words of Fagan in Dicken's "Oliver Twist" - better think it out again.

Bureaucratic Garbage? Or Diplomatic Games?

Yesterday was frustrating in the extreme. Filled in all the forms, obtained all the photographs, certificate of insurance, proof of residence, etc., etc., etc... Then got told I have to produce a certified set of finger and palm prints before the visa will be processed.

Incandescent describes my mood, but it doesn't do to let that show, it only gives the little oiks satisfaction. After all, what this is really all about is putting "foreign devils" in their place and making sure they know they are absolutely powerless to resist. I suspect that this is a nice new way to annoy citizens of countries you are trying to irritate into starting a war - or to show them just how powerless they are to force anyone to change their politics or their stance on anything.

I'm not going to risk jeopardising my chances today by revealing which country I'm dealing with - some know anyway. I've been there numerous times and the people are great - the government sucks, big time, but that is not my problem. Of course, it isn't helped by well-meaning airheads constantly sounding off about how bad they are or by politicians making "gestures." All it breeds is a 'tat for tat' attitude and provides the 'bad hats' with more propaganda to play to the folks at home. "Look how easily we defy the British! We make them crawl to our demands and they can do nothing about it."

So, I look forward to another wasted day tomorrow, pursuing a visa for which I have already been "pre-approved" but for which I must now kowtow to the petty rules and stupid bureaucrats at the local consulate. It promises to be a frustrating waste of another day ...

The visa go-round ....

No, I'm not talking about the credit/debit card company, but the paperchase, bureaucratic hoopla that is involved in trying to get a visa out of certain embassies ...

Each time you go for one, the rules have changed, the fees have gone up or the forms must have extra information, all so some surly desk clerk can be rude to you, make you hang about in dirty waiting rooms and then tell you to come back in a week. I think this is definitely the last time I'm going through this particular evolution with this particular embassy. After spending one day trying to get some sense out of someone - I'm using a visa service for it.

But this is definitely the last time.

Their Lordships Request - The e-Book

Is now available from the publisher, 46 South Publishing. This is a small e-publishing house based in Dunedin, New Zealand and rapidly expanding. They specialise in e-publishing and the book is now available in all electronic reader formats.

Their site can be accessed from the embedded link above or through the bookstore link in the sidebar. Their pricing is very reasonable and they work through PayPal and other secure online payment methods.

Their Lordships Request ... is the first of the Harry Heron series.

The Church of Atheism

In response to my post regarding the strident, ill-informed and fact abusing assaults on religion, particularly Christianity, a reader has sent me the following article from the Houston Chronicle. It explains a great deal as far as I can see ...

NEW ATHEISTS: TAKE AGGRESSIVE STANCE AGAINST ALL RELIGIONS 
In September 2001, Sam Harris was an unknown doctoral student who didn't believe in God. But after the World Trade Center crumbled on 9/11 he put his studies aside to write a book that became an instant best seller--and changed the way atheists, and perhaps Moslems--are perceived in this country.  

Published in 2004, Harris's "The End of Faith" launched the so-called "New Atheist" movement, a make-no-apologies ideology that maintains that religion is not just flawed, but evil. In the book Harris frequently uses the image of a Muslim bomber to highlight the dangers of religion, depicting Islam as a "cult of death" and a "machinery of intolerance and suicidal grandiosity."  

Within two years Harris was joined on the best-seller list by Richard Dawkins, Chritopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, who all took religion to task for most, if not all, of the world's ills. Collectively, the men whose books sold millions of copies around the world came to be known as the apocalyptic-sounding Four Horsement. Now, 10 years after the 9/11 attacks that launched the movement, freethinkers are taking stock of the New Atheists' contributions to their community, which includes atheists, humanists and other nonreligionists.  

Many laud their defense of what they see as a truthful but unpopular stance. Others, meanwhile, say their heavy-handedness with people of faith--especially Muslims-- has caused irreparable harm.  

