Inspiration for 2012…
Listen to the poetry of a scientist….
Carl Sagan your words live on, your work continues to inspire.
Image via Wikipedia
Happy New Year
So I’ve not been here for some time, I guess life just gets in the way.
Taking a few moments to send all the best for 2012 and the sincere hope that you can obtain almost as much as you want and far more than you deserve.
Caged Fight
Ok, so I may be behind lagging behind the times regarding this article, but I think I was probably too confused when I first heard the report!
You know what I’m going to write about don’t you..
“ A child-on-child fight at the Greenlands Labour Club in Preston, northwest England.”
Is one way it has been described…
“A caged fight between 8 Year Old Boys”
The reality… as part of a night of cage fights at a Club in North England two boys were part of the ‘bill’… which of course included the required parade of a scantily clad woman around the ring between rounds.
The club owner Michelle Anderson is reported as saying :-
“There was nothing wrong with it. The kids were there to fight, they have fought before. The parents were there. Would people rather these kids were out on the streets with guns and knives?”
And, apparently, the is nothing illegal in this!
Ok – so replacing one form of POSSIBLE violence (ie the on the streets claims), with another that has a clearly sexist dimension is hardly justification AND the suggestion that such fights are designed to deal with street violence and aggression is trying to give the whole thing far more social credence that it really deserves.
It’s an organised fight – pure and simple.
Is the same as introducing young folks to Boxing, which seems to be acceptable, I’m not sure… somehow it doesn’t feel the same.
Maybe that’s my ignorance about the degree of preparation, training and integrity in the activity with regards young people. I know that Boxing and other Martial Arts do have some guidelines about publicly organised ‘fights’ and the manner in which they are conducted.
Seems like I can understand Judo with its ‘gentle’ side but not the aggression promoted and celebrated in the publicity associated with ‘cage fights’.
We call ourselves civilised, but it does seem that at every opportunity we prove that we have a default position which involves violence, aggression and survival of the fittest.
Despite our obvious ability to create we are driven to destroy…
Despite our obvious ability for compassion we are driven to bully, dominate and possess…
Despite our scientific, intellectual and social development we are back in the days of the Gladiator; Bread and Circuses…
How far are we away from the science-fiction superficial utopia’s yet deeply rooted distopia’s of Rollerball, The Running Man, Death Race 2000 (the original version), Mad Max … ?????
Alan
Books and Publications
I thought I’d post a link to my books and publciations storefront…
Coming soon to the bookshop will be a books on Tarot, Numerology and Rational Mysticism so if you’re interested in any of the topics I waffle on about you mighyt like to book mark the page…
Kindest regards
Alan
Art or….????
Anyone who know me will know that I have a real ‘soft spot’ for Star Trek… in all but its Enterprise incarnations.
Recently on my radio show on Penwith Radio I have played the Joe Jackson/Will Shatner version of Pulps Common People – which I think is suprisingly good. However I am reminded in doing so of the Transformed Man album Will Shatner did years ago…. I was never able to work out if he was being seriously arty or just having a laugh. So I thought I do a bit of a YouTube search and see what classics I could find that might raise a smile as we move from summer to autumn in another year of economic uncertainty. Perhaps my message is that no matter how bad (or good) things are they can be a whole lot worse (or better) depending upon your perspective and attitude.
So here’s Kirk and Spock as you might not have seen them before…
Introducing Alan B Jones
Alan B Jones is a professional Mind Reader and Psychic Entertainer.
He has been involved in areas of mysticism, psychology and magic for more years than he cares to remember.
Alan IS NOT a Medium and whilst interested in aspects of beliefs in ‘the after-life’ does not profess any expertise in the kind of spiritualism described and demonstrated by the numerous working mediums, some of whom are close colleagues.
Alan could be described as being psychic about which he writes:-
“Psychic is a much used term and one that immediately creates in the mind of the listener certain presuppositions. The word itself comes from the Greek word psychikos which means “of the soul” or “mental” and in common usage usually implies an ability in ‘extrasensory perception’”
Alan attempts to make it clear that when he uses the word ‘psychic’ it is in the sense of attempting to create deeper understandings and meaning through the integration and use of all of the senses. He would argue against the idea of ‘extra-sensory’ perception in favour of ‘total sensory’ perception. In this usage of the term the ‘psychic’ attempts to become open to all of the conscious and unconscious information available so as to communicate clearly and effectively.
For this reason Alan will often use the less ‘emotional’ phrase ‘intuitive’.
