Nicholas Battye’s cremation will be on Friday 3 December. Details, tributes and pictures are appearing on his memorial page. There will be a wake at my home in Hampstead afterwards; please email me for details.
Blues legend Odetta sang last night at Joe’s Pub in Greenwich Village. It was a moving experience. At 74 she has a strong, quiet grandmotherly presence — and a lion’s voice. Inviting us to join her on her opening number, she allowed after the first verse that this was New York and we were undoubtedly sophisticated, but that our contribution was close to pitiful
. If you want to join in,
she continued, jump in with both feet. Life is short.
Recently returned from the Lead Belly celebrations at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland, she filled her set with his songs, including the wonderful “Bourgeois Blues” and “Careless Love”.
Jiminy Cricket entertains Last night to Carnegie Hall, must-see feature of Miki’s American mythscape, to hear merry Texan Randall Atcheson at the old joanna, in this case a Steinway grand. I discovered I should listen more to the honky-tonk Chopin of Scriabin’s etudes. Atcheson treated us to a Beethoven sonata and a Chopin scherzo in florid style, then reappeared after the interval having donned red socks, which you need as protective clothing when playing Liszt. I can still only take Liszt when half-asleep (him, not me) as in his Anneés de Pélerinage, so I enjoyed the Consolation No.3. Finding his keyboard had survived Liszt, Atcheson slipped on purple trousers and a yellow waistcoat to give us five encores, including “Amazing Grace” and a Cole Porter medley. In New York, it’s all show business.
Sorry everybody from decent, ordinary Americans apologising for their country's dismaying failure to throw out George II There are also a few apologies from the rest of the world: “Sorry for 911. We have our dictators too. (That's not an invitation to invade.)
” www.sorryeverybody.com
Nicholas Battye 1950-2004 No friend was closer to me than Nicholas Battye, who died last week. I will write more about him here soon. If you knew him, I invite you to write your comments here (use the link below) or write to sjt@5jt.com, and I will post your memories and tributes on a special page here.
See it and die Greetings from Florida, where Maria Wells and I are working at laptops on the verandah of the Naples Beach Hotel. We have Dyalog APL 10.2 Conference Edition, with native support for classes and instances. Does life get better?
Perfect Day “Work every day except play days,
” says Brooke Allen. This was a rare play day. A cooked breakfast back on Ninth Ave, then a visit to 99c Jack’s at 31st and Sixth for gloves and a hat. We’d ‘improved’ on the climate statistics at Weather.com with a peek through a Times Sq webcam: no one looked that cold. Seeing is deceiving. Miki was incensed to find soft hats, looking every bit as good as the one she bought for my birthday, at an eighth of the price she paid in Jermyn Street. Then a long stroll up to the Upper East Side, an hour on rented bicycles in Central Park, and playing frisbee as the shadows lengthened over the Sheep Meadow.
We invented a blend of frisbee and martial arts and began to catalogue the postures: Heron Falls In The Water Laughing, Rhinoceros Takes A Dump, Lonely Bulldog Goes For A Walk and One Of Our Helicopters Is Missing. We’ll print up handbills at Kinko’s, post them in cafés along Ninth Avenue and stay on as illegal aliens teaching Tai-Fris-Be.
Early dinner with Doug Yeager at Ralph’s, his neighbourhood Italian restaurant, and walking it off back down to 30th St. My legs are longer, my heart lighter.
Jetlagged and wired or more precisely, wirelessed: drinking coffee and answering mail in a 9th Ave diner at 5am, picking up the wireless network from the darkened Starbucks next door. (Staying at the Chelsea Star Hotel.) 
A regular customer wanders in to announce that the stars are clear, and where to look for Venus and Mars. Always loved those monochrome Robert Doisneau photos of lovers in Paris Cafés. But Venus and Mars are inside this morning: an athlete and a slender blonde, who just met tonight, are wrapped in husky-voiced conversation in the next booth. “My police record says I’m six foot tall,
” says the blonde.
Firefox just got installed here and is doing what it says on the tin: light, fast and accurate with CSS. Looking good. www.getfirefox.com
Dear Maria Just swallowed John le Carré’s latest thriller Absolute Friends in two evenings. 
I recommend it unreservedly. Sharpened my outrage at the 1984-ish way our governments giddy minds with foreign quarrels. This isn't a war on terror. When there is real danger, real leaders urge calm. None of this Dept of Fatherland Security ‘orange alert’ nonsense. (Thanks for the cartoon and the message from the general.) Put a brown paper bag over your head. Stay calm. Suck it up.
