Category Archives: history

beliefs, history, nudism, personal, sexuality, thoughts

Osho on Pornography

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A final thought from Osho, this time on pornography …

What is pornography, and why does it have so much appeal?

Pornography is a by-product of religious repression. The whole credit goes to the priests […] pornography is created, managed by the Church, by the religious people.

In a primitive, natural state, man is not pornographic. When human beings are naked, man knows the woman’s body and woman knows the man’s body, and you cannot sell Playboy. It is impossible. Who will purchase Playboy? […]

The whole credit goes to the religious establishment. They have repressed so much that man’s mind is boiling. The man wants to see the woman’s body. Nothing wrong in it, a simple desire, a human desire. And the woman wants to know the man’s body. A simple desire, nothing wrong about it.

Just think of a world where trees are covered with clothes. I have heard about some English ladies who cover their dogs and cats with clothes. Just think, cows and horses and dogs dressed. Then you will find new pornography arising. Somebody will
publish a nude picture of a tree – and you will hide it in a Bible and look at it!

This whole foolishness is out of religious repression.

Make man free, allow people to be nude. I am not saying they should continuously be nude, but nudity should be accepted. On the beach, at the swimming pool, in the home – nudity should be accepted. The children should take a bath with the mother, with the father, in the bathroom. There is no need for the father to lock the bathroom when he goes in. The children can come and have a talk and chitchat and go out. Pornography will disappear.

Each child wants to know, “How does my daddy look?” Each child wants to know, “How does my mother look?” And this is simply intelligence, curiosity. And the child cannot know what the mother looks like, and the child cannot know what the father looks like; now you are creating illness in the child’s mind. It is you who is ill, and the illness will be reflected in the child’s mind.

I am not saying sit nude in the office or in the factory […] there is no need to be naked, it should not be an obsession; however, this continuous obsession of hiding your body is just ugly.

And one thing more: because of the clothes, bodies have become ugly because then you don’t care. You care only about the face. If your belly goes on becoming bigger and bigger, who bothers? You can hide it […] let one hundred people stand nude, and they all will be ashamed […] and they will start hiding themselves. Something is wrong. Why is it so? They know only about their face – the face they take care of; the whole body is neglected.

This is bad. This is not good. It is not in favour of the body, either.

Any country where people are allowed a little freedom to be nude becomes more beautiful; people have more beautiful bodies […]

Nudity should be natural, should be as natural as animals, as trees, as everything else is nude. Then pornography will disappear.

[Osho, Sex Matters, pp 137-8]

arts, food+drink, history, memes, personal, photography, sexuality, topographical

Nico's


Nico’s, originally uploaded by kcm76.

This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 33/52 (2008 week 41).
Yet another reflection picture!

This week I’ve been eating out at the best “greasy spoon” in all London: Nico’s, 299 Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 0EL. Open Monday thru’ Saturday, 0645 to 1900. It is right outside Bethnal Green tube station on junction of Bethnal Green Road and Cambridge Heath Road.

Greek Cypriot, now run by the second generation. You can have anything from a bacon roll, through Egg & Chips to Dolmades or Kleftico. The food is cheap and the portions are large; do not order the mixed grill unless you are a real glutton or starving: it comes on two(!!) oval plates, one of meat the other piled with chips. A steak sandwich comes with (free) chips on the side — a full portion of chips that is! And they’re real chips too. Everything is cooked to order and the kitchen is openly visible from the counter. Needless to say it does a steady trade! Eat in or take-away.

It is very close to the V&A Museum of Childhood, where Noreen works; I was there too earlier this week and was taken out to lunch at Nico’s: I had: 2 (large) Sausages, Mushrooms and (a pile of) Chips; can Diet Coke. Noreen had: Double Egg, Beans and (a pile of) Chips; can Diet Coke. Total cost £8.50.

