tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-356084462024-03-06T05:13:40.613+00:00Enthusiasm of the monthI've been a professional writer, editor and journalist since leaving uni in 1983.
I thought it would be fun to put my scribble pad online. If it's about anything it's (roughly) about random ideas for leaving the world in a better shape than we found it.
-- Glenn MyersGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.comBlogger190125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-75744079459900908682016-11-02T17:06:00.000+00:002016-11-02T17:06:00.295+00:00Two radical suggestions for new calendarsCalendars need a thorough shake-up and modernisation.
Here are some alternatives to the hackneyed and backward, 12-page, month-to-a-view calendar, in the spirit of the time-honoured principle beloved of politicians and managers wanting to make their mark: if you can't make improvements, make changes.
1. The seven-page calendar. A seven-page calendar would contain all the Tuesdays on one page, Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-16982675634936082052016-10-03T18:00:00.000+00:002016-10-03T18:00:01.945+00:00Why you should lie when asked for your personal data
Thou shalt commit adulteration.
The really annoying people are those who insist on taking your full name and address, both phone numbers, and your email when all you want from them is a one-off internet purchase. I'm beginning to think the answer is to lie.
If we all do this, we will adulterate mailing lists with worthless data. Think of the benefits: companies won't get as much for them when Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-943433875442874102016-09-03T09:56:00.000+00:002016-09-03T09:56:03.492+00:00Boys v girls quiz
We wrote this icebreaker boys v girls quiz for our youth group. For answers, ask a member of the opposite sex. Use of the internet is not allowed. Blue questions are for boys, pink-ish for girls.
1. If a girl asks 'does this make me look fat'?, and it does, what do you say?
2. What is this?
'A yellow car' is not the right answer
3. What is the difference Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-30604214927132682832016-08-01T15:33:00.000+00:002016-08-01T15:33:00.210+00:00Great ideas: Clothes that tell you when they are out of fashionI'm really surprised no-one has thought of this before.
Every piece of clothing you buy comes with a chip containing basic details which can be interrogated by smartphone.
Then you have an app on the phone -- call it 'Big Sister'. Put on an item of clothing that you fancy wearing tonight. Your pants/trousers, say. (Yeah, I know, pants are the second item of clothing but I'm assuming some basic Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-57358679448561083542016-06-01T09:53:00.000+00:002016-06-01T09:53:00.929+00:00A summer reading treat in medieval Japan
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This novel deliciously takes you by the ankles and dips you headfirst into the fast-flowing stream of another time and place.
In this case, it is the Dutch East India Company's factory in Dejima off the coast of Nagasaki, in the dark years after Japan had crucified or tortured to death the Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-60601038530490870442016-05-02T09:47:00.000+00:002016-05-02T09:47:00.143+00:00Really good ideas for how to get rid of dictators (without shooting them)
This will work!
So many of our former MPs get themselves recycled as celebrities.
Michael Portillo chugs around Britain with his Bradshaw's railway guide, meeting slightly baffled people who wonder what the attraction can be in his new life in the sidings. The decent and charming Matthew Parris is everywhere, having made much more, I hope it is fair to say, of his status as 'former MP' Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-19217134304283156022016-04-20T15:54:00.000+00:002016-04-20T15:54:48.287+00:00only wonder understands'Concepts are idols. Only wonder understands'
Gregory of Nyssa. From a forthcoming book I am having the privilege of reading.Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-30520737880665294362016-01-25T16:51:00.004+00:002016-01-25T17:19:57.955+00:00The Netflix effect: Why do we pay for TV but not for newspapers?Consumer pressure is moving TV from a free-to-view, ad-funded model to subscription services like Netflix.
Consumer pressure is moving newspapers from a paid-for model towards a free-to-view ad-funded model like the Guardian. Why?
I suggest it's because the newspapers don't have one, all-you-can-eat service like Netflix has for TV. They are still fighting each other rather than the common foe. Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-70096256326121623452016-01-13T18:55:00.000+00:002016-01-13T18:55:48.614+00:00The shifting sources of moralityI am finding Steven Pinker's book to be the gift that keeps on giving. He asks the question about the sources of our moral thinking, and notes that they change over time. This effects society. His descriptions of the sources of morality are complex but for my purposes I can just look at three:
Communal sharing; the idea that members of a group share things fairly with each other
Authority rankingGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-10739875299244427122016-01-12T18:37:00.001+00:002016-01-12T18:37:40.832+00:00The best satireSatire should, like a polished razor keen
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen
Mary Wortley Montague, quoted in Pinker p766.Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-25150763828094975852016-01-07T16:44:00.001+00:002016-01-07T16:44:59.766+00:00Inner demonsComing to an end of Stephen Pinker's wonderfully stimulating book The better angels of our nature.
Pinker summarises what he calls our 'inner demons' thus:
'Neither academic psychology nor conventional wisdom is anywhere close to a complete understanding of what makes us tick ... It seems to me that a small number of quirks in our cognitive and emotional makeup give rise to a substantial Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-47202308094606852632016-01-02T10:53:00.001+00:002016-01-02T10:55:18.653+00:00Psychopaths, humanity, and the criminal law
???
According to Stephen Pinker:
Psychopaths make up 1-3 percent of the adult male population [depending on definition] ... [They] are liars and bullies from the time they are children, show no capacity for sympathy or remorse, make up 20 to 30 percent of violent criminals and commit half the serious crimes. They also perpetrate non-violent crimes ... The regions of the brain that handle Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-78186073459290343862015-12-27T19:25:00.004+00:002016-01-02T10:57:10.514+00:00'We are living in an extraordinary age'
???
