NEWS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Including Friday’s Feast. Have you had a go yet?

Welcome to my daily Diary post. Have you noticed how quickly the Burma Cyclone disaster has gone from the news? Of course, this was inevitable as soon as the China earthquake struck. But what does this say about the news?
Well, seeing that people are still dying in Burma, and the Junta is still pretty uncooperative, it says that the news isn’t an accurate portrayal of what’s going on. Rather, it’s a ‘snapshot’. But of what?

Of what the news corporations wants us to see.

The sociologist, Baudrillard, noted this in his view that mass media produced what he called ‘infotainment’. News is not a reality, but a form of propaganda.
News corporations, like other companies, need to make money. Hence news today is always geared as much towards entertainment as anything else. And once we begin to see news as entertainment, the news can really be manipulated.

Most news channels are mouthpieces for Big Biz.

So they are unlikely to do anything that would hinder the march of Big Biz. For this reason, celebrity culture becomes part and parcel of the news. This is because celebrities encourage us to spend in order to emulate them.
But there’s much more to this Big Biz propaganda. Alongside the rise of celebrity news has come emotional news. Rarely do we see a tragedy nowadays without a roll call of victims, crying away, baring their soul, and we feel for them every time.

Of course we do, and why shouldn’t we? We ARE human.

But this is not ‘news’. Rather, it is a process whereby our emotions overpower our rationality. You see, the world works through reason, not emotion. For it to be any different would be anarchy.
Emotion is uncontrolled. And in the news placing emotion above reason, the result is the public descend into a kind of emotion-fest, and then, sated, moves on. Hence no tragedy, no annoyance, can any longer produce the rationality in the public to want to do anything about it in the long term.
In essence, by turning the news into a form of emotional entertainment, our thoughts on issues become fleeting, and Big Biz, and the puppet-politicians they’ve put in place, get on with controlling us unimpeded.
Well, that’s enough of a rant for today. After going deep, let’s have some entertainment here, too. Here we go with my this week’s Friday’s Feast.

© Anthony North, May 2008

FRIDAY’S FEAST

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Appetizer: What is the nearest big city to your home?

York. One of the most historic and beautiful cities in the world. Initially called Eboracum by the Romans, Constantine the Great rode from there to save the Roman Empire from collapse.
Guy Fawkes, who plotted to blow up Parliament, came from York, and Britain’s most infamous villain, Dick Turpin, was hanged there. Later, it was to become the centre of the railways revolution.
New York was, of course, named after it.

Soup: On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how well do you keep secrets?

Not telling (I suppose that gives me a 10).

Salad: Describe your hair (color, texture, length).

Light brown. Short. Beginning to thin.

Main Course: What kind of driver are you? Courteous? Aggressive? Slow?

None of the above. I stopped driving in 1984, a couple of years after I came down with chronic fatigue syndrome, as I had a habit of passing out at the wheel. And once gone, I learnt very quickly that I didn’t miss driving.
Okay, I know many need a car due to their job, where they live, etc. But it really isn’t a big deal. Even if people just drove less, think what it would do for the environment. And why do people need SUVs?
They’ll be putting a gun turret on top next.

Dessert: When was the last time you had a really bad week?

The last time I felt self-indulgent.

Okay, that’s it for this week, folks. Have a good weekend. My Diary post will be back Monday. Don’t miss it!

© Anthony North, May 2008

HOW TO BE IMPULSIVE

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HOW TO BE IMPULSIVE

You’ve seen him – her – before. And every time you do so you want to know him – to want more. To make her part of your life. But this can be frightening – making that first move. So what do we do?
We have an in-built facility to override our normal behaviour, our restraint, and just go for it. When we do so, we can head for a beautiful life, or total disaster. Maybe this is why we need to be hard-wired this way. Otherwise we’d never do anything.
To be impulsive is to have a sudden urge and follow it. Most changes in our life come from doing it. And as indicated, this can be good, or it can be very bad. The result is, quite literally, in the lap of the gods.

This is so because ‘impulse’ requires no conscious thought.