Le Carré is spot on. Our governments have recruited terrorism to cow us. There is real danger from the likes of al-Qaeda, the wind-up monster the CIA made to confound the Russkies, but it pales besides the dangers of giving George II a free hand.
We could certainly use a real general telling people to stay calm, but I think everybody’s seen too many Arnie-movies. (And the Californians elected him. They deserve their reputation for reading the winds of change.)
Yours from the demilitarised zone round my desk
Stephen
A message from General Wesley Clark:
To all those who worked so hard and cared so much,
Thanks for all you've done. You gave me a voice and you amplified it far beyond anything I could have expected. I am so grateful for all your support, contributions, letters, visits, emails, and continuing commitment. And for all your determination to help our country into the future.
I think we did make a difference, and I think the country and the party are better for all we did together.
But we didn't win.
Today is a sad occasion for all who believe in our vision of America. Like so many of you, I worked hard for John Kerry. Over the last few days, like so many, I believed the polls that showed John Kerry winning. And I believed John would be a good president. Thank you for supporting him. I very much regret that he won't be there in the White House for us.
Much will be written about this election. People will analyze the nominees, their platforms, and the processes. There'll be detailed looks at the electorate. I'm sure our party will look hard at itself, its ideas, policies, and approaches.
We'll likely be very tough on ourselves and each other — but I hope not too tough. We want to strengthen our party and our ability to compete in the next election and the one after that. So we need to show each other some appreciation, too, to keep it all in perspective.
I'll be listening to their views — and to yours. It will take time, effort, and honesty to sort out the lessons. But I hope you'll be there as we do so. And participate. I look forward to reading your ideas and hearing from you in the coming days.
As for me, well, I'm continuing with efforts in the private sector. But I haven't lost my love for this country nor concern for her welfare. That's why, through WesPAC, I'll continue to speak out and fight for the issues we care about and the values we stand for.
Thanks again for standing beside me over the many months. We've got a lot left to do, so stick with me in the weeks and months ahead!
Sincerely,
Wes
Open to comment You can now post comments here — use the Comments link below each entry. 
Earlier, this site got flooded with ‘spam comment’. Now I’m using an authentication service to ward off spammers. If you want to comment on this or other Movable Type web logs, register with TypeKey and comment away. Over to you.
Andrew Gaines, guest on this site, has been writing his Briefing for a World that Works.
Most men would rather die than think. Many do.”
Educating Stephen Jenny Drake, head teacher at a school for children with special needs, writes on punishment. This settles the matter for me. It’s an empirical question. Many of Jenny’s pupils are autistic, and even less interested in other people than I am. If she doesn’t need corporal punishment to keep order, no one does. I am humbly grateful to my friends for educating me on this subject.
Dear Stephen
Firstly punishment is not a word that I would use in conjunction with children, smacks too much of retribution and generally it only benefits the person doing the punishing.
Children need to be inculcated into the structure and rules of society but punishing them never works, be it physical or emotional. Over the years I have had direct experience of the damage it can cause.
Children need love, consistency and clarity and all will be well. They may also require at times sanctions as in if you do this then this will happen but the consequences must be made very clear to them.
A long time ago I wrote an article about children in control ie taking responsibility for their behaviour. If adults continue to punish and retain control then moral development is slow and can become non-existent.
I firmly believe in the rights of children from an early age to take as much control of their life as they can. What happens when the person with the big stick isn’t there anymore? What if I hit my child and s/he doesn’t behave, do I hit harder next time?
In essence this is a discussion going nowhere because of the use of the word punishment. Think outside the box and come up with a more intelligent approach to bringing up children.
I have never hit or intimidated a child in my life, I have too much respect for them. As a teacher I never and still don’t have any problems with discipline. Something must be working and it’s not punishment.
Best regards
Jenny
Dylan Moran on top form last night at the Wyndham Theatre with his one-man show Monster II. As usual with comedy, most of it seems to wash in at the ears and out through the mouth, leaving no residue in the brain.
Found this lint this morning:
“No, I don’t hate people. It’s just people en masse. And every day!”
“Yes, I think a lot of men do have problems with intimacy. I mean, I have to have a lot of sex with someone before I’ll ask them out for a drink.”
His target from the Black Box TV series, Bill Bailey, has his own show round the corner in Shaftesbury Avenue.
Out of Africa Julia Davies sends news from Africa.
Dear all
Well I have been here for 2 weeks now and I’m not sure if it feels like I’ve been here for a long time or no time at all… It’s so timeless here and days don’t really matter.
