Yani's Blog

This rather interesting article from the ABC News site  made interesting reading. I have persistent shingles which is not severe, just rather annoying. I often take pain killers to reduce the pain but I find that a cup off coffee does much to reduce the impact of the pain.

Purely subjectively, what I found when the pain was at its most severe was that the coffee took the edge off the pain, or reduced the sharpness of the pain, and the pain killers reduced its severity. This article then come as absolutely no surprise to me. It would be interesting to see if any research has been done as to the effects of caffeine on the pain of shingles.

Read this today “King tide buries at least 20 4WDs“. It could not have happened to a more deserving vehicle type. It should happen more often.

The recent furor in the Muslim community regarding John Howard’s contribution to an ecumenical prayer meeting is rather bemusing. It seems that reading between the lines that they want nothing less that the complete dechristianification of Australia. What else would explain the hypocritical stance they have taken.

The ABC reported that ” In 2004, the church was found to have vilified Muslims”, not quite true. The court found several individuals guilty of vilification, not quite the same thing.  The report went on to say that “…the Victorian Court of Appeal overturned the decision last month and ruled the case should be heard again.” That is true. However , independent reading of he judgment can  draw no conclusion but that the original judge was  biased and that is was a serious miscarriage of justice. Most of the instances where the judge found that Muslims were vilified were either misquotes or taken out of context. Of the hundreds of instances there were only a handful where it could be considered that there may have been a case to answer.

It is interesting to note that as part of their defense they claimed that they were only quoting the Qur’an at which the judge in the origonal case said that that was no defense. In other words the judge was saying that one can be convicted of villification by doing nothing more than quoting the Qur’an. It is no wonder that his judgment was overthrown.

In a contest of tolerance Christianity wins hand over fist over the sort of intolerance and prejudice we hear from many Muslims, this latest example being a perfect example. Do you see national press p reports when The Prime Minister visits a Mosque where intollerance has been preached. Of course not.

So, what is this controversial meeting that is so upsetting the Muslims? It is a multideminational prayer meeting for Australia. Including, but not restricted to, the drought, terrorism, and overseas servicemen and women. Hardly something to get upset about.

The US have a constitutional right of freedom of association, not so in Australia. The US have a constitutional right to free speech, not so in Australia.
let us see this protest for truly what it is. A direct attack on Christianity. What are Muslims afraid of?

Question. What is wrong with the above heading? Grammatically and syntacticly it breaks almost every rule in the book, yet in another sense, nothing.

I was brought up thinking that purity of grammar and syntax were of utmost importance, and indeed there are many pedants who believe that it falls to them to maintain the standards of correct English. Lately though, I have come to a rather radically different conclusion.

I find language, its uses and development fascinating and have read books on the subject for many years. However, I am not an expert on language and I am sure that my writing is full of “errors”. Amongst the many things I have learnt though is that language is not static. It evolves by various means, and adapts to the needs of the society it serves. You see, the pedants have turned the relationship between language and society on its head. For many thousands of years language has been the servant of society but the language police are trying to make society the servant of language.

Within a given society language has constantly evolved and even within societies there have bean different forms to cater for different needs. Even within the same societal structure there have been different forms – as it is today in many societies. There are many reasons for the changes in language. Grammar Nazis would have us believe that the changes in language in modern society are due to laziness. In my opinion they could not be more wrong. Amongst the reasons that language changes is not laziness.

Words can fall into disuse either because they are no longer required or because there are other words or expressions that take their place. Words alter their meaning over time, and on occasion come to mean the opposite of their original. A good example is the loss of a number of the singular forms of the personal pronoun. The words thee, thy, and thou are very seldom heard apart from the prayers of a few very old fashioned Christians in the mistaken belief that they are somehow being respectful to God by referring to him in the ancient singular form. Mind you, they usually get the grammar wrong and use a curious mixture of singular and plural forms when addressing God. You and your have replaced these forms for centuries now and the grammar police don’t seem to care too much about them. But they do care, very much about the poor unfortunate yous, or youse. This form is now used quite widely in spoken English but I have not seen it yet in written form, (except above). This is to my mind one of the most glaring examples of a new word being introduced to fulfill a deficit in the language of the day. Having lost thee and its siblings we have lost the distinction between the singular and the plural for a number of personal pronouns. In fact I believe that some languages make a further distinction between one, two, a small number and a large number. But getting back to yous, this word has been introduced by non-native English speakers to make up for the loss of the singular/plural distinction with the word you. Is the introduction of the word yous a bad thing? I do not think it is for us to judge. If society feels that this reintroduction of this lost form is necessary it will come whether the grammar Nazis like it or not. Much like King Canute commanding the waxing tide to retreat, except that he knew he looked a fool.
Words can alter their meaning subtly, or sometimes dramatically. One example I am often quoting is the word bird for young lady. This is supposed to be a derogatory term but it came from the old English word byrde which meant woman of marriageable age. Indeed, the word bride comes from the same root. Purity of meaning is another drum that the grammar police keep banging. Meaning will change over time – get used to it.