To think about something is the opposite of impulse. Hence, impulse is a kind of instinct for human interaction. But sadly, impulse can be much more.
It infects our normal life. We impulsively shop. We impulsively eat. We impulsively take impulse into our lives more and more, to the point that conscious thought often disappears.
Why do we do this more and more in the modern world? One answer is that a strict moral code used to hold us back. In effect, we feared retribution, or condemnation. But there is no such fear today.
Which is a good thing as far as Big Biz is concerned. After all, we live in a consumer society, where impulsive buying has become the ‘engine’ of commerce. Strange, though, how we impulsively do their bidding.
Maybe this essay is wrongly titled. Maybe it should be how NOT to be impulsive. But the answer to that is simple. Learn to say ‘no’, and ‘no’ again. And keep doing it until you do it without thought. Impulsively.

© Anthony North, May 2008

BETRAYAL

Love is great, we all agree,
such feelings between your love and thee;
But there is more to this thing called love,
that can rise way above,
our ability to always be,
true and loving, intimately;
The roving eye for another life,
forever bringing trouble and strife;
Never satisfied with our devotion,
going on to create commotion,
as another is spied with adoration,
sating our rabid infatuation;
The loss it leaves is terrible indeed,
fuelling in us an overpowering need,
to take revenge rather than plead;
Betrayal, that horrendous
destructive
unimaginable seed

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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SOAR

Pull out! Pull out! Damn it pull …
Banking hard. Five G. Six G. Face contorting, the pressure – Man, the pressure! The sky below me, the ground above, the fireball of my Wingman, he’s gone, flames licking my fuselage …
MISSILE LOCKED
Copy.
I’m alone now, just me and that MiG – and a missile locked on my ass.
500 knots
550
600 – I’ll outrun. Afterburn ignites the sky behind me. Wait for it … NOW!!
Counter-measures decoy the missile. I’m free. Roll. Come up behind. 20mm cannon. FIRE!!!
Peace – for a moment – the stench and the flames turning sky to Hell – for a moment.

It’s come to this – now.

It had to. Invade Iran, they said. Easy, they said. No, the Russians wouldn’t take sides – they said …
Remembering: ‘I don’t know you any more.’
‘But Jen, I’m a fighter pilot. I have to do it.’
‘You’re a killing machine. I can’t … take it … I’m sorry.’
Memory makes me angry, makes me sore.
TANK COLUMN SIX O’CLOCK
Copy
Pull left, ground radar searching. Descend low. Play chicken with the ground as it flashes past, undefined.
(tears fill my eyes - Oh! JEN!!!)
Sighted.
COPY
(I love you. Always have. Always will)
500lb bomb selected.
COPY … WAIT … NOT TANKS! NOT TANKS! REFUGEE CONVOY
Jen gone. Wingman gone. Everyone dead. Everyone just damned dead!
Laser guidance selected. Line up for run in …
MiG at 3 O’CLOCK - EVADE!!!!!!!!
Final run. I can imagine the whites of their eyes …
MISSILE LOCKED
I can’t ……………
…
…
…

© Anthony North, May 2008

A BIT OF ALIEN NEWS

Welcome to my daily Diary post. I thought I’d talk first about the weather – after all, that’s what us Brits do best, or so we’re famous for. We’ve been having a beautiful week here, after a miserable, damp, cold start to spring.
Which brings me to my garden. Now, I’m not the best of gardeners, and with chronic fatigue syndrome I’m limited to how much I can do. But I’ve never seen nature go so manic as it has this week! Me thinks the Triffids are back.

And so, it seems, are the bad times.

Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, has talked about grim times ahead. The good times are over, with the economy taking a down turn that could last a couple of years.
Of course, this should have happened years ago. It was impossible to maintain present living standards. And we only did so through the insanity of non-existant credit. And the real problem is, the more such measures put back the downturn, the more harsh the downturn would eventually be.

So it’s miserable times ahead, I’m afraid.

Indeed, in the UK interest rates are on the up, and people are beginning to talk about unemployment again. And as for the housing market, that horrific term, negative equity, has come back into common usage.
In one way, though, an economic squeeze is not so bad. Good times tend to lead to decadence and thoughlessness, whereas downturns lead to more selflessness and introspection. I guess we could do with that again.

Well, enough of alien news. Oh no, there’s more!

The British Ministry of Defence has just released its UFO files, and the media has been having a mini-mental breakdown as it plays X Files music and shows people dressed in little alien costumes.
Well, okay, this slliness is inevitable. Yet, my love of mysteries has led me to research things like UFOs for years. And whilst I don’t accept ET is visiting us, the subject can teach us a hell of a lot about psychology, social interaction, perception, culture and much more.
A pity so many can’t see the opportunity for research the subject brings. Oh well, hope to see you tomorrow.