It's impossible not to be stirred by this conclusion after 578 pages of argument:
'[The chapters so far] have documented the historical decline of violence. In them we have seen graph after graph that locates the first decade of the new millennium at the bottom of a slope representing the use of force over time. For all the violence that remains in the world, we are living in an Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-16628025477415690362015-12-27T17:23:00.000+00:002016-01-07T16:44:34.001+00:00The Better and Worse Angels of Steven PinkerI am really enjoying Steven Pinker's company. Frighteningly clever, original, a smooth writer and often generous to the Christian church. What's not to admire? And when he does criticise the faith (my particular interest I suppose) sometimes he gives us a lot to think about. All good and I'm giving him as a Christmas present and recommending him to everyone I can.
But--well--just sometimesGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-63779277899715622012015-12-27T17:20:00.000+00:002016-01-02T10:56:22.691+00:00The source of the decline in violence - and perhaps a little case of prejudice. '... A moral way of life often requires a decisive rejection of instinct, culture, religion, and standard practice. In their place is an ethics that is inspired by empathy and reason and stated in the language of rights. We force ourselves into the shoes (or paws) of other sentient beings and consider their interests ....
'This conclusion, of course, is the moral vision of the Enlightenment and Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-64712107472451175532015-12-22T18:41:00.000+00:002016-01-02T10:56:35.883+00:00Who terrorists are - Pinker'... What inspires the most lethal terrorists in the world today is not so much the Koran or religious teachings as a thrilling cause and call to action that promises glory and esteem in the eyes of friends, and through friends, eternal respect and remembrance in the wider world that they will never live to enjoy ... Jihad is an egalitarian, equal-opportunity employer ... Fraternal, fast-breakingGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-6189493288368375422015-12-09T05:30:00.000+00:002016-04-20T15:35:43.224+00:00Pascal on people - 'the glory and scum of the universe'What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sewer of uncertainty and error, the glory and scum of the universe.
--Blaise Pascal
Quoted in the frontispiece to Steven Pinker The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity.Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-34296050358353468892015-12-08T06:43:00.000+00:002015-12-08T08:17:45.684+00:00Steven Pinker - the Better Angels of our Nature
Having got my eyesight back after two years of drug-induced cataracts and with migraine headaches most days, I am enjoying some heavy-duty reading again. Steven Pinker's book is getting me very excited.
His thesis is that violence in the human species is continuing a dramatic fall, stretching over millenia, dating indeed from the agricultural revolution. Because this is so counter-cultural, heGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-15936867834904262042015-11-30T09:50:00.000+00:002015-11-30T09:50:46.503+00:00Memories of MandelaRecently heard a talk about Nelson Mandela by the former chaplain of his Robben Island prison. (It was actually on April 23 2015 at St Bede's School but I am only just now clearing out some notes.)
--becoming bitter and resentful, Mandela is quoted as saying, is like drinking poison yourself and hoping it will kill someone else.
-- when Nelson Mandela left prison, he said Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-67850244912356611832015-10-12T18:02:00.000+00:002015-10-12T18:02:40.078+00:00Jane Austen's Emma and the meaning of lifeHere's a talk I gave about Jane Austen's Emma, the meaning of life, and the story behind the story. Bit of autobiography as well.Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-45141922602653167292015-07-25T10:51:00.001+00:002016-04-20T15:33:02.312+00:00The end of our exploring'The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know it for the first time'
T S Eliot, 'Little Gidding'Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-47211903101765365302015-04-10T03:07:00.001+00:002015-12-09T05:32:07.360+00:00A theology of mission in one sentenceThanks my dear friend Insomnia, here's what I read at 4.01 this morning:
'The whole action [redemptive history] has its action in the eternal being of the Triune God before the creation; it has its goal in the final unity of the whole creation in Christ; and meanwhile the secret of this cosmic plan, the foretaste of its completion, has been entrusted to these little communities of Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-24610260227982385242015-03-06T16:09:00.001+00:002016-04-20T15:37:56.066+00:00Imagination as the best route from head to heartp.sdendnote-western { margin-bottom: 0cm; font-family: "Calibri",serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 100%; }p.sdendnote-cjk { margin-bottom: 0cm; font-family: "Calibri"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 100%; }p.sdendnote-ctl { margin-bottom: 0cm; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 100%; }h2 { margin-top: 0.42cm; margin-bottom: 0.11cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10)Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-73303196732649072014-11-20T08:47:00.001+00:002016-04-20T15:39:27.446+00:00'i came not to call the righteous, but sinners''...God accepts only the forsaken, cures only the sick, gives sight only to the blind, restores life only to the dead, sanctifies only the sinners, gives wisdom only to the unwise. In short, He has mercy only on those who are wretched.' Luther, Luther's works, volume 29, Lectures on Titus, Philemon and Hebrews, ed Jaruslav Pelikan (Concordia,1968) p 189.Glennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35608446.post-14494728695181725622014-11-07T16:44:00.002+00:002014-11-07T16:51:28.752+00:00Wanna start a new charity? Here's one we actiually needHave just been exploring an American site called Charity Navigator.
A charity itself, it looks at the financial efficiency, governance and
transparency of charities in the USA, providing a star rating and all
kinds of information.
What a good idea. It highlights total clunkers.
For example, the Autism Disorder Spectrum Organization (in the US) which
raised $3.8m but spent $3.4mGlennhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07401126254048380747noreply@blogger.com0