Should we trust authorities?

Following our reading of "International Marketing Mistakes" in Quest (Hartmann, 2007, pp. 5-6), I have a question:

• Did some people in Africa believe that the Gerber Baby Food company was bottling delicious, fresh babies for dinner? Were the Africans who were unable to read horrified? 

Now, if your answer was "Yes, the illiterate Africans, relying on the image to infer the contents of the bottle or can thought it contained processed human babies," why did you think that? And how strong was your supporting evidence? 

And to keep things deliciously controversial, this reminded me of my own religious beliefs. As a child, I grew up in a Catholic family. We went to church every Sunday and on holy days of obligation such as Christmas, Easter and so on. We had pictures of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary and others in our home. My parents entertained the local priest. Of course, my brothers and sisters and I all went to the best local Catholic schools, where we learned about God, heaven, saints, holy water, transubstantiation, angels, the devil (also known as Satan and Lucifer), that the pope was infallible, and much, much more. I was a good Christian of the Catholic variety. I loved masses, reading the Bible, the wonderful hymns we sang, the incense, the ceremony, the impressively large and architecturally inspiring church, and much more. 

Unfortunately, all of the beliefs are false. So, why did I believe such things for so long? My faith started eroding in high school, as my passion for science and reason (not the same thing) grew. 

I soon understood why Christians, and every other religion, loves laws against blasphemy, heresy, apostasy and such "crimes" against god, "good" morals and society. Thankfully, from around the time of Copernicus and Galileo proved the popes to be repressive, brutal monsters who loved ignorance enforced by censorship, the Western world has been getting rid of the invading cultural values of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and returning to the much better Western values of Homer and the Greeks. 

And the correct answer to the Gerber baby food question? Of course the Africans were not so silly as to believe any such nonsense. There was never any evidence, or even any good reason, to think they would have. See "Label Fable"  (2011) for the unhappy details.  

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
Should we (children, students, citizens, human beings) trust authorities such as books, teachers, parents, officials and governments? That is, should we believe what they say? (This is one question: the second sentence, as the adverbial conjunction that is tells us,  paraphrases the first, in case the first was misunderstood, as I thought it might be.) 

___________

Reference

Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Label fable. (2011, May 8). Snopes.com. Retrieved from http://www.snopes.com/business/market/babyfood.asp

What film do you think the most enjoyable? What is the best film you've ever seen?

Although I never watch TV, and haven't for a few decades now, I do have a decent TV. I like watching DVDs, both films and series, and I also stream YouTube and other online material to watch on the TV screen. Actual TV suffers from not being controllable, and even worse from annoying advertisements that interrupt the enjoyment of whatever is being watched. This might not much matter during a live sporting event, when ads can be conveniently timed in breaks in the action, but they destroy movies, series, documentaries and other video media.

I've already blogged in response to the BBC Culture report on the excellent BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, arguably the best novel ever written, at least in English (there is some serious Russian competition, and now that I think about it, Patrick White's The Vivisector has brought me back more than once).

In "Ten Films to Watch in October," Fiona Macdonald very briefly reviews ten coming cinema releases for next month, although one of them,  Beasts of No Nation, the story of how a young African Boy becomes a child soldier, will be released at the same time online as in cinemas (2015). Macdonald says that some critics dislike this idea because they think that films "should be seen on a vast screen, in the dark, with no pause button to hand, and no phone to answer," with which idea I sympathise, but don't entirely agree - I think a largish TV is fine, and it is convenient to be able to pause if you want to, perhaps not to answer a phone call, which does annoy me, but for other compelling reasons.

Australian Daniel Craig plays
James Bond in Spectre.

Of the ten films the Macdonald discusses, I thought that Spectre, the next James Bond film, will probably be the most enjoyable - I'm really looking forward to seeing it. I've loved the James Bond stories ever since I read Fleming's Dr. No at the tender age of about 13. Thirteen is a guess. I know I was in high school, but it might have been my second year. Also in high school, I first read studied Shakespeare. The very first think by him I ever tried to read is also coming out in a film version in October, and Macdonald suggests that this version will be pretty good. The play is Macbeth, and even as a 13 year old struggling with the 400 year-old modern English of Shakespeare, this play about killing a king, marital lust and strife, witches cooking up potions and making predictions, armies warring and plotting nobles, and so on, was gripping. In my high school, we read Romeo and Juliet next, which was not so gripping for 14 year-old boys, although it improved when we realized how much sex and rude joking is in that play along with the loving, not to mention the child sex that passed unnoticed, or not, in Shakespeare's time.

Michael Fassbender as Macbeth 

I haven't seen Spectre yet, but I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as Shakespeare's Macbeth, which is beaten by Hamlet and couple of other plays (my favourite was long Antony and Cleopatra, although I don't think it's as good as Hamlet, Lear or Macbeth). Being enjoyable or fun is not the same as being good. I also tend to enjoy pretty awful action films: things  like the Die Hard and Terminator films, which really aren't much as art, but are great for some mindless relaxation after a hard day reviewing or proofreading.

