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Search found 160 matches

by Ted Harvey
November 22nd, 2008, 11:05 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Evil witch - or just poor inexperienced teacher?
Replies: 10
Views: 2479

Re: Evil witch - or just poor inexperienced teacher?

Alan C yes, I needed correction on some material facts. I made the mistake of repeating my impressions gained from the generality of the style of media reporting on this case – rather than do some careful checking. A mistake that does annoy me given the low regard I hold British media in. A mistake ...
by Ted Harvey
November 22nd, 2008, 3:20 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Evil witch - or just poor inexperienced teacher?
Replies: 10
Views: 2479

Evil witch - or just poor inexperienced teacher?

Am I the only one to be disturbed and disgusted at the current, near-hysterical, media witch hunt over the young Scottish teacher who seems likely to be the first to be dismissed for incompetency? I wasn’t even aware of the case until I kept seeing her being covered in and out of her hearing by vari...
by Ted Harvey
November 22nd, 2008, 3:05 pm
Forum: Culture Club
Topic: Theatre
Replies: 3
Views: 1449

Re: Theatre

Thanks for the tip Beki. It's a real shame that the the public and media seem to generally so neglect theatre in Scotland - all the more so since Scottish drama writing has been going through something of a mini golden age over the past decade or so. I can recall going to the premiere of The Nationa...
by Ted Harvey
November 18th, 2008, 11:25 am
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: How secure are your passwords?
Replies: 5
Views: 1254

Re: How secure are your passwords?

Doh! Alan H - I wish you had advised me about that before I started my regular oral logging in, in the middle of busy Mitchell Library :)
by Ted Harvey
November 14th, 2008, 5:19 pm
Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
Topic: Adults hitting children
Replies: 72
Views: 14953

Re: Adults hitting children

On a point of accuracy, the law that you seek succour from is in fact English law, and that differs from Scottish law on this matter – at least in nuance and duty placed on the parent. From my observations I would describe English law as one of the most reactionary and unenlightened among advanced W...
by Ted Harvey
November 9th, 2008, 9:25 pm
Forum: Culture Club
Topic: Result! Russell Brand resigns from Radio 2
Replies: 16
Views: 2475

Re: Result! Russell Brand resigns from Radio 2

I can see that some people will see this affair as something of a frenzy or overblown. But that is only if you see it as something about no more than the immature and irresponsible behaviour of a couple of a certain type of English men. I see it as neither overblown or a frenzy –rather I see it as e...
by Ted Harvey
October 27th, 2008, 10:46 pm
Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
Topic: Adults hitting children
Replies: 72
Views: 14953

Re: Adults hitting children

Different people respond differently to different learning styles. One size does not fit all. I think that physical punishment is inappropriate to most people in most situations, however, for some people under some (extreme) circumstances I think it can be appropriate. As with any punishment, it sh...
by Ted Harvey
October 20th, 2008, 12:32 pm
Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
Topic: Question Regarding Animal Experimentation
Replies: 21
Views: 4837

Re: Question Regarding Animal Experimentation

I have to go back to the start of this thread as I'm still very troubled by the statement: Some humans who are profoundly handicapped as well as infants may be less sentient, less aware of the self and suffering than adult chimpanzees. Is there a difference between experimenting on one rather than t...
by Ted Harvey
October 19th, 2008, 2:26 pm
Forum: Culture Club
Topic: Free Cinema BBC Radio documentary
Replies: 1
Views: 1042

Free Cinema BBC Radio documentary

I’ve just enjoyed another wee BBC Radio4 gem – ‘Free Cinema’. It’s a documentary about a series of six short films made in 1956-59. The films were aimed of bringing new life and perspectives to British film-making that, it was asserted, was at that time pretty, dreary upper-middle class stuff (Brief...
by Ted Harvey
October 13th, 2008, 11:05 am
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Crisis? What Crisis?
Replies: 18
Views: 4017

Re: Crisis? What Crisis?

