Friday, February 18, 2005
First the worst, then the better
Here's a nice piece to end the week with. How a couple decided to hang on in there, despite the huge problems of the first few years of their marriage.
Here's a nice piece to end the week with. How a couple decided to hang on in there, despite the huge problems of the first few years of their marriage.
Population & fertility: The world’s population has reached 6.5 billion this year, a billion more than 1993, despite low fertility in developed countries and high mortality in developing countries, a new United Nations report says. It estimates that the world’s population could reach 7 billion in 2012 and could stabilize at 9 billion in 2050. The rate of growth has fallen, however, to 1.2 per cent now from 2 per cent in the late 1960s.
Half the world’s population will live in cities in two years, a huge jump from the 30 per cent residing in urban areas in 1950, UN demographers reported today. Some 3.2 billion of the world’s 6.5 billion people live in cities today, and the number will climb to 5 billion - an estimated 61 per cent of the global population - by 2030, the UN Commission on Population and Development said in a report.
Freedom & democracy: ACT MP Stephen Franks says a new law passed on Wednesday evening gives the censor vast new powers to ban “hate speech” to people under ages to be specified by the censor. The Films, Videos and Publications Classification Amendment Bill passed 110 votes in favour, 8 Act votes against.
There is no need to sacrifice free speech in order to protect British Muslims, writes Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian. "Like a man trying to stop a leaking wastepipe with a priceless Raphael drawing, the government is about to do great damage in the cause of averting damage. This impending folly is its proposed legislation on "incitement to religious hatred". Everyone who cares about free speech - the oxygen of so many other freedoms - must shout now to stay the government's hand, and prevent it pushing through parliament this ill-conceived, badly worded, dangerous piece of law."
Religion: Destiny Church has bestowed a new title on Auckland-based evangelist Brian Tamaki. The Senior Minister and founder of Destiny Churches will be officially ordained Bishop of Destiny Churches at its 7th birthday celebrations in July this year. "A recent summit of Destiny Church leaders established that it was timely and appropriate to formally recognise the distinction between Bishop Tamaki's position and that of the numerous senior pastors within the movement."
The Church of England is to grant partners of homosexual clergy who have registered under the UK Government's new civil partnership scheme the same pension rights as clergy spouses. The disclosure, made at the General Synod last night, could prove an embarrassment to the bishops because sexually active homosexuals are theoretically barred from the priesthood.
The Church of England took the first step at the General Synod meeting in Westminster yesterday towards the consecration of women bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury says formal debate will begin at meeting in July. The first are now expected to be consecrated before the end of the decade.
Pro-gay liberals have been virtually ruled out of the running to become the next archbishop of York, the second most senior post in the Church of England.
Politics: The Christian Heritage Party has suspended its support for the death penalty to ensure the issue does not discourage voters.
Medical ethics: Advocates on both sides of the stem cell research debate packed a Massachusetts Statehouse hearing Wednesday, wrangling over thorny ethical questions about when life begins and what constitutes a human embryo. Senate President Robert Travaglini, prime sponsor of a bill to encourage stem cell research in Massachusetts, said the research could help scientists seek cures for a host of life-threatening illnesses. But opponents said the bill would open the door to human experimentation by allowing scientists and corporations to create human life in order to destroy it in the name of medicine.
How the man who created Dolly the sheep slid down the slippery slope to human reproductive cloning. Ian Wilmut, the co-creator of Dolly the Sheep, now intends to clone human life. This is quite a shift for Wilmut. When he and Keith Campbell entered the science pantheon with their announcement of the birth of Dolly, they forced the world to grapple with the question of whether it is moral to clone human life. But Wilmut claimed not to be interested in cloning humans.
Education: Over two-thirds (69 per cent) of British schoolteachers think that informing schoolgirls about how to obtain an abortion is in the girls' best interests, according to a survey of 700 teachers conducted for the Times Educational Supplement. And 98 per cent of teachers thought educating children about contraception use was also essential. "It is the government's intention that schools should become the places where all child welfare policies are delivered in future," noted TES editor Bob Doe.
Same-sex marriage: Fully 66 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the legalisation of same-sex "marriage" - as proposed by the Canadian Government - according to a National Post/Global National poll.
Prostitution: The Italian Government's efforts to ban prostitution from public places has been given the thumbs down by the United Nations committee concerned with eliminating discrimination against women. Reporting to CEDAW on Italy's progress, Aldo Mantovani said prostitution represented the highest level of discrimination against women. But one woman on the committee said banning it only from public places discriminated against immigrant women who do not have private homes. Another said prostitution should be legal because people won't always do what they are told.
Family & Marriage: Family breakdown in Britain is no longer driven by divorce but by the collapse of unmarried partnerships, new British research shows. An estimated 88,000 children under 5 were affected by the separation of their unmarried parents in 2003, compared with about 31,000 children under 5 whose married parents divorced, the research concludes. According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of households with children are headed by a married couple, 11 per cent by a cohabiting couple and 22 per cent by lone parents.
