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Earlier this year, the world was shocked by pictures out of Tibet, of Buddhist monks and members of the Tibetan people being brutally assaulted by Chinese military forces, for daring to protest the sixty year occupation of their country.

The response from western governments was, to say the least, cowardly. Beijing was preparing to host the Olympic Games. No-one wanted to upset the applecart by risking criticism, and only a few politicians quietly whispered of the possibility of Olympic boycott.

Even they caved before the International Olympic Committee, and a swift diplomatic message from the Chinese government regarding future trade deals. All must be spic and span, clean and politically tidy, for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. The Chinese promised openness and honesty for all, and reneged on both counts, but the Beijing games were an outstanding success – at least for China.

Meanwhile, Tibet was casually dropped from western media attention, and, along with the hopes and aspirations of a few million Tibetans, allowed to slide into obscurity.

That is, until now, and a global recession that threatens to bankrupt the western world. China has become an important player in the efforts to prevent the global economy nosediving further, and Britain’s prime minister, Gordon Brown, is spearheading talks to introduce a new global order, in which he sees China’s involvement as crucial.

So crucial, in fact, he’s publicly sold the Tibetan people down the river, in order to get it.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the British government quietly announced its decision to recognize China’s sovereignty over Tibet. So quietly, that hardly any foreign media carried the story. And that’s hardly surprising, given that other western nations have, apparently, already decided to back the Chinese communist government’s occupation of Tibet, and have done so with such stealth that nobody knew about it -until now.

This week, one of the BBC’s greatest journalists, John Simpson, secured an interview with a senior Chinese official, Zhu Weiqun, an expert on Tibet, who said the UK’s move had brought it “in line with the universal position in today’s world”.^[1]

The BBC also reported that:

In a little publicised parliamentary statement on 29 October, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband…….asserted, “Like every other EU member state, and the United States, we regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.”^[2]

Around thirteen hundred years ago, Tibet was first unified as a kingdom by Songtsän Gampo, the founder of the Tibetan empire. Just seven hundred years prior to that, or so the Bible tells us, one Judas Iscariot was paid forty pieces of silver to betray the Son of God.

Since that time, the teachings of Jesus have come under assault and betrayal by priests and politicians prepared to re-enact the Judas Iscariot story to further their own selfish ends. It goes on to this day.

The betrayal of Tibet by western leaders is not just the abandoning of a nation, but the ditching of everything we hold sacred in our society: honor, trust, duty, the need to do what is right whatever the cost.

It is an abandonment of those qualities our fathers and grandfathers were told they were sacrificing their lives in two world wars to uphold.

This time, the blood money comes not in Roman silver, but Chinese gold.

^{[1] “China minister speaks on Tibet (video)” BBC, November 14th 2008}

^{[2] “China welcomes UK Tibet decision” BBC, November 15th 2008}

Filed under: Tibet and the kiss of Judas

News today of Ann Dunwoody, who has become a four-star US general, the first four-star female general in the US military.^[1]

Sparrow Chat is a champion of equality between all human beings of either sex, and all points in between, but I found the story of Ann Dunwoody vaguely disturbing.

It’s not the first time I’ve experienced that feeling while living in America.

If sexual equality means women doing men’s work, then America is way ahead of Europe. I still experience qualms whenever I approach roadworks to find a heavily clad, hard-hatted, and often quite pretty young woman holding the “STOP/GO” pole and directing traffic. I’m not sure why I find it disturbing, just that I do. I’d probably feel the same way if I walked into a corporate office and discovered the CEO’s secretary was a boy.

When I took up driving a school bus to do my bit for society, I could never quite come to terms with the mechanic who tore out half the engine to repair a serious oil leak. Her name was Cindy.

I’m not suggesting there are no female road workers in Europe, or lady bus mechanics. It’s just that if there are, they’re very rare. I have never seen any.

To me, equality has nothing to do with women doing men’s work, or vice versa. To allow a woman to work on the roads, or in a bus service depot, is presumably acceptable provided they’re paid the same wages and benefits as a man.

Personally, it’s not something I would encourage. Having had the youthful experience of working on the roads with a group of somewhat crass, foul-mouthed, illiterate males, it would be a career I’d strongly dissuade my own daughter from considering.

While many jobs are suited to either sex, there are a few that of their nature should preclude both sexes from applying. In my opinion, the military is one such career. While there are some woman who seem to consider equality as the right to turn themselves into males in all but the physical attributes, the idea of women soldiers shouldering guns and engaging the enemy is anathema to me. It’s a personal viewpoint, but one I strongly adhere to.

Why do I feel this way?