Well I’m intrigued by what’s going on in the columns of the so-called financial journalists just now in the business sections of the UK papers (you know, the ones that virtually without exception failed to advise their readers of the impending crisis). Some say it’s a bear market and you should keep...
by Ted Harvey
October 12th, 2008, 10:09 pm
Forum: Culture Club
Topic: The original book thread
Replies: 406
Views: 67275

Re: The original book thread

Oooh! Isn’t it a bind when you are really, really impressed by a book that is from an author you really dislike? I have waded through Niall Ferguson’s ‘War of the World’. I find him to be a poseur of a particular type of celeb academic, far too much in adulation of the USA for a supposedly serious h...
by Ted Harvey
October 12th, 2008, 9:55 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Crisis? What Crisis?
Replies: 18
Views: 4017

Re: Crisis? What Crisis?

I don't think that there can be much doubt that the 'credit crisis' is generating new and significant dangers in the international order. One reason is that, as I asserted in my earlier posting, the crisis has shown up the paucity and debasement of our politicians and our political institutions in t...
by Ted Harvey
October 9th, 2008, 11:53 am
Forum: Humanist Ethics & Morality
Topic: Adults hitting children
Replies: 72
Views: 14953

Re: Adults hitting children

Paulo you said If a child does something to deserve a smack it should be smacked. I would stand my ground to deny that and say no child ever did deserve a smack. In the hyperlink you offer the point should be that this child needs help, not hitting. I appreciate that you went on to qualify things by...
by Ted Harvey
October 9th, 2008, 11:35 am
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: It's still the economy stupid - not religion
Replies: 1
Views: 841

It's still the economy stupid - not religion

I found this recent article in the Finacial Times remains thought-provoking. The writer says we are wrong to misconstrue 'creationism' in the USA as really about religion -it's actually about economic inequality and class (something I mostly agree with). But then he worries me that maybe humanists/a...
by Ted Harvey
October 6th, 2008, 8:55 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Crisis? What Crisis?
Replies: 18
Views: 4017

Re: Crisis? What Crisis?

My apologies to those who may find this lengthy track too political (and too lengthy!), but the truth is that the whole so-called 'crisis' affair is as much political as financial. The context of the present changes in the national and international financial systems is about great, historical devel...
by Ted Harvey
October 1st, 2008, 9:07 pm
Forum: Miscellaneous Discussions...
Topic: Santa
Replies: 7
Views: 1474

Re: Santa

I was surprised on reading this thread about how it revealed a still sensitive spot for me at least a couple of years after a seemingly incidental event. I was going home after attending a meeting in a really deprived part of Glasgow’s East End. As I walked by a common closeway a little girl, maybe ...
by Ted Harvey
September 24th, 2008, 8:57 pm
Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
Topic: Alzheimer’s leads atheist Terry Pratchett to appreciate God
Replies: 5
Views: 6252

Re: Alzheimer’s leads atheist Terry Pratchett to appreciate God

Seems to me that despite what the Times so-called journalist wrote, Pratchett did not ‘find’ God, or 'appreciate' God. Pratchett did say that the notion that there is a God is “totally useless”… ‘But it fills a hole’. Then in the follow-up he says that after his recent health travails, “I don't thin...
by Ted Harvey
September 3rd, 2008, 12:28 pm
Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
Topic: Humanism and Nationalism
Replies: 22
Views: 10239

Re: Humanism and Nationalism

It is to the credit of all the contributors here that this thread has not quickly deteriorated into a screaming diatribe that so often afflicts any attempts at discussing nationalism in British/Scottish/English contexts. I have been increasingly interested in the way that what was a pretty dreary an...
by Ted Harvey
September 1st, 2008, 2:39 pm
Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
Topic: A post concerning both religion and secularism
Replies: 14
Views: 3199

Re: A post concerning both religion and secularism

Seems my posting ability is still as poor and irritating. I above should have said:

To first read Dawkins, Hitchens et al was for me a burst of positive energy

Sorry readers and I promise to try harder :redface:
by Ted Harvey
September 1st, 2008, 2:34 pm
Forum: Humanism, secularism, freethought...
Topic: A post concerning both religion and secularism
Replies: 14
Views: 3199

Re: A post concerning both religion and secularism

Evangelhumanist congratulations on a thought provoking post. I sympathise with the wish that we could all just get along with moving humanity forward. But my long experience in trying to ‘touch base’ with many religionists over matters of common concern is that the (Dawkins?) mantra that “belief wil...