Half the world’s population will live in cities in two years, a huge jump from the 30 per cent residing in urban areas in 1950, UN demographers reported today. Some 3.2 billion of the world’s 6.5 billion people live in cities today, and the number will climb to 5 billion - an estimated 61 per cent of the global population - by 2030, the UN Commission on Population and Development said in a report.
Freedom & democracy: ACT MP Stephen Franks says a new law passed on Wednesday evening gives the censor vast new powers to ban “hate speech” to people under ages to be specified by the censor. The Films, Videos and Publications Classification Amendment Bill passed 110 votes in favour, 8 Act votes against.
There is no need to sacrifice free speech in order to protect British Muslims, writes Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian. "Like a man trying to stop a leaking wastepipe with a priceless Raphael drawing, the government is about to do great damage in the cause of averting damage. This impending folly is its proposed legislation on "incitement to religious hatred". Everyone who cares about free speech - the oxygen of so many other freedoms - must shout now to stay the government's hand, and prevent it pushing through parliament this ill-conceived, badly worded, dangerous piece of law."
Religion: Destiny Church has bestowed a new title on Auckland-based evangelist Brian Tamaki. The Senior Minister and founder of Destiny Churches will be officially ordained Bishop of Destiny Churches at its 7th birthday celebrations in July this year. "A recent summit of Destiny Church leaders established that it was timely and appropriate to formally recognise the distinction between Bishop Tamaki's position and that of the numerous senior pastors within the movement."
The Church of England is to grant partners of homosexual clergy who have registered under the UK Government's new civil partnership scheme the same pension rights as clergy spouses. The disclosure, made at the General Synod last night, could prove an embarrassment to the bishops because sexually active homosexuals are theoretically barred from the priesthood.
The Church of England took the first step at the General Synod meeting in Westminster yesterday towards the consecration of women bishops. The Archbishop of Canterbury says formal debate will begin at meeting in July. The first are now expected to be consecrated before the end of the decade.
Pro-gay liberals have been virtually ruled out of the running to become the next archbishop of York, the second most senior post in the Church of England.
Politics: The Christian Heritage Party has suspended its support for the death penalty to ensure the issue does not discourage voters.
Medical ethics: Advocates on both sides of the stem cell research debate packed a Massachusetts Statehouse hearing Wednesday, wrangling over thorny ethical questions about when life begins and what constitutes a human embryo. Senate President Robert Travaglini, prime sponsor of a bill to encourage stem cell research in Massachusetts, said the research could help scientists seek cures for a host of life-threatening illnesses. But opponents said the bill would open the door to human experimentation by allowing scientists and corporations to create human life in order to destroy it in the name of medicine.
How the man who created Dolly the sheep slid down the slippery slope to human reproductive cloning. Ian Wilmut, the co-creator of Dolly the Sheep, now intends to clone human life. This is quite a shift for Wilmut. When he and Keith Campbell entered the science pantheon with their announcement of the birth of Dolly, they forced the world to grapple with the question of whether it is moral to clone human life. But Wilmut claimed not to be interested in cloning humans.
Education: Over two-thirds (69 per cent) of British schoolteachers think that informing schoolgirls about how to obtain an abortion is in the girls' best interests, according to a survey of 700 teachers conducted for the Times Educational Supplement. And 98 per cent of teachers thought educating children about contraception use was also essential. "It is the government's intention that schools should become the places where all child welfare policies are delivered in future," noted TES editor Bob Doe.
Same-sex marriage: Fully 66 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the legalisation of same-sex "marriage" - as proposed by the Canadian Government - according to a National Post/Global National poll.
Prostitution: The Italian Government's efforts to ban prostitution from public places has been given the thumbs down by the United Nations committee concerned with eliminating discrimination against women. Reporting to CEDAW on Italy's progress, Aldo Mantovani said prostitution represented the highest level of discrimination against women. But one woman on the committee said banning it only from public places discriminated against immigrant women who do not have private homes. Another said prostitution should be legal because people won't always do what they are told.
Family & Marriage: Family breakdown in Britain is no longer driven by divorce but by the collapse of unmarried partnerships, new British research shows. An estimated 88,000 children under 5 were affected by the separation of their unmarried parents in 2003, compared with about 31,000 children under 5 whose married parents divorced, the research concludes. According to the 2001 census, 59 per cent of households with children are headed by a married couple, 11 per cent by a cohabiting couple and 22 per cent by lone parents.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Education
Bangor University (Wales) is proposing to sack eight of its 12 librarians, including many specialist helpers, because students can find the information they need on the internet.
Specialist schools in the UK are striding ahead of mainstream secondaries in all subjects - except the subjects at which they were designed to excel, according to a study published by the education watchdog. The report by Ofsted has revealed that schools which have been given increased funding to focus on the arts are falling behind other schools in GCSE results for drama and music, with pass rates below the national average. Sports colleges maintain a slender lead over other schools in their PE GCSE pass rates, but the gap has narrowed since 2001. Language colleges, too, while well remaining comfortably ahead of their "bog-standard" counterparts, have recorded a fall in French, German and Spanish GCSE results since 2001. However, the report concluded that although the rate of improvement in specialist subjects has levelled off, the new breed of flagship schools help pupils to achieve better grades overall.
