Free The Chipmunks

South Africa - laws imposing apartheid

2006-04-22T15:10:00.000Z

Just read Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom and wanted to make a note of some of the laws mentioned. He trained as a lawyer and therefore takes care to note the legal methods used to (gradually) impose and maintain, apartheid. See pages 114, 130, 155, 158, 187, 287, 402-3, 529.

> Land Act 1913 - Deprived 87% of land from ownership by Africans
> Urban Areas Act 1923 - Creating 'native locations', areas for Africans to live basically in order to supply labour to white industry
> Colour Bar Act 1926 - Banned Africans from practising skilled trades
> Native Administration Act 1927 - British Crown made supreme chief of African areas
> Representation of Natives Act 1936 - Removed natives from electoral role
> Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act/Immorality Act 1949 - No black-white marriages or sexual relations permitted
> The Population and Registration Act 1950 - Labelling Africans by race using arbitrary tests
> Group Areas Act 1950 - Creating Bantustans - seperate urban areas for each racial group

and in response to mounting backlashes:
> Supression of Communism Act 1950 - which meant that "virtually anyone who opposed the Government in any way could be defined as - and therefore convicted of being - a 'statutory communist', even without ever having been a member of the party."p158. The Act enabled the Government to legally "ban" individuals - entailing things like forced resignation from organisations, restriction from attending gatherings - all with no proof or charges. Under the Act, organisations were also banned - participation in them became illegal, punishable by fine or up to 10 years (p287).
> Sabotage Act 1962 - Allowed for house arrests and more stringent bannings not subject to challenge in court, "restricting the liberties of citizens to those in the most extreme facist dictatorships" (402). Sabotage now had a minimum of 5 years without parole, and a maximum of death. The wording of the Act was so broad that "even activities such as trespassing or illegal possession of weapons could constitute sabotage" (403). Another Act stopped the reproduction of any statement made by a banned person.
> General Law Amendment Act 1963 or the "Ninety-Day Detention Act" (402) "waved the right of habeas corpus and empowered any police officer to detain any person without a warrant on grounds of suspicion of a political crime. Those arrested could be detained without trial, charge, access to a lawyer, or protection against self-incrimination for up to ninety days. The ninety-day detention could be extended... 'until this side of eternity'. The law helped transform the country into a police state; no dictator could covet more power than the Ninety-Day Detention Law gave to authorities. As a result, the police became more savage: prisoners were routinely beaten ..." (402)
> Terrorism Act 1967 - "gave the Government unprecedented powers of arrest and detention without trial" (p529).

I plan to read Just Law by Helena Kennedy in the future. It is important in any country that the law is just and fair, does not give too much power to one side or another, and has its own system of checks and balances. A worry is the gradual shift of the judicial system from one which treats people as innocent until proven guilty, to one which considers one guilty until proven innocent. For the former, it is true that guilty people may walk free, and for the latter that innocent people may be locked up. Arguing which of these systems is more desirable is incredibly difficult, of course.

eyebrows

2006-03-05T18:42:00.000Z

what are eyebrows for? I just focussed in on them the other night and it was all I could look at in the pub. Talking to people, I would be staring at their eyebrows. Then I mooted the question of function - and no-one could give a non-silly answer. Wikipedia says the function is to prevent debris from falling in the eyes, and water from dripping in. When I said perhaps I would remove them my boyfriend was strangely against the idea, and i thought that eyebrows are quite essential on the face, and something looks wrong with people without eyebrows. I guess it's just what we're used to. Funny thing, hair.