© Anthony North, May 2008

TT #11 - HOW TO FIND ATLANTIS

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YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my Thursday Thirteen #11. For many years I’ve been researching many mysteries, one of them being Atlantis. Hence, this week I thought I’d dedicate this post to trying to rationalise the subject. Hopefully it will give you food for thought, and make you decide I’m not a total crackpot.
I’ve also included pieces from the writers’ prompt, Three word Wednesday, in this post. By doing so, I hope to offer a little variation. I hope you enjoy reading it.

COUNTDOWN

13. Many researchers feel the genesis of Atlantis comes from the eruption of Thera in the 2nd millennium BC. A huge disaster, part of the island sank, and there is evidence it wiped out the seafaring Minoan civilization on Crete.

12. Plato first wrote about Atlantis, and many feel his assertion that it was ‘beyond the Pillars of Hercules’ places it in the Atlantic. The ‘pillars’ are the Straits of Gibraltar. However, many miss the fact that the Atlantic was mysterious at the time, and Plato could have used ‘mysterious’ as a metaphor.

11. Atlantis serves a purpose in human advancement. Whenever it is popular, you usually find it is at a time of social or political change. Philosophers have always used it as a metaphor for the perfect society being considered at the time.

10. This could be what Plato had in mind. His philosophy revolved around the idea of the ‘ideal form’ to everything, and the idea of the perfect republic. Hence, the Atlantis myth is a perfect metaphor of what he hoped to achieve in his philosophy.

9. This is hinted at with his Royal City of Atlantis. An island with a temple at its centre, and surrounded by a number of circular canals, with a tunnel going from its border to its centre, if you draw a plan of the city, you are actually drawing a perfect seven ringed mandala – a symbol for reaching higher consciousness.

8. Some researchers believe the pyramids, being similar in many parts of the world, were built by the survivors of Atlantis. How else do we explain their universality? Easy. All tribal societies represented nature with fertility, building earth mounds to represent the ‘womb’ of the Earth. As mathematics came into being, the pyramid is a natural extension of the mound. The universality is in human psychology.

7. Various ‘structures’ under the water close to coastlines have been thought of as belonging to Atlantis. Others say they are natural formations. But what if they are natural formations partially sculpted into early temples? Could this give a hint of the reality of a lost civilization in prehistory?

6. Humans almost certainly populated the Earth in stages, moving out from their natural habitat in Africa. The ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis places this mass movement in stages between 55,000 and 15,000 years ago.

5. How was this done without boats? No matter how you look at it, there were times when they would have had to cross large expanses of water. It is highly likely that there were rudimentary, ocean-going boats tens of thousands of years ago.

4. Once built, it is ridiculous to imagine these boats being abandoned. Rather, I would argue a ‘fisheries revolution’ occurred in many parts of the world in deep prehistory. With static ports, social and technological evolution would occur, making them seem like ‘gods’ to the Stone Age inlanders.

3. Between 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age raised water levels, swamping most coastal areas worldwide. The above civilization would have been wiped out, its rudimentary cities buried below the coastal silt, only its rudimentary temples remaining.

2. Survivors of this civilization would have moved inland, and being more advanced, would have been responsible for kick-starting the known ‘agricultural revolution’. They are known throughout the world through the Hero myths, of strangers coming along following a great flood and bringing knowledge and agriculture.

1. Of course, the above is speculative, but I suggest it is totally rational. And it speaks of a possible global cosmopolitan civilisation in our deep past, remembered, today, only through myths of gods.

© Anthony North, May 2008

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A GOTHIC ROMANCE - Fiction

To be a Goth is the most satisfying thing in the world. Oh, I remember when I first moved into the Goth scene in the early 1980s. Their parties were better than the average parties; their dress, black, chained, dark black around the eyes, post-punk.
It began in the UK, spread to so many other countries, and is still alive and well today, even though it was dismissed as a fad – something that would soon be scratched out.

Well, as I entered the party, it was clear the critics were wrong.