A couple of the other films on Macdonald's list of ten seemed to me unlikely to be either much fun or very good, but perhaps you'll disagree with me.

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
What is the best film you've ever seen? (The question is not: What is the most enjoyable film you've ever seen?)

___________

Reference

McDonald F. (2015, September 25). Ten films to watch in October. BBC Culture. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150925-ten-films-to-watch-in-october

Help! How could I have been saved from disappointment?

In my last blog post, I told a story about dog meat; this is another blog post inspired by food. This time it is Neil Perry's recipe for, also the title of the article, "Buffalo mozzarella lasagne" (n.d.) (n.d. = no date for the article.) This source is not actually on my list of suggested reading sources, but we are allowed to make exceptions, and my response on reading to the end was quite strong - I was very disappointed. I came across the article when I browsing the top stories in The Sydney Morning Herald, as I do every day. I had thought of including this newspaper on my suggested reading list, but decided that we don't want to add every international print media worth reading. The Herald used to be my daily newspaper when I lived in Sydney, and it still keeps me in touch with Australia. It must have republished this recipe on the front page, because the comments start from 2013, which is not recent.

Neil Perry's "buffalo mozzarella lasagne"

Following the dogs and elephants, it was the word buffalo in the title that interested me, and a fondness for lasagne. Does anyone not love lasagne? Garfield loves it. I love it. Do you love it? Anyway, on opening the page, the first thing I saw was Perry's statement that the ingredients were "all readily available" (n.d.). That sounded unlikely to me. My local Tops at Silom Complex does not stock buffalo meat, and although the supermarket at Paragon is pretty good, with such foreign delights as Ibérico ham, white truffle oil, live Sydney rock oysters and so on, I don't recall having seen buffalo on sale. And when I lived in Australia, the butchers stocked kangaroo and crocodile more than they did buffalo, so I was a bit surprised by Perry's assurance.

I didn't think I'd cook it myself in Bangkok, but I thought I might point it out to my brother, who loves to cook, as a subtle hint for my next visit.

Scanning the list of ingredients for the meat sauce, I was disappointed - not a word about buffalo meat! It says 300g each of pork and veal, but 0g of buffalo!

After a few minutes thinking, I realised, on seeing the words "500g fresh buffalo or cow's-milk mozzarella"in the list of ingredients above the meat sauce, that Perry had meant not buffalo mozzarella lasagne, but buffalo-milk mozzarella. It still sounds pretty good, but I still feel some disappointment from my misunderstanding, and it was the nature of the misunderstanding that made me think this was a useful topic for an academic English class. I'm a native English user, and I'm pretty sure that Perry is, too, but we still managed to fail to communicate in our native language.

I might hint that my brother experiment with kangaroo mozzarella lasagne - no danger of confusion there, unless someone works out how to milk kangaroos in commercial quantities.

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
What could the author have done to avoid the misunderstanding that caused my disappointment? (There is no such confusion at the sensibly labelled cheese counter at the Paragon supermarket.)

___________

Reference

Perry, N. (n.d.). Buffalo mozzarella lasagne. Goodfood. Retrieved from http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/recipe/buffalo-mozzarella-lasagne-20111111-29u8h.html 

Should governments control pornography?

"But the best weapon against misinformation is the truth, not ... silence", and so concludes The Economist's opinion piece "Generation XXX: Pornography" (2015). The Economist is discussing pornography, specifically the massive amount of pornography that is now available online,. While it points out that today more than 10% of internet searches are for the delights of the "estimated ... 700m-800m" pages of sexual entertainment, it also notes that this is a massive decline from the early days of the internet (the 1990s), when about half of all searches were for pornography.

I like the concluding sentence of the article because it very concisely states an important fact behind the reasons for academic work: academics seek truth and understanding, both very difficult to get, and with a few exceptions, ever uncertain. This is why academic freedom, like free speech for citizens, is so extremely important: if you cannot freely discuss a topic, then you cannot have informed opinions of any worth on the censored topic. For example, for many centuries in the Western world, it was illegal to say anything negative about the ruling version of Christianity, Catholicism under the popes in Rome, or about any Christian belief. The punishment was typically prison, torture and execution as a heretic, blasphemer or apostate (being devotedly Christian plainly does not make people moral). The result was not only that science, our knowledge about the world was retarded since the popes said that the Bible said that the Earth was at the centre of the universe, but many abuses such as selling indulgences (bribing god's men on Earth to get into heaven after death) by popes, bishops, priests and others could not be corrected because they could not be discussed. Eventually, this led to the Reformation which happily smashed the power of the popes just as Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo smashed the idea that religion was a reliable source of knowledge about the world we live in.