Highly recommended for restoring the soul but not for either the cholesterol levels or the waistline. Pure food pornography. 🙂


Nico’s, originally uploaded by kcm76.
current affairs, history, thoughts

More on Banking Bailouts

Just a couple of snippets of thought following on from my post of yesterday …

BBC Breakfast this morning was reporting on the £400bn pledged by the government for yesterday’s bailout. First of all they insist it is £400bn, not £500bn, as was reported yesterday. How? Why? Well it seems the missing £100bn had already been pledged, so was not new money. More government prestidigitation.

But no matter, Breakfast had calculated that £400bn amounts to £13,ooo for every UK taxpayer. Now how do the government think the “average” taxpayer is going to find £13,000? I am lucky in that I earn around twice the national average wage, which means I pay £7,500-ish in income tax every year (or £600 a month). And whilst I would love to pay much less tax, I see the equity in what I do pay, given that we have to pay at all. (That doesn’t mean I agree with where it is all squandered, sorry spent wisely.) But another £13,000!! Even over two years that means my income tax would double. Now translate that into the effect on someone earning say £20,000 a year and who pays maybe £3000 in income tax. Where do they find all that additional money?

Oh sorry, that;’s OK because they now become poor; below the bread-line. So they can claim benefits. But wait! Where do those benefits come from? Our tax take. So those of us left paying tax get shafted for even more. Ad infinitum. You see what I mean about spirals of debt and destruction?!?!?

Jilly in response to my post of yesterday makes an good point — well several actually. Banking was always smoke and mirrors. Which explains why the medieval Jews so despised; they were operating in an environment where people could still see through the smoke and they didn’t like the (distorting) mirrors that were left? The Emperor’s new suit was seen for what it was. It is just that in recent years, well at least during my lifetime, the smoke has gotten increasingly dense to hide the ever more distorting mirrors.

It’s tempting to blame Mrs Thatcher for all this, with her philosophy that everyone must own their own house, thereby needing a mortgage and generating increasing debt — not to mention the increasing wealth of those years with the instant gratification made possible by having more readily available money. While Mrs Thatcher undoubtedly didn’t help, I think the root cause goes further back: to the spendthrift Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, both of whom spent more than we could afford.

Jilly also makes the point that credit controls should never have been abolished. Well up to a point, Lord Copper. While ideally borrowing only what one can immediately afford to repay is an excellent philosophy, it does mean there is only ever a very constrained money supply. Hence there would be no growth. The controls had to be loosened somewhat to fund growth and an entrepreneurial spirit, otherwise we would still be living in a grim post-war environment. But arguable we have taken progress too far, too fast; maybe a change from a money supply ratio of 1:1 to the current 1:27-ish was a step too far; perhaps a ratio of 1:5 or 1:10 would have been more realistic?

But then 20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing. We are where we are and somehow we have to get out of it. I just have grave misgivings that the current spiral of debt to pay off debt is a good way. But then from where we are there probably isn’t a pretty solution. But then, again as Jilly points out, we don’t appear to have learnt any of the lessons of history. Plus ça change!

current affairs, history, thoughts

Banking by Mirrors

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Yet again the British taxpayer is being fleeced to prop up the banking system; the UK government has today announced a package of measures which could cost the taxpayers £500bn … or around £10,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. BBC News story.

We know this whole thing is a mirage; money is no more than pieces of paper which are worth only the value of the ink printed on them. But would this happen if the government had to do all this in actual gold? I doubt it. For a start there isn’t that much gold. As I understand it the capitalisation ratio is generally somewhere in the region of 1:25 to 1:30 (ie. 25-30 times as much money supply as there is real money, aka. gold). If we all wanted to draw our money from the banks we couldn’t; there physically isn’t even enough paper to do it! It’s all electronic bits somewhere.