"9/11ushered in a big change, in that it put Islam squarely in the center of the discussion," said Tom Flynn, director of the Center for Inquiry, and a supporter of the New Atheists. "Previous freethinkers would have said that religion is horrible, look at the Crusades, look at the Inquisition. This opened up the possibility of directing strong arguments against religions other than Christianity." 

Flynn points out that atheists have long called for an end to religion. What's "new" about the New Atheists is their stridency and refusal to compromise. "I think religion should be treated with contempt,and I claim the right," Hitchens told a Toronto audience in 2007. Freethinkers who are in dialogue with people of faith are "accommodationists" the New Atheists have charged, and "enemies" of the movement. 

That rift has had real consequences. In 2011 Paul Kurtz was ousted as founding leader of the Council for Secular Humanists and the Center for Inquiry in what he described as a "palace coup." Talk amongst the freethinkers was that Kurtz was too accommodationist. 

Harris declined to be interviewed for this article, and Dawkins and Donnett could not be reached. Hitchens, who is battling cancer, is too ill to conduct interviews. 

But the New Atheists have also done good, observers say. Fred Edwards, head of the United Coalition for Reason, an umbrella group of freethought organizations, describes 2004 as the "year the dam broke." 

"My job exists because of all the new local groups that emerged in the wake of the rise of the New Atheism." 

One such beneficiary is the Freedom from Religion Foundation which was mentioned in Dawkins' The God Delusion. In 2004, it had fewer than 6,000 members. By 2007, membership had doubled, and this year topped 17,000. 

While multiple factors have affected Americans' negative views of Islam after 9/11 many American Muslims partially blame the New Atheists. A 2010 poll found that only 30 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Islam, down from 41 percent in 2005, a year after Harris' book. 

"I would say they have harmed," Omid Safi, a Muslim and a professor of relgious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "They direct much of their venom against Muslims, and I have seen some of their material used by Islamophobes." 

So it appears the new "religion" is no religion and the Prophets of it profit mightily. I find it interesting that Prof. Dawkins is paid a very generous stipend by the Oxford College he disgraces. The College was founded by the Church he now attacks and despises and his stipend comes from Trusts and Foundations established by the Church, Christians and people who believed in God, for the furtherance of scientific understanding and Christian learning.

I'm pretty sure there will be a clause in them somewhere that forbids the expenditure on the propagation of anti-Christian venom, or atheism.

Sometimes the humour is a little too close ...

Spotted this joke over on One Happy Dog Speaks and though it was worth "borrowing."

- People born before 1946 were called
The Silent generation
- People born between 1946 and 1959 are called
The Baby Boomers
- People born between 1960 and 1979 are called
Generation X
- And people born between 1980 and 2010 are called
Generation Y
Why do we call the last group Generation Y? 

Y should I get a job?
Y should I leave home and find my own place?
Y should I get a car when I can borrow yours?
Y should I clean my room?
Y should I wash and iron my own clothes?
Y should I buy any food?

Fortunately I have to say, not all of Generation Y are really like that, but enough are for it to be a worrying trend. 

Farewell is not Good Bye ...

Today, in roughly a half hour's time, my very dear friend Diana Matlock, nee' Batten, will be committed to the crematorium in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. For many at her funeral I expect prayer will be meaningless, a fact I find very sad indeed. I will mark the time and the event in my own way and in quiet. Much as I would have liked to attend this funeral I cannot, and I suspect I would have found the impersonal surroundings, the "prayer free" attitudes, the speeches and the tea party afterward disturbing.

Di and I had many discussions on faith and I live in the expectation that one day we will meet again in another place. As I wrote in my title, farewell is not Good Bye and Good Bye is not final. It is, in fact, a corruption of "God Bless You." I am deeply saddened by the thought that she is being despatched or disposed of in this rather faith free manner as I'm pretty sure she held onto her faith right to the end. Certainly the last time I spoke to her she spoke of prayer and the need to be prayed for. But I understand that most of her family have no faith and so their choice of disposal prevails.

So I will mark the time and the occasion here, and hopefully it will touch her soul and the hearts and minds of those attending.

Rest in peace, Di, all your friends are deeply saddened by your going, but we look forward to being reunited in due course.