Archive for June, 2007
The Silver Ring Thing
Posted by: | CommentsSo, what about this girl (Lydia Playfoot) who is suing her school over the fact she was told not to wear a ring to school. Madness I hear you say? She should follow the school rules relating to dress code. However the magic trump card comes into play. It’s a religious symbol of her virginity. So she’s going to the High Court claiming that her school is discriminating against her. If you want the details here is a link to the BBC News article on their web site.So, standing on my soap box once again, I cry out! What the heck is the world coming to when a young girl can waste thousands of pounds in tax payer’s money whilst the education authority goes to court and defends against this stupid little girl and her piteous cries of religious discrimination? The school has already said that is permissible for her to wear a cross, in the same way that turbans or other specifically religious items are permitted by other faith groups.
Of course the lovely Lydia isn’t satisfied with that, she must insist on what is essentially a new fad, because she isn’t satisfied to just be a virgin. No, no, no, she must actually wear a ring symbolising that she is a virgin. I have to say, I don’t object to the principle, of waiting until the time is right for her personally and not rushing into having sex at an early age. I think there is far too much pressure in our society to have sex at a young age. However I think much of that comes from making things taboo.
We should give children the information, and make them understand the consequences of their actions in relation to sex. I’m not sure what conclusion I’d like to make about this.
She obviously has the right to express herself freely, but she must have known the rules about this. I think what outrages me the most is the waste of money going to court over it, and I hold her and her family entirely accountable. A school is a place of education, not to engage in proselytization. If she can keep it in her pants, perhaps she can keep her religion in her church.
I’m an iPod Addict
Posted by: | CommentsI just recently purchased an iPod for myself, and I think its one of the best music and video players I’ve seen. I tried a few different music players, but this one is the best one to date.
Why is it so great? Well firstly it has a massive 80Gb storage capacity. So I’ve transferred my whole music collection to it and still have a load of space free still.
As for the music there is a massive selection of stuff that you can listen to, and the sound quality is truly crystal clear.
I did have to restrain myself from buying the additional options of the Bose speaker system and noise cancelling headphones. This little package would have cost me as much as the iPod again.
I warn you now, that the iTunes store has a very simple one click purchase option which I find quite compelling. So you need to be restrained, or like me you’ll quickly run up a big bill. To be fair there was one feature I did like very much. If you purchase a single track, but later decide you want the album, iTunes cleverly recognises you’ve got a track from the same album and recalculates the fee. So you only pay the difference don’t pay for the same track twice.
Harriet Harman for Deputy Leader
Posted by: | CommentsI read an interesting article today that one of my friends passed to me from the Guardian Unlimited. For those of my readers who aren’t interested in my humanist agenda, please feel free to change channel now. The article titled “Got to have faith?” immediately drew my attention as Labour’s deputy leadership candidates were answering questions posed by the Labour Humanist group on the role of religion in our society.
I would like to note at this point I don’t generally consider myself a labour supporter, although I occasionally agree with some of their policies.
Having also found the details relating to this on the Labour Humanists web page I read the answers to some serious issues from all the candidates. Harriet Harman shone through, sharing my values and principles almost verbatim. I was so enamoured with her responses I even wrote her an email wishing her all the best of luck in the deputy leadership contests. One answer she gave, made me beam with delight, just knowing that not all politicians are muppets. I quote: “I voted for a fully elected House of Lords, and have always voted for the most democratic formulation offered to Parliament. A 100% elected House of Lords removes unquestionable right from all positions in Parliament – religious or otherwise”.
Faith schools should only be brought into the state system where there is a particular need, and where they unite communities rather than divide.
The focus for our schools should be standards, not structures. I think what people want is a good local school for all children in their neighbourhood. The choice agenda arose when the Tories left state schools in such disrepair that people wanted to choose to get away from the local failing schools, and faith schools are part of that choice.
But we need to reverse the trend of allowing education to divide the community cohesive communities exist where there is religious (and non-religious) tolerance fostered from understanding and shared experienced.
I’ve no clue as to Harriet Harman’s views on religion. She may be religious, she may be humanistic. However her aims for a fair and just society resonated perfectly with my own. So, best wishes to Harriet Harman, on these issues I applaud your positive and rational position. There is much to be said for the other candidates, but I’ll leave that to those who might agree with their opinions. In particular that view of Hilary Benn, who seems to think discrimination is fine, on the grounds of “Tradition”, such as with faith schools. Commenting on this would reduce me to the level of grumpy old man.
I include the link http://www.labourhumanists.org.uk for completeness. That way you can read the answers of the labour deputy leadership candidates for yourselves.
Why do I call myself humanist?
Posted by: | CommentsA couple of people who’ve read my profile (and blog) wonder why I call myself a humanist, and so openly. Well the reason is I find it a more positive description of my beliefs and values.