Notwithstanding that I do seriously wonder what these people are on! What are they doing? Basically they are making an ever increasing mountain of debt to service the debt mountain which already exists! And they can’t see it! For instance £250bn will be available to the banks as loan guarantees for lending between banks! So Bank A borrows money from Bank B, with a loan guarantee from the government. Bank A fails and defaults on the loan, so the government pays off Bank B. So here now is a government debt, taken on to service a loan which is probably being used to cover Bank A’s debt to Bank C. Is this a sensible way to run a business? Or an economy? Or a country? I don’t think so!

Worse … “Banks will have to increase their capital by at least £25bn and can borrow from the government to do so”. Que? Banks need more money, to service their debt. How do they get more money. They borrow it from the government (ie. you and me the taxpayers). Borrowing money to pay off debt. Isn’t this how loan sharks operate? Isn’t this the whole basis of usury, for which the medieval Jews were so vilified?

Ah good! The FTSE as I write is down around 4%. So the money markets don’t entirely believe this either! And neither it appears do the investors in some banks as their shares are down too.

But it’s all a mirage. A house of cards built out of mirrors. And I feel sure it will come tumbling down. The only trouble is when it does it will be a whole lot worse than it would have been had the markets been left alone now to sort themselves out. I’ve been saying for years it’s all over-hyped. The FTSE is a con; at best it should never have been above 3000. The end of the world is nigh. But fortunately most of us won’t survive to witness it, but it might be an unpleasant end game.

arts, books, history, personal

Noreen Marshall, Her Book

After something like 2 years in gestation Noreen’s book, Dictionary of Children’s Clothes, finally appears in early-October. Here’s what the V&A’s blurb for the book says:

Over the last 300 years, children’s clothing has witnessed a gradual shift from dressing children to adult requirements, in multiple layers and formal styles, to the booming designer childrenswear market of today. This accessible and well-illustrated dictionary features over 300 garments, from air-raid suits to zouave jackets, with specially commissioned photographs from the world’s largest and most diverse collection at the V&A Museum of Childhood. A fully illustrated timeline and introduction offer an at-a-glance understanding of the changes in children’s fashions and a rich selection of line drawings and illustrations from sewing and knitting patterns, to catalogues, dolls, fashion plates, photographs, paintings and children’s fiction put the garments in context. Noreen Marshall is Curator of the Dress, Doll and Childcare Collections at the V&A Museum of Childhood. She has worked on a number of V&A exhibitions, including Stile Liberty, Jolly Hockey Sticks, The Pack Age, and a series of Christmas exhibitions.

Despite having been married to Noreen for most of the 30-odd years she’s worked at the Museum of Childhood, I have seen relatively little of this book during its birth traumas; it’s been a closely guarded secret. Until now, that is! I have now seen an early-released copy and, as can be seen from the dust-jacket (above), it’s a sumptuous volume illustrated with specially commissioned colour photographs on every page of the dictionary section. As well as the dictionary there is an extended essay by way of introduction, a 300-year timeline and several appendixes which enhance the main content. The book isn’t cheaply produced, something which is reflected in the cover price of £30, but this is excellent value considering the quality and the work which has gone into the production.

This book is a real treasure for anyone interested in costume or childhood. It may be pre-ordered from Amazon UK or from the V&A Online Shop.

Dictionary of Children’s Clothes, 1700 to the Present, by Noreen Marshall, is published on 06 October by the Victoria & Albert Museum at £30; ISBN 9781851775477.

books, history, memes, personal, photography, pleasures, science, thoughts, topographical

09/09/2008 This & That Meme!


This & That Meme!, originally uploaded by kcm76.

1. Anyone for Cricket?, 2. Sooty Oystercatcher, 3. Blue Hyacinth, 4. I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, 5. Oz on bookcase 04212006 003, 6. Hoover Factory Greenford London, 7. DSC_2240, 8. Cunt Examination, 9. giving Katie the best there is and hoping she’ll be gaining back some weight …, 10. Jack and Jill Windmills in Sussex, 11. egg custard (gross), 12. Latin

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste the html into your blog or Flickr stream (the easiest way is to copy the URLs and then head over to the fd’s flickr toys link above and use the mosaic maker).

