Jim Stewart's Blog

Just sitting down to a refreshing 1000 and 1 nights tea. Demmers do some really good fruit teas.

I watched a documentary about Johnny Cash that was made just a few months before he died. One of main songs they talked about was Hurt.

I suppose that would be his biggest song for a lot of people, but there were songs he recorded in the early days that I think compete with it. One that I will always remember is San Quentin recorded live at San Quentin.

It got me thinking about what other music influenced me through my life. One guy that changed the music I listened to was Andrea Crouch. Here is what he sounded like toward the end of his life.

Never heard of him? Well here is another song that I think is up there on a list of music of my lifetime that featured him. leading the backing group.

I’ve been struck with the changes that have occurred in my lifetime. Looking at the images in this last video can be depressing.

One person I worked with always used to say the problem is too big, our best action will have no effect. But then I look at the other images in the video of individuals that have lived at the same time as me. And through their choices to act have disrupted the evil in the world.

Maybe that is the theme for the music of my life – shine a light on injustice and pain – make a change.

Not again, another beast from the east. Where are they all coming from?

A few years ago we had the Met Office look at “global warming” as it was called then. We wanted to know short term and long term increases in temperature. They were quite small.

I get a bit annoyed by the environmental groups that focus on increase temperature and things like ice melt and sea rise.

You see the thing that was really striking about the Met Office study was the frequency of extreme weather events like the beast from the east. It made the temperature change look trivial.

Another year and another extreme weather season has left people in dire circumstances in Nicaragua. This is what Climate Change is about, it isn’t about a slow change to devastation. Devastation will come before the slow change.

As the song says:

You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy
You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy
You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray
You may call me anything

Just in case you don’t know the song

I got an email recently where somebody attached the way they wanted to be called “she, her…”. I’ve seen it several times. Me with my devil’s advocate mind on started to think about changing how other people speak.

Well actually it came to focus when I heard about the country star Morgan Wallen and his language problems. He was fired for using the n word. Part of my thinking was around SLJ.

In some circumstances the choice of language will offend one of the people involved. Some people will find it offensive if they have to use gender language other than that related to biology at birth – while others will find it offensive if they don’t.

So who’s offense should have priority. Is it acceptable for SLJ to use the n word but not for a white film star to do so? Is the offense of the speaker unimportant, but the offence of the spoken about most important.

I know many people that would clearly fall on the side of using the language that the person being talked about thinks is appropriate. But many of those people would also say it is acceptable to describe God as he or she – whatever makes the speaker happy.

Do we set our values in a consistent way? Or are we just consistently anti-establishment?

Big fuss about a new coal mine opening in Cumbria. Quite interesting seeing how much interest this is stirring up.

The case for Scottish independence calls for maximising oil extraction – it makes the coal mine in Cumbria look like a little blip. Have you seen that in the news? It has been there, honestly. There have been protests about increased extraction. I must admit I hardly noticed it, I only found it because I was looking at the SNP extraction policy.

This is one of the gaps in our carbon policy – we are focussing so much on reducing consumption, but still extracting fossil fuels for others to burn. We need to focus on both.

But as I think about the fight against the new coal mine I think back to the Thatcher years – the fight against Scargill and the closure of the UK coal industry. What was wrong with that policy? It reduced our extraction.

The problem is it destroyed communities. What was missing was something called a “just transition”. But not just the one devised for workers, we needed one that covers society.

And maybe this is something we need to adopt for our post-COVID society.

Or other rubbish like that. Of course you are what you eat because it transforms into you through the gut.

But there are some interesting new ideas being put forward that your brain function is in part determined by what you eat. The ideas have been proposed for about 15 years now, and they are starting to get some traction. An idea is that bacteria in the gut transferring to the brain through some odd pathways causes things like Parkinsons or Motor Neuron diseases. But not just that – there is even a suggestion that Autism is caused by an infection in a mothers gut.

Fascinating ideas, but is this really saying Autism is the result of an illness passed to the baby from the mother? That sounds like a bit of guilt loading. That is if you believe autism is something bad. I have several friends on “the spectrum” and I would generally trust them more than “normal” people.

I read this just after watching a TV programme that explored the concept of changing the nature of our genetics to make us live longer (or die later as they put it).

And then it came to me – if it wasn’t for doctors we would have had much lower numbers of deaths from COVID. You see doctors have helped people to live much longer – and it is the older people that have been dying most from COVID.

As an aside – this is probably one of the reasons why some poor countries seem to be doing better than us.

In the world of medicine, even with the “do no harm” oath, it must be hard to determine if your actions are right or wrong.

After the second world war there were experiments that had been carried out in concentration camps (torture like experiments) that produced data that would have been valuable to medicine. Many doctors decided they would not use the data because of the way it was obtained – even if it could save lives.

Almost all doctors act in order to save lives (one or two exceptions), they might not get it right all the time, mistakes happen. And anyway, what is good? Is getting rid of autism good? The pandemic has raised the issue of doctors having to take the least bad option, deciding who would die.

I don’t know if I would like to judge a doctor.

The big news is that Captain Sir Tom has died of COVID. Everybody is sad. Everybody is paying respects.

But slipped in to one of those reports was the news that he had recently been on a bucket list holiday to Barbados.

Of course Piers Morgan, Philip Schofield and much of the right of centre press lambasted the people that brought this up – it obviously had nothing to do with him getting ill. This is probably the case, there is probably no link. It was more likely linked to a hospital visit after the trip.

The same people that say the New Zealand closed borders approach is good say Captain Tom had every right to travel to Barbados. But some go further – some of the news reports made me sit up and think “he probably wasn’t breaking the law but even if he did who can blame him?” That is a pretty big get out of jail free card being dealt.

And look at one other fact – Barbados had a very low number of infections – until just after that flight from the UK arrived. And within two weeks their number of total infections jumped about 150% (more people were infected in those two weeks than had been during the whole pandemic to that point). Half of the deaths in Barbados have occurred since that flight landed.

But then I understand a 100 year old with a bucket list – I even understand an 80 year old with a bucket list. Why shouldn’t they break cover and have one last fling? Why shouldn’t they see that great grandchild for the first and maybe last time?

That balance between letting people live and protecting each other is the difficult decision that we have to make. And really, when it comes down to it, it is up to us to make that decision, not some remote government. And it certainly should not be up to a newspaper to decide.

That trip to Barbados ended around the same time Boris was accused of cycling 7 miles to exercise. Double standard?

It might be a month in to 2021, but I have only just got the final information to tot up my carbon footprint from last year. I had decided to offset some of the year (well I did have a trip to Nicaragua). But the total from all of the other areas was down. Not much driving last year.

Next year I’ve decided to go further – a zero target. I know it is possible after last year. There are two parts, using less and offsetting the rest.

So what is your carbon target for 2021 – how will you use less?

This lockdown is a good opportunity to set tough goals.

The purpose of the president is not to wield power but to draw attention away from power. I forgot how good it was…

I am wondering if we are experiencing something like the “shoe event horizon” – with all of our high street shops collapsing. I hope it doesn’t result in “famine, collapse and ruin”. Mind you, I have always been interested in flying.

Non-nerds will have no idea what I am talking about.

But it made me wonder about whether some of the changes we are seeing are because we were close to a tipping point, we had been living in a “just about make it” world, and not just with high street shops.

With the latest suggestion being we will be social distancing for another year at least I am getting ready to settle down to a quieter life.

Now press the button.