circumvention

2006-02-28T16:11:00.000Z

I asked someone the other day why they thought men get circumcised - because it's clean, it lowers STDs blah blah blah. It is shocking to learn that there is absolutely no proof for these assertions, and that it amounts to little more than a ritual. A ritual that around 1/5 of the world's males and perhaps hundreds of millions of the world's females have gone though. In most cases it is for religious reasons; Jews and Muslims practice male circumcision, but countries such as South Korea and the US do it for medical reasons (see previous statement). 99% of South Korean doctors recommend it, and very very few know what diseases they are actually trying to prevent. Most of the surgery is performed on babies (on the eighth day - Jewish) and infants - often without anaesthetic despite the obvious pain and disruption it causes a newly born baby who should be sheltered as much as possible from such things. In South Korea the average age is 12, and in Turkey, 6. Tribal rituals in Africa means that boys upto 16 must go to 'inititation schools' and get circumcised in order to become a man. Many men and women cannot get married until this surgery is performed. It's all wrong - a ritual with no health benefits is still the most common and routine operation performed on babies in America today. See the power of societal pressures - you must - it's clean - you won't be a man without it - you won't marry without it - women like it better - men like it better - it is a sacrifice to God and by showing that you follow his rules you become perfect - people will pick on those who don't have it done - it shows we are medically advanced - you can't go to the public baths - I had it done when I was little. What kind of zany excuses?

replacements

2006-02-24T11:36:00.000Z

what if I made a film where all the animals we mistreat are replaced by humans. Kept inside their whole lives, dirty and crowded, fed each other, stepping over dead bodies. Queued up for slaughter, electrocuted by things with evil faces, falling into chopping machines while still alive, hung up to bleed to death. Women restrained and raped while held down in pens, children taken away whilst young, boys killed because they are worthless. Forcefed until organs stop working, stopped from moving at all. Transported long distances with no food or water, left to bash the sides and each other, no-one cares if you scream. Starved and forced to fight to the death, trained to do stupid tricks, things laugh and point at us. One day something will come to our planet, see the way we treat the rest of its inhabitants and treat us the same, and I wouldn't blame them.

clothes show

2005-12-06T20:38:00.000Z

after writing a letter to the council about the lack of recycling bins in the Crookes area of Sheffield I recommended that a certain spot be chosen to place them - a pub carpark close to the main shops and stuff . I received a reply quite shortly saying that 'thank-you very much for the info, but onyx that decides where to put such things, and they know best'. The reply was quite nasty and like, put me down quite a lot. Surprisingly though, a few weeks later I walk by and there's a clothes recycling point in the exact spot I suggested. Wierd.

brain drain

2005-11-19T17:31:00.000Z

I was thinking this morning about a film, a film based in an isolated American town populated by perfect women and happy husbands, sterotypically supermarket shopping in a blank daze, the image you associate with the film is a perfectly manicured woman pushing a shopping trolley. Well I was just thinking how funny it is that in the end it was a [brain surgeon] woman who had created the town and thought everyone would be happier if the women were housemaids and sex slaves controlled by the husbands. You know the film. What suprised me about my thoughts is the startling way my brain retrieved the title of the film afterwards. My mind was blank for a few seconds and then in popped the seed, the title, "The Stepford Wives" just like that - as if it were spoken to me. And I marvelled at the brain - how the F*CK does it do that? Im hungover today so my general processing speed is slower than normal so I noticed the whole process a bit more. OK, I think so much I even think about thinking.

epigenetic

2005-11-10T22:02:00.000Z

a recent review of advances in science spewed up epigenetics - showing how the environment interacts with DNA and how environmental conditions YOU suffer in life you affect your children. These are the times when what you do can affect "them" - for women: in the womb when the eggs are formed & in the last trimester of pregnancy, for men: mainly just before puberty - but my theories on that are actually that because men are undergoing spermatogenesis all the time, they are constantly able to pass on environmental factors to offspring. These times were discovered by observations of a remote village which sometimes had periods of famine - the children were shown to be affected, through both future health problems and cause of death. Even stress in the third trimester is shown to be passed down - children of holocaust victims suffer similar stress levels as their mothers. At all times in our lives what we do environmentally directly affects our own genes through epigenetic interactions. It is thought that when these kinds of processes go wrong it can cause cancers and other illnesses.

cooking

2005-11-04T23:12:00.000Z

I cooked for around six hours today - from soy milk chai to squash and lentil mash to steamed broccoli to a putative [still baking] pumpkin pie. I feel exhausted but strangely like Ive acheived something. Actually the main thing will be the pie tasting good, that took the longest. Some people say cooking is a complete waste of time, but I cant think of any better way to waste a few hours every now and then. It is also suprising how good food doesnt have to take long. The other day we even set the oven to have cooked by the time we got in but we didnt do it right and plumped to using the microwave for our jacket potatoes.