The music was loud, heavy, chaotic, and in no time at all I existed in a swirling mass of bodies. Many of the girls I had been with before, and they simply gave me blank stares, emotionless.
It wasn’t that I was too exuberant, or anything like that. Just … well, you know.
But it was a new girl I spotted tonight – late teens, vibrant, just finding her feet in the Goth culture.
It took no time at all to woo her – kiss her on the neck. After all, I’d had a reputation for some time. And it was inevitable we’d end up at my place, where we …
Well, a gentleman never tells. But as I took one last look at the corpse and closed my lid, I knew she’d be as everlasting as my Goth culture, come tomorrow.

© Anthony North, May 2008

SCRATCH IT

I want to scratch it, it’s a bitch,
you’ve no idea how much I itch;
It’s gone on for day, the infernal thing,
so bad at times it starts to sting;
It isn’t your average annoying stigma,
but it certainly is one big enigma;
My finger works, trying to ease it quick,
causing effects that, frankly, would make you sick;
Where is it? I hear you, pray,
below my neck is all I’ll say;
Other than that I’m telling you,
you’d scratch it yourself,
if you only knew

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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AN AVERAGE ESSAY

I keep hearing about this thing called average. It gets everywhere. It can be used to describe people, things, thoughts, lifestyles, events. You name it, it can be infected by this thing called average.
It gets annoying at times – you know, something you’d like to scratch out of your life. But escape from the average is quite impossible. Everyone talks about it, and even laws and rules are based upon it.

Only thing is, as soon as you try to find it, it disappears.

It simply does not exist in your neck of the woods. Which is maybe the most important thing we can say about average.
Average is an ‘ideal’, designed to provide a rough guide to planners, thinkers, statisticians, politicians, etc, in order for them to make policy decisions about us. Or at least, that’s what I used to think
Today, we live in a mass media world, where images constantly bombard the younger generations. And the more the media grows, the more I see people wearing identical clothes, speaking in identical slang, dancing in identical ways, and having identical expressions, ways and thoughts.
Maybe the curse of the average was not simply an ideal, but a growing control mechanism. It’s rather strange that, as we celebrate the individual today, the average is becoming a reality.

© Anthony North, May 2008

A MARRIAGE AND A SLUR

Today begins on a happy note. Yvonne and I are celebrating our 31st wedding anniversary. So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank her for those years, her love and companionship, and for all the years we have yet to live together. But to another subject.
It’s been suggested that I’ve slurred religion. In para 3 of How To Fantasize, I suggested religion is based on fantasy. In cmt #49 it’s pointed out religion is the core of one’s being, so to say it is fantasy IS a slur.

Is it a slur to say religion can be based on fantasy?

A slur suggests intent. If no intent to be malevolent is present, can it still be a slur? If a policeman shoots someone dead in defence of others, is he a murderer? Surely ‘intent’ changes definitions and values.
Fantasy can be said to be the opposite of rationality. The philosopher, Kierkegaard, saved religion, intellectually, by saying its irrationality is the point. This was the birth of the phrase: leap of faith. Hence, this places a degree of fantasizing upon religion.

Does a religionist ‘know’ the reality of a deity?

To say yes is to say the religionist is ‘as one’ in terms of intellect with a higher being. I don’t think they mean this, but if they are not, then to speak with ‘absolute’ authority must hold a degree of their own intuition, which must be to fantasize.
And finally on this subject, I respect the peacefully held beliefs of anyone, but feel an urge to try to understand just what religion is. To do so is to ask some serious questions of religion. Must this always be a slur? If so, where does it leave free speech?

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In the UK the ‘esteemed leader’, Brownski, has shown his worthlessness.

Not long ago he became the first Prime Minister with a socialist background to purposely take money off the poor by abolishing the initial 10p tax rate. There was a revolt by backbench NuLabour MPs.
Yesterday, the Budget was totally redrawn by increasing the tax allowance to give it back. Clearly the greatest U-turn of modern times, it makes one wonder how long the UK can remain leaderless. Even the conman, Blair, was better than this.
Following the total trashing of NuLabour in the recent local government elections, we are clearly seeing the final days of this disgusting ‘modernist’ experiment in politics which, since 1997, has torn the heart out of the UK. But what worries me is you can guarantee the unelected Brownski will cling to power to the last. But at what cost?
Don’t forget to call tomorrow.

