Hymns
After posting my religious musings earlier I was reminded of the old religious joke: why do we say 'amen' and not 'awomen' in church? Because we sing 'hymns' and not 'hers'. Yes, I can hear you groaning from here... Don't worry though, since that was such a bad joke I will refrain from now launching onto a discussion of the inherint sexism of most organised religions.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
In-between places
It looks likely the Popenfuhrer will take the advice of his experts and amend the Catholic church's stance on limbo, the nebulous state between salvation with God and damnation in Hell (where at least you can get a decent drink and listen to some good rock'n'roll). Specifically they seem a little concerned that the understanding that babies who die before being baptised go straight to limbo should be amended, not least because it increases the suffering of bereft parents who are devout believers (although why you would choose to believe in a god of love who has just taken your baby is something I'll never understand). It's never actually been official church teaching and has no basis in the Bible, but that hasn't stopped a lot of people believing it over the years (bit like the Rapture that millions of intellectually feeble folks, especially in the US, believe in, despite having no basis in the Bible which they purport to take literally - another example of the contradictory nature of organised religion).
There are some commenters saying that this whole exercise is a cynical marketing move to improve the appeal of the Catholic church in Third World countries where there is a large amount of infant mortality and, coincidentally, countries where more are turning to Islam. Naturally the church denies this. I can't help but also think it is a bid to improve their appearance in the West too; after all, no-one is going to like a group of people who tell grieving parents their dead baby can't go to Heaven, are they? But mostly I think this whole intellectual exercise illustrates the sheer folly of unquestioning belief in organised religion (not least believing the Pontiff is magically infallible when he takes the Holy office - isn't that almost blasphemous to assume that a mere human can never be wrong? Isn't that a faculty reserved only for God??). I mean, what happens to all those souls that since the Middle Ages are held to be trapped in Limbo?
Does this change mean the older church stance was wrong and they never were in limbo? And if so, where did those souls go? Heaven? Hell? Can they get into Heaven without being baptised? If several hundred years of teaching were wrong on this then what else is false? Just as when the same church had to finally allow that the Earth really did orbit the sun, thus disputing centuries of belief and dogma, it invites the question of how valid can any of the structures the church has built actually be? And why do so many still follow without question like sheep? Perhaps they are the lambs Christians go on about?!? Or perhaps they are just too terrified to question because then belief collapses like a house of cards and they would have to take respnsibility for their own soul and explore belief themselves instead of being told what to believe? Isn't all of this a prime example of what happens when you construct an idea on false grounds, just like the aforementioned Helio-centric universe which simple observation of the stars and planets disproved, it requires constant additions and alterations to try and make the entire wobbly structure stay upright in the face of legitimate questioning. And thus we have the lesson of the foolish man who built his religious dogma-house on sand... I'm so glad I'm a Seventh Day Cartoonist; now, my sisters and brothers, go in peace and may the Great Animator ensure you never run off a cliff while wearing Acme jet skates.
It looks likely the Popenfuhrer will take the advice of his experts and amend the Catholic church's stance on limbo, the nebulous state between salvation with God and damnation in Hell (where at least you can get a decent drink and listen to some good rock'n'roll). Specifically they seem a little concerned that the understanding that babies who die before being baptised go straight to limbo should be amended, not least because it increases the suffering of bereft parents who are devout believers (although why you would choose to believe in a god of love who has just taken your baby is something I'll never understand). It's never actually been official church teaching and has no basis in the Bible, but that hasn't stopped a lot of people believing it over the years (bit like the Rapture that millions of intellectually feeble folks, especially in the US, believe in, despite having no basis in the Bible which they purport to take literally - another example of the contradictory nature of organised religion).
There are some commenters saying that this whole exercise is a cynical marketing move to improve the appeal of the Catholic church in Third World countries where there is a large amount of infant mortality and, coincidentally, countries where more are turning to Islam. Naturally the church denies this. I can't help but also think it is a bid to improve their appearance in the West too; after all, no-one is going to like a group of people who tell grieving parents their dead baby can't go to Heaven, are they? But mostly I think this whole intellectual exercise illustrates the sheer folly of unquestioning belief in organised religion (not least believing the Pontiff is magically infallible when he takes the Holy office - isn't that almost blasphemous to assume that a mere human can never be wrong? Isn't that a faculty reserved only for God??). I mean, what happens to all those souls that since the Middle Ages are held to be trapped in Limbo?