The Questions & Answers:
1. What was your favorite summertime activity as a kid? Cricket
2. What was your first pet’s name? Sooty
3. What model car did you learn to drive on? I didn’t; yes that’s right, I never have learnt to drive and I don’t want to.
4. What’s your proudest moment as an adult? I’m sorry I haven’t a clue
5. What are your top 3 hobbies (other than photography)? cats, science, books
6. Where do you call home? Greenford
7. Where did you call home at age 11 (or any age)? Waltham Cross
8. What word do you love to say? C**t
9. Where do you go to relax? Lying in the sun
10. Who was your first kiss? Jill
11. Least favorite food? Egg custard
12. Least favorite subject in school? Latin although it’s a close finish with woodwork.

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

beliefs, environment, food+drink, freedom of speech, history, medical, science, sexuality

Science Catch-up

I originally started off the previous post intending to write this one. So, having been diverted, here is the post I’d intended to write …

Having been “under the cosh” recently I’ve missed writing about a number of science items which have caught my eye. This is by way of a quick update on some of them.

Food Production & Agriculture
I’ve blogged a number of times about the need for a major restructuring of world-wide agriculture (see here, here and here). New Scientist on 14 June carried an article and an editorial on this subject. Sadly, being part of the “mainstream science establishment” (my term)they don’t get the need for restructuring. They see the solution only in terms of improved varieties, increased production and a decrease in food prices, with all the sterility that implies. They’re unable to see the problem in terms of overproduction of animal protein and a reduction in useful farmland due to poor methods and bio-fuel production. All very sad.

Don’t Blame it all on the Gods
The same issue of New Scientist – it was an especially interesting issue – carried a short article with the above title. I’ll let the introduction speak for itself …

Once phenomena that inspired fear and foreboding, lunar and solar eclipses can now be predicted down to the second, forecast centuries into the future, and “hindcast” centuries into the past. The person who started us down the path from superstition to understanding has been called the “Einstein of the 5th century BC”, and was known to his contemporaries as “The Mind”. He went on trial for his impious notions, was banished from his adopted home, but nevertheless influenced generations of later scholars. He was Anaxagoras, a native of Ionia in what is now Turkey, and the first great philosopher to live in Athens. Now this little-known scholar is being seen by some as the earliest known practitioner of the scientific method.

Worth searching out if you’re interested in the history of science or the Ancient Greeks.

America’s Abortion Scandal
This is the title of the third article I’ve picked from 14 June New Scientist. In the article Pratima Gupta, a (female) practicing obstetrician-gynaecologist, argues against the prevailing belief amongst US medics that abortion is always psychologically damaging for the woman. Gupta sees no evidence for this and rails against “personal moral beliefs trumping scientific evidence [and even] individuals’ personal beliefs”. What’s worse is that there appears to be covert censorship making abortion something which cannot be researched or discussed. All very interesting when put up against the case of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin whose unmarried 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, being made (as I read it) to have the child and marry the father (see here, for example).

Cut!
Finally, this time from New Scientist of 19 July, which contains an article on male circumcision; again something I’ve blogged about before (see here and here). Quite predictably there is a rumpus brewing about the medical profession’s desire for all males to be circumcised – at least in Africa and by implication world-wide – egged on by the WHO. The studies which showed such huge benefits from circumcision are being criticised for their design, for being stopped early and for their assumptions. Surveys which question people’s experience of circumcision are also highly criticised. And of course being a mainstream science journal, New Scientist totally ignore any question of human rights, abuse and mutilation. It’s about time the medical and scientific professions woke up and smelt the coffee.

beliefs, current affairs, history, memes, personal, photography, thoughts, topographical

My Olympic Meme


My Olympic Meme, originally uploaded by kcm76.