It’s utterly beautiful here. The landscape is incredible, the animals, the river, the views, the sunsets, the birds… and then in contrast there are the men drinking and womanising and the women dealing with that with their 4 or more children. Life is very simple. People are poor but there is food and water and crops grow very easily.
People are also very friendly but white skin is something of a fascination to many, especially the children. Sometimes they reach out to touch my skin in a fit of giggles. The other day I was bending over and I felt a little boy touching a few strands of hair. Wherever we go they shout ‘Mkuwa’(which means white person). Or say in high pitched little voices ‘how are you?’ When you reply you are fine and how are you?, they say Í am fine and how are you?…’and so it goes on. They laugh at us a lot wherever we go and beg a lot. They come up and say ‘give me money’. They just see money when they see us. There is a real expectation of the white man providing whatever they want. In many ways aid really stops people helping themselves because they have come to expect the white man to help them – so they sit around waiting for us to buy them their hammer mill or plough. There is also a horrible pecking order where the white man is at the top — a remnant of colonial times.
The theatre festival just happened. It was held in a little village about 40km from here so Pierre and I packed all our stuff onto a quad bike, took the pontoon across the river and headed off into the park. It’s very flat and sometimes very sparse, with villages along the dirt track. It was a bumpy ride to say the least and there is a real technique to surviving the journey – like riding a horse you just have to go with the movement except there is no rhythm to the bumps!. It was a lot of fun. We arrived in Michulundu covered in dirt from head to toe, particularly me sitting on the back!
We visited a village called Nangóle on the way, where Pierre has been doing some work with a women’s group (all over the park actually – supporting the women so that they can earn money through projects that they create together; whether it be growing a crop or selling hand woven baskets. It is necessary to work with the women because they are the workers and reliable). While we spoke with the teacher for about half an hour the whole school sat under a tree in almost silence, all clumped close together. This is a common thing in the schools here. The children are so quiet and well behaved. As we left, a group appeared from behind a hut singing to us. It was amazing.
The festival went very well. We spent a day setting everything up, a day rehearsing and then for 2 days I was a judge in the competition! The Zambian way is to make everything very formal; meetings and the festival involved a lot of addresses and speeches, followed by a lot of singing a dancing as a prelude and finale to everything.
We set up our tent in the school playground (!), near the water pump and became the local entertainment for those few days. People just sat and watched us the whole time which was highly embarrassing as we struggled to light our fires or pump water. Little kids insisted on doing everything for us, even carrying heavy water cans! They would just appear out of nowhere to help us whenever we need a little assistance in finding the right kind of grass to get the fire started or deal with a bit of wind etc. (We have now become very good at lighting fires).
There was music, drumming and singing from 5am to 10pm at night — clumps of children from each school singing different songs in every corner. It didn’t bother us, although it was very loud. We just got used to it.
It was a lot of fun camping and cooking on a fire.
The children are absolutely filthy and actually so am I. You get sooooo dirty wherever you go. The dusty sand leaves you black. However, you see some people who are absolutely impeccable and clean – I have no idea how they do it!
We took a detour into the park on the way back in search of some animals and it was relatively deserted although I did see my first wildebeest and impala who are really cute. We also saw some huge vultures. The lack of animals was a bit disappointing but the vast expanse of unrelenting flat plains was incredible in the heat of the equally unrelenting sun. It’s very beautiful but it felt as if we were heading off into the Sahara — an absolute wilderness. It’s grassy with the odd tree or bush dotted about. Just like the African plains you see in documentaries- you really couldn’t get more African than that landscape. You could expect to see lions sitting well hidden under some of the trees but we didn’t see any. On Wednesday we will stay near the lion area. You can often hear them roar at night.
We live in a sizeable hut overlooking the river. It’s beautiful and we have everything we need. It is nowhere near as primitive as I expected. I have no trouble with the food either. It’s simple but I like simple food anyway.
My back has been pretty good although it’s been sore the last couple of days. I am starting to feel rested and am well and happy.
There’s so much to tell but I need to sign off as we have a very early start tomorrow and we have a 4 hour journey on a tractor to the nearest town (Mongu) to sort out some bits and pieces – and then 4 hours back!
I trust that all is well with y’all.
All my love
J xx
Well as you have probably gathered by now, it is not easy to send e-mails. I can send them infrequently from the house here but I cannot collect my mail. Whenever we have been into Mongu the internet has been down or the machines broken…. Hence my silence.
We just spent a couple of days in the Park. Pierre had some work to finish off with some women’s groups so we combined his visits with some game drives.