And that reminds me of the modern abuses by religious leaders: sex abuse, usually of children, by Christian priests, Buddhist monks and others. Unlike teenagers, or old people, watching pornography on the computer screen, the disgusting abuse of children entrusted to their care by religious people is a crime that causes very real harm. Of course, the priests, bishops, monks and other "holy and good" religious people have been committing sex crimes against children forever, at least for millennia. But it is only very recently that the silence has been increasingly broken so that the misinformation could be corrected. In this case, the ugly truth being protected by a cover of wonderful looking misinformation was that men, and also women, in positions of power in religion abused the children in their care. When I was growing up, the social consensus was so strong that it was impossible for their child victims to speak out against sexual and other abuse committed by priests and others against children. Thankfully, this has changed greatly since the 1980s, and today the monsters in clerical robes are no longer protected by those robes but are being called to account and punished for their crimes against children.

I got quite off topic, but not entirely: it is worries about their children, as The Economist notes, that cause parents and others to want governments to ban or at least limit internet access to pornography. The Economist thinks this is a mistake, arguing instead that the healthy solution for children is, as the Danish are now doing, to talk to kids about pornography, and not into a fuss when they look at it, as they naturally will. As The Economist also reports, a 2013 study showed that, likely due to the social convention against free and open discussion, only 79 out of 2,000 academic papers on the effects of pornography on children "based their conclusions on solid evidence." This ignorance that leads to policy decisions is not healthy.

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
To what extent, if any, should governments be involved in the regulation of pornography?

___________

Reference

Generation XXX: Pornography. (2015, September 26). The Economist. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21666614-free-pornography-ever-more-plentiful-online-right-response-involves-better-sex

Is it OK to eat elephant steaks?

"What strange food does your culture have?"
"What is  your favourite unusual food?"
"What's your favourite unusual food from another culture?"
"Dog is a popular dish in some parts of Thailand, but is it OK to eat dog?"
"Is it OK to eat elephants if they were farmed for that purpose like the pigs that provide pork?"

Mmm ... Roquefort!

The above are roughly the way my ideas for a question evolved as I was walking to Silom Complex do do my daily grocery shopping about an hour ago. It began because the evolutionary implications in Carl Zimmer's article "That Stinky Cheese Is a Result of Evolutionary Overdrive" interested me. Zimmer reports that the makers of some of my favourite cheeses have unintentionally accelerated the evolution of the moulds or fungi that produce such delights as Roquefort, Camembert, Stilton, and other wonderfully aromatic and tasty cheeses. In particular, in the conditions created by cheese makers, the fungi appear to have "have picked up large chunks of DNA from other species" in the brief time that we humans have altered their environment (Zimmer, 2015). This interested me because last week I read The Vital Question: Why is Life the Way it is? by biochemist Nick Lane, and one of the things he goes into in some detail is the horizontal transfer of DNA between organisms (2015).

For our class, I immediately thought of a question about cultural differences, which is what we've started reading about in Quest, but as I walked along Silom Road, last term's reading by philosopher Stephen Law, "Carving the Roast Beast," in which he presents a very strong argument that eating meat is morally wrong (2003), also came to mind. The connection was dog meat. And that is a story.

A year or two after I had first moved to live in Thailand, my youngest brother came to visit. Naturally, we did the touristy things: the Grand Palace, National Museum, and a visit to the north, to Chiangmai and Chiangrai, where we also did the usual things, all most enjoyable and well worth seeing: Doi Suthep, the night bazaar, and so on. But we also got off the regular tourist track a little. My Thai was pretty limited, but I it was enough for us to get by, and of course there were Thai people around who spoke some English. One day, we had been visiting somewhere (the Princess Mother's gardens? I don't remember - it was a long time ago) and feeling hungry, we stopped off at a restaurant in a small village. The owner recommended the duck, and we've both loved that forever, so ordered it and a couple of other things. The duck arrived. It didn't look like any duck we'd had before. The  bones were definitely not duck bones. We grew up on a farm where we raised and killed ducks, and could recognize duck, and not duck, when presented with it. This "duck" was definitely not duck. Further discussion with the owner clarified the confusion: he had not said "duck," but "dog." It simply never occurred to us that he might have been offering us dog, so we heard "duck." My Thai was very limited at the time, but had the owner offered us sunak, I might have picked up that that was not ped (I was already very fond of Kaeng Phed Ped Yang and other duck delights in Thai food). Having already sampled it and found it quite tasty, we continued to enjoy our first meal of dog. It was also my brother's last dog dish, but when I've visited friends in Chiang Rai, they sometimes delight in making sure I get at least one meal featuring that local speciality.

