h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's a bonny morning.

I will spend some time reading over what I have written to date, then will sketch a conclusions section. Then I will have to go through the Institutes to pull out all of the case citations, and start looking out the volumes of Morison's I'll need to start reading. Ah, back to case law...

My journal got modded yesterday, and I don't really understand why. I mean, the notification e-mail is hardly informative. Let's see:

I said something about the US book-burning incident - the original authors of the scare had chickened out, but a couple of others came along, and, indeed, some k's were burnt on 11/9. I made a comment to the effect that once a promise to do something quite so absurd/offensive/inflammatory gets made then, even if the person who made it subsequently backs out, someone in the world will be sure to carry it out. I suppose the point is that as soon as an idea pops into our heads a reasonable proportion of us will feel inclined to act on it, and a number won't be able not to. Lou Reed observed that between a thought and expression lies a lifetime, but the internet has reduced this period to a nanosecond.

My other comment was anent relic worship and the parading of relics, i.e. bits of bone and gristle on display for the faithful. There is a ver' good mid 70s (IIRC) zombie flick called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, and I think that this is a reasonable message for a healthy moral life - if I could get it in translated into Latin then I'd arrange for a butt tattoo of it - hmmmm... I could pay for one for Susan for her next birthday. Maybe David Beckingham already has one.

The Newman reference was to the C 19th English churchman, who attempted to evade the fetishism of his remains by having his coffin and grave filled with compost - that was the link to the Financial Times. The word compost in the FT report struck a chord with me because I was last week extolling the virtues of the composting of holy books over their burning. I also said last week that it wasn't the burning of books that was the issue, but the motivations for doing so - I regularly cull my books, and those which aren't fit even to go to the Oxfam get recycled. What's the problem? I saw high-minded statements written last week to the effect that burning books is an unforgiveable evil and that wherever books are burnt, eventually people will also be burnt, but the biggest argument against burning is that recycling or composting is better, and the statement that wherever books are composted, eventually people will also be composted carries far less of a sting and, in fact, is something of a truism cos' one way or another we all end up in the ground. Just think of those millions of out of date Yellow Pages, the tons of old Mills and Boons, the plethora of scabby dog-eared Dan Brown paperbacks - it is fetishism on exactly the same scale as the adoration of a Newman finger-bone to regard the destruction of such pulp as a moral crime.

Anent Newman - can you imagine it? Preparing for his death and pondering anent his co-religionists, he thought "I'd best make sure there's nothing for them to dig up." I don't remember that bit in The Dream of Gerontius, but then again, I always tend to screen out the lyics, so maybe it IS in there; maybe it's the bit Phil Archer was listening to when he died...

Anyhow, chicken n' tatties for tea, wi' broccoli.

I have all the windows open.

Miah is asleep in the living room.

Susan is at work.

It is Tuesday, mid-September, tempis fugit.


Douglas

Not Timothy Leary, apparently. I believe his remains are far out in space.

The report I read had the vessel carrying his remains - only seven grammes worth, apparently - burning up on re-entering the atmosphere after several years in orbit.

He's in the ground too.

Easyjet? I saw this on TA MBs a few weeks back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc


Douglas

So they finally brought Leary down from his last trip did they?

Hmm, The Man always wins it seems.

Have a lovely day. I will be coming up to Aberdeen some time when A is in his office, to deliver his passing present. I was hoping we might be able to meet up for a coffee or even a cawfee. It would be good to see you before I finally go back South.

I will alert Caius.

I have just written the following:

"Therefore, Craig’s primary approach to the challenge of co-ownership arising in consequence of a disposition to a plurality of grantees was to ring-fence the issue and deal with it specifically in the context of marriage; and to deny that it was co-ownership at all – a species of ‘with a bound, he was free’ jurisprudence."

'With a bound, he was free' is a pretty standard resolution to Dr Who cliffhangers.

A, BTW, is submitting at the end of the month, then goes right into teaching. I do not envy him - he is currently dealing with word count and formatting issues, and has to prepare for lectures to commence in a month's time - they really do work their new lecturers into the ground up here. In two years time I may be in a comparable situation, and I amn't looking forward to it.


Douglas

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1311683/Lady-Gagas-raw-meat-dress-But-offal-MTV-outfit-real-fake.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Ha ha ha, wot larks, and she has upset PETA to boot? even better still... where is Vegan Troll when you need her?

I may yet buy one of her albums.


Douglas

OK thanks for the update.

See you some time this month possibly -- I'm thinking in terms of "before surgery" and "after surgery" at the moment, and am planning to come to Aberdeen before the op.

Unfortunately F and I are having a row at the moment. I wrote something she didn't like in an email and she said it was a bucket of random bile and gave me 1/10 for theological acumen. I hope we will be back on speaking terms by the time I come up.

http://www.news.com.au/national/lawyer-alex-stewart-smokes-pages-from-the-koran-and-bible-and-says-we-should-get-over-book-burning/story-e6frfkvr-1225919970728

The spokesman for the Anglican church (quoted in news video) speaks sense.


Douglas

Grass clippings my apse, to coin a phrase. Prisoners have been smoking rollies out of Bibles for years. It upsets me not because of any "desecration" but because he is missing out on the wonder and blessing of knowing Jesus.

Meaningless words, pointless sentiments, imaginary friends; yet all of them, freely adopted in accordance with our humours, able to make us happy. We chose our own drugs.

Douglas

Ah yes..

"Die Religion... ist das Opium des Volkes"

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=60MRNJxv8l4&feature=related