It may appear that I am preaching grammatical anarchy, and in fact what I am saying is something of that sort. The editors of our most esteemed dictionaries consider themselves servants to society in that they are changing the accepted meanings of words in each edition. The add new words and delete words that are no longer as common. We hear the same people bemoaning the surrender of the dictionary to popularism, but when was any dictionary not popularist. All that the dictionaries from the esteemed Dr Johnson’s first dictionary the the latest edition of the OED have ever done is merely describe how words are and have been used, and if that is not popularist then I do not know what is.
Syntax is really in the same boat. We hear much about the apostrophe and its use. The rules are many and complex, but in truth how often is the apostrophe really required? Take the so called grocer’s apostrophe. Those of us who know the correct use of the apostrophe in the possessive recognize the grocer’s apostrophe immediately. In the sign “Orange’s for sale” we know that it is not anything that belongs to the Orange that is for sale it is indeed a number of oranges that are for sale. So we have the possessive “The orange’s taste” and the plural “Oranges for sale”. We could just have clearly written “The oranges taste” and known immediately that we were talking about how the orange tastes. One of the rules which seems to command a chapter in every book on the subject is the serial comer. Do we write “I ate a pear, an apple and a banana”, or do we write “I ate a pear, an apple, and a banana.” The consensus seems to be that it is only used for clarity. If the same rule was applied across the board then we would be looking at a far different syntactical landscape than we have now. If the meaning is clear what does it matter? Is don’t any clearer than dont? Does it really matter if i do not capitalize the personal pronoun I?

Of course that brings me neatly to the changes in spelling, grammar and syntax that have come about in the online and mobile community. The lexicographer Dr Johnson had to make a judgment on how to spell the words in his dictionary. In a number of instances we are burdened with his poor judgment. But what of that? Up until that time spelling was quite arbitrary and depended on your family, what part of England you came from, a number of factors. There was nothing inherently “correct” in the way words were spelt in his dictionary, just as there is nothing inherently correct in the way words are spelt in the Mirriam-Websters or the OED. In which case what is “wrong” with the sentence “hw r u?”. The meaning is clear, and it is no more or less correct than “How are you?” Many people bemoan the loss of the ability in young people to spell “correctly”. In fact in my experience young people are still getting an education, can still spell as well as ever and in most instances better than me.

So what are the criteria for syntax and grammar? I have two. To quote Keats “Truth and beauty”. I use truth in the older meaning as in can it be relied on as a reference. In other words is it clear and unambiguous. Can we tell clearly what is being communicated? The second, and final criteria is does it sound good. There are many ugly things in the English language, and not all of them new. Should anything ugly in language be allowed to survive?

We should ask nothing more of language than that the communicator is able to clearly communicate his intent and that it be graceful if needs be and otherwise, if that is the intent. If that means that words are lost, new words are created and that we do not use “correct” syntax then what of it?

There has been much discussion in the last few days regarding Sheikh Taj el-Din Al Hilaly’s comments regarding the behaviour of young ladies and sexual assault. One of the more amusing responses was the title of this post. I think the person was confusing Australia with the US. People often invoke their right to free speech. The problem with that is two fold. We have no constitutional right to free speech and second – even in the US that right is limited.

However, there is freedom to express opinion in this society with a few limitations. As long as you do not slander or incite violence you are free to say what you like. In my opinion what the Sheikh was purported to say was absolutely and totally wrong. Rape is a heinous crime and the attire of the victim should not come into it. There – I have said my piece, and exercised my free speech.