Although my family has always had dogs both for work and as pets, I have no problem eating dog, but I realise that many people find it offensive, even thinking it's wrong. But this seems illogical to me: why would it be any worse to eat dog than to eat pig? If you have a look at the first pages of Law's essay, you'll see a possibly more shocking variation on this question. But I don't want to be too shocking, and elephants seemed to fit well with the topic of cultural differences that runs through chapter 1 of Quest, hence my question.

And yes, I did replenish my cheese supply while I was at Top's Silom Complex.

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
Is it morally acceptable to eat the meat of elephants that have been raised for that purpose?
If my verb form worries you as a result of the discussion that Poy prompted in class yesterday (Thursday, Sept. 24), you can answer this version of the question: 
Would it be morally acceptable  to eat the meat of elephants that had been raised for that purpose? But especially in response writing, we do not want to get hung up on grammar. 

___________

Reference

Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast. In The Xmas Files: The Philosophy of Christmas [Kindle Edition] (pp. 124 - 140). Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (Available for AEP students from https://onedrive.live.com/redir?page=view&resid=5B4B50DD6DBCD1F2!8689&authkey=!AD1QdLtKNqj_RgE

Zimmer, C. (2015, September 24). That stinky cheese is a result of evolutionary overdrive. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/science/that-stinky-cheese-is-a-result-of-evolutionary-overdrive.html

Which is better: film or book?

On Monday, September 21, I wrote a paragraph where my chosen topic was Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. I was delighted to read Nicholas Barber's BBC Culture article "Pride and Prejudice at 20: The scene that changed everything" the very next day (2015). Even better, whilst my paragraph discusses the novel in book form, Union's paragraph written on Monday discusses film. In this case, the BBC's excellent adaptation of Austen's brilliant novel is a TV series of six hours rather than a short film of an hour or two, but it's close enough.

In his discussion, Barber focusses mainly on the famous scene where Mr. Darcy, played by Colin Firth, plunges into a small lake on his estate before a surprise meeting with Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Barber tells us that this scene has become iconic and did much to spark a renewed interest in Austen's novel, although the TV adaptation had already become very popular: as I point out in my paragraph written on Monday, I think this is because the BBC sensibly stayed very close to Austen's perfectly told story, even copying and pasting much of the dialogue. And the famous lake scene where Colin Firth strips off? First, he doesn't strip off. Although not in Austen's novel (how could it be? She was a woman writing for genteel readers in the early 19th century, with Pride and Prejudice published in 1813), I like the BBC's lake scene and subsequent meeting. They work extremely well in the drama version to highlight. In her novel, the meeting is accidental, but the language and description of Lizzie's feelings do perfectly well what the BBC's dripping wet Darcy version does. I also agree with Davies, the producer, that the scene is funny and is not "a sexy scene in any way" (Barber, 2015). I love both versions.

Barber very usefully emphasizes differences between the novel and TV series, specifically the lake and meeting scenes, but also others. He also briefly mentions the film version of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley and others I forget. I have to agree with Barber that none of film versions come close to the high standard of engrossing drama that viewers get in the BBC production, which I was surprised to be reminded was made in 1995 - a full twenty years ago, as the article title boldly says. I keep thinking it was only yesterday, but two decades is a bit older than yesterday!

Now, should I reread Austen original or watch the BBC production again? (I'll pass on the DVD I have of the Keira Knighley version.)

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
Which do you think is generally better: the book version of a story or the dramatized version for film or TV?

___________

Reference

Barber, N. (2015, September 22). Pride and Prejudice at 20: The scene that changed everything. BBC Culture. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150922-pride-and-prejudice-at-20-the-scene-that-changed-everything

Do we have a "right to be forgotten"?

For a while now, I've been following the growing international dispute between the European Union and US internet giants, specifically Google. This morning, the BBC News had an update on this issue, in the article "Google clashes with French data regulator," which reports that Google has refused to follow a command by the French government to remove search links to some internet sources on all Google domains, including US searches on google.com in addition to country domains such as google.fr (2015). (And I just discovered that when I go to Google.com, it diverts to google.co.th.)

Although I can understand that people, certainly myself, might not want everything posted online about them to be remembered forever, whether it was posted by themselves or by others, I agree with Google in this dispute: French law is wrong, people do not have a right to be forgotten that would allow a government to dictate to internet service providers what information they make available. Unfortunately, French law and courts were backed up by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which is sort of like the US Supreme Court, although the ECJ left unclear exactly what its ruling in May last year actually means; in particular, it is not clear whether the ECJ's decision in favour of the French request does extend to non-French internet domains.

Another interesting twist in this is that if Google were to comply with the French court's demand, it would almost certainly be breaking the US Constitution's very strong protection for free speech, including the right to peacefully state honestly held opinions that many people, even an entire society, find deeply offensive. In the US, you can pretty much say what you think, even such idiocy as that Obama, the head of state, is not a native born American, or that he's Muslim!