I could easily say, I’m an atheist, or a secularist, or even non-religious. I feel its important to describe myself in a way that doesn’t judge someone elses way of life or values. I’d rather say what I am, than what I am not.
I suppose to someone who isn’t familiar with the term, it sounds like something from the 70’s, associated with hippies and the like. To be honest all sorts of people consider themselves humanists, and it far predates the 1970’s. Just have a read on Wikipedia.
When I talk about being humanist I’m talking about living my life in a positive way, helping people, contributing to society and taking responsibility for my choices and actions.
Humanism isn’t a religion, and I don’t worship the fairies at the bottom of the garden, or Zogg the mighty from Garzax 7. There is no ritual, no doctrine, and no scripture. I suppose some people do take issues with my values is when I express the desire to be free from religion.
Let me clear this up, because I’m a live and let live kind of guy. I have no problem with religion, and I would even die to defend someones right to believe what they want. Being a pacifist I’m not going to kill anyone for you though. All I ask is to be afforded the same right, which is to not have religion influence my chosen way of life.
As I humanist I can work with people of religion when I agree their aims, e.g. curing cancer, saving the rainforests, helping people with HIV. However, if I disagree with religions aims, then expect open criticism too.
So, I’m a happy humanist.
Ministers proposing Britain Day
Posted by: | CommentsA new national day to celebrate British values is being proposed by two senior government ministers in the news today.
Whilst I don’t always agree with government policy, I do agree with this idea. Why do we need a Britain day? What’s wrong with St George’s day, St Patrick’s day, St Andrew’s day and St David’s day? My argument against those celebrations is they are a celebration of Roman Catholic saints. Therefore they are exclusively religious holidays. When I tell people I don’t care about St George’s day, but that I am a proud Englishman they’re very often confused.
This Britain day will also allow British people to take back their flag from the extremists like the National Front and BNP who have taken it made it something to be ashamed of because of the association with racism.
Chessington World of Adventures
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After starting my blog on a somewhat sombre note I wanted to take a step back and talk about our family day out last week at Chessington World of Adventures. For those who don’t know (or live in the outer reaches of the galaxy) Chessington World of Adventures is a park run by Tussuads, the same company that do all those freaky wax statues of celebs.
I have to be honest we weren’t expecting to have all that much fun as the BBC were predicting rain on and off for most of the day. Thankfully, their weather reporting as accurate as my aim when going to the toilet in the dark and we ended up with about 22 degrees and sunshine all day.
We had a discussion about what to do first, and ended up just starting with some warm up rides, like the Berry Bouncers. An interesting contraption that you sit in, and it bounces the person up and down and varying heights. From a previous trip we knew this one was not for grown ups, so Rachael went on her own. The biggest problem with this ride for adults is two-fold:
- If you a woman with large boobs (as Julie is), the safety bar has a problem coming over your chest.
- If you’re tall like me, you need to duck sideways to get under the safety bar in the first place.
We witnessed this very problem with a woman who’d obviously never been on this ride before and therefore was having equal problems with the boobs issue.
After the warm-up rides were done we moved on and decided to see some animals. After all when I was a child, Chessington World of Adventures was actually called Chessington Zoo. They don’t have masses of animals but the Darwinian in me wanted to go see my monkey cousins. Unfortunately the larger primates had been moved to Chester zoo, however we did get to into an enclosure where we interacted with squirrel monkeys. They’re small little critters, with greyish and yellow fur. I managed to get a close up of one as it hung onto a nearby plant. Its face is quite cuddly and he had no problem in posing for his national geographic close-up picture. Luckily these aren’t the sort of monkeys that sit and throw their own excrement at you after having sniffed it, otherwise we’d have been in real trouble.
The other area which you should see if you ever go to CWOE is the Sea lions. They’re cool too and quite funny to watch. They have shows with the Sea lions although I’ve never seen it myself. If you get to the park just before it opens you can watch them have their breakfast.
Moving around the park we went through the various zones, like The Forbidden Kingdom, and The Land of the Dragons. I won’t go into the details of each area, but I liked a couple of rides quite a lot. The Vampire was fantastic! You basically hang from this rail in a seat with your feet dangling below. Its something like a ski lift, apart from the fact it goes really fast, and swings out all over the place.
I also did well at Tomb Blaster, which is basically like a ghost train, but you shoot the monsters to score points with a laser gun. I think my final score was in the 14,000 range. We did a load of other rides, most of which didn’t compare to the excitement of the vampire. The Black Buccaneer did make me feel a bit dizzy, and I personally thought Bubble works was a yawn. Dragon Falls was a close second to the vampire, but not as good as the log flume at Thorpe Park.
We stayed until about 5pm and headed home. It certainly managed to tire the kids out, and we had a pretty good day all around.