One further thing – why are people at all surprised? I have heard interviews with Al Hilaly and what he was purported to have said was entirely consistent with his philosophy as I had interpreted it from seeing him being interviewed. Have the people who are expressing surprise now had their heads buried in the sand? No they not read the papers or watch current affairs programs? He restated what he truly believes – it may not be what we believe – in fact what the vast majority of us believe – but that is his position. Why are we shocked that this attitude exists? Rampant racism still exists – both inside and outside the migrant community – why be surprised. Is it right that these attitudes exist – of course not but they do.

Don’t act all concerned and surprised when the obvious happens – that people state their opinion.

A new survey has just been published regarding peoples opinions on the use of torture, with some interesting results. It seems that the world’s policemen are not averse to using torture on other people even though its own constitution prohibits its use. In fact the US justice system considers evidence obtained through the use of torture or even coercion as tainted to the extent that it is not to be used as evidence. However, the new legislation recently passed in the US covering “enemy combatants” allows the use of evidence obtained by coercion in their trials. Interesting stance for people who stand in judgment on other countries violation of human rights, to the extent that they have imposed sanctions on countries who have engaged in the very behaviour which they themselves have been shown to be guilty of.

“We need to use torture to prevent loss of innocent life”, I hear you say. Or “torture is justified when it comes to preventing terrorism or in defeating terrorism”. These are interesting arguments but I feel rather emotive and open to serious question.

One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. There have been many acts by the current moral guardians of the world that fall squarely inside the definition of terrorist act, yet they themselves deny that they were terrorist acts. It seems that a terrorist act is one which I say is a terrorist act. So there is a great deal of doubt in my mind that there is a clearly defined definition of terrorism. Don’t get me wrong – I am not saying that the suicide bombers, or such like are not terrorists but we need to be extremely careful that we do not use such an ill defined and variably defined word to justify the indefensible.

Secondly it flies in the face of the principle of the presumption of innocence. By the use of torture we are presuming the person’s guilt before justice has taken its course. We are in fact dealing out punishment to the innocent. If, for instance, the question was wether that person could see a situation where it would be necessary to torture them then I suspect the result would be entirely different. It is fine to do it to some faceless theoretical terrorist but don’t ever do it to me.

Thirdly, it is like the proverbial fishing expedition, giving the state carte blanch to torture at their whim on the most feeble of evidence. In this country there has been the new legislation which gives the police the power to arrest without charge. Not only that, it is illegal in such cases to pass onto anybody information regarding that person’s arrest. They are without representation, without scrutiny, held incommunicado with no possibility of the application of natural justice. Habeas corpus is a nonsense. Now if you then couple this gross violation of human rights with torture it moves from the unjust to the heinous. People can be kept without charge, without recourse to the justice system and representation and able to be tortured, merely on a whim.

This scenario reminds me of a certain European country in the 1930s; that too was a democracy.

There seem to be to be three fundamental principles within the justice system that we have inherited from the UK that ensure fairness and protection for our citizens. These three principles have been established over many centuries and are present in the legal systems of the UK, the US and Australia, to name a few. They are enshrined within common law, statute law or various constitutions. These three principles are the presumption of innocence, habeas corpus, and protection against “double jeopardy”. As our systems of democracy have evolved so have our systems of justice such that we have a system of government together with system of justice that is unrivalled in its fair treatment of its citizens in all of recorded history.

The purpose of these principles is to protect the states citizens against abuse by the state.

In the judgment by the Chief Justice Gleeson & Justice Hayne, R v Carroll [2002] HCA 55 (5 December 2002) at [21]-[22] they state;

“A criminal trial is an accusatorial process in which the power of the State is deployed against an individual accused of crime. Many of the rules that have been developed for the conduct of criminal trials therefore reflect two obvious propositions: that the power and resources of the State as prosecutor are much greater than those of the individual accused and that the consequences of conviction are very serious. Blackstone’s precept “that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer” may find its roots in these considerations.

Many aspects of the rules which are lumped together under the title “double jeopardy” find their origins not so much in the considerations we have just mentioned as in the recognition of two other no less obvious facts. Without safeguards, the power to prosecute could readily be used by the executive as an instrument of oppression. Further, finality is an important aspect of any system of justice.”

What they state regarding double jeopardy can easily be said of the presumption of innocence and habeas corpus.