aint life remarkable

2005-11-03T23:24:00.000Z

the soap opera perogative - when the shot focusses on an item which is going to be important for later plot developments - happens in life too. It's worth riding them out and exploring why the coincidence happens to see why you should be heading in that direction. Explain why I read a book Ive had for three weeks before I return it about the perils of genetic reductionism and then I get suprise tickets to a talk by a man highlighting the great ideas of biology who traverses reductionism and suggests a future need for wider consideration of biological information - as [cellular and DNA] organisational, as well as directly from genes - exactly what the book says - on the same day I finish the book. This and many other things have happened recently, never in the form of coherent visions or predictions which would be eerie, but just enough to make me feel uncomfortable.

dream inventions

2005-10-26T14:02:00.000Z

You hear many people say that ideas come from dreams, ideas that spring into books, inventions, laws of nature.. Well here are a few dream inventions Ive had over the last couple of nights during ill-sleep. 1. An ideal way to distribute water at a nightclub is to have a person dressed-up as a duck with a complicated backpack system for squirting water into requestees mouths. Like a duck to water. 2. Another interesting thing to do with backpacks in the future will be to provide wings - you go to a field with like-minded friends, press a button and wings pop out you just run and jump and that's it - you're up in the air, controlling it using your body. In my dream the excellent Surrey flying club let me join in over their field for the news article I was reporting on. Hmmm... two dreams on two nights involving backpacks and the illusion to flying.. What can it mean? I need to go travelling??

learning

2005-10-24T22:46:00.000Z

today i learnt that you can long to live in the past or think times were better in the old days but then something happens to remind you that you are happy to live in the now and youd better quit complaining and get on with it

Transplantation revisited

2005-10-23T00:21:00.000Z

I just remembered what Brazier said at the conference that spurred my initial rant on transplantation/organ donation. She said that everyone should surrender themselves to medicine when it was required - including donating absolutely anything when you're dead (you're dead!) - letting anyone sit in on consultations, and helping take part in the teaching process. She said everytime she went away on a long journey she would tell her kids - if I die I want my organs donated, and if you dont agree, I'll come back to haunt you!! (Her colleague Harris would also argue that we have a positive obligation to take part in medical research - after all, we enjoy the fruits many other people's sacrifices, as will our children and society enjoy ours. ) She went quite far and just said it was our responsibility to take part in these things for the benefit of society. She spoke a lot of sense! Anyways - Im currently proof-reading a chapter on transplantation for a book on medical law and ethics to be printed soon, thats why this came up. In the course of this research I have discovered a lot of things - amongst which that www.uktransplant.org.uk is a great website which answers any questions about organ donation, and includes the organ donation register you can sign up to online. And, time for the last fact - only 1% of people who die are potential donors...

P barriers

2005-10-22T18:56:00.000Z

Isnt it strange how the psychological barrier to doing something often overrules the physical one. For example, bread-making. For those of us with a bread-maker it is a simple 5-minute job to whack in the ingredients and set the timer - and *ping* out pops a lovely loaf 4 hours later. But how often do we actually do it? This is because, in my opinion, this task is psychologically ingrained in us to be difficult when it actually is not physically difficult. And when you get to thinking there are many other examples - cake-making (10 mins with blender), or straying away from the food examples (I'm hungry), popping out to do the composting (2 mins), hanging-up clothes (15 mins), writing a letter (10 mins). There are two people-type extremes - those who 'get up and go' - finding no trouble to overcome these barriers and acheive lots but often cant sit still, and those who dont do anything out of the normal routine, or psychologically difficult, and generally dont like to move about too much. Im certainly in the middle..

Not thinking

2005-10-20T23:10:00.000Z

I realised that I spend a great deal of my time not thinking. Actually avoiding it. I tend not to read the paper, to switch off the radio, to avert my eyes during adverts, tune out during speeches. I also go to great pains not to think when it isnt strictly necessary at work. Murakami wrote that there are two types of people: the comprehensive-vision type and the limited-perspective type [Hard-boiled... p388]. How about the people who purposely limit their vision in order to minimise interaction with the world? And for what reason? They are afraid. Afraid that when they turn around and face the world its going to hurt.

