jonnybaker

worldchanging

worldchanging - nice site (thanks bob)

those cartoons...

i've been trying to get some work done but we keep arguing at work about the danish cartoons and the response to them. i guess we are not alone in reflecting on the freedom of speech | blasphemy | deliberate provocation | embarassment to muslims | legitimate outrage (pick your angle). tom has some posts on the subject and the comments are building up. richard has also posted some thoughts which i appreciated. yesterday's leader in the gaurdian had some pretty strong opinions. but my favourite thought so far has been kester's with this stunning quote from brueggemann:

We are all created in the image of some God. And there is no more important theological investigation than to find out in whose image we are making ourselves.

yesterday's guardian also had a very interesting long feature worlds apart looking at the parallels between apartheid in south africa and israel's system of control over the arab people it governs. (the same thought occurred to me when i was there and inspired a couple of the songs on backbone.)

blair back for a third term

blair scures historic third term | who won what next?

off to vote

election day in the uk. like many people who voted labour last time round i feel frustrated about the war in iraq - as more evidence has come out it is very hard not to feel deceived... on the other hand i definitely won't be voting tory - their campaign against immigration is nothing short of racist in my humble opinion. and are the other options plausible? i have voted green before but until proportional representation comes in there isn't much point. lib dems are not really a serious challenge in ealing where i live so i think it will be labour again. maybe i'll take the guardian advice and vote labour with a clothes peg on my nose as an act of protest?...
i actually think on issues other than the small matter of the war - economy, debt cancellation, aid, education, health, labour have done pretty well (it would have been an easier choice if tony blair had stepped aside and we'd been voting for gordon brown).

every race, colour, nation and religion on earth

today's guardian has a fabulous section on london which it claims in 2005 can lay claim to being the most diverse city ever. there is a map(pdf) and key which shows the locations of various communities and cultures which it is worth getting the paper for in itself. there are also lots of articles and features that are gathered together at what is britain?

the editorial calls for diversity and not segregation. i have been thinking a lot about this in the last few months and was reminded of it again following richard's post. the editorial says

Such segregation is something which society and governments can change. True, a degree of "clustering" is helpful in consolidating a community's culture. But communities which do not overlap or have meaningful interchanges, breed fear, distrust and division...  ... ...There are all manner of small schemes that can provide bridges - school twinning, interfaith networks, cultural swap programmes.

the church is the body of christ of all nations and tribes and cultures down all the ages... the most globally diverse network possible. the vision of the future is of a global city. how well are we doing at providing a foretaste of the age to come in our churches and especially in our emerging churches? (it's interesting to change the first sentence of the quote by replacing the words society and governments with churches).

call it democracy

i heard tony blair and george bush giving a press conference last week on their commitment to establish democracy round the world. all sounded fair enough at one level but it also reminded me of these lyrics by bruce cockburn to call it democracy

Padded with power here they come International loan sharks backed by the guns Of market hungry military profiteers Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality Who render rage a necessity By turning countries into labour camps Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument Who makes the gun into a sacrament -- The only response to the deification Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations' Idolatry of ideology

North South East West Kill the best and buy the rest It's just spend a buck to make a buck You don't really give a flying f**k About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF Takes away everything it can get Always making certain that there's one thing left Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders Passing themselves off as leaders Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy And they call it democracy And they call it democracy And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too Trying to make the best of it the way kids do One day you're going to rise from your habitual feast To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF Takes away everything it can get Always making certain that there's one thing left Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

the case for kerry

this was the lead comment in the guardian on saturday - the case for kerry. strong stuff eh?! a couple of quotes...

plenty of americans believe it is none of our busines whom they elect as their leader on tuesday. but there are two underlying reasons why any presidential election matters to the rest of the world. the first concerns america's power. there is no other nation in the history of the planet whose strength and actions more directly affect the whole human race than the united states...

....to adapt the words of the talleyrand, the bush presidency has been not merely a crime but a mistake. mr bush has proved a terrifying failure in the world's most powerful office. he has made the world more angry, more dangerous, and more divided - not less. this above all is why it matters to us, as it should to all americans, that john kerry is elected on tuesday. a safer world requires not just the example of american power but the power of american example. mr bush has done more to destroy america's good name in the world than any president in memory. mr kerry provides an opportunity to begin to repair the damage. it is as simple - and as important - as that.

the mystery explained

the mystery of bush's bulge explained at last... via boing boing

war

war - good animation on war. see flashplayer.com for a whole host of flash animations... let me know if you spot any good ones

sunday bloody sunday

sunday bloody sunday sung by george bush! (thanks marko)