_______________________________________ 

My question is:
Do people have a "right to be forgotten" by the internet as described that should be legally enforceable?

But lots of other possible questions, both Yes/No questions and information questions, occurred to me as I was writing this, and you might like to share your ideas on any those in a comment. And if someone's comment interests you for any reason, reply to it. And you can reply to replies in a discussion.

__________

Reference

Google clashes with French data regulator. (2015, September 21). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34312698

Union's academic interests.

I have an interest about brain. Because most people believe there lies the mind. That determine the way we learn, the way we feel, the way we react, the way speak and even the way we eat, for short how we react to the world. Now the science has many development to learn more about the brain. We have more state of the art instrument to see closely how the brain works, while more disease tell us about what happen when somethings gone wrong that make us learn actually which part have a certain function.  Not just a disease, we also have various environment to interfere the brain function like drugs, food, love and lost, all can be learn as factors to brain function and research. I wish we can have more knowledge to help the people in need if our brain become ill.

Patt's academic interests

one of my academic interests is  joining in computer graphic club when i was university student, I have known how to edit and create graphic animations and  participate in competition. Even though my group didnt get a reward, I felt proud of my word. Moreover, I could know and see other people's work. Some of work could give me an inspiration. In addition, I had an opportunity to take Physiology class and I found it was really interesting and fun. It provides me many knowledge of Physiology. For example, I have know the way of people thought and how to make an negotiations.

Poy's academic interest

One of  my academic interest is about human physical systems and their functions. neuro system and Blood circular are my most prefer due to the studying in my high school. Neuro system is the most complicate part of human body with several little parts that we cannot observe by eyes; moreover it is related to not only biology and physiology but also physics, demonstrates neurotransmitter transferring is a physiology process while electric signal is a physics dependence system. Moreover, they are very interested in terms of the brain function and response to different situations that sometimes are appreciate sometime are dangerous. The next one is circuit of blood of human body. Although it is not interesting as much as the neuroscience, I  do like its functions and communicate to other parts of body. At first, it made me upset of hard memorize names of  blood vessels and details; however, after I can remember them, I really enjoy other things of it.

Feem's academic interest

One of my academic interest is about business strategies which is related to marketing, behavioral psychology, economics, culture and so on. It is really interesting since this need a lot of creative ideas and commercial tactics to support the business to become successful; in addition,  this will reveal how to human's behavior in each period of time, economic trend, and cultural values of each society in different cities or countries. Generally, there are four main parts to consider: producers, customers, finance, and value. Those elements are associated with fundamental things of business strategies, and they need tactics to apply. Overall, the very important point of the strategies is how to make business effective and sustainable in the long run--no matter how the future situation and global economic condition change.

Peter's academic interests

You can search for other academic interests I've written about before, so I'll try avoid repeating myself. One interest I sometimes mention is in dead languages, but I don't usually say what those languages are. I had the traditional schooling of Catholic children in the area of Australia where my family lived. This began with nuns, who were ancient and kindly, but who also sparked my interest in mathematics. I remember the excitement of riding my bike to school, about 4 km from our home, on Saturday mornings for extra classes in geometry. I loved that it was so certain. In geometry, we could prove things and be absolutely sure that we knew them to be true.
In high school, also Catholic, but this time in the charge of brothers and priests (it was a boys' school), my teachers were also very encouraging of my interest in science, and didn't push religion very much. Oddly, in my senior years, the brother who taught me physics  and mathematics introduced me to philosophy - he gave me a book by a Christian philosopher, perhaps thinking that might protect my faith in Christianity. The result was pretty much the opposite, but I loved philosophy, which became my major at university.

Getting back to the languages, in high school, I'd been looking forward to studying Latin when I got to year 9. I was bitterly disappointed that the school decided to drop it that very year! I had never studied it formally, but was interested in Roman history and the classics, and really wanted to able to read the original Latin sources, also the Greek, but that could wait. When I got to university, I continued my interest in science and mathematics, but I also picked up Latin and Chinese. Why Chinese? That's what my parents wondered, too. This was long before China had become economically important, and worse, my main interest was in the classical version of Chinese - much as I loved reading Tang poetry, learning the ancient cultures, full or war and other exciting stories, and the philosophical ideas of Mencius and Motzu (I prefer them to Confucius), it was hard to explain why these things fascinated me. Perhaps it was the contrast they made with the very Western orientation of my other studies.

Na' s academic interests

__________

Joying to your social community  when  you get over 50 years old will give you a new vision to live with happiness. you will learn something is new and give you a chance to challenge  your future. Staying at home everyday destroys  your life  . Don't look down yourself  but pressure yourself  to go out or hang out with you friends or your neighbor. More people thinks they are too old to learn new  things but that 's not true  ; don't refuse to accept any new ideas. Pay attention around yourself  you will find out people around you whom you might joy with them .
Knowing people around you is the starting of new vision .

