After the heat-wave of July this month has been very wet and at times pretty chilly too!

I took this picture the other day as I was walking out of my back gate. Their is ivy all over the fence along my path and just after yet another rain shower the ivy was covered in rain covered cobwebs that looked like little collections or diamonds in the leaves.

I’ve never really thought about where the water goes. Does it just evaporate? I suppose it does. It must annoy the spiders though, I mean you’d have to be a pretty stupid bug not to spot the web now wouldn’t you.

I’ve noticed that a lot of my Xanga subscribers no longer comment on my new blog. What’s up with that then? I’m getting hits, and plenty of them, but very very few comments these days. Come on people, everyone likes a little encouragement from time to time.

I recently watched a documentary on Channel 4 here in the UK called ‘Gods Next Army.’ The subject of the documentary was Patrick Henry College, an evangelical college that teaches six-day creationism and which aims to train its students in skills that will enable them to get jobs in Washington D.C. with a view to re-christianizing America from the top down, despite that old ‘separation of church and State’ thing.

Of the students who attend the Virginia based college started by Michael Farris, some 80% of them are home-schooled in deeply Christian households that have gone to lengths to keep their children away from mainstream society and the differing views that may present. The college is particularly popular with home-schooling parents because it more or less assures that their children will continue to be develop under strict Christian rules and ideologies. If there was a wild side to the college it certainly wasn’t presented to the maker of this film.

Each student has to sign a covenant of faith before when they enroll, as well as a code of conduct that forbids behavior that would be commonplace in non-Christian colleges.

The Patrick Henry College Institutional Mission, Vision, and Distinctives states the mission of Patrick Henry College is to “prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding.” It continues “The Vision of Patrick Henry College is to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence.”

I found the documentary interesting on several levels but mostly I felt bad for the students. Clearly none of them were about to misbehave while the camera was on them, but it didn’t seem like any of them would misbehave in any case. They came across as inexperienced kids who were collectively about as much fun as a wet Thursday afternoon. As they enthusiastically talked about taking back the nation for Jesus I found myself hoping that they would collide at top speed with reality before they started working in government, not so much because I don’t think the world needs another lunatic at the wheel, but because I feel that as well as the college might prepare them for the day to day life of government it does not prepare them for the harsh day to day realities of life. In essence, these home schooled kids would, in my opinion, be ill equipped to make decisions for the masses when they are so woefully inexperienced at life, even for a college kid.

The College opened in September on 2000 and has since that time attracted more than its fair share of press coverage due to its fundamentalist Christian teachings such as six day creationism. It’s founder Michael Farris also founded the Home School Legal Defense Association and Generation Joshua which aims to Generation Joshua, an organisation for Christians between the ages of 11 and 19 who “want to become a force in the civic and political arenas.” The stated goal of Generation Joshua is to “ignite a vision in young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundations.” With fun like that on the agenda, who needs MTV, movies and fashion huh!

To some extent I applaud Farris’s goal of getting young people involved in political issues, though I tend to agree with Reece when he says “I’m all for extending the innocence of childhood as far as possible.” But political issues very much affect young people so maybe encouraging them to take a little more interest in politics isn’t a bad idea at all.

I find myself wondering, though, what the reaction would be if someone started a fundamentalist Islamic college in the United States with the same goals as Patrick Henry College. Imagine a College not far from Washington D.C. that was training young men and women in fundamentalist Islam with the specific intention that they “aid in the transformation of American society by training Muslim students to serve Allah and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence.” Surely in today’s society under threat from Islamic extremists such a college would that be considered a threat to national security, would it not?

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The documentary
Patrick Henry College website
Wiki page about PHC
Interview with Miachael Farris, founder of PHC
The Bible College That Leads to the White House
Educating America’s Christian Right
PHC Xanga blogring

As British intelligence services disrupt a terrorist plot to hijack planes and cause “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” I find myself concerned that these latest revelations will spark a new round of hatred that is essentially racism born out of fear and ignorance.

Take for example an email which I was forwarded yesterday evening by my friend Josh. It wasn’t created in response to the recent plot revelations, but it might well find a new lease of life in the wake of that news.

