Touching Heaven, Changing Earth

Some Self-Criticism

2009-09-07T05:30:42Z

Last night I read two notes on Facebook, posted comments on them both, and went to sleep. One of them was prompted by a priest that the author respected saying that the Catholic Church is the one true church and that other churches and religions are cult. It was generally about the arrogance of Christians claiming that they have the way to God to the exclusion of every other or most others. I wasn't up for debating the merits of the case that he outlined, so I just zeroed in on a statement he made about the truth:

"It is a touchy subject too; everybody seems to know the truth, and yet the truth itself is so fragmented and gap-toothed that it comes across as little more than an ugly carapace hiding some grotesque crustacean monster. Alright, that was a bit melodramatic, but inescapably true."

My response:

The truth's teeth, like all her other features, are perfectly beautiful. Unfortunately, like many of her other parts, it isn't easy for us to see them, and when we see them we often don't properly perceive what we see. We're rather like Flatlanders perceiving solids, or maybe hypercubes.

I think I still stand by what I said about Flatlanders, but I don't think I'm right about the truth being perfectly beautiful. Maybe she's perfectly whole, but I don't have any reason to believe that there aren't some parts of the truth that are ugly even for s/he who sees the truth in its entirety.

The other note was rather long. It was about some things the author was thinking about relationships. Unlike the previous note, my response was not targeted at any particular line, but at a few ideas he expressed. My comment went:

You mentioned two particularly interesting things: people trying to wield a special power over others who like (or love or have affection for) them, and people trying to change the people they like (or love or have affection for) and who return that like (or love or affection). There are good and bad forms of both these things. I think you've highlighted the bad forms.

For the first, you spoke of a sort of selfish 'love' that relishes in controlling another person primarily because of the power and feelings of control it gives. This seems to be a perversion of important parts about love, parts that involve putting oneself at the mercy of another/others through things like trust and just caring what the other person thinks. A good form of this, I think, is in using love to positively influence the beloved to do good and to be a better person. That's probably one of the best things about true love: it beautifies the beloved. If I love someone and she loves me back, I should use my special influence on her to help her overcome her weaknesses, capitalise on her strengths, and be the best person that she can be. She should become a stronger, more confident person. If she's a whore (and I can manage loving and being with a whore), she should become less of one until, ideally, she stops being a whore altogether. If she's the gullible, naive type, I should help her be wiser about what she says and who she trusts. My love should make her better, and likewise with her love for me.

The second bad form you talked about is a fake sort of love that loves who it wants someone to be without loving who the person really is. The good, 'true' form loves BOTH the person for who s/he is and for who s/he can and should be (and, I guess, who the lover *wants* him/her to be). This ties in with the first bad/good form pair. People can (and perhaps should) validly love both who a person is and the even more lovable person s/he is becoming.

The part on sex and monogamy is interesting. I often wonder to what extent humans are 'naturally' monogamous, and to what extent these monogamous behaviours and attitudes like the ones you mentioned are culturally conditioned. Our society's prevailing Christian ethic definitely promotes monogamy, but it seems that pride and competition have a large part to play in our view of monogamy. And as for the sex thing, can you imagine living in a society that attached almost no emotional significance to sex? Is that even possible?

I love the bit on being truthful in relationships.

I'm not going to reread that now, but my thoughts last night were that I didn't check to make sure that my use of s/he and him/her instead of just she and he was consistent, and that the comment was sloppy and imprecise in the use of the word love (and uh, why that bit in the first paragraph about like/love/have affection for???) and about whether it's the lover's love for the beloved or the reciprocation of that love that has certain effects.

I was so critical of my contributions that I kinda dreaded reading the responses. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, no one has said anything along the lines of the withering criticisms I've had for my writing. The first person responded saying that my comment was well said (I suppose it was, but I still don't think the first part was true) and the second person hasn't responded to my comment on his note as yet.

Many times, I think I'm too harsh on myself.

A Grammar Rant

2009-08-13T15:53:41Z

Kendall El 04 de agosto a las 19:06 · Comentar · Me gusta
Liverpool accept Alonso bid

Kamal El 04 de agosto a las 19:28 · Eliminar
"Liverpool ACCEPTS Alonso bid"

In this context, Liverpool is either a plain singular noun (the Liverpool Football Club) or a collective noun(the Liverpool football team). I think the first is more likely; in that case, the verb is obviously in the singular. If it is, indeed, the second case, then the noun should take a singular verb since we're dealing with a collective noun whose individual members are inconsequential to the meaning of the sentence.

I'm sure they taught you all this in Prep School. Don't let the silly British media and the ape-ish West Indian, Australian, New Zealandic, South African and Irish media ruin your grammatical sense. For once the Americans and the Canadians (perhaps by virtue of some Canadian ape-ishness) have it right.

</vicarious rant>

Campbell's Summary of the SVG Constitution 2009

2009-08-02T20:44:27Z

So the government† has finally taken the initiative and included the draft new constitution in copies of each of the three weekly papers printed on Friday, 31 July 2009. That's just in time for Emancipation Day (175 years, yay!), but a full two months after the 28 May 2009 date on the cover of the constitution bill. The 48-page newspaper pull-out also includes a four and a half page article titled A brief summary of the main proposals in the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Constitution 2009 by Parnel R. Campbell, QC, Resource Person of the Constitution Drafting Panel, Chairman of the Constitutional Review Steering Committee (CRSC) (2007-2009), and Chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission (CSC) (2003-2006). The document says that it's "A discussion paper presented to a Consultation hosted by the Windward Islands Farmers' Association (WINFA) on Wednesday 8th July 2009". That was just over 3 weeks ago.

