Blog posts

The week so far has been rather dominated by canvassing for votes. I’m not sure if I’ve yet recorded the fact here, but I’m intending to be the next VP Education and Representation of the Reading University Students Union. Thankfully, I’m uncontested in that. But if my job is going to consist in large part of encouraging students to encouraging students to make use of their rights to representation, I think it worthwhile to run a campaign. Albeit a fairly relaxed one which takes one day off during the voting. It’s been a good experience though, stopping and talking to a lot of students and hearing a wider range of opinions about these elections than is normally voiced. Next year, I hope not to find that anyone I talk to is oblivious of the elections. ...

I forgot that I’d blogged within the last fortnight. I intended to post a link here to my photos of the march but I see there was already one on show. In our quest to see all of the Best Picture nominees before Oscars Night, Andy and I headed out to the nearby multiplex (with Ben and Anneleen) to see The Hours. After considerable disappointment from Gangs of New York and Chicago, here is a film which I could see being a worthy victor. Sensitively and inventively told, well shot and well acted. ...

Was Saturday that many days ago already? Catching up from late nights at the Greenbelt Wing and a Prayer weekend (I’m told I’m a bad influence) and a rush of work seem to have warped time. For those who want to check out such things I have some photos from the march. Nice to see so many people out to join me on a Saturday afternoon stroll round London.

you know how sometimes research seems to state the obvious?

The intended Saturday didn’t happen. The morning came and went and we didn’t appear in the town square. I stayed still, but only till I woke up and activity took me. Occasional other moments of stillness were noticed, but they were mostly while I tried to decide how to present an argument or a concept. It wasn’t just me. I think we will try to stand again. Maybe a month from last Saturday, when more deadlines have passed. But I think that last Saturday worked best as an experiment. We’ll repeat it, and see if it works, but it was more a transitional thing which (while worthwhile in itself) showed that some of these crazy ideas can become our practice. It’s certainly led to a lot of interesting conversations which I think have challenged all concerned. We don’t need a reason why. ...

The World Economic Forum’s meetings this year have been rather pushed out of the spotlight they’ve enjoyed of late. The protestors are still there, but the small matter of governments scraping the barrel to find a reason for war in the middle east seems to have the media somewhat preoccupied. Nevertheless, a certain amount of digging on the BBC website brought this to light. Sadly it seems that they still don’t get it. I guess it’s a vain hope, but perhaps one day those inside the summits will realise that the protestors aren’t necessarily saying they’re all bad people. Rather, it’s the gross lack of transparency and the back-handed deals which are the current issue at stake. If we’re going to elect these leaders, we’d kinda like to be told what they’re up to. Yes, most of those protesting probably wouldn’t like what they are up to, but then that’s their right. How exactly are they supposed to make constructive contributions to the relevant debates unless someone lets on about what’s actually happening. How exactly is democracy supposed to work if our politicians hide their activities from their electorate. ...

Yesterday, I failed to stand still for half an hour. I put it down to my failure to eat properly over a couple of days, a failure which resulted from a combination of factors, chiefly: not having much food in the house and not being in the house to prepare it if there had been any. So it was that after 25 minutes, I had to walk over to a bench and sit on it. ...

For those interested in the future of the web, the current debate about XHTML2 raging in blogland is essential reading. For my part, I’d understood that if I engineered my pages to fit the XHTML standards then a few tweaks aside that would be it, there would be the appropriate XML definitions in place and I wouldn’t need to use XHTML 2 unless it were appropriate for my documents. But that does make the naming unclear, version 2 suggests to me a suggested upgrade path rather than an alternative offered.

How are we supposed to believe our government is truly concerned about Saddam Hussein’s treatment of his own people when we wake up to news stories about how pleased they are that they’ve cracked down on Iraqi Kurds seeking asylum in this country? If we were truly concerned, surely we would be finding ways to welcome these people, to strengthen them, and to prepare them for a time when they could go and rebuild their homeland.

Is a corporation a virtual person? Does freedom of speech mean the freedom to lie? Who knows?