We travelled up the west of the park and visited a village called Lukoko. This group was atypical in that many of the men were also involved, including the Induna (headman). He was an extraordinary, tall, white haired man of about 73. Bright eyes and well respected in the village. His wife was the club chairman; a short woman with a wise, round face, dignified and looking nowhere near her 73 years either.
As we arrived, everyone came out to greet us amidst much giggling and hand shaking. They say éncha, clap their hands, shake yours and then clap again. This is the normal greeting in Lozi (the tribe in these parts). The school stopped and the children ousted from their school room. The head teacher and his wife run the school in two dark, small classrooms in a mud and stick hut with a thatched roof. We were ushered into the larger of the two classrooms and people gathered for the meeting; Pierre and I were placed at the front at a desk with the head teacher translating for us. Pierre had a few things to tell them – most importantly, an issue concerning the Ministry of Community Development…All clubs must be registered with the ministry and pay 250,000 kwacha (about 43 pounds – more than many of them earn in a month) in order to be officially instated. This particular group registered in 1997 but were being told that their registration had expired. Pierre had done some digging and sent someone to Lusaka to find out if this was indeed the case – it was not, so Pierre had it out with the Ministry here in Kalabo amidst much protestation and lies. Some dodgy integrity…. Finally the official conceded and a new era for the women’s groups in Liuwa Plains was forged; great news for them.
The purpose of African Park’s (A.P) involvement is to get these groups started on a project that will generate income for these women. Pierre has been asking each member of groups around the park various demographic questions – many do not know their age. Many of them are unmarried but have between 3 and 12 dependants with no income. They are subsistence farmers and occasionally take a little money from baskets or mats that they make (these parts are known for their excellent basket work). It is unimaginable what that must be like but they do not seem too bothered by it as it is quite normal!
So we suggested various projects that they might wish to take on; selling craftwork, chicken farming, growing a crop, trade etc. We went through each idea and they were very unwilling to take on anything. It transpired that they had started trading in soap some time ago but on one of their trips to the town they were robbed and didn’t want to risk that happening again. It also transpired that they had 300,000 kwacha that they could use to invest in something but they didn’t want to part with any of the money as they were again afraid to risk having it stolen. We asked where it was and after a lot of muttering it became clear that a man in the group had buried it in the ground (it later transpired that he was the treasurer! .... Well it makes sense!) Everyone seemed very happy to keep the money in the ground – no risk, no loss and obviously no potential to earn. We also asked them about keeping chickens but were greeted with an uneasy muttering. Several of them had kept chickens and again had them stolen in the middle of the night. We tried several tacks – all to no avail. Finally I suggested a crop and they thought they could manage a rice field. We found that a bag of rice seed would cost 60,000 kw and we calculated that the yield from this could earn them about a million kw. Finally there was a sense of excitement and possibility. It also transpired that a man in a neighbouring village had 2 bags of seeds to sell and the planting season was in a couple of weeks time! They all seemed very happy with this idea and suddenly a gift of 3 bunches of bananas and a beautiful basket appeared! It was very touching – as if we had given them a lifeline. It is a real shame that we cannot be here to support them in the completion of their project. I hope they will… who knows. We left the village as heroes and I have to say, we did feel very proud at what we had achieved.
We set off across the plains into the centre of the park. We came into a vast plain that went on for many, many miles. It was coming to sunset and the grass looked orange in the evening light. Many animals were grazing, including wildebeest, oribi (little antelopes), mongoose and zebra. There was also an abundance of extraordinary birds; eagles of every sort, storks, vultures and many that Pierre knows the name of that I have no clue about. It was gorgeous but we had to head to the camp and set up the tent and build a fire before nightfall, so there was not much time to animal watch. The camp is called Matamanene and is in the heart of lion country….the next morning as we got up (5am) we heard them roaring not too far away – very exciting! We set off for an early game drive and saw many animals and birds including a few rare ones that Pierre was delighted to see. We were lucky to see some secretary birds that are basically eagles on long legs and their rare feature is that they kick snakes to death! At some point we came into lion country but decided to turn back as lion watching is not advisable on a quad bike!
We are leaving Kalabo early on Tuesday morning as Pierre has had a problem with his visa (another story!). We will head to Livingstone and then hopefully to a National Park in the west before heading over the border to Malawi. We will travel from there to Mozambique and spend about a month there with friends of Pierre who live there.
Hopefully I will be able to get to my email to at some point after Tuesday.