© Anthony North, May 2008

IMAGINING CHINA AND THINGS

Since reinstating my Diary of a Writer only yesterday, I’ve been filled with many ideas. As usual Brian set me off, concerning the problem of blogging being driven by the reader, yet without readers, you’re shouting in a vacuum.
Getting the balance right is difficult. But to me, the actual act of writing is only part of the craft. Writing is about communication, so the end product must be in the mind of the reader. Hence, it is a two way street.

I suspect all bloggers think this.

And in that spirit, I’ll continue trying to communicate. Today I’m doing so by incorporating Blogtalkers, who ask for me to write about my imaginary life. Well that’s easy.
You’ll find my imaginary life all over this blog, ‘cos I’m a writer, and expressing my imaginary life is what I do. It is at the heart of writing, placing different characters and situations in my mind and seeing what comes out.

I’m also trying to imagine the situation in China today.

Suffering another earthquake, 10,000 are believed to have died, with another 10,000 buried. My heart goes out to the casualties.
Yet I’m sure the survivors will cope much better than those in Burma. Why do I bring this up? Because China is a regional power in the area, and wants to be accepted by the world. They can begin by putting pressure on the Burma Junta to let the full aid package in. But I’m not holding my breath.

Crime is also on my mind today.

In the UK a couple of years ago the Serious and Organised Crime Agency was set up – a kind of British version of the FBI. I thought at the time that an organization with an acronym that sounded like a popular sport would be a failure.
Well, how right I was! It seems they have just shelved their 130-strong hitlist of top villains. They’re too hard to catch. Now there’s something to write about in the ‘imaginary’ category.
Call again tomorrow.

© Anthony North, May 2008

WHERE AM I?

In the last week or so Beyond the Blog reached its 700th post and raced past a quarter million hits. In just over a year, I’d say that was pretty good. Yet, I find myself asking: where am I? What is this blog about?
The answer is, it’s about me and what I want to write. Only problem is, I want to write about everything. Well, finally – I think! – it has all seemed to evolve into four super posts a week, each with between 3 to 6 poems, stories or essays.

I can’t ever see myself not writing those posts.

But in the last few months of experimentation, I think I’ve lost sight of blogging proper, even neglecting many of the other fields I was into. Well, I’m now reinstating a slightly different Diary of a Writer post, which should come out most days – I hope.
In it, you’ll find out more about me as a person, and I’m also going to incorporate my current affairs pieces here. So, what’s been happening in the world over this last weekend?

Well, the disaster in Burma is getting worse.

There are fears of over a million about to die. Yet, just over the border, the aid to stop it is in place. Now, I’m not mad about such international moves as the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
But it seems to me that, if they’re going to have prosecutions for Genocide, why not devise an equivalent for manslaughter? I can think of many Burmese generals who fit the bill.

On a lighter note, it was Mother’s Day in America this weekend.

In the UK, ours was earlier in the year. It’s a good day, and I often reflect on it. Of course, with me it is mainly taken up with my wife, Yvonne, and our 7 kids, mostly grown up now.
But I also spend a little time thinking about my own Mother, who died of cancer when I was twelve. Old enough to remember her, but maybe not old enough to know her, I’m certain that I owe her. She gave me so much. But let’s not neglect fathers.

Doctor Who became one this week.

Now, don’t you Tennantites get all upset. It didn’t involve sex. He’s still pure and waiting for you! And I won’t tell you what happened in case you haven’t seen it yet.
But his daughter was the delightful Georgia Moffett, the actual daughter of a previous Doctor Who, Peter Davidson. The character is excellent, and it will no doubt lead to yet another brilliant angle to take this marvelous show.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MM - HOW TO DOODLE

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TO DOODLE

To doodle is to draw,
little images galore;
We do it absent-minded,
with no thought confided;
But it is also an analogy,
for which we have an allergy,
to doing things with thought,
which we know we really ought;
So to doodle is to live,
chaotic as we give,
not a hoot to how we plan,
our entire life’s span;
So doodle away through life,
ignoring trouble and strife,
doing just as we please,
going nowhere fast
with ease

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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DOODLING POE