Does this change mean the older church stance was wrong and they never were in limbo? And if so, where did those souls go? Heaven? Hell? Can they get into Heaven without being baptised? If several hundred years of teaching were wrong on this then what else is false? Just as when the same church had to finally allow that the Earth really did orbit the sun, thus disputing centuries of belief and dogma, it invites the question of how valid can any of the structures the church has built actually be? And why do so many still follow without question like sheep? Perhaps they are the lambs Christians go on about?!? Or perhaps they are just too terrified to question because then belief collapses like a house of cards and they would have to take respnsibility for their own soul and explore belief themselves instead of being told what to believe? Isn't all of this a prime example of what happens when you construct an idea on false grounds, just like the aforementioned Helio-centric universe which simple observation of the stars and planets disproved, it requires constant additions and alterations to try and make the entire wobbly structure stay upright in the face of legitimate questioning. And thus we have the lesson of the foolish man who built his religious dogma-house on sand... I'm so glad I'm a Seventh Day Cartoonist; now, my sisters and brothers, go in peace and may the Great Animator ensure you never run off a cliff while wearing Acme jet skates.
Friday, October 6, 2006
Lift my chains
The Guardian often runs a 'reported on this day in history' feature from their archives. Today they quoted from the Guardian of October 6th, 1862, although the events being reported actually took place on September 22nd and had taken this long to reach Britain via a Royal Mail steamship which left the New World on the 24th and arrived on the Mersey to approach the busy port of Liverpool on Sunday 5th (steam packet and telegraph, cutting edge technlogy and quick reporting for the time), from where it telegraphed an incredible proclamation, issued by a very strange-looking, tall, awkward-seeming man who entered the history of not only his own nation but the shared heritage of the world. The man was Abraham Lincoln, the proclamation, issued during the dreadful carnage of the American Civil War was the document which set forth freedom from slavery:
"on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or any designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then thenceforward and for ever free, and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom ..."
Around one hundred years after this another president had to send in the army to end the forced segregation of white and coloured school children while Rosa Parks simply refused to take a seat in the segregated spot designated for her in a bus. Forty years on from that period and in parts of the world in sweat shops women, men and children toil in conditions most of us would consider virtual slavery. And in other nations which do not have this problem (but which consume the goods made by these virtual slaves, perpetuating the cycle of exploitation) there are other forms of slavery still. Bands of iron may be gone but how many slave away chained to a mortgage and towering debt, struggling to barely keep their heads above water all so for a few short years they might have in impoverished retirement?
And then there are the more subtle forms of chains and slavery, those which we construct ourselves in our culture and philosophies, set rigid until those faculties which should be tools our minds use to contruct instead become master of is guiding our perceptions into rigid patterns: our way is always right, yours is always wrong; our race is superior to your race; this person is more valuable than that... I don't make any claim to be free of those virtual chains, but I do see them and try to keep my mind free. The finest, sharpest weapons to achieve that liberty are discussion and reading. Coincidentally the written and spoken words are among the activities most in power, be they democratic governments, dictators or large corporations, always want to command, control, shape. All the more reason to read and to talk; every time you do, every time you write your own opinions and thoughts and feelings you are breaking some of those virtual chains. I think old Abe would approve of that.
The Guardian often runs a 'reported on this day in history' feature from their archives. Today they quoted from the Guardian of October 6th, 1862, although the events being reported actually took place on September 22nd and had taken this long to reach Britain via a Royal Mail steamship which left the New World on the 24th and arrived on the Mersey to approach the busy port of Liverpool on Sunday 5th (steam packet and telegraph, cutting edge technlogy and quick reporting for the time), from where it telegraphed an incredible proclamation, issued by a very strange-looking, tall, awkward-seeming man who entered the history of not only his own nation but the shared heritage of the world. The man was Abraham Lincoln, the proclamation, issued during the dreadful carnage of the American Civil War was the document which set forth freedom from slavery:
"on the 1st day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any state, or any designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then thenceforward and for ever free, and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognise and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom ..."
