New Voice

Vietnam. A word that still to this day means many things to many different people. Travellers etch across its landscape throughout the year wandering its myriad paths and villages, soaking up its cultured cities. Its people are famous for their relaxed personalities and interesting take on life. But for several thousand Vietnam War veterans, this beautiful country remains a nightmare of ferocious memories, strange drug-addled flashbacks, and the emotions of fear and loss. Recently, I was picking through a history of America in the Twentieth Century and spent some time looking at this infamous war. One of the recommended readings, I was informed, was Michael Herr’s Dispatches. Herr wrote for Esquire Magazine during the late sixties and spent two years embedded with the US forces in Vietnam. A number of years following his return Herr wrote this book as a memoir of his time in the country and a scathing overview of the human catastrophe of the conflict. I was surprised, and deeply enlivened to the book before I even began reading, to find that Herr had co-wrote Full Metal Jacket – and indeed the crisp dialogue of that film is referenced significantly in the reality of his account of the war. He went further by writing much of the voiceover in Apocalypse Now – thus acquiring a central role in the two greatest Vietnam War movies. (continue reading…)

A World of Computers

Networking is a significant impediment on my life. I have been offline for what seems an age, in reality a shocking three and half weeks. Often the issue, when I am down and out from the interweb, is the catastrophic nastiness that is wireless networking devices. LAN is just so much more logical. Anyway, Happy New Year to one and all: may they be technologically flawless.

Before Christmas I was nattering on about the German soldier, which was jumping up all over my radar due to their involvement in Afghanistan. Similarly, there is a deal of talk these days about the return of the Russian to the forefront of international relations. Given this, I thought I might look at an aspect of Russian history that has always stood out to my mind. (continue reading…)

The above is an interesting line quoted by Hitler in the second or third year of the Second World War. Memorable for its brevity, yet comprehensively encapsulating the reality of the German fighting machine. Hitler threw it out during the planning stages for Operation Barbarossa, when clamped up spartanly in the forested fortress of the Wolfsschanze, the eponymous Wolfs Lair. In a way it is a throwaway line, consistent to the megalomaniac Furher’s distorted faith in German dominance. But the fact of the matter is the German soldier was considered the finest of the war. This is in almost every respect: courage, order, imagination, alacrity and probably most of all counter attacking initiative. This final one is sufficiently exemplified by the Battle of the Bulge, following several months of consistent allied pressure, and having clearly lost the war, they almost completed a rout, bizarrely; it said a great deal about the Wehrmacht. Of course, they did not complete this rout, nor win the war. It’s somewhat unsettling to consider but baring the tremendous over extension of Barbarossa it might have been a different war following the D Day landings of June ’44. (continue reading…)

One hundred and fifty years, exactly yesterday, since the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and I finish off the final words to peer, literally awestruck, at the breadth of Darwin’s thesis: there really are no words to sufficiently define the extent to which this work captures the utter power of nature. There are many things you can say about Darwin’s argument, not least that it was controversial, but I don’t think that the controversy really explores the vision within the story he unwinds. And I do mean this; above all else this book is to my mind a story: one that encapsulates the entire planet, her life forms, and their coexistence together. I read around the work to ensure I understood the period in which the book was written (being a ludicrously involved history buff, this was straight-forward) which I would highly recommend, as it gives a comprehensive context. Many sciences were still newly burgeoning fields during this period, including biology, however, the understanding in the physical sciences was high – so much so that many believed Darwin’s ultimate theory was a century or so later than it should have been. I’m not converted to this view, I think that this theory is novel in every way imaginable; indeed, its consistent opposition (slight, but there) over the past 150 years is representative of its ingenuity. (continue reading…)

There are whole masses of positive news items circulating the science media. When you read around, the collection is not always particular to the fear-mongering I discussed in an earlier post. When I sat down a few months ago to begin these selections on the new science that may impact on climate change, I always imagined it as a positive approach to a vastly ominous situation. I think that this positivity is expressed in the media, with multitudes of blogs and news sites discussing the effects of climate change but through the prism of significant counter-action from the global community. I think in my posting I may have got side tracked in my last two pieces and begun the tremulous fixation of the ‘deer in head lights’, as the all powerful wonder of nature became all too clear in my readings. Partly, this was the blame of my picking through that mighty tome of a work, On the Origin of Species, which has enamoured my mind for the past while. Given the timing (2009, one hundred and fifty years since it was first published) it seemed an apt period to finally embrace the book and see if it was (in my opinion) as comprehensively argued as it is understood to be. Having completed the work, it seems there is no question but that it makes its point; rather well if I might say. (continue reading…)

