The Unreasonable Man

“Faith is believing what you know ain’t so”

Mark Twain

As usual for almost anything witty and true uttered in America a century ago, Mark Twain said it.

Saying it also, but today, is Richard Dawkins, Oxford scientist and, in his latest book, fervent and rude anti-religion crusader; or one of the few intellectually honest persons around; or both, depending on your viewpoint. His current best seller “The God delusion” is absolutely riveting.

I recommend this book: I have been reading for the past few evenings and am already regretting the fact that soon enough, I will have finished it. Mr Dawkins is a kindred spirit: someone who like me believes that religion is primitive bunk, fundamentally bad, and must not go unchallenged.

One of the eye-openers for me is that you do not have to be polite. Why give religion special treatment? It is simply allowed for us to disagree with people who believe extremely unlikely hypotheses, or to insist on some proof, or at least evidence. Of which there is none, of course. If I go around saying the sky is green, or liberalism is good, or taxes should be higher, or the Beatles were great, you are free to question that and argue your opposite case. If I say God mandated this or that, it should be the same.

This is especially so if I claim a special right to mandate the law to others. Why are church people always invited to comment on social and sexual issues? Religious people have no more right to speak on these issues than I, you, or the plumber. I owuld say less right, since they have not arrived at their viewpoints through reason, but through blind faith in a 5000-year old God who does not even exist.

So from now on I shall no longer be diplomatic. I am an atheist (not an intellectually dishonest agnostic, but an atheist), and proud of it. I shall no longer allow ingrained social sensitivities to hold me back. God does not exist; there is no evidence for His existence; and yes, science would be able to test (Mary was either a virgin when Jesus was born, or she was not: this sort of thing is very testable. If Joseph’s DNA showed up in Jesus, that would disprove that bit of religious belief.).
God, that’s a relief! I no longer have to bow to ancient superstition.

Some various news tidbits today:

• In London, if you live in Richmond-upon-Thames, you will now see your parking fee go up from $200 a year to $620 a year if you own an SUV (and $1500 a year if you own two of them). This is to make people think about what they drive.
• Further to what I recently reported the Canadian photographer saying, the BBC now reports the same thing here [link]: there has been no real change for Afghan women since the invasion.
• Today is Halloween. Daniel is going to a school Halloween party, where he is not allowed to wear anything that includes weapons of any kind, fake blood, or anything too scary. And here is me, thinking Halloween is supposed to be scary.
• I have just earned a whopping 50 cents selling photography on microstock sites. That is, one image sale. I must add that is after just a few days with just a few pictures up; we’ll see what happens over time. Stay tuned; Just don’t hold your breath.

And now on with the day.

Money is the root of all evil, in other words.

So it is not surprise the PayPal (owned by eBay) is right up there when it comes to evil. I have been reminded of that again by an auction I recently did. I received $200, and PayPal charges $7 costs for Business accounts.

Last year, you see, I received more than $1000 in a month, so I had to sign up for a business account. So when I knew I was going to sell some more this year (but less than $1000), I asked PayPal to downgrade me, to avoid those hideous charges.

So I sent an email to support several weeks ago. Before the auction. I just now received an email back:

Due to an increase in email volumes, we may not have been able to answer
your email.

If your inquiry has not been resolved or you have further questions
regarding your PayPal account please call 1-402-938-3570.

Thank you for choosing PayPal!

I have now been on hold for the past 30 minutes, long distance, listening to how important I am, and how highly my call is valued, and how call volume is higher than usual, leading to the delay bla bla bla.

PayPal should be regulated like the other banks. Any normal bank with  this atrocious level of service would be shut down. As should PayPal. Their CEO should be in jail with Bernie Ebers and his friends.

More of my heroes: Photojournalists and Conflict Journalists.

I just spent the last two days at the Great White North Workshop, where Canadian (and some foreign) photojournalists get together. From the Star, the Globe, and the Post to the Oakville Beaver, I must have met almost every newspaper photographer whose name I know and work I respect. A valuable experience, and one I learned a lot from. So many professional photographers in one place for two days… great presentations and excellent work. In one word: inspiring.

What was also inspiring, but in a very depressing way, was Lana Slezic’s presentation. Lana, who is a well-known Canadian photographer (you may have seen her picture [link] of an Afghan policewoman in Burka) spent two years in Afghanistan as a freelance photographer covering Afghan women.

She is a great artists with a powerful story. And what a depressing story that is. Full of 6-year old brides, burned women, girls whose life effectively ends when they get married, 11-year old girl orphans in an orphanage with only men and boys, and women who get beaten up by gunmen for daring to drive a car. Lana’s position is that press coverage of Afghanistan is overly optimistic. Often, one ray of good news (like a driving school for women opening) gets covered by every media outlet because it is so simple to do that; the deeper story (that you never see women driving; that if they try they get beaten up or worse; that the new “schools” for girls mainly teach just literal word-for-word knowledge of the Koran) is not covered. Ms Slezic pictures are enough to bring tears to your eyes.

And they are also enough to reinforce the realisation on my part that if we want to end the misery there, we need to ship two million soldiers to Afghanistan to force society there to change. We need to abolish religion. We need to totally enslave the people, Soviet style, for a generation to force them to learn to read and write, to force them to respect their women.

Apart from the dubious justice (do we have the right to force people to abolish their religion?), we will in any case presumably not do that. And if we did, we would probably still fail: the real Soviets tried and failed. As did the Brits before them - and so on. Meaning we should get the hell out of Afghanistan.

This opinion was reinforced by another new photographer I met at GWNW, who until recently worked as a soldier and later as a medic in the Candian armed forces in Afghanistan. He too felt strongly that we should pull out.