Punn's academic interest

I am interested in the field of human rights, especially in women rights. It is blended when I concerned with the importance role of women in the world today. Some countries limit the gender equality. Consequently, I just heard the course yesterday about feminism in Thammasat University from my AEP classmate - Union and I would like to comprehend more about such study - how details there are, how it works, and what issues they have nowadays.

Besides, I am also interested in psychology. It will be easier if we know how to deal with people and I think that the science of mental study is useful and able to enhance our abilities to understand human beings.

Additionally, I keen on listening to music - pop and classical and I feel that it is a science which is interesting and desirable too.

Do human beings matter?

The sad situation, or not so sad and deserving according to many, of refugees from Syria and other nations that desperately want to find a new home in Europe and other Western nations has been in the news a lot lately. Some of the stories, and some comments from friends and family on Facebook, sadden and anger me, but there was an encouraging one in the BBC News yesterday.

In "How Sweden tries to assimilate its influx of refugees," Edwin Lane writes that the Swedish government, motivated by a desire to do what is morally right. even at considerable financial cost, welcomes many refugees every year, treating them with respect because they are human beings (2015). This includes helping them learn Swedish and other skills to fit into life and to find jobs that make the best use of their skills, which are often considerable.

Obviously, I think that other nations, every other nation, has an obligation to help the less fortunate, and that includes accepting them as refugees. Unfortunately, my mother is one of the Australians who think we should not offer such help to those desperately in need of it. This sometimes leads to uncomfortable moments at the dinner table on my visits home. I usually try not to comment when my mother is saying things with which I strongly disagree and find offensive, but every now and then, she says something so awful that I think she should be corrected, so I do. It does  not make her happy, but I suspect she calls refugees and immigrants lazy people who take the jobs of real Australians, and much worse, much less when I'm there because she knows I won't just let it all politely pass. Politeness is important, but you can be polite while honestly speaking unwelcome truths.  My mother is totally wrong factually as well as morally: nations that accept refugees tend to do better economically for the very good reason that such people are willing to work very hard to make a better life for themselves and their families. The Australiane xperience , also the experience of the US and many others, is strong evidence for this. Almost everyone in Australia, except the Aboriginal people who were there 40,000 years before we invaded, are at most second or third generation: my own Italian ancestors only sought a better life in Australia in the 1880s, and when they arrived, they worked very hard, contributing greatly to the economic and social health of Australia. That my own mother, whose own parents were immigrants, is so anti-immigrant seems a bit weird to me.

80,000 refugees a year, in
a county of less then 10 million.

But even for nations not founded on recent immigrants, it does seem to me the right thing to welcome in new citizens. Certainly, there are difficulties, but I think that people who are willing to make such a radical move are very likely to be both willing and able to succeed in their new home: the Chinese who settled in Thailand after the communist take over of China and earlier to escape the turmoil and poverty in their homeland seem to me to have contributed  a lot to Thailand. How many immigrants does Thailand settle permanently, granting them Thai citizenship each year? Tiny Sweden with with a population of only 10 million, takes in 80,000 new people who will become Swedish citizens every year. This puts my country to shame, although in the past, we have done much better. Perhaps it's economic fear that now drives Australia to be less generous, to be less willing to do the right thing morally. But I'm sure that that thinking is wrong. My Italian immigrant ancestors made Australia a better country, as did the Greeks, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, and even the English who first invaded my country, turning the native residents they did not kill off into socially damaged outcasts living miserable lives.

__________

Reference

Lane, E. (2015, September 21). How Sweden tries to assimilate its influx of refugees. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34261065

Video games: good or bad for kids (and adults)?

When I was in primary school, TV was a relatively new technology: it was all black and white, and we were lucky to have two channels to choose from. My brothers and sisters and I rushed home from school to tune in for our daily dose of cartoons and kids shows, but many parents and others worried that it would damage our eyes and lead to moral decline in society.

In "Horizon: How video games can change your brain," the BBC says that contrary to the fears of some that video games can cause violent behaviour, there is mounting evidence that playing video games can be beneficial, developing motor and visual skills useful in such fields as surgery, as well as encouraging brain growth in the elderly and enhancing their mental sharpness (2015).

Sonic the Hedgehog appears to
have benefited pensioners.