There are reams of words. Whole spillages of words delivered into the ether of the internet acknowledging the fear of humanity at our capacity to wreak lasting damage on our society. Just read the pages of the climate project or the climate count down. Whole earthquakes of tiny words. Such is the embrace of the people and the fear. Bill Bryson, in his revelatory work of simple genius – A Short History of Nearly Everything – discusses at length the shocking power of the earth to unleash damage on the surface of the planet. In fact it incorporates a number of chapters. There is as seriousness to that power. I think that it is always present, and can never be fundamentally shifted. Utilised, though, is another thing entirely. (continue reading…)

Reading a science blog isn’t always the most comforting of past times. Many hours are subjected to the ignominy of bumbling theories and negative exposition. This is not to say, though, that such time is lost on the reader. Often the indulgent wording, and overly dramatic use of the exclamation point, embellish facts that are required reading; that are necessary points made to the ongoing debate. Regardless of whether that debate is climate change or the use of animals in drug testing, for instance. I have read recently a number of blogs that appear to have sprung up in an endeavour to reach the public on matters of pro or anti global warming merits. Their infusion in the debate is attributable to their opposition to the ‘other sides’ series of points, or blatant misrepresentation of certain facts. When reading some of these I was reminded continuously of a certain referendum that is currently in debate here in Ireland; and the ongoing difficulty for each side to approach the topic in a positive fashion. The thing is there is a consistent battle to reach the public and only finite room to make an impression. And in the absence of sufficient time, negative (and hence alarming) suggestions appear to receive greater attention. (continue reading…)

I must begin with a quick qualification: I’m not a socialist by any interesting stretch of the word, though I would espouse an interest in socialistic matters – in that I would like to be helpful to my fellow citizen, if I can. But further than this, I have always been deeply curious of economic history and read so accordingly, which is (certainly for the twentieth century) heavily inundated with multitudinous words of a Marxist flavor. Incorporating all of this, I have been reading the auto-biography of Mr. Fidel Castro for the last few days. It is defined as an auto-biography but is essentially a printed interview. The interviewer, the French thinker Ignacio Ramonet, is somewhat left-leaning (though it would be unfair to call him a socialist or entirely a follower of the Cuban socialist project), which makes for a central theme that follows the movement of Castro’s Marxist ideas from their beginnings right through their revolutionary achievements. And at what rate these ideas are delivered! I could get bogged down at suffocating length in an attempt to tackle just a few of the plethora of interesting ways the socialist subject is delved into throughout the interview; but there is not the time or space (our website is terribly finite) to do so. But more importantly, I was immediately struck by the subject of Marxism itself, and how in the twenty first century it still remains such an antagonist to a capitalist view point. (continue reading…)

You might recall from a while back my look at some of the new technologies being introduced to tackle the global issue of climate change. Maintaining that focus I thought I would comment on the continued expansion of biofuels, of which so many potential sources have be found that it would take a veritable ocean of web space to begin to mumble around the fringes of this tumultuous field.  Needless to say, one specific element has piqued my interest.  A number of years ago (the eighties, a shockingly interesting time for novel scientific endeavour with sadly many of the original ideas produced petering out by the end of the decade), some scientists noted that algae (an awful looking autotroph, most of us would know them as seaweed) was a possible candidate for renewable energy given its photosynthetic machinery, and its tough and resilient nature.  How they could operate it as an energy source was derived from the fact that algae produces oil, during its processes, which, not being fossilized, is clean of carbon. But, as was the way of the period, this theorizing failed to gain enough credence and by the end of the decade with little material investment the energy source failed to acquire backing.  As time passed and the requirement for alternative energies became notably stronger and all potential biofuel sources received further attention, it seems that algae was viewed as too difficult, and expensive, to develop. Until some far-reaching science was manufactured that changed its potential. (continue reading…)

Is war a guaranteed consequence of humanity? I think most people would consider it is, given the planets consistent, and extremely long-term infatuation, with war – and all other forms of violence. But is it really in our nature to be violent? I read an article recently in which scientists examined the human propensity for war craft. Archaeologists have confirmed that civilization itself had only commenced before weaponry is known to have come into increasing use: archaeological remains seem to tie the strong arrival of warlike tendencies to movement of our ancestors from hunter gather status to farmers; which makes sense since farming forms a connection to the land, and hence there then exists something to fight to control. Though violence would have existed before this point, it seems not to have been more than individuals, as opposed to large numbers of organised participants. But apparently it does not stop there: it has been noted extensively in chimpanzees that some contain a violent disposition – say a member of one grouping clubbing to death a member of another grouping (2001: A Space Odyssey style), for no noticable gain. This illogical violent nature leads some to believe that war is part of our biological heritage. (continue reading…)