Around one hundred years after this another president had to send in the army to end the forced segregation of white and coloured school children while Rosa Parks simply refused to take a seat in the segregated spot designated for her in a bus. Forty years on from that period and in parts of the world in sweat shops women, men and children toil in conditions most of us would consider virtual slavery. And in other nations which do not have this problem (but which consume the goods made by these virtual slaves, perpetuating the cycle of exploitation) there are other forms of slavery still. Bands of iron may be gone but how many slave away chained to a mortgage and towering debt, struggling to barely keep their heads above water all so for a few short years they might have in impoverished retirement?
And then there are the more subtle forms of chains and slavery, those which we construct ourselves in our culture and philosophies, set rigid until those faculties which should be tools our minds use to contruct instead become master of is guiding our perceptions into rigid patterns: our way is always right, yours is always wrong; our race is superior to your race; this person is more valuable than that... I don't make any claim to be free of those virtual chains, but I do see them and try to keep my mind free. The finest, sharpest weapons to achieve that liberty are discussion and reading. Coincidentally the written and spoken words are among the activities most in power, be they democratic governments, dictators or large corporations, always want to command, control, shape. All the more reason to read and to talk; every time you do, every time you write your own opinions and thoughts and feelings you are breaking some of those virtual chains. I think old Abe would approve of that.
Monday, October 2, 2006
Damned diplomats
Nice item via Boing Boing where some academics have been analysing the unpaid parking tickets by dipomats in New York City - nice to see the 'elite' of the world attending the United Nations to help civilise the world by using their diplomatic immunity to piss all over local laws. Interesting to see the top ten violators - hmmm, mostly from pretty small and relatively powerless countries. Is breaking the law in the USA a form of compensation for these people, perhaps? And equally interesting that the more civilised countries (those who have lower crime rates and tend not to go round starting wars) are the ones who have diplomats who don't abuse the privilige of immunity? Mind you, there is a nice update on Boing Boing pointing out the massive amount of money US embassy staff owe in unpaid congestion charges for London. These are the people tasked with trying to make sure the nations of the world get on amicably without resorting to violence... Gee, that explains why the place is such a mess... Hey kids, you may as well grow up to be rude, ignorant assholes, then you can get yourself a successful career as an international diplomat.
Nice item via Boing Boing where some academics have been analysing the unpaid parking tickets by dipomats in New York City - nice to see the 'elite' of the world attending the United Nations to help civilise the world by using their diplomatic immunity to piss all over local laws. Interesting to see the top ten violators - hmmm, mostly from pretty small and relatively powerless countries. Is breaking the law in the USA a form of compensation for these people, perhaps? And equally interesting that the more civilised countries (those who have lower crime rates and tend not to go round starting wars) are the ones who have diplomats who don't abuse the privilige of immunity? Mind you, there is a nice update on Boing Boing pointing out the massive amount of money US embassy staff owe in unpaid congestion charges for London. These are the people tasked with trying to make sure the nations of the world get on amicably without resorting to violence... Gee, that explains why the place is such a mess... Hey kids, you may as well grow up to be rude, ignorant assholes, then you can get yourself a successful career as an international diplomat.
Sunday, October 1, 2006
Doors Open Day
Many cities around the UK have an annual Doors Open Day when parts of buildings not generally open to the public are accessible, usually free as well. Sudden sunny burst of unseasonably warm weather crept in for the last day of September (how can it be October already???) so we headed off into town to do something we really don't do that often, wander around it and take in the sights. Sure, we walk around town a lot, but usually going to one place in particular to visit it, or to go to certain stores, but not to wander around like tourists. And Despite the lateness of the season the Royal Mile was packed with tourists still.
We planned to start with Crockett's Land (alas Tubb's Land was knocked down in the late 80s), a building with an unusual Dutch-style front to the top (the teracotta orange building in the pic above), more than likely because it once belonged to a merchant who was one of the many Scottish traders who were active in the Low Countries. Alas, because of the relatively small space within only so many folks were allowed in at a time and the queue was pretty big, so we pressed on thinking we'd come back, except when we did the queue was even larger. Oh well, maybe next time...
We did take in some other places though, including the new Scottish Storytelling Centre, which is attached to John Knox house (a preacher who really needed to smoke a doobie, get laid and relax then maybe Scottish history would have less sectarian bigotry in it) and is in front of the Scottish Book Trust, with the Poetry Library slightly further down the Mile, so there's something of a literary ghetto going on. We climbed up to the Bell Tower and got a nice view of the Royal Mile from an angle we don't normally get to see.