The email, entitled ‘Scary’, shows pictures of Muslim extremists who marched on the streets of London in February of this year in response to the overblown scandal that surrounded the Danish cartoons which depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad in an unfavorable light.

The email is headed with the line “ALL AMERICANS NEED TO SEE THESE.” Followed by “Scarey isn’t it!!!” Then in bold blue and red text the author continues. “Below are actual photos of Muslims who marched in the streets of London during their recent Religion of Peace Demonstration.

“These photos have never been shown in any American newspapers or television news programs because we want to be careful not to offend the Muslims.”

The author of the email makes no mention of the facts behind the pictures included which show Muslim extremists holding up banners with slogans like “Behead those who insult Islam” and “Europe you will pay. Your 9/11 is on the way.”

The email takes on a rather ironic feel because presenting the pictures in this way without even the slightest shred of context would suggest an attitude as hateful and closed minded as the sentiments behind the banners held by the people in the pictures themselves. This was very clearly not a ‘Religion of Peace Demonstration’ as the author suggested, and to claim it was is clearly a cynical attempt to stir a reaction of anger.

In claiming that the pictures had never been shown in any American newspapers or television news programs the author may indeed have hit on an even more worrying truth that the American news media is essentially rubbish! News is often branded and packaged into nice little easy to consume morsels and then spoon fed to the masses between commercials for S.U.V’s, toothpaste and fizzy drinks.

Perhaps the author should be more afraid of the fact that maybe the media and the powers that be are indeed keeping things from him, and manipulating information to keep him docile, obedient, and afraid. That revelation should surely scare the author of the email more than a few angry Muslims taking part in a small march in London more than six months previously.

American TV news networks are awful, but in their defense I might suggest that the reason they didn’t carry these pictures way back in February (if indeed they didn’t, and that is unconfirmed) was because the march was on a very small scale and was somewhat overblown in the UK media who were themselves hungry for news relating to the equally as overblown Danish cartoon scandal.

In the end though I would imagine that anyone who forwards this despicable email on will have little concern for the facts behind the pictures or the context as to the extent of any reporting that surrounded them. Instead the email will find it’s way from inbox to inbox eventually fading away when people of good sense deliver it to the only place it belongs… the trash.

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Muslim leader condemns protesters
Cartoons and the globalisation of protests
The truth behind the email

On Saturday I discovered a nature reserve five minutes from my home! For years I’d driven past the entrance to the reserve thinking it was just a field with a few trees. I had no idea that hiding back there were weaving paths making their way through marshes and shrouded in lush green canopies of leaves from the souring trees of the woods. How had I missed this place after all these years?

The place is called Brotherton Park & Dibbinsdale Local Nature Reserve and is made up of 81.1 acres (32 hectares) of countryside along the river valley of the Dibbin, a river which I had also somehow never heard of.

Just a short distance from the car park the above scene greets you. It was this view that stopped me in my tracks. “How did I not know about this place?” I exclaimed to my friend Hilary who was along for the walk. I’ve seen plenty of overhead views of the region where I live and it is surrounded by great swathes of greenery, but it’s hard to put that in true context when you simply drive through the built up streets going from A to B.

Now that I’ve found this place I’m quite sure I’ll be back there regularly, especially since its right on my door step. I love places like this. They hold a certain kind of magic for me though I can’t quite put into words what that is.

Some of my favorite memories are set in woods like these. When I was a kid we used to go to the woods in Danbury, Essex. With my childhood friends and family we would run around full of energy and excitement playing games and making up intricate stories of which the woods were the ideal setting. We were soldiers in battle, we were running from aliens, we were mediaeval horsemen on the way to a castle, we were whatever our young imaginations were able to transform us into.

As I stand in the company of the trees that have stood in woods like these for years and years, I often wonder to myself what tales they would tell if they could speak. I imagine what those trees have witnessed through time and how the landscape must have changed in the time it took them to reach as high.

It would seem that I have always been in awe of trees though. As a child my Dad was forever pulling up the saplings of trees that I had secretly planted from seed in our garden. While other boys would play the popular English schoolboy game of ‘conkers‘ with the seeds of horse chestnut trees, I would be out planting them in locations where I thought they would stand a chance of surviving and one day growing taller than I.