One thing that distinguishes academic work from other pursuits is that whilst you are free to hold any opinion you want, in an academic environment, you are expected to be able to give solid support for your opinions, and to ditch them if they are proved wrong. I think I've been hearing for years people, usually older and with little hands on experience, warning of the dangers of video games, especially of violent, sex filled video games. In particular, that letting kids play them will cause an increase in violence in society. Like many opinions people have, this does sound plausible: surely, the things we look at and hear have an effect on us, and in the case of watching ultra-violent movies or playing video games full of murder, rape, war and other horrors, mustn't that effect be to make the watchers or players more likely to commit such acts themselves? But being plausible does not make an opinion true, and the evidence seems clear that watching films or playing games that include extreme sex and violence does not cause a personality shift towards greater violence, although there does seem to be some correlation between playing violent games and being violent. This surprised me a bit at first, but then other evidence more commonly available also supports that there is no causal link: Japan has very high rates of very violent, sex filled media, and is a remarkably non-violent society; similarly, as the amount of time teenagers and others have spent pursuing violent fantasies has increased, crime rates have dropped. Thailand's murder rate, for example, reduced from 8.1 / 100,000 in 2000 to 5.4 in 2009 (there was a sharp rise in 2003, but that was due to the Thai government's massively popular and morally wrong War on Drugs). If violence in society is actually decreasing, it seems unlikely that more time spent playing violent games causes violent behaviour.

Of course, there might be other reasons to not want children to play such games, but that they cause violence cannot one of those reasons. And in fact, I'm not sure that there is any very solidly supported reason - my rather indulgent mother let me watch late night adult films, and I don't think they warped my moral sensibilities. They were, rather, more material to think about and use to form a balanced view of the world. The BBC News article also uses the word theory, which has at least two very different meanings in science. My theory is that as well as the neurological and skill enhancing benefits of violent games, they also help kids to get a realistic breadth of understanding as to what human behaviour encompasses, and to develop their own, usually healthy, sense of what is morally OK and not OK by giving them more examples of situations to think about.

That said, I find both TV and video games very boring, or at least not worth my time. I haven't watched TV for about 35 years, and I try games every now and then, but they just don't excite me. This is a great disappointment to my friend Yo's son Ea - none of my devices have any games on them except the very small and unexciting set that come preloaded. A worrying thought: Did watching adult TV in my youth turn me into a boring adult? Is that why most societies today are less violent than when I was a child addictively watching TV?

__________

Reference

Horizon: How video games can change your brain. (2015, September 16). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34255492

Recording the path to now

When I was very young, primary school young, I used to hear an old cousin ranting on about the Beatles. She even had a glossy, green beetle medallion  that I remember clearly on a chain around neck, but the Beatles were all a vague mystery to me until many years later.

The BBC News story "The Beatles' first record contract sells for $75,000" tells how the Beatles first ever recording contract was for the song that got the interest of Brian Epstein, who quickly became their manager and led the English group to success (2015). According to the story, the group were working in nightclubs in Germany at the time, the early 1960s, and that first contract has just sold for $75,000 in New York.

Although I studied the flute for a while, music has never really been one of my passions, and as primary and high school student, I was much more interested in science, mathematics, and literature: I just didn't have time for music, and almost never listened to it. I guess it made me seem a bit odd at school, especially in high school, when everyone around me would talk about their musical favourites, and it seemed especially cool to love the Beatles, also Bob Dylan and other now ancient greats like Cat Stevens. This was before the time of Micheal Jackson, Madonna, and all that modern stuff, and way before the rise of Lady Gaga, who is the last famous one whose name comes to mind. One of my oldest friends in Bangkok, who I got to know well years earlier in Sydney, is now the manager who brings mega-stars to perform in Bangkok - I notice on his Facebook postings that recent splashes have included Bon Jovi (I've heard the name) and some new group (?) called Stamp. At least I'm familiar with Madonna, whom he's bringing out next year. But I'll skip her concerts, too.

I guess towards the end of high school I started to become interested in music. Actually, that's not an accurate memory, because I when I was in primary school, I did love singing old Australian folk songs, and I remember being fascinated listening to The Seekers, a great Australian group, performing live on TV - and that must have been when I was still in primary school. In fact, when I just checked on YouTube, The Seeker's farewell concert, which is the YouTube clip I've added above, was in 1968 - so I must have been hearing and loving them before that. So, now you know what my earliest passion in popular music was, and The Seekers truly were popular: despite the break up in 1968, they reformed and went on to record a lot more. For comparison, here's another YouTube offering, this one almost 50 years (that's right, half a century) after the one above.

And as I wrote about it, I was also having series doubt about my memories of my trendy cousin's beetle Beatles medallion - maybe I've conflated that memory with my memories of the glossy winged beetles that flew around my parents' property at dusk when I was at collecting lots of memories decades ago. But YouTube is a very reliable way to bring back memories.

__________

Reference

The Beatles' first record contract sells for $75,000. (2015, September 20). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34306291

Welcome to AEP Reading and Writing 2, term 6, 2015

Welcome to our Reading and Writing level 2 (AB) class for the term.

Over the next six weeks, we will be working through a few chapters in Quest, which involve reading and writing several different kinds of texts. We will also add some extra reading and writing to keep things interesting every day; we will, for example, be reading a short novel and regularly writing on this class blog.