All up and down the Royal Mile you see winding alleys, called closes or wynds, leading off and down the ridge between tall, skinny old buildings. One of these leads to Riddle's Court; step out of the bright sunlight and the tourist-filled noise of the Royal Mile and down a dark alley whcih opens out into a small courtyard, hemmed in with tall, stone buildings leaning over you. Inside Riddle's Court the real pleasure was in some of the amazing ceilings, from this incredibly colourful work (sorry not a better pic, it was very hard to shoot this in a small space full of folks with all the wrong lighting).
You know what was especially nice in this room? Not only did the staff put chairs around the edges of each room so people could sit down and look up at the ceilings more easily, in this room they had put down a couple of foam mats, like campers use, so you could lie down in the middle of the floor and look right up at this work. What a lovely touch by the folks there - thank you!
Lovely as those ceilings were, they are the sorts of works that can be seen in many old homes, but this room was something I'd never seen before; sure I have seen wooden beams and yes, I have seen carved and decorated ones, but never quite like this - what an amazing piece of work.
This was in a very small room, probably no bigger than the living room of my flat. Wow. For some reason, from a distance the patterns reminded me of the sort of patterns and textures the animators used on the hulls of the CGI alien ships on Bablyon 5 to make clear they were indeed weird and alien and not human.
Not actually part of Doors Open, it's the World's End pub on the Royal Mile, so called because once upon a time the city wall would have been here so beyond this spot you were in the wilds of barbarians and vagabonds. Part of the old city wall makes up part of the wall inside the pub. The first time I drank there was back in the early 90s; by coincidence it was the same week I was reading the issues of The Sandman (still in its monthly run back then) and the then current story was the tales from the World's End inn. One of Dave McKean's covers featured an Tudor-style building teetering on the edge of a cliff. In another coincidence around the same time there was an old inn/hotel down in England which was Tudor/Elizabethan style which was in the new because a part of it suddenly broke off and plunged down the cliffs... Meaningless coincidence but all interesting and always remind me of my first visit to the World's End. Plus this is a cool pic on the side of the pub. And pubs are wonderful (and here often historical too) and after all this walking around in the warmth we needed to replenish our liquid levels.
Many cities around the UK have an annual Doors Open Day when parts of buildings not generally open to the public are accessible, usually free as well. Sudden sunny burst of unseasonably warm weather crept in for the last day of September (how can it be October already???) so we headed off into town to do something we really don't do that often, wander around it and take in the sights. Sure, we walk around town a lot, but usually going to one place in particular to visit it, or to go to certain stores, but not to wander around like tourists. And Despite the lateness of the season the Royal Mile was packed with tourists still.
We planned to start with Crockett's Land (alas Tubb's Land was knocked down in the late 80s), a building with an unusual Dutch-style front to the top (the teracotta orange building in the pic above), more than likely because it once belonged to a merchant who was one of the many Scottish traders who were active in the Low Countries. Alas, because of the relatively small space within only so many folks were allowed in at a time and the queue was pretty big, so we pressed on thinking we'd come back, except when we did the queue was even larger. Oh well, maybe next time...
We did take in some other places though, including the new Scottish Storytelling Centre, which is attached to John Knox house (a preacher who really needed to smoke a doobie, get laid and relax then maybe Scottish history would have less sectarian bigotry in it) and is in front of the Scottish Book Trust, with the Poetry Library slightly further down the Mile, so there's something of a literary ghetto going on. We climbed up to the Bell Tower and got a nice view of the Royal Mile from an angle we don't normally get to see.
All up and down the Royal Mile you see winding alleys, called closes or wynds, leading off and down the ridge between tall, skinny old buildings. One of these leads to Riddle's Court; step out of the bright sunlight and the tourist-filled noise of the Royal Mile and down a dark alley whcih opens out into a small courtyard, hemmed in with tall, stone buildings leaning over you. Inside Riddle's Court the real pleasure was in some of the amazing ceilings, from this incredibly colourful work (sorry not a better pic, it was very hard to shoot this in a small space full of folks with all the wrong lighting).
You know what was especially nice in this room? Not only did the staff put chairs around the edges of each room so people could sit down and look up at the ceilings more easily, in this room they had put down a couple of foam mats, like campers use, so you could lie down in the middle of the floor and look right up at this work. What a lovely touch by the folks there - thank you!
