Oh My God

 "How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered The World" by Francis Wheen is still on politics but is now on the Creationism vs Darwinism argument. Essentially Creatism is for people who cannot understand scientific concepts. Science always questions itself, religion doesn't. The Bible may have started out with some moral tenets and some of them are still worth following today, but also condones horrible things like slavery, misogyny and murder.

This blog is still getting over three thousand hits a day and this month is now the most visits I have had in a single month, over 80K.  I am now starting to get greedy and need 18K reads before midnight on the 30th to hit 100K in a month. That would need 5K visits a day, and yesterday hit what was probably a high for a day at 3975.

If you want to buy a book my dark poetry is on the link below.

The music is "The Four Horsemen" by Aphrodite's Child featuring Demis Roussos and Vangelis from the album "666"

I recently discovered that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not others. C'est La Vie.

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. Barter Books - An Amazing Bookshop In A Railway Station In Alnwick
2. The Plagiaristic Poetry Series - Poems Taken From Random-Themed Lines
3. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
4. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
5. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
6. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
7. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
8. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

Books, Evolution and Heavy Metal at Download

A lot of my reading recently have been influenced by books I've been reading , namely "Tom Waits on Tom Waits" (I don't know if the pun was intended) edited by Paul Maher and "The Age of Bowie" by Tony Morley , so I thought my next would be fiction, possibly in the realms of Michael Moorcock, JG Ballard or John Niven. I'm amazed to find this is the first time ever in this blog that I've mentioned JG Ballard as he's my favourite author. But no, I picked up "Darwin's Armada" (another FOPP capture from Edinburgh) by Ian McCalman and very good it is, essentially the grounding for the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and contemporaries. Here's the blurb:

"Darwin's Armada tells the stories of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Joseph Hooker and Alfred Wallace, four young amateur naturalists from Britain who voyaged to the southern hemisphere during the first half of the nineteenth century in search of adventure and scientific fame. It charts their thrilling voyages to the strange and beautiful lands of the southern hemisphere that reshaped the young mariners' scientific ideas and led them, on returning to Britain, to befriend fellow voyager Charles Darwin. All three crucially influenced the publication and reception of his Origin of Species in 1859, one of the formative texts of the modern world. 

For the first time the Darwinian revolution of ideas is seen as a genuinely collective enterprise and one that had its birth in a series of gripping and human travel adventures. Many of the most urgent ecological and social issues of our times are seen to be prefigured in this compelling story of intellectual discovery."

I do find it amazing that the idiotic anti thought concept of Creationism actually exists, but when you look at how easily people are influenced , a thoughtless concept that means you don't have to think becomes attractive to some people.

I'm agnostic, there might be a God, but I have certainly seen no evidence of a God in my lifetime and doubt I will. Also the "you can't prove that God doesn't exist" is not really a valid argument. The only God I will acknowledge is on Facebook here. In fact I just this minute signed up to his mailing list.

So today's #ATuneaDayinMay obviously has to be "Charlie" by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing , who I first saw at the behest of my friend Gillian and recorded it on Spoongig here in November 2014. I found a live performance of them at Download at Donington and "Charlie" starts about three minutes in after some serious metal assault. I once described them as a cross between Anthrax and Chas and Dave. Watch the clip and you will see what I mean. Enjoy.

It's a beautiful day, so enjoy yourself and I hope to see you soon.

Sunday Sermon:Pitch Black Into Naked Religion

Apologies for this being slightly ranty rather than positive, although it's just some things that have recently crossed my mind brought tho the fore by last nights dream. Given the nature of the post I thought Randy Newman's "God's Song" would be appropriate.

I slept well last night,, but woke up from a dream that I remembered some of. It didn't finish, and nothing bad happened but it was a pre disaster scenario which could be dealt with with certain precautions. This is the dream as it happened. Basically I was is a Pitch Black scenario (Pitch Black being the best sci fi "B" Movie since Alien starring Vin Diesel as Riddick). I was in the deserted outpost building with the knowledge from diaries that were strewn about that the previous occupants had been wiped out by the inhabitants of this planet. I was with a group of people who sounded like eastern European Bond villains, and they had returned from a reconnaissance trip with what looked like tatty Russian dolls about two feet high. I knew from the diaries that these were eggs of the vicious creatures that had destroyed the previous occupant. I said that we had to get the m outside immediately. Then the argument started.:

Them: "How do you know they are dangerous?"
Me: "Look at the evidence, theres been violence here and the diaries have drawings of eggs and descriptions of the creatures that hatched and probably killed them all"
Them: "How do you know that these are the same"
Me: "Even if they're not we should err on the side of caution, leave them outside then we are safe and we can observe with a lesser amount of danger"
Them: "We think they are cute, so they're staying"
Me:"That is not a good idea, being cute in a hostile environment is not an sensible objective stance to take"
Them:"They're staying, we think they'll be fine"
Me: "What do you base that on?"
Them: "The look cute"

Then I woke up, and thought , this argument is a lot like religious faith (Mainly Creationists)  vs  Science. Science always questions itself and that's how truths are discovered, and extreme religion uses this to deny science while refusing to question it's own belief. I know it was a laboured tale to illustrate a basic point but I've met many religious people who use it as a moral supportive code and do not force it others or question others beliefs. My problem is when religion is used as a bludgeon to spread ignorance (ie Creationism).

The Lovers

Anyway the second vaguely religious point was something I noticed from this Facebook post here.  When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden they were happy, God was happy and all was great until Satan got Even to eat the apple and they discovered SHAME and started wearing makehift clothes which got God angry and he chucked them out of the Garden. So using that scenario wearing of clothes is and obvious sign of Satanism , because God wanted us to be naked.