Mo over at Manic Monday is giving some money to the new charity, Cat Friends Helping Friends, for everyone who places a doodle of a cat in their Manic Monday post. Well, I’m lousy at doodling, so will an image do?
It is of a black cat at night, and this links nicely with the word ‘doodle’ – at least for me. I’ve written hundreds of very short short stories, mostly with a twist, and long ago I decided to call them Doodles.
And what has this to do with a black cat? Well, no one inspired me to write them more than Edgar Allan Poe, who virtually invented the short story with a twist with his own stories such as The Black Cat.
Poe is perhaps the most under-rated of writers, never achieving the acclaim he truly deserves. He doodled absent-mindedly through life, but that didn’t stop him arguably inventing, also, the detective story, psychological thriller and science fiction.
Though sometimes over-written, his stories make him one of the greatest writers ever.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MOTHER EARTH

Mother Earth, she knows best,
suckling life through ample breast;
Taking this barren Earthly orb,
shrouded in air to absorb,
heat from our life giving star,
so diversity can go so very far;
Her influence is clear to see,
yet now we need a simple plea;
Why has man ignored her so,
producing waste that he does throw,
away with no concern for where,
giving us all an environmental scare?
Once we were in nature’s womb,
part and parcel of its tune,
then we discovered technology,
and advanced, all full of awesome glee;
but then we broke the umbilical cord,
of Mother Earth, and we did lord,
over all of nature as our own,
forgetting it was just a loan,
until the day, we will atone

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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BEHIND THE DOOR - Fiction

Jessie was fifteen and impressionable – just getting to the age when childhood was giving way to womanhood. This was a confusing time for her, as she tried to negotiate the psychological maze of interaction with others. And typically, she often got it wrong. Indeed, her friend, Roxy, told her this time and time again.
‘You’re just a witch,’ she told her, ‘always ruining things for me.’
Maybe growing up is the same as being young, thought Jessie, because she’d thought herself as a ‘witch’ before.

To get away from it all she went to visit her Nan for a couple of days.

And as she sat on the bed, the ‘witch’ thing came back to her with a new intensity. After all, it was in this very room that the wardrobe stood – the very wardrobe around which her Grandfather had told her so many stories before he died.
‘There’s a witch in there,’ he used to say scaring her half to death. And even now, at fifteen, she had never dared open the door.
Of course, the fantasies were many. Was this the entrance to the magical land of Narnia, as C S Lewis would have us believe? Or was the ‘witch’ of a much more sinister nature?
Well, thought Jessie, it is time to put childish things away and open the door.
It was with a sense of trepidation that she approached the door. Reaching out, she noticed her hand was shaking, but steadying it, she gripped the handle, pulled open the door, and looked into the mirror.

© Anthony North, May 2008

MIND PLAN

We see the world in all its glory,
experiencing things and placing our story,
upon our inner reflections of life,
creating mind, vibrant and rife;
But how do we know where thoughts are hidden,
those that are friendly and those forbidden?
Where is the map of our inner world,
its ideas, its dreams, all unfurled?
To find them we must search a mental maze,
turning to thoughts that are otherwise a haze;
But once we know them, they do glint,
shining bright memories, as they hint,
the way to our inner fingerprint

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

A UNIVERSAL ARTIST

As more and more powerful telescopes look into the cosmos, the more our astronomers and cosmologists claim to know about the universe. But is our growing knowledge as simple as that?
One thing that worries me is the fact that any new discovery seems to offer a great deal of excitement, but only mild surprise. It is as if whatever is found fits quite neatly into our view of things.

One answer to this is that our theories are right.

We have a good grasp of the universal construct. We are on the right track, and soon everything will be disclosed. But there is another answer.
This concerns the nature of what we can know. For instance, many ‘realities’ could be out there, but we are only capable of imagining a certain set of principles. Even if the result of them was there to be seen, we would miss them.

Consider our senses.

They have limits. We cannot have the sensual acuity of a dog, for instance. Neither can we sense things like a bat. We are limited in knowing what we can sense and experience.
This is why we have technology to measure things, such as those powerful telescopes. But even here, they can be limited in a similar way to sensory us. In effect, they can only ‘see’ what we can conceive can be seen. They are only built to extend what we can already experience, and not create new experience.

The universe we see is therefore an image of our imaginings.

But what is the nature of the knowledge that accrues from our imaginings? Well, if the above is correct, we can say that it is very limited. And a little knowledge is famed for producing what can be classed as the delusional.
Now, I don’t mean this in a way that suggests that our cosmologists, etc, are mad. But a little knowledge does suggest that they may fill in the pieces with ideas that are closer to ‘belief’ than rationality.