Faaaamily

2005-10-18T20:41:00.000Z

I think its important to know something about your past. I think somehow who your relatives were and what they did sifts and pervades your conciousness giving you confidence to do things you wouldnt normally have done. My relatives were an interesting bunch - miners, farmers, grocers, fisherfolk, railway signalmen, and yes - loom tuners. Thinking about any one of those lines gives me motivation and the reassurance that I too can do those sorts of things. QUICK - get me a loom.

Adaptation

2005-10-12T22:48:00.000Z

Ive been working on a farm for a week and just wanted to note how fast humans can adapt to new things. This evening for the first time I wasnt nervous or blown away by herding in 40 cows all by myself (Whistle the dog would have been there but had her head stuck down a rabbit hole). I wasnt worried when pushing them into the milking stalls or when they swang round to look at me. One had a bit of a tiff and kicked a bit but I still didnt get flustered. Basically I think I am getting used to it. Someone called me cowgirl. Anyways - just in time for me leaving tomorrow I guess :(

Moor walking

2005-10-10T11:00:00.000Z

Yesterday I walked for 4.5 hours across the North Yorkshire Moors from Gillamoor to Hutton-Le-Hole using an ordanance survey map - and it was excellent. I kidnapped the farm dog, Whistle, and took her with me, and was glad for the company (and she pulled me up the hills). I saw lots of grouse and rabbits, darting off from me and the dog, as well as fields full of cows and sheep. I got lost a good few times and walking there seemed to take twice as long as walking back when I knew the way. The Moors themselves are amazing, full of ferns and bushes glowing a purply colour and it seems to absorb sunlight and relfect the delicious yellows, oranges and reds of sunsets. There are many paths winding this way and that and it doesnt seem too important if you get lost, it wouldnt be long before you found a road or farm. I wore the wrong shoes and after half an hour my feet were soaked - but it was all worth it - Hutton-Le-Hole is an interesting place with nice tea rooms, restaurants, craftsmen (the candle man explained how to make them), a river running through the middle and sheep grazing on the village green. Also, the Gillamoor 'suprise view' was certainly a suprise and welcome after the hard climb back up the hill. All in all a good day.

11 hours work

2005-10-08T20:30:00.000Z

Early rising cow milking potato pickin good! I cant say that I dont ache (they even gave me a senior citizen ticket at Pickering Rural Life Museum cos I look so hunched-up) but Im still enjoying my week-long visit to a farm. Cows are strange creatures. Clever in many ways - they know whos who and who to mess about with (the new person). They remember their routine - where to walk, respond to human voices giving orders, and look at you as if YOUre the stupid one. Whats life like on a farm? Basically - if youre there youll be used to do one of the hundreds of little tasks that lie in wait every day, and if you're not doing something you should use your initiative to find something to do. People ere dont sit still for long unless its past 10 at night in which everything slows waaay down. Much wine gets consumed, much good food eaten, much idle chat had. Everyone mucks (literally) in. Before I sign off I can tell you this - Ive only picked potatoes and milked cows really - but youd be suprised at the sheer amount of effort that is put into every drop of milk you drink - that after youve experienced how its done youll think differently about it all. And - tasting the cooled fresh milk is one fabulous experience. Thank you cows!

Socials

2005-10-05T21:16:00.000Z

Today I learnt it is worth organising socials. You just have to set the ball rolling into the wilderness including a time and a place and turn up, dragging a few people along and then suddenly the ball is so big you cant catch it anymore, and you look around and everyone is talking and having fun. A social run wild, thats what I like - success! try it!

Create new post

2005-10-04T21:05:00.000Z

As I posted something to Romania and something to Slovenia I looked at the 'meaningless' strings of words and numbers and marvelled that it could then travel the world and arrive at its (obscure to me) destination. How will it get there, will it float or fly? Fly I suppose. That little cardboard package. Something about the international postage system is absolutely marvellous; magical almost. It makes the world seem like a smaller place, and when I think that some countries that I have sent post to are now at war and maybe that person who once received my post no longer exists... Ah Ive gotton all contemplative about the nature of physical vs. non-physical. You can send non-physical stuff like you cant send the physical. Unless it's sea monkeys as they are dried and therefore quite easy to send.