The great tragedy is that in recent years there has been an erosion of these three pillars of justice for political expediency and popularist sentiment. In an interview recently on the legislation passed in the US parliament regarding the Guantanamo Bay detainees one of the interviewees said that the reason habeas corpus was enshrined in the constitution was that it would not be subject to the political whim of the government of the day and that this, with many of the other constitutional principles, was too important a right to be left to a popular government.

There has already been an instance in the UK where a man who was acquitted of murder was retried and found guilty, thus being subject to double jeopardy. In this country there are ongoing debates, mainly fuelled by popularist, emotive and ill-informed public debate on high profile cases where it appears that “criminals” have been acquitted on technicalities. What this ignores is that these cases often take months to hear and digest all of the evidence and that the people deciding on these cases have given much time and effort to weigh the evidence and come to a considered decision. To think that a few column inches in the local paper can provide anything than a cursory glance at any of these cases is a mistake. The other popular argument is that advances in science have made more evidence available. Well this does apply to old cases where that evidence is available but that does not apply to new cases. In any case there has always been the possibility of discovering new evidence by other means and availability of new evidence, by whatever means, has not been an argument before today so scientific advances does not substantially change the argument.

In previous entries I have spoken about habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence. I find the desire to reverse the many centuries of hard won liberties and protections against state abuse of power disturbing. People need to understand that these principles are there for their protection and by removing these protections they are seriously eroding the democratic principles that give us a free and open society. People who feel that an injustice has been done by the release of alleged offenders on “technicalities” are making a rod for their own back if they think that abolishing any of these principles will server their interests. In fact it is my opinion that the weakening of any of these, as has already happened in many places, will only serve to harm those who are seeking these changes.

I am reminded of the words of John Donne when I think of the calls for the abolition of theses protections, “Send not to see for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

Well …. not really but it caught your eye, no?

We had father’s day a few weeks ago and my children conspired to buy me, as a gift, something I had my eye on. About a month ago a new edition of all of the 007 movies were released in the UK and Australia. The US will have to wait ’till November. So my children all chipped in and bought me it.

So far I have watched about half of the movies. I was going to space it out over the next few months leading upto the release of the next movie which will be early December here. My wife however decided that she would like to see them all at once!

My first impression is that they are fantastic reproductions. My second impression is even better. The films have all been frame by frame digitally captured to cinema quality. They then went through a colour correction process to compensate for the ageing and different film stocks and environments. They did frame by frame repairs to thinks such as scratches, torn film and such defects. They then fixed other problems like noise on the film. They did a similar fix on the audio, producing a 5.1 surround mix including a DTS audio stream. They then produced a copy for DVD resolution. The quality of both the video and audio are quite remarkable. You would not know that the origonal (Doctor NO) is now over 40 years old.

The set comes in two versions, a cardboard case, which is the one I have, and a briefcase. In hind sight the brief case would have been nicer but relly it is the content not the wrapping that is important, and I am just thankfull that I have such generous children. There are 40 DVDs in the set. 20 movies and 20 disks of extra material. On the extra DVDs are some real gems, such as a segment from a 1964 TV show where Roger Moore does a 007 spoof which is quite funny. There is also a Super 8 recording made by one of the extras on one of the films which contains a comentry from the person who made the film.
In some respects this exceeds the quality of the origonal film. If you are at all keen on the 007 movies this is a must have.

OK! I admit it. Rarely does a year go by when I do not become obsessed with something or other. Often more than one thing at a time. But that is just the sort of guy I am. Gitovrit!

At the moment they are, in no particular order 007, There, Tolkien, renovations, and The Church.

Two of the above I have dealt with in print, with poor old John being sadly neglected (James can look after himself – although I will get around to why it is on the list in another post). So let me redress that sad neglect.

I read The Lord Of The Rings (LOR) thirteen times before I stopped counting and have read it many times since. I have seen the movies, bothe the theatrical release and the extended editions, a number of times, including all of the audio comentries and extras. I have read the Silmarilian several times. I have all of the Audio LPs and CDs and a copy of the BBC dramatisation of the LOR. I remember when it was first braodcast on AM radio. When it was rebradcast on FM radio I taped it off air and replayed the tapes many times. They have long since died. I know what you are thinking – “This guy needs help”. I suppose so but it could be worse – far worse!