As I don’t believe in the Olympics — not as they are currently run and administered anyway; the ideal is fine — here is a rather jaundiced view …

1. olympic-games-1948, 2. Field Hockey-Washington, DC: PhotoID-97421, 3. poussée bobsleigh, 4. kelly holmes, 5. Ancient Greece, 6. way to heaven 天堂口。, 7. Day 196: That’s Logic, 8. Sunrise – River Dart, Totnes, 9. Dorthea, 10. commonsense, 11. Heirloom Tomatoes, 12. road to nowhere

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste the html into your blog or Flickr stream (the easiest way is to copy the URLs and then head over to the fd’s flickr toys link above and use the mosaic maker).

The Questions & Answers:
1. What is the closest the Olympics has ever been to your hometown? London, 1948
2. What is your favorite summer Olympic sport? What Americans call “Field Hockey”
3. What is your favorite winter Olympic sport? Bobsleigh
4. Who is your all-time favorite Olympian? Kelly Holmes
5. If you could go to the Olympics, where would you want the games to be held? Ancient Greece; and all the contestants would compete in the nude just as in Ancient Greece
6. What is the symbol or predominant color on your country’s flag? A cross
7. If you were a member of the Olympic Committee, what sport/activity would you add to the games? Logic
8. What sport is your least favorite to watch? Darts
9. You get two tickets to the Olympics, who would you ask to go with you? Whoever buys them both
10. Hey, you made the team! You’re going to the Olympics – what’s your event? Commonsense
11. The Olympics asks you to bring something to represent your hometown or home country – what would you take? A tomato; well my home did used to be one of the largest areas under glass in the country, growing glasshouse crops etc.
12. Congratulations! You won a medal! Where are you going to display it when you get home? Nowhere

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

history, science, thoughts

The Importance of Knowing How

Interesting article by AC Grayling in the “Commentary” column of last week’s New Scientist under the above title. The “Commentary” column, written on alternate weeks by Grayling and Lawrence Krauss, always provides food for thought. This week’s column was, in my view, especially important. As usual because New Scientist don’t make their articles available on-line to non-subscribers here is an edited version.

Philosophers investigating the nature of knowledge and the best methods of acquiring it have always distinguished between knowledge of facts and knowledge of techniques. Knowing that Everest is the highest mountain, and knowing how to measure the height of mountains, are respective examples of the two kinds of knowing. The interesting question is, which is more important?

[…] an education system worthy of the name should equip people with both kinds. But it is still worthwhile to ask which is more important, for the equally obvious reason that no head can first cram in, and then later recall at need, everything that passes as currently accepted fact. What’s more, the number of currently accepted facts is tiny in comparison with what we know we still do not know, which is in turn probably a tiny fraction of what might be knowable.

So although everyone coming out of an educational system should at least know [basic facts] they are much more in need of knowing how to find things out, how to evaluate the information they discover, and how to apply it fruitfully. These are skills; they consist in knowledge of how to become knowledgeable.

[…] information is not knowledge […]

[…] it is no bad thing that the internet is such a democratic domain, where opinions and claims can enjoy an unfettered airing […] This increases the necessity for internet users to be good at discriminating between high and low-quality information, and between reliable and unreliable sources.

We teach research skills in higher education differently for the sciences and humanities […] In the sciences, laboratory technique and experimental design and methodology are fundamental; in the humanities, the use of libraries and archives and the interpretation of texts are in the basic tool kit […]

Knowing how to evaluate information, therefore, is arguably the most important kind of knowledge that education has to teach […] only the International Baccalaureate makes critical thinking […] a standard requirement, and in this as in so many ways it leads the field […] I wonder whether the need for critical thinking lessons is more urgent in the humanities than the sciences because the latter, by their nature, already have it built in. The science lab at school with its whiffs, sparks and bangs is a theatre of evaluation; the idea of testing and proving is the natural order there […]

When we talk of scientific literacy, one thing we should mean is acquisition of just this mindset; without it, too much rubbish gets through.

It’s no wonder that people don’t think is it!?