Past and words

2005-10-03T23:09:00.000Z

Today it was comforting to see someone from my past, despite him being the type of person to easily elicit hours of information from me without ever giving away anything himself. Perhaps I just wasnt giving him the opportunity to get a word in, or perhaps he isnt interested in letting me (or maybe anyone) know what he does or how he does it. I think he likes to get lost in riddles and quotes to extract himself from the burden of an overactive and possibly overworked mind. I suppose we can all understand that to some extent, but it still freaks me out.

On another note, here's some of the words and phrases I found in the first ten pages of the new book Im reading for the Ph.D - What Genes Cant Do by Lenny Moss: etymological, epigraphs, ontologically antecendent, embodied and distributed cognition, ethereal idiom, phylogenetic, shibboleth (and what a word!!), epigenesis, hylomorphic, inhere, vituperative, autopoietic, antinomies, heuristic, interlocutor, and telomechanist. Lovely!

Fixation

2005-10-02T20:28:00.000Z

Its a nice feeling when years of theory gets put into practice. As I pulled my beans out of the ground to compost them I saw nodules attached to the roots that fix nitrogen out of the soil/air and help provide it to the plant. I have not had much experience with gardening so it's amazing to see them with my own eyes knowing that they contain the rhizobia bacteria Ive heard so much about. They literally just look like little rice crispies stuck onto the roots. Pretty sad to see the beans go really - we must have had a few armfuls of lovely beans from the three plants. And that all came out of three little beans! Cool.

untitled

2005-10-01T20:58:00.000Z

After spending a week with lots of very old people watching them try and get up the stairs, fussing over toasting the bread on both sides or not talking to each other for seven-hour boat journeys, it is hard not to be afraid of joining them - and getting old. I am at an age where my body is beginning to ache on an evening, I'm after my prime for childbirth and really at a point where pretty soon I wont be counted as young any more. My railcard proving I was young even just ran out. Aside from the troublesome burden of more expensive train tickets, I think it is getting harder these days to mature when you have so many possibilities open - especially when you're one of those people who likes to experience everything possible and stretch yourself in lots of different ways. I am sure that if life were more mapped out I could sit down and get on with the business of growing up but at the moment I dont want to. However, this is a bad thing since what it really takes to get on in the world is exactly the kind of focussed, single-minded, committed atitude that I dont have.

Getting active

2005-09-28T22:19:00.000Z

Today I witnessed the miracle that happens when you find people with the same ideas and who are willing to shout about it. People who agree with you about things and dont say 'I'm already doing all I can'. People who tirelessly campaign for change - change in policy, law, action or ways of thinking. I can imagine that hanging around with them will be exhausting. Could you dress up as a condom and give them out free? Someone asked what the motivation is that keeps them going, when quite often you don't see any direct results. The reply was that the results are there even if they may look small, that its amazing to be there when the change happens, that its rewarding... Well, we'll see won't we? Lets see if we can convince people that they are not already doing all they can...

Why holiday?

2005-09-25T20:40:00.000Z

sunrise creeping through a 3000 year-old temple's doorway to mark Autumn solstice, a boat ride across blue waters into caves carved deep into the cliffs, watching the cats watch the fishermen hopefully yet still unconcerned, floating on your back in the middle of the sea bobbing with the waves at sunset, buses winding up mountains towards a medieval walled city keeping a lookout across the land, simple hours spent idly watching passers-by, getting caught up in past-midnight craziness in the party capital, shopping for tat but sadly not buying the Cats of Malta calendar....