…delivery by Canada Post may soon be stopped, I read. The mail-carriers are concerned about safety.

I hope that this degradation of service does not happen: it would be bad for rural Canada and bad for the Postal service as well: it would simply further marginalise itself. I bet Fedex delivers door to door.

And no, before you ask: I do not care about myself. I do not receive mail at my rural abode, just in the main home in the suburbs.

A thoughful poster here recently wrote, in response to one of my posts, that:

I hope that I am wrong, but I foresee something cataclysmic happening to the U.S. or another Western nation in the relatively near future. And, for the record, I don’t think this is something that we somehow deserve or brought upon ourselves - this has nothing to do with our current or prior foreign policies and has everything to do with our way of life and our freedoms. I hope that all of us (Canadians, Europeans, the U.S., everyone in the “Western hemisphere”) realize this before it’s too late.

For what it is worth, let me respond to that.

First of all, unfortunately, I agree that it is entirely possible that some horrible terrorist entity will eventually find a way to kill 100,000 people all at once. Biological weapons, container nukes: plenty of potential opportunity, at least.

But should we abolish civil liberties such as Habeas Corpus in response to this threat? It was Churchill, not exactly a liberal who wrote:

“The power of the executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist”

He wrote this in 1943, when the civilised world was facing the dual threats of Nazism and Communism; theats that killed a whole lot more than 100,000 people. And yet, he responded this way to the perceived need for Guantanamo-like suspension of Habeas Corpus. So if Churchill found it unnecessary in 1943 to abolish Habeas Corpus, I am not sure why it is necessary today.

Especially when we are faced with an enemy who is attacking exactly those freedoms. Giving this enemy what he wants seem to me to be the last thing you should do. You should proudly look him in the eye and say “no, buddy, we will not abolish our way of life to suit you”.

That does not mean being soft on them. I was in Israel this past summer; I consider myself a friend of Israel and the Israeli people. Israel faces terrorism all year, every year, and has done since its inception as a state in 1948. Worse terrorismthan we face: one nuke could wipe out Israel. One nuke cannot wipe out the USA.

But Israel is very good at dealing with terrorism - no El Al flight has been hijacked for a very long time. And everyone knows that Israel is not soft on terrorists.

Nevertheless, it for the most part manages to do this in a way that is compatible with a just society.
So how would I fight terrorists?

I would suggest two ways: tactical intelligence and strategic policy. Intelligence is good. We have enough laws today to allow us to track terrorists without abolishing freedoms - we just have to be smarter at it. As for policy: surely policy makes a difference? If the USA had not been in Saudi Arabia, for instance, Al Qaeda would not even have been founded. This does not mean “we” are “wrong” to be there; but even well-intended actions can have bad consequences. Al Qaeda is not about to attack Sweden, is it? I suggest we need to look carefully at the consequences of our actions and shape policy around that.

Then maybe these guys will eventually realise that driving a Land Rover, watching TV, raising healthy kids and being able to move about freely is much more fun than killing and hiding in permanent fear of assassination. For the most, people are people. Osama is an exception, I think: most of these people are simply misguided individuals who are being brainwashed (religion is always a good way to achieve that) and used.

Sony is at it again.. or still. Lik Sang, a Hong-kong based seller of PSP’s has been found to be breaking European law. Sony used Intellectual Property laws to get its win in court. Sony once again abuses IP laws to gain profits over the consumer’s back.
Once upon a time, Sony used innovative technical design, clever miniaturisation, and great style to get its customer and revenue, not coercion. That has changed over the last years. And as a result, Sony gets less and less attractive: I used to have a house full of expensive Sony products, but have vowed never to buy another one.

As for the British courts: everything in Europe in general, and in the UK in particular, is twice the price we pay - and it has to stay that way, apparently. I do not understand why European consumers do not revolt against this.

The song for the day is “Army Dreamers” by Kate Bush, a very effective (I think) 1970s anti-war song.

Our little Army Boy,
Is coming home from B.F.P.O.
I’ve a bunch of purple flowers
To decorate a mammy’s hero.
Mourning in the aerodrome,
The weather warmer, he is colder
Four men in uniform
To carry home my little soldier

Nothing changes, does it?

(*) BFPO: abbreviation used to denote British Forces overseas

Now the Canadian government, I read in the Globe and Mail today, is reviewing citizenship laws, to see if dual citizenship should continue to be allowed.

The justification. I gather, is “security”. Security has nothing to do with the number of passports a citizen has, of course, but it is easy, you can use “post 9-11 security” as a justification for anything. Hitler did it; we can do it too.

The actual reason is the Lebanese Canadians who were living in Lebanon and had to be rescued when the Israel/Hezbollah conflict made Lebanon unsafe. Many Canadians (Read, white Canadians) cried foul over this. Brown Islamic people being rescued with our white tax dollars, there should be a law!

And now maybe there will be.

Incredibly, unmanned US drones will soon start patrolling the US-Canadian border. The “virtual fence” is beginning to take shape. Watchtowers are already in place, and Blackhawk helicopters and interceptor jets have begun patrolling Montana airspace along the border with Canada.

US paranoia knows no bounds, and the US appears to be doing everything in its power to make itself hated even more by those dangerous foreigners Lou Dobbs goes on about every night. You couldn’t make this stuff up: I can just hear the threatening sound of unmanned US drones watching life in Windsor, the stars and stripes on these blind watchers clarifying who is in charge.

This is in contrast to Europe, where the Schengen borders consist of little more than a welcome sign.

Welcome, fancy that. Not in the US!