A new study conducted by leading UK scientist Professor Robert Winston suggests that children who spend hours playing computer games and watching television are failing to develop the skills to succeed at school. He says youngsters are not acquiring the long-term powers of study and application they need in class. This is because the games they play and programmes they watch require only short-term bursts of concentration.
Politics
"During this election campaign we can expect lavish servings of such intellectual junk food; quick and cheap substitutes for proper reasoning. Unlike real junk food, this rhetorical muck comes with no warnings about its worthless contents. This column aims to help by identifying five fallacies you will encounter over the coming weeks."
Technology
Microsoft plans to release the first major overhaul of its Internet browser in four years by the end of 2005. Plugging rampant security holes will be at the forefront of the new browser, which will come with software to fight viruses and "spyware".
Political correctness
Playdough, potato stamps and the use of other food for art and play has been banned by some kindergartens because it is considered offensive to Maori and other cultures.
Society and Values
How will developing technologies change our lives. Ian Pearson, a futurist and researcher at British Telecom, believes there will be as many changes in the next 10 years as we have seen in the last 500.
Population and FertilityWe all know that fertility is declining? So what are the likely consequences, and more particularly, the likely scenarios for how society and governments might respond? Stanley Kurtz reviews four new books on the topic.
Welfare
Professor Ian Shirley, a leading social scientist who is also Pro Vice Chancellor of research at AUT, says New Zealand has lost its way on social policy. He points the finger at both Labour and National administrations ... and their "superficial trading of slogans" ... that has contributed to the decline in social policy over the past three decades.
Prime Minister Helen Clark's call for policies to encourage more mothers back into paid work has the potential to lead to an explosion of overwork, according to Dr Paul Callister, an expert on New Zealand working hours. "Add more working women to the mix, and the existing Kiwi pattern of very long household hours of work starts looking positively toxic, leaving no time for good family relationships."
Gareth Morgan says Helen Clark’s view on the value of motherhood simply reinforces an influence that the monetised economy has been exerting for a few decades now – that work done in those areas of the economy not recompensed by monetary reward is of little value to society. What next? An army of bureaucrats to visit the suburbs during working hours to ferret out more laggards?
Bangor University (Wales) is proposing to sack eight of its 12 librarians, including many specialist helpers, because students can find the information they need on the internet.
Specialist schools in the UK are striding ahead of mainstream secondaries in all subjects - except the subjects at which they were designed to excel, according to a study published by the education watchdog. The report by Ofsted has revealed that schools which have been given increased funding to focus on the arts are falling behind other schools in GCSE results for drama and music, with pass rates below the national average. Sports colleges maintain a slender lead over other schools in their PE GCSE pass rates, but the gap has narrowed since 2001. Language colleges, too, while well remaining comfortably ahead of their "bog-standard" counterparts, have recorded a fall in French, German and Spanish GCSE results since 2001. However, the report concluded that although the rate of improvement in specialist subjects has levelled off, the new breed of flagship schools help pupils to achieve better grades overall.
A new study conducted by leading UK scientist Professor Robert Winston suggests that children who spend hours playing computer games and watching television are failing to develop the skills to succeed at school. He says youngsters are not acquiring the long-term powers of study and application they need in class. This is because the games they play and programmes they watch require only short-term bursts of concentration.
Politics
"During this election campaign we can expect lavish servings of such intellectual junk food; quick and cheap substitutes for proper reasoning. Unlike real junk food, this rhetorical muck comes with no warnings about its worthless contents. This column aims to help by identifying five fallacies you will encounter over the coming weeks."
Technology
Microsoft plans to release the first major overhaul of its Internet browser in four years by the end of 2005. Plugging rampant security holes will be at the forefront of the new browser, which will come with software to fight viruses and "spyware".
Political correctness
Playdough, potato stamps and the use of other food for art and play has been banned by some kindergartens because it is considered offensive to Maori and other cultures.
Society and Values
How will developing technologies change our lives. Ian Pearson, a futurist and researcher at British Telecom, believes there will be as many changes in the next 10 years as we have seen in the last 500.
Population and FertilityWe all know that fertility is declining? So what are the likely consequences, and more particularly, the likely scenarios for how society and governments might respond? Stanley Kurtz reviews four new books on the topic.
Welfare
Professor Ian Shirley, a leading social scientist who is also Pro Vice Chancellor of research at AUT, says New Zealand has lost its way on social policy. He points the finger at both Labour and National administrations ... and their "superficial trading of slogans" ... that has contributed to the decline in social policy over the past three decades.
Prime Minister Helen Clark's call for policies to encourage more mothers back into paid work has the potential to lead to an explosion of overwork, according to Dr Paul Callister, an expert on New Zealand working hours. "Add more working women to the mix, and the existing Kiwi pattern of very long household hours of work starts looking positively toxic, leaving no time for good family relationships."
Gareth Morgan says Helen Clark’s view on the value of motherhood simply reinforces an influence that the monetised economy has been exerting for a few decades now – that work done in those areas of the economy not recompensed by monetary reward is of little value to society. What next? An army of bureaucrats to visit the suburbs during working hours to ferret out more laggards?