People who believe things can become evangelical.

We see this all the time in fundamentalist religious movements. And it is becoming clear to many on the sidelines of science that a similar thing is happening.
It is increasingly difficult to go against the ‘consensus’ of a scientific idea that has taken hold of the collective imagination. And increasingly it is looking like modern science is a process of consensus rather than rational investigation.

This all suggests that those telescopes are echoing a belief.

Indeed, quantum theory allows for this eventuality. In the ‘observer effect’, what ‘is’ is the result of our ability to observe and define. The universe bends to our mind-models.
We can now see what we know in a different light. We can see those telescopes more as artist’s brushes, sculpting a picture of the universe from our minds. Which leaves an intriguing question. When we actually go ‘out there’, will the universe ‘be’ as we imagined it to be?
If so, it appears we will be the creators of our own universe. We will have become gods.

© Anthony North, May 2008

WHAT HE SAW IN OUTER SPACE

He saw it, there, in outer space,
an anomalous form, so out of place;
Come here, he said, see what I’ve found,
and colleagues came to compound,
this marvellous sight in his telescope,
and new theories he did invoke,
of our enigmatic universe in all its glory,
rewriting our marvellous universal story;
But come the day it disappeared from view,
doubts began to be cast anew;
Soon after that, they began to scoff,
not noticing the cleaner
had wiped the stain off

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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Fiction Xtra - PLANET ZERO

The Explorer looked down upon the battle-scarred planet. He could see all the signs of high civilization. Cities, highways, everything an advanced culture required. Yet, it had all been reduced to rubble years ago.
The thought entered his head that he should pass this planet by, but the insatiable curiosity of the human got the better of him. What had brought a civilization to this? And could it teach us anything about ourselves?
He had not landed long when he found himself surrounded by heavily armed humanoids. Immediately suspicious of him, their aggression was obvious. Indeed, he thought he was going to die there and then. And no doubt would have if another group of humanoids had not approached and opened fire.

The battle didn’t last long.

There were casualties on both sides, but the first group withdrew, leaving the Explorer with the second.
He asked why they fought, and the answer was typical. Something in their deep past had happened – they could not remember what – and the god-form, Consensus, demanded the battle carried on. Indeed, the only thing he could definitely find out was that the enemy was ‘different’.
This puzzled the Explorer, as over the coming weeks it became obvious that both sides were identical in every way.
His opportunity to stop the madness came a month into his time on the planet. Following a battle, a group of wounded from both sides were resting close to the battlefield. It was with relief that they saw the Explorer shake hands with each in turn and say: ‘friend.’
It took but a week for Consensus to die, and reason to be born.

(c) Anthony North, May 2008

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BURMA - THE AID PROBLEM

The charities are ready. Appeals are in full swing. Some aid has arrived. But in Burma, hundreds of thousands are fending for themselves after the Cyclone as the Military dictatorship seems to ignore the problem.
Well, let’s get one word out of the way before we begin. Military? They may wear uniforms, they may have guns, but as ex-forces myself, it is an insult to soldiers everywhere to call the Burmese government ‘military’.

Estimates of the dead are high.

And it is clear that many more will die of the criminal complacency in that country. And like many the world over, my gut reaction is: ignore the Junta and get in there!
I say this, but do I have the right to say it? I’m from the west, and feel that we have the moral balance right concerning human rights. Yet hasn’t every predominant society throughout history felt it holds the moral high ground?

I am often uneasy about this.

Whilst the sentiment is true, we can never know for sure what insidious politics is going on behind the scenes of western governments, making so many governments worldwide suspicious of our motives.
And then there is the problem of which ethic is most important – sovereign power or human dignity? What kind of a world will we inhabit if we decide it is okay to ignore a nation state’s borders? What trouble could it cause in the future?
If we are to demand we give aid to those who need it, I think it is time that the world’s charities organized themselves into a diplomatic and logistics force in its own right, free of western government’s political aspirations.
Maybe then we can truly take the aid, and charity, to where it is needed.

© Anthony North, May 2008

NOTE: For the foreseeable future, I am transferring my current affairs posts to Beyond the Blog. I hope you enjoy them, and that they make you think.