Lovely as those ceilings were, they are the sorts of works that can be seen in many old homes, but this room was something I'd never seen before; sure I have seen wooden beams and yes, I have seen carved and decorated ones, but never quite like this - what an amazing piece of work.
This was in a very small room, probably no bigger than the living room of my flat. Wow. For some reason, from a distance the patterns reminded me of the sort of patterns and textures the animators used on the hulls of the CGI alien ships on Bablyon 5 to make clear they were indeed weird and alien and not human.
Not actually part of Doors Open, it's the World's End pub on the Royal Mile, so called because once upon a time the city wall would have been here so beyond this spot you were in the wilds of barbarians and vagabonds. Part of the old city wall makes up part of the wall inside the pub. The first time I drank there was back in the early 90s; by coincidence it was the same week I was reading the issues of The Sandman (still in its monthly run back then) and the then current story was the tales from the World's End inn. One of Dave McKean's covers featured an Tudor-style building teetering on the edge of a cliff. In another coincidence around the same time there was an old inn/hotel down in England which was Tudor/Elizabethan style which was in the new because a part of it suddenly broke off and plunged down the cliffs... Meaningless coincidence but all interesting and always remind me of my first visit to the World's End. Plus this is a cool pic on the side of the pub. And pubs are wonderful (and here often historical too) and after all this walking around in the warmth we needed to replenish our liquid levels.
Royal Mile
A very brief video from the Bell Tower of the new Scottish Storytelling Centre (next to John Knox House andin front of the Scottish Book Trust) looking down Edinburgh's Royal Mile, shot during the annula Doors Open day yesterday:
A very brief video from the Bell Tower of the new Scottish Storytelling Centre (next to John Knox House andin front of the Scottish Book Trust) looking down Edinburgh's Royal Mile, shot during the annula Doors Open day yesterday:
John Wagner interiewed
I've posted another author interview over on the FPI blogs recently, this time with a writer who is a legend in British comics, John Wagner. John has worked on a score of comics over the years and been behind titles as diverse as the brilliant Bogie Man (mental patient convinced he is Humphrey Bogart running around Glasgow) and the book the Oscar-nominated A History of Violence movie by Cronenberg was based on. One of the foundations of 2000AD comic since the very beginning, John is also the co-creator of Judge Dredd, probably the biggest British comics character ever and one who, over the last (almost) three decades has moved into the public arena as a pop culture icon so much that people who have never read a comic have made references to the stern future lawman when describing certain other figures or actions.
Quite scary to think I've been reading John's work since I was a boy, even before the birth of 2000AD, so I was really delighted he agreed to answer a few questions, just as he and the artist who originally visualised Dredd, Carlos Ezquerra, begin a major new epic which explores the beginnings of Dredd's world and how the Judge system in the mega-cities came to replace democratic government after the Great Atom Wars. Seems appropriate that as 2000AD reaches it 30th anniversary next year its largest character finally has his history and mythology explored in Judge Dredd: Origins. So, I'm a big, excited fanboy - so what?
I've posted another author interview over on the FPI blogs recently, this time with a writer who is a legend in British comics, John Wagner. John has worked on a score of comics over the years and been behind titles as diverse as the brilliant Bogie Man (mental patient convinced he is Humphrey Bogart running around Glasgow) and the book the Oscar-nominated A History of Violence movie by Cronenberg was based on. One of the foundations of 2000AD comic since the very beginning, John is also the co-creator of Judge Dredd, probably the biggest British comics character ever and one who, over the last (almost) three decades has moved into the public arena as a pop culture icon so much that people who have never read a comic have made references to the stern future lawman when describing certain other figures or actions.
Quite scary to think I've been reading John's work since I was a boy, even before the birth of 2000AD, so I was really delighted he agreed to answer a few questions, just as he and the artist who originally visualised Dredd, Carlos Ezquerra, begin a major new epic which explores the beginnings of Dredd's world and how the Judge system in the mega-cities came to replace democratic government after the Great Atom Wars. Seems appropriate that as 2000AD reaches it 30th anniversary next year its largest character finally has his history and mythology explored in Judge Dredd: Origins. So, I'm a big, excited fanboy - so what?
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