When I bacame redundant several months ago I was able to persue several pashions which I had over time neglected for several resons. There have been published in the last few years a number of volumes on the LOT and Tolkein’s work generally which I was unable to buy. “So!” I thought, “about time I redressed this situation”. And I did. I started with The Atlas of Middle Earth from the local bookshop. I have dipped into this on many occasions now. But the real prize I was after was “The Complete History Of Middle Earth” by Christopher Tolkein. The son of JRR and executor of his estate. This is published in twelve paperback or three hard cover volumes. There is also a version with the three hard cover volumes in a slip case. I went to all of the bookshops in our city to no avail. I could not find the hard cover volumes anywhere. I then went on line and got the ISBN numbers for the hard cover volumes and armed with this information went to a local book store whome I know will order books on demand if they are available.

The three volume version with slip cover is out of print. Of the three individual hard cover books, volume one is out of print, volume two is unavailable and volume three is ex stock at a cost of $135. The young lady in the store very helpfully gave me some on line resources to investigate. Most of them were Australian second hand booksellers, but on one piece of paper was the URl www.abebooks.com. When I got home I looked up all of the URLs given to me and found the selection fairly ordinary. However, when I got to abebooks I was astounded to say the least.

Abebooks is a web clearing house for booksellers around the world. It seems to work like this. The bookseller lists their books in the abebooks database, including ISBN, edition, state (new/used), condition (scuff marks, as new etc) and a brief description. The prospective buyer then does a search on what they want and a list of books is displayed from all the sources for that book. The initial sort order is on price. Once you see the list of books you can choose one according to your requirements, new or used, condition, price and freight. The freight prices are very resonable but shipping times vary from days to months. The least time I have waited is three days and the most is three months (still not arrived – due between now and November). The source country does not seem to matter either. I have bought from Germany, the UK and the US. After placing the order confirmation emails are sent and you can display your order status from the abebooks site. The order then goes to the book seller and they then dispatch the books, usually the next day.
As for my three volumes, I have volume three and am waiting on volumes two and one; total cost – AU$300 including freight. The volume that has arrived was still in its new plastic shrink wrap. I have bought a number of other books now through abebooks and have not been dissapointed yet. A friend of mine has also bought through abebooks and is delighted. In a future post I will tell you more about my obsession and some of my purchases.

All I can say is I wish I had heard about abebooks sooner.

In the fifth amendment to the US Constitution there appears the following, ” No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”, and in the sixth amendment this is qualified further, ” In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial…”.

Of course there is nothing stopping people from being imprisoned falsely which is why there arose the writ of Habeas Corpus – literally, bring forth the body. This forced a person to be presented to a court to establish the legality of their detention. This goes back to the 12th century in England and is enshrined in the US Constitution and in US law.

Of course there are instances where this is suspended – rightly or wrongly – but the principal is there to prevent abuses of power and to provide a balance against a state falsely imprisoning people.

One of the fiercest defenders of human rights is the US. They take great pains in highlighting the human rights abuses in other countries. It seems that their objective is to be the guardian of the world’s morals. Now this is a fine ambition and certainly, there are many human rights abuses around the world which need to be highlighted and redressed, and indeed they have been foremost in championing the rights of people who have been repressed and abused. This is a good thing.

Given all of this then why is it that the US are illegally holding and torturing an Australian citizen, and have been doing so for years, without trial, without any recourse to the justice system?

David Hicks has been held now for 5 years at Guantanamo Bay. The facts of the case are fairly straight forward. He has not yet been before a legally constituted court. In his own country there is no law under which he can be charged. The system which the US wished to use to try him has been deemed illegal by the US courts. The process that he is subject to violates the US constitution. He has been subject to treatment which by most definitions is considered torture, or in the words of the US Constitution is “Cruel and unusual punishment”.

If the shoe was on the other foot the US would move heaven and earth to get its citizen out of detention. Speeches to the UN, representations to the government concerned, even military action in some circumstances. It seems to me that not only is the US guilty of gross human rights violations but it is guilty of hypocrisy. If David is guilty then let him come before a legally constituted court and be tried, or release him.

Where is Australia in all of this? All of the UK citizens have long ago been released. The Australian government seems content to allow its citizen be illegally retained and tortured indefinitely. Quite frankly I am puzzled by this. What does the Australian government hope to gain?

The measure of a civilised society is not how it treats its citizens but how it treats its enemies.