For millenia, the male of the species has fought and butchered and slaughtered, and been slaughtered in return. As we gradually became more ‘civilized’ the grossness of warfare had to be made more acceptable, so we created honor, and heroism, and eventually video games. It was all achieved by males for the purpose of glorifying and legitimizing war.

Generally, the female of the species remained subservient to the males’ demand for blood, but the expectation was always that one day the subservience would disappear, women would demand an end to this barbaric male pastime, and the world would become a place of peace, if not ruled by women then certainly influenced strongly by them.

Today, on behalf of women everywhere, four-star general Ann Dunwoody, shattered that expectation.

^{[1] “Woman reaches US army’s top rank” BBC, November 14th 2008}

Filed under: Female warriors

This week three planets were photographed in another solar system approximately 300 light years away from Earth –

– and Sarah Palin said she “hopes God will show her the way”^[1] in any future bid for the White House.

Isn’t it time we stopped listening to such drivel, and treated those who spout it with the derision they deserve? The image above shows objects so far away we cannot even begin to comprehend the distance. Science has revealed to us the very boundaries of the Universe, yet it has failed miserably to detect any indication of a “God”.

One hesitates to even pen the thought, for fear of the horror unleashed by the faithful and godly, but isn’t it just possible Sarah Palin’s ‘God’ doesn’t exist at all?

In fact, the truth is it “isn’t just possible” Sarah Palin’s ‘God’ doesn’t exist, it’s absolutely completely and utterly impossible for ‘It’ to exist.

Here’s why:

On present day estimates, our Universe is considered to contain approximately 200 billion galaxies. While they vary in size, our own galaxy – the Milky Way – is about average. It contains roughly 100 billion suns, the vast majority (it is conjectured) having planets revolving around them.

Given those figures, if you own a large enough calculator it’s possible to multiply 200 billion by 100 billion and come up with the number of suns in the known Universe. Of course, it won’t be a perfectly accurate figure, but for our needs it will serve well enough.

To most of us the figure arrived at will be meaningless – just as the figure of 300 light years (the distance to that other solar system) is equally meaningless. We cannot conceive of the speed of light, even though we can write it as a figure.

Because it utilizes the number ‘300’, it doesn’t initially appear so big, does it? Pah! It’s only three hundred light years away, just around the corner really. Well, in terms of the size of the Universe, it is.

Let’s consider those numbers more closely. In one year, light will travel through the Universe a total of 5.88×10¹² miles. In 300 years it will travel 300 times that distance. Perplexed? The distance in recognizable terms is actually 1,763 Trillion miles. And no, I didn’t work it out, WikiAnswers did, but I’ll believe them if you will.

Again, on initial observation that figure doesn’t appear all that large. Why? Because we are using ‘miles’ as the measurement, and we all know roughly how long a mile is. For a moment, forget the ‘miles’ and just dwell on the number ‘1,763 Trillion’.

Is it becoming a bit more mind-boggling now?

Compare that to the number of suns in the Universe. 200 billion galaxies multiplied by 100 billion suns in the Milky Way, produces the figure of 2.0 × 10²² suns, of which our own sun is just ‘1’. WikiAnswers refused to redefine that total as a sum with a host of zeros after it, because the page wasn’t big enough to fit them all on, so we can safely assume it’s a humongously large figure.

What, though, you may ask does this have to do with the existence of Sarah Palin’s ‘God’?

Before going further, let me clarify that I’m not attempting to prove the non-existence of any ‘Divine Being’, or ‘Beings’. I well accept the possibility that some Universal Grand Intelligence may have had a hand, or a foot, or even a flipper, in the design and construction of everything Universal.

Let’s take a moment to once again regard the staggeringly huge numbers we observed above, and then compare them to Sarah Palin, who, even in seven inch heels, will struggle to make six feet.

Given these facts, what are the odds of any ‘Divine Being’ having an awareness of Sarah Palin’s existence, let alone giving a toss as to whether she becomes president of a cosmically microscopic speck of dust?

To further confirm my opinions, George W Bush also had hallucinations he was called on by his ‘God’ to be president, and look what a God-Almighty mess he made of it.

It’s a sad fact that the majority of the human species can’t face up to being the equivalent of a worthless bevy of bacteria. They long to be something more glorious, much bigger, and more valuable. They go to enormous lengths to self deceive, inventing non-existent super-wraiths who’ll grant them immortality if they just bend the knee in supplication, then slaughter a few thousand of the super-wraith’s enemies, who just happen to live on the same tiny, insignificant, planet……..

Do you know how many tiny, insignificant, planets are floating about in the Universe?

No, neither do I, and I’m not even going to try to work it out, but it would prove to be a vastly larger number than any other integer quoted in this article.

^{[1] “Palin looks to God over 2012 bid”, BBC, November 11th 2008}

Filed under: Palin and the Stars