All love
J xx
La Machine Moule The statistics say marriage is good for your health — if you’re a man. But single women live longer than their married sisters. I hadn’t heard Sarah Moule sing since her last album It’s A Nice Thought came out a year ago. So it was a pleasant surprise to hear and see her at the launch last night of her new album Something’s Gotta Give at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho, looking younger and lighter: her marriage must be agreeing with her. Mind you, I’d marry Simon Wallace if he'd be my composer and accompanist. The new album offers classics by Johnny Mercer, plus some more Fran Landesman lyrics with Simon Wallace settings.
Love in context Ah Stephen, perhaps it is not fair of me to use your record of your own feelings to call your attention to the larger pattern of our age, and possibly your responsibility to them. However…
We must love one another or die
and he nearly did die the night
he saw the periscope, minutes
before the ship sank, another
failure of love.
From humanity’s viewpoint, so to speak, we are truly at a turning point. Love or perish. The following quote puts the issue succinctly:
Some generation of mankind was eventually bound to face the task of abolishing war, because civilization was bound to endow us sooner or later with the power to destroy ourselves. We happen to be that generation, although we did not ask for the honour and do not feel ready for it. There is nobody wiser who will take the responsibility and solve this problem for us. We have to do it ourselves.
Gwynne Dyer
This description applies equally well to our environmental situation. All the major environmental indicators have been down for decades, and the adverse trend lines are getting worse. Ditto for corporate totalitarianism.
It is, however, not very helpful to say we must love one another. A far more useful language, I believe, is to note the difference between partnership/respect relating and domination/control relating (Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade). The terms are almost self-explanatory on the surface. Partnership/respect relating cares for committee well-being, whether that be the family or the social commons. Domination/control relating seeks power over others and willingly uses force and intimidation to achieve it. While most of our institutions are dominator institutions, today there is an increasingly strong counter-current of people with partnership values.
For those who have granddaughters, or who otherwise care about the well-being of future generations, it is worth noting that the fate of the world depends on shifting everything (a whole system change) such that the world operates on partnership values. Many of us, echoing the positive values of Christianity and Buddhism, are working for this.
People who oppose hitting children — and who in their own relationships with children treat them with great respect — are part of this positive change. Evidence from psychohistorian Lloyd deMause shows that in some pockets childrearing has been getting measurably better. Indeed many parents raise their children in ‘helping’ mode, helping their children follow the children’s own authentic inclinations. The undisciplined kids you are concerned about are presumably not raised by helping-mode parents. Disturbed kids, as you well know, become disturbed adults. George Bush is our most glaring example.
Improvement in childrearing, and consequently improvement in adult mental health, has been a generations-long process. We don’t have generations to make well-being rather than economic increase the primary goal of Western societies.
We can philosophise all we want. But I think the proper role of philosophers today is to deeply understand the Partnership/Dominator distinction (including how it plays out environmentally, psychologically and socially), and teach this to others so that we develop the consciousness that can support our shift to a world that works. I and others are working on this virtually full-time. I invite you to join us in some way. To ignore the needs of our time would be yet another failure of love.
Yours for a world that works
Andrew
Parenting without punishment Andrew Gaines writes again with this link to Norm Lee’s web site Parenting Without Punishing. Only skimmed it so far, but I see it addresses many of the questions I have in mind.
It conflates, though, punishment with corporal punishment. This does have the virtue of focusing on the cycle of violence and abuse that most revolts us.
On the other hand, while Lee disavows any control over his children’s behaviour except in matters of health and safety, he writes of ‘negative consequences’ and ‘withdrawal of privileges’ as if they were not punishments. They are, even if used only in matters of health and safety.
‘Negative consequences’ and ‘withdrawal of privileges’ are corrections, and assertions of parental authority, by punishment. It looks to me as if Lee is actually advocating parenting without corporal punishment.
The US constitution famously forbids “cruel and unusual” punishment. There are many ways to frighten a child into obedience without laying a hand on it. Over breakfast yesterday Miki recalled non-physical punishments that brought tears to her eyes as an adult. The constitution has it right: cruelty is the issue.
I have it that Lee agrees with me. It is possible to punish — ‘negative consequences’ and ‘withdrawal of privileges’ — without being cruel.
His reference to training dogs is apposite. We are born as animals with the potential for humanity. Much of being human is learned. Punishment is demonstrably effective in training animals. An argument against cruelty is not an argument against punishment.
On the other hand, in the world as we find it, perhaps most adults cannot be trusted to correct without cruelty, and the best we can do is forbid ever striking a child. Under threat of punishment.