David

So why is there such a furore when we see a nipple, willy or pussy or bum?  If God's will were to be carried out we should all surely be naked. Actually there is the practicality of weather and keeping dry and warm, and let's face clothes can make a person with the most unappealing body look good. It's that that if we see someone "exposed" there's far more uproar than a knifing or shooting, so if you do see someone either laugh, appreciate or ignore, don't act like a Daily Mail reader.

OK that's my Sunday Sermon , have a brilliant day everyone, I'm enjoying my holiday (and fully dressed)

The Odious Idiocy That Calls Itself Creationism

Another this that reading Randy Pausch has sparkedoff in my memory is The Creationist Roadshow that I saw on BBC3 in the first week in October,  the Conspiracy Road Trip hosted by Andrew Maxwell. You may be able to catch it here.

Creatists general see obnoxious idiots who are so blinkered in their outlook it defies belief. The believe the world is six thousand years old based on adding up the asges of everyone named in the Bible . Excuse me . The Argos catalogue would be a good start for most people .

As soon as someone shoots a hole in their logic (Carbon dating , Evolution etc)  , they say "it's a test from God" . It the program the most obnoxious Creationist maintained that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah's Flood. When the non Creationist (but Gof Fearingly religious) scientist pointed out that flood water moved in straight lines while the Grand Canyon contained Horse Shoe Curves it was dismissed as  a test from God.

All Maxwell's scientists were religious believers in God . Science and Religion is not mutually exclusive. However the Creationists said the arguments werent fair because there were no Creationist Scientists (isnt that Oxymoron?).

I was brought up and educated by Jesuit Priests who believed in science and reasoned arguments. When questioned about how God created The Earth in seven days they countered with "How Llong is a day?" On Pluto it's about 300 of our years (that is a very rough guess cos I'm too lazy to look it up). Basically saying the Bible was a guide and an analogy NOT to be taken literally.

I think part of the Creationist Agenda is to create an idiot underclass to swell the Republican vote for dagerous idiots like Mitt Romney.

I am in a bit of a bad temper because I have a sore shoulder , but there is no excuse for Creationist stupidity. How can you follow something so blindly and expect others to support you? Bill Hicks on Them Thar Creatists:

The Last Lecture and Domino Effect

This is likely to be a rambling incoherent post , mainly because it's one of those things where a seemingly singular event cant then set off so many other things. Someone mentions one thing and then that sets off another . I don't know if I'm going to finish and then think "I forgot tto include such and such" , but we shall see how this goes....

I suppose it starts with the purchase of of a couple of seemingly slim James Thurber volumes that , while they were quite enjoyable to read , I was still only on page 50 of the first volume . About a month ago, for my 55th birthday,  my very good Australian friend Carol sent me a copy of Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture" , based on his final lecture . Randy Pausch was a young man (mid 40's) who had been hit with a virulent Pancreatic Cancer. A horrible situation for a man with a wife and young family who he would never see grow up. One of my heroes , the comedian Bill Hicks , was taken from us in the same way. In 1986 I got hit with ITP which meant that may bllod wasnt clotting resulting in heavy internal bleeding. At the time I was scared that I' wouldn't see my daughters (3 and 5 at the time) grow up , 3 years earlier my eldest daughter had been on the terminal ward (briefly) at The Children's Hospital at Pendleton Manchester - needless to see we're both here and doing well.

Anyway back to Randy Pausch . He was the inventor of ALICE a software development environment that enables people to easily learn programming . I've never seen it but my friend Carol uses it in her class on a daily basis. He knew his time was limited so he created and filmed his last last lecture and created the book with I got through in two days after giving up on James Thurber . In it he set down thoughts , aspiriations , regrets and advice in a remarkably easy read . He does come up with some expanded bullet points on how to live life with vaguely remind me of Sun Tzu's surprisingly readable and concise "The Art Of War" . Any I recommend you get a copy of the book and check out The Last Lecture website here. The lecture is youtubed below:

Randy Pausch is and example of Richard Dawkins' idea of immortality . Pausch is still with us in so many forms and will be while humankind exists in it's current forms. Dawkins is our premier voice of reason against the right wing Christian idiocy that is Creationsism though I do feel he gets a little evangelical at times about the non existence of (G)od .

One ogf the other things I wanted to put in this is that whenever any dies or is close to it I feel I must appear incredibly callous and cold hearted because usually it doesn't  really sadden me at all , and this is the reason:

As a kid I had bad dreams, I'd be in a field crying my eyes out because my dad was dead . I don't know how it happened but would wake up in tears and my dad was always there , working in the yard or wherever . He is still with us at 798 going strong , driving his Mercedes with his Post Office Post Box maintenance contract. Anyway soon after that my uncle Trevor took an assisted passage to Australia , the other side of the world . Letters came and once a year we had a short , very expensive (£10 a minute I think) phone call , I realised I wouldn't see him again . I knew he was there , but I just had no real contact . And that is what I feel happens when someone dies , we lose contact .. for now. If evolution has taught us anything it's that we grow and save the best bits and I think our "being" continues elsewhere. Aad that's why I seem so callous in the face of death.

This is a bit like opne of those Billy Connolly stories that wanders all over the place except I'm not reallly sure where I started and where I'm coming back to.

We live in wondrous times and if people concetrated more on the good , the world would be a much better place . If you have a problem fix it or deal with it , there is usually help around. Anyway maybe I've gone on about this a bit too long but c'est la vie