I hope you find the class useful and also enjoyable.

In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the blog posts below that students in level 2 (CD) wrote last term, and the new ones that I write over the coming days in response to recent articles published in the BBC News.

 Peter.

The Story of Time

During childhood, I liked to watch cartoon Doraemon—popular Japanese cartoon about cat robot travelling from the future world in 22nd century and having amazing magic stuff that are so advanced—because it is funny and full with a lot of creative imagination of the cartoon writer, and time machine for time travelling is one of the Doraemon’s magic stuff which frequently appears in several episode. At that time, Doraemon’s time machine is so fantastic that I didn’t realize that if it existed, would the chaos of changes in any actions or situations affecting to the world happen?

  

According to “Could time travel really take place?” (Coughlan, 2015), University of Birmingham is studying the feasibility of time travel, and will have to tackle some classic arguments against time travel like grandfather paradox—the paradox that it is impossible for someone could go back in time and then kill their grandparents who are their ancestors since they would have been never born. However, Dr. Wilson, specialist in the philosophy of physics, says that “examining time travel is a way of addressing questions about fundamental physics. It means thinking about time not as a way of measuring the passing of hours and days, but as a dimension more like space.”

In the aspect of science, as the grandfather paradox is, if we were able to travel back in time, all things would seem contrast and impossible. Nevertheless, the theory about parallel dimensions may be possible for time travelling since the consequence of changes in the past or the future will happen in other dimensions. To put it another way, only the parallel world in another dimension will be affected. Yet, there is no proof for this theory, just as the possible idea of some scientists to explain that paradox. Besides, one interesting question about the feasibility of time travelling is that if this is available, why can’t we see or meet ourselves coming from the future world?

In the view of spending time in one’s life, everybody has equal time (24 hours) in a day but spend it differently. Some can do and achieve many things in one day without any procrastination, whilst others cannot and spend their time in a useless manner regardless of the values of time. Thus, the latter seems to have a less tendency to be successful in their life. What is the difference? The answer is how well they manage limited time. This is of great importance to consider because we all would have to do anything so much that we cannot complete all of them in our lives.

One of the effective ways to manage time is a techniques of Dwight D. Eisenhower—the former U.S. president. It is called Eisenhower method. This is to think about the priorities of any tasks or works which people need to do. Two significant criteria which should be always considered are importance (good outcome leading to succeed in your goals) and urgency (having specific due date and requiring immediate attention); therefore, there are four different groups to list one’s activities based on such criteria in the order of prioritization: 1.Important and urgent things 2. Urgent but not important things 3. Important but not urgent things and 4. Not important and not urgent things.

If applying this technique, we will know what we should do and complete first and what the next is so as to spend and manage our valuable time in most appropriate manner and avoid unnecessary activities. Don’t forget that we don’t have much time to do every activity and aim in our life, and we cannot buy for more time or go back in time to redo something to change the past action or situation.

Yet, if you were able to go back in time just only once, which the past period of your life would you like to go and why?—Perhaps, you may need to either go back to change something again or enjoy your past happiest life.

 __________

Reference

Coughlan, S. (2015, February 11). Could time travel really take place?. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30862837

People are the Error

People usually make an error, most accident are caused by human error, everyone can make fault it is depend on how perfectionist are they some are good in calculate and many are not. Human, sometimes make a stupid error, but some little stupid things which they make in a mistake will be big for someone.

According to "Samsung Galaxy Note 5 faces stylus issue" says early adopters reported brand new Samsang Galaxy Note 5, that if insert the stylus pen in upside down it will jam the hole and cannot take off smoothly with the force the pen can break and will not able to use it. Samsung says users should follow the manual, the stylus should inserted in the correct way with the pointed end first, by their design.

Human do mistake because he/she is learning something, like children they always make mistakes; for instance, when learning Math, they usually makes mistake and their mistakes are telling them to remember it to improve. Human not like computers which born for perfectionist to do something in some field, Calculators, the example of computer, are invent for doing Math and they are doing their job very well. Do you trust the first answer from your calculator, or you calculate it again? Many people do not trust the first answer because they think that they can make some error and calculate it again to make it sure,

Student making error is no problem, but when growing up an error need more responsibilities. If you were Civil Engineer and you sign a plan for building a house, your signature need a lot of your responsibilities. Something wrong with a little bit will effect to others life.

User error is one of the error that I do not like it because the instructions are already told like a 2nd paragraph, or sometimes users are already know it. Once in USA, a woman ordered "Hot Coffee" at McDonald's drive-thru when she get her ordered then put it between her knees. When the car moved it spilled and burn her body, so she sue McDonald. This was surprised me that she was know her ordered was hot, but she also sue it because it was not write on the cup that it is hot.
__________

Reference

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 faces stylus issue. (2015, August 25).BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34051994