Oak trees and horse chestnut trees were easy to plant as their seeds we’re in abundant supply around where we lived. Knowing my Dad would find most, if not all of my trees, I used to climb over the fence into the protected land by the railway. I have no idea how many trees I must have planted over the years of my childhood.

Maybe I planted the trees in response to so much property development that was happening not far from where I was growing up. Perhaps I was on a quest to counter the depletion of greenery I was witnessing as my home town grew beyond its boundaries time and time again?

I hope at least a few of those trees have survived and taken root in a place where they will stand guard as silent witnesses for many years to come. The idea that somewhere a tree that I once planted will outlive me seems oddly comforting. Even though no one is likely to ever know that I was the one that chose its place, nature might remember my name, and strangely enough I would be happy with that.

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Brotherton Park & Dibbinsdale Local Nature Reserve

Owners of Apple ubiquitous iPod already have a staggering choice of accessories to choose from allowing them to do all kinds of things in all kinds of places with their iPods. The iPod accessory market is huge and provides third party developers rich opportunity to cash in on Apple’s huge success with the portable music and video player.

Competition in the iPod accessory marketplace is stiff though which might explain why Atech Flash Technology has decided to try something a little new, an iPod toilet paper holder!

According to it’s creators the iCarta, as it is called, will “enhance your experience in the smallest room.” No specific user directions are given but music loving iPod owners are probably well advised not to try dancing while using the iCarta.

Costing $99, that’s about £54, comes with 4 Integrated high performance moisture-free speakers which can be cranked up loud enough to drown out all other background sounds. It requires AC power but will mean that when plugged in to the iCarta your iPod will recharge while the user discharges!

It’s early days for the iCarta which has only just gone on sale, time will tell whether the iCarta leaves Atech Flash Technology flush with success (groan!).

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iCarta iPod Toilet Paper Holder

Science and technology have brought us to the point where in some respects we can play God. As the magic of medical science becomes ever more able to overcome the course of nature, do we need to take a closer look at when we simply allow nature to take its course?

It seems inhuman to suggest that we should do anything other than everything in our power to save or prolong the life of another human being, but since visiting my Grandmother in hospital I’ve found myself questioning the moral dilemma of whether or not keep someone alive when nature may otherwise have already given them their last breath.

The law, being what it is, appears unwilling or perhaps unable to address the issue. Cases vary depending on circumstances and while it could easily be argued that someone who today wants to commit suicide might be happy to be alive tomorrow, it becomes a much harder question when one looks at those who spend the last days of their lives hooked up to machines that in prolonging their lives, only prolong the significant, and in some cases, unbearable pain that person is in.

The subject becomes even more emotive when infants are the subject of the question. Premature babies, that in previous times might have died, are now able to live thanks to huge advances in medical technology. But while we would all agree that keeping a baby alive is of course the right thing to do, could it not be argued that we have advanced to such an extent that we are now meddling with nature itself?

Certainly, when one makes a so-called ‘pro-life’ argument about when life begins, it wouldn’t be hard to argue that we’re using the much the same power to sustain a life that might otherwise have not continued had it not been for our profound intervention.

On my trip to India in 2004, I was urged not to drink any water or eat any food offered to us by the people of the rural villages we were visiting. Their water supply would most likely have been filled with parasites that would have made me sick, yet they were able to drink it and prepare food using it.

Of course, water-born diseases claim huge casualties in undeveloped countries, but it’s probably fair to say that my tolerance level of that water was probably not at all as well developed as the locals. I’ve been lucky enough to drink clean water all my life, and here I was in a situation where that good fortune might put me at a higher risk of falling ill should I drink unclean water.

Medical advancements will continue of course, but as we learn how to prolong human life longer shouldn’t we also be thinking about the moral and ethical implications of that?

Isn’t it conceivable that there will be more cases of people who are terminally ill but able to be kept alive by doctors who are duty-bound to do so?

Whenever my friends and I talk about getting old I always joke that I will live until I’m 120 years old, and to be honest I’d quite like to. However, I say that from a position of youth, but the truth is, I don’t want to live far into my golden years if that means existing in a debilitated state where death is being beaten back from the door by medicines that keep me alive but do nothing to address the quality of life I am living.