Lifestyle Change

2005-09-20T11:19:00.000Z

How can we be so blind? Every day we hear how we are destroying the earth. Are we so immune to information bombardment that we now ignore almost everything, meaning that the evidence and pressure must be soo huge to persuade us to do anything? Are we so used to being lied to that we are just confused? What the sensible person must remember is that there are two sides to this argument - the scientific proof that we are destroying the world, and the big business which is doing its best to make everything glitzy and sparkly so we carry on spending the money that makes their fortunes. The big business that ignores climate change, buys politicians, and does its best to discredit efforts to reverse the ill effects on the environment. Now listen up guys - dont fall into their trap - the world as we know it will end, and you should take every opportunity to prepare for this or you will be putty in their hands. We must all contribute to helping rectify this global problem. Things I always feel like doing: sticking notes in the windscreen wipers of big cars saying 'it is you who is destroying the earth', graffiting something witty all over Sheffield, handing out flyers in the street and trying to talk to people, setting up a community composting programme, starting an organic farm, save water by any means possible (collect rainwater for watering any plants), starting a website, talking directly to businesses especially about plastic packaging... Dont you feel like doing anything? Then do it!!!

Wentworth, Rotherham

2005-09-19T19:56:00.000Z

It's Sunday afternoon at about four o'clock and we pull into a small village with it's own blacksmith, potter and farm selling vegetables. We park off road and enter part of the old Rockingham estate where you can stroll around the managed countryside. We first see quite a monstrous group of houses built by sheffield university as a training centre, now unused. Shortly past these is a building which looks like we've found the stately home (it's huge) but get this, it's just the old stables! We round a bend to see a huge house - bigger than Chatsworth but privately rented! Then we turn our full concentration on the expense of rolling green fields... Cows lounge in the distance, and there are plenty of rabbits and pheasants running around. The trees are all cropped to an identical height by grazing animals creating a bizarre straight line underneath the leaves which makes one slightly uneasy. There are people with horse boxes trying to squeeze their horses back in. Small signs everywhere saying 'ride' with an arrow give me the impression they have been offering rides around this park today. In the distance look-out towers built for fun rise out of the trees reminding me of Mayan temples in the rainforest. We find a small lake and sit on wooden slats made for standing fisherman and watch the water wildlife. Ducks, moorhens, coots, seagulls all fly or float by. Fish garble at the surface every so often, but the main entertainment is the crane which swoops down gracefully to alight opposite us. You can see why the Japanese think cranes are dead kings - they are amazing creatures. After a local with about three dogs (about because they were a moving tangle of leads and heads and tails) shouts as us it takes off and circles and lands in a tree where it occasionally leaves and comes back to, making us gawp. Reluctantly we leave this nature-TV and walk back to be confronted by a herd of deer the like of which I have never seen. There are about a hundred, sitting down, grazing, staring, trundling about. We get slightly disconcerted as they appear to be staring at us, especially because the obvious leader of the pack has antlers about three-feet long. One of us is convinced every time we turn around they get closer. We pass without incident but not without hatching an escape plan involving leaping over fences. We leave the park and that Sunday afternoon with some great memories.

Flipflops

2005-09-16T22:00:00.000Z

Ok, I know this is England but Im sure that still doesn't account for the sheer volume of people whose well-being appears to depend on the weather. Perhaps I illicit such conversation or perhaps smalltalk revolving around weather has become such a staple (or have I reached that age?) that it is now hopelessly entrenched within our psyches, but just today a good few people (at least four) professed that they were feeling much happier than yesterday because the weather was better. Does the weather really alter people's moods that much? Many people do have a diagnosed seasonally-affected disorder where they get depressed in the drawing days of winter, treatable using a special sunlight simulator. I'm not sure anyone knows much about why this disorder happens which I find bizarre to say the least. Can anyone tell us what the weather really means for our happiness? Well anyway - I'm looking forward to my holiday to Malta next week to soak up some sun, especially because today was the first day in a while where I felt pretty cold, and that upset me. My rabbit knows it's getting colder too, he's started to dig a warren in the back garden. No more flipflops this year.

Being Positive

2005-09-15T22:52:00.000Z

Conduct a mind experiment. Throughout tomorrow: you really want to meet and speak to those around you; you will love having the conversation, feeling the bond with another, or even the challenge of keeping up with a debate; you will be able to achieve everything you planned to and more; you will notice the trees and the sky on the way to work and enjoy being alive and attached to this world by the laws of physics - in short, be positive. Make plans for the future, invite people out, have courage which transends fear or feelings of inadequacy. See how it feels.