He is a self-professed Rational Mystic and as such is able to make a clear distinction between the objective reality of science and the personal, subjective reality of mysticism.
It is through an understanding of science that we progress, develop and understand the material world upon which we live.
It is through an appreciation of our personal responses to symbols, emotions and ‘the inexplicable’ that we define our mystical and spiritual place within the cosmos.
Within rationality there is art and there is poetry – Within mysticism there is cause and effect
The dogmatic adherence to one world view over another is limiting.
The New Age Space Cadet who refuses to consider rationality is as closed minded as the Pseudo-Scientific Debunker who denies the existence of the question.
Perspectives..
Last night BBC 3, in between Family Guy and some other late-night eye candy the BBC 60 Second News featurette announced itself with the by now familiar pop-sy into opening to a slightly off-skew image of the trendy news reporter.
I can cope with that …. even if it was late on a Saturday night…
But when the announcer stated that the “MOST IMPORTANT news of the day was the death of Amy Winehouse” we must surely question some key values and attitudes which are being supported and promoted by the BBC.
Of course the death of Amy Winehouse is a sad thing, she was a great talent. We can only speculate whether the death, at the moment unexplained, was a result of her lifestyle choices or personal challengers BUT surely the death of 85 + people in Norway is important too!
What values are being suggested by this clumsy reporting. The phrase MOST IMPORTANT NEWS conveys value – it does not convey what I think was meant as MOST RECENT.
An editorial slip?
Or a real sense of how the media trips without thought from one emotional moment to the next.
RIP Amy, a sad loss – a talent indentified, celebtated and rewarded…..
RIP those unnamed victims of terror in Norway whose potential was perhaps yet to be identifiedm celebrated and rewarded.
Alan
An imaginary event …..
“Honestly, it just fell off the table” said the beleaguered judge at the agricultural show.
At her feet a marrow now a squished, squashed and purée’d remanent of it’s former self…..
“But” …. the marrow man anguished…,
“that” ….. he continued
“was” ….. he moaned
“my” ….. he broke down …..
The rest of his sentence drowned amid the deep sighs of loss and the sorrow which accompanied the loss of his vegetable.
For her part, the judge shifted nervously and tried, covertly and unsuccessfully to remove marrow flesh from her Jimmy Chou’s …..
Ok, so this didn’t happen at the Rose and Cabbage Show i’n Hayle today – but the potential was always there amid the oversized legumes; the corpulent marrows and pert carrots.
Interesting the various objects the phrase ‘my precious’ can be applied to.
Alan
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An epidemic waiting to happen…
So BBC News today announced that we’re seeing an increase in incidences of measles in young children…
“The Health Promotion Agency reported 334 cases compared with 33 in the similar period last year.”
The recent news article goes on to say that…
“The outbreak is thought to be linked to an epidemic in France, where 7,000 cases have been reported since January – more than in the whole of 2010″
It is more than likely that this increase is due to the farcical reporting of the ‘so called’ dangers of MMR vaccinations. (see The Rational Mystic – Celebrities and their opinions)
The worrying thing here is that popularisers of drug company conspiracies; pseudo-scientific alternative modalities forget that there is a ‘death count’ attached to their ideologies. (see What’s the Harm). Of course science and medicine does not always get it right and true there are deaths related to the workings of conventional medicine BUT the key difference is that medicine and medical practices are both evidence and science based in their approaches. Many complementary modalities are not only based upon magical thinking but supported by spurious evidential claims.
I am in FULL support of complementary modalities supporting modern medicine as they can and do provide some of the missing emotional and spiritual support, but to promote them to the exclusion of science based medicine is foolhardy.
The increase in cases of measles reported in the UK could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the return of some of those diseases which had almost been eradicated by vaccine programmes. Let’s make decisions based upon carefully considered debate rather than spurious and sometimes fraudulent claims of the ‘new health’ gurus.!
Alan
Deep Thought
Wanted to share this quote …,
“At times my state resembles sleep: a misguided person may think it is sleep.
Know that my eyes are asleep, (but) my heart is awake: know that my (seemingly) inactive form is (really) in action. . . .
Tis not that I am seated beside you, ’tis my shadow: my rank is higher than (the reach of) thoughts,
Because I have passed beyond (all) thoughts, and have become a swift traveler outside (the region of) thought.
I am the ruler of thought, not ruled (by it), because the builder is ruler over the building. . . . “The Mathnawí
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