Free food

2005-09-14T20:24:00.000Z

Today after watching the early morning bunny rabbits exploring the hedgerow in a local park at about 8am I noticed some bushes of blackberries. I hatched a plan to come back later with a work colleague. On the way there he said 'are we allowed to just take them'? This really made me think about our programming. Food must be bought, paid for. It has crossed a barrier from grown, raised, found or given. It is becoming difficult for younger people to know where food comes from - my brother was incredulous seeing sweetcorn growing at Heeley City Farm, and I have to admit to being amazed at the Day of the Triffids style growth that produces the gargantunan beacon that is a squash or pumpkin. In any case, I came home with a nice amount of free blackberries I am going to put into a crumble... after I've bought the Bramley apples of course..

For opting out for organs

2005-09-13T20:35:00.000Z

I remember a time when whether or not you had a donor card was a much talked-about issue. Now, all that has changed. Today I saw a talk by a top transplant surgeon who told us that while 99% of patients/their relatives would say yes to an organ transplant that may save their lives, 41% of relatives would, on death of their loved one, refuse for their organs to be donated. This is a huge gap, and is increasing in-line with our increasing selfishness. As a result there are many thousands of people on the organ waiting lists, most with a 20% chance of dying for every year they are on them. Five possible solutions were collectively proposed: an opt-out system (in Austria & Belgium you must register your decision not to be a donor); creating a tightly-regulated organ-selling market; the compulsory use of dead bodies for organs through law; a compulsory system where even living people must reguarly donate organs or tissues; large-scale re-education along the lines that we have a social responsibility to make advance directives (which by UK law will soon have to be obeyed) stating that our bodies are to be donated, no matter what the relatives think. Sometimes the way to carry-out collective re-education is through regulation (consider data protection) and I would personally be strongly in favour of an opt-out system. This allows for those people with strong religious or other beliefs which predispose them not to donate on death to register that fact. It is simply too much to expect people in this day and age to be altrustic by choice in most cases.

Small Cogs

2005-09-11T13:11:00.000Z

More Aldo Leopold... To consider how one can improve the environment one needs to view the land as a mechanism - filled with cogs and wheels working together. "Who but a fool would disguard seemingly useless parts?" In some cases conservation is only concerned with show pieces - the things you see. However, an area will never be the same once one of its cogs is broken - it is no use trying to restore an oak forest simply by planting oaks. In many cases one of the most important small cogs is the soil. It is the soil, built and maintained through the interactions of plants, bacteria, insects and animals over many thousands of years, from which all grows and to which all returns. What can we do to help that most important of cogs, the soil? Soil must contain both the nutrients to help plants grow, often as humus, as well as the insects, bacteria and fungus to break down anything that dies upon it. A good soil also prevents erosion through its structure. We need to help preserve our soils for the future and learn from many past mistakes. One of the best ways of contributing towards soil improvement, as well as helping your garden grow as it were, is to compost to replenish lost nutrients by replacing what the soil has lost. Everything that was once living can be composted. Even if you have no garden, imagine that what you consume came from somewhere, it was either grown in the soil which gave its nutrients to it, or it was fed plants grown for it. By composting and returning the compost to the soil you are simply replacing what you have taken.

Animals as Pests

2005-09-10T11:34:00.000Z

I am reading a book by Aldo Leopold called A Sand County Almanac where he quite often lamented the passing of animals we call pests from the point of view of the environment. He exactly pinpoints the sequence of events that can lead from wiping out wolves in parts of America to the causation of dustbowls. The wolves 'trimmed the herd to fit the range', making sure that there were not too many cows in comparison to the ability of the area to sustain them. He also said that trees were once full of thousands of pigeons, making a moving blanket, and when they were gone they were missed. My thoughts turn to the pigeons who live with us in our cities right now, the birds people call pests. They also live out there, in the wild, but are one of few species of animals who are able to live with us and share our spaces. For that they have committed this folly uninvited, and they are not cute and fluffy, I would not call them a pest. As Aldo Leopold made clear, we must all learn to think like a mountain, to consider the wider environmental implications of our actions, the whole picture, not just that which can directly be equated to our own luxurious greed.