So they're late, but better late than never, right?

Mr Campbell's article is especially useful and I expect that much of the commentary in the immediate future will focus on the things the article says, the things it doesn't say, and the man who wrote the article. I have nothing to say about the man and I sincerely wish that people participating in these discussions would try really hard to not spoil their points and arguments with personal attacks. I have some things to say about the document, though. I encourage everyone to read Mr Campbell's article. I'll try to get an electronic copy of it and make it available as soon as I can.

On a whole, I thought the article was great. It does an effective job of pointing out most of the major changes to the constitution, and it even includes some reasons for some of these changes. It talks about quite a few things (one can suppose this is because the constitution changes quite a few things) but, naturally, spends more time on some things than others (probably because some things are more contentious and important than others). Four major changes occupy more space than all the others: the change of our head of state from the hereditary British monarch to an indigenous President; the change in the electoral and parliamentary system from a strictly first-past-the-post system to a mixed first-past-the-post and proportional representation system; the reductions in the powers of the Prime Minister; and the increases in the powers of the Leader of the Opposition (who the new constitution would renamed the Minority Leader). In talking about these major things Mr Campbell draws on personal experience, talks a bit of history, and makes comparisons with other Commonwealth countries.

The article isn't without its flaws, though. Foremost of these are the things the article notably does not talk about. It does not mention the proposed changes in the amendment process. That is, it does not mention the reduction in the minimum period between the reading of the constitution bills from 90 days to 60 days, and the reduction of the majority required in the referendum from two-thirds to three-fifths. The article also doesn't say that the change of our highest court of appeal from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice would not require another referendum. As a summary, one can't expect the article to include everything, but I really don't think that the changes in the amendment process are insignificant omissions.

Still, as I said, it's well worth the read. It's certainly the best composed, most informative and best argued piece on the constitution that I've seen so far. So if you haven't read it yet, go pick up a newspaper, pull out the pull-out, turn to page 43, read the article that begins there, and let us know what you think.

*****

† I should say that I don't know that the government did this; I think it did, but I don't know. The pull-out is included in all three papers and there's a bit on page 43 about the constitution being published under the auspices of the Clerk of the House of Assembly, but I don't think these things confirm that it's the government that did this, and I haven't heard or seen anything else anywhere to confirm or deny it.

9 intriguing things about HIV/AIDS

2009-07-10T04:36:24Z

Here's a list of things about HIV/AIDS that intrigued or surprised me when I first learned of them. I have to admit: in more than one case I refused to believe the claim until I had what I thought was enough evidence to persuade me to believe it. (One generally shouldn't believe a counter-intuitive claim because a good friend of yours said she read it somewhere on the Internet.) So when writing this, I did my best to support each of the nine points with (what I hope is) sufficient reasoning.

I'm sure that when many people see some of these things they'll ask why on earth I chose to put this list together. Wouldn't people be better off not knowing some of these things? Don't some of my statements trivialise the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of people infected with HIV across the region? Don't they undermine the efforts of our public-health sectors and non-governmental organisations? Isn't this just foolish?

Maybe. I sincerely hope not and I honestly don't think so, but maybe.

The thing is, though, none of this is conspiratorial. This isn't anything like evidence that HIV was brewed in a lab. This is stuff from free, public UN, WHO and governmental reports. This is Wikipedia and news stuff. This is Google stuff. This is stuff that's out there in plain sight for anyone who really bothers to look.

1. The risk of transmission of HIV/AIDS is much smaller than you probably think.

What do you think is the chance of you contracting HIV from an unprotected sexual encounter with an HIV-positive person of the other sex? Over 50? Near certain? 110%?

The actual figure is closer to 0.1%.

A person's risk of contracting HIV in an unprotected sexual act depends on the type of sexual act and his/her role in the act. A study published in February reviewed other studies on the per-act risk of contracting HIV in unprotected sex[1]. It reported that studies done in developed countries found that the risk of female-to-male transmission is around 0.04% and the risk of male-to-female transmission is around 0.08%, while studies done in developing countries found a female-to-male transmission risk of 0.38% and a male-to-female risk of 0.30%. (The authors suspect that the difference is due to poorer study quality, greater heterogeneity of risk factors, and under-reporting of high-risk behaviour in low-income countries.) The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) 2008 report on the global AIDS epidemic cites a study of Ugandan couples which found that the chances of an HIV-negative partner contracting HIV from his/her HIV-positive partner of the opposite sex is about 8%...per year [2]. The study itself nicely provides an average per-act risk of 0.12% with a peak of 0.82% immediately after HIV acquisition and a low of 0.07% between initial acquisition and the late stages of AIDS just before death [3].

These figures are for penile-vaginal sex. What about other types of sex? Oral intercourse is the least risky; there is about a 0.0005% risk for the insertive partner and 0.001% risk for the receptive partner. On the other hand, anal intercourse is the riskiest type of intercourse. Estimates put the risk for the receptive partner at between 0.5% [4] and 1.7% [1], and the risk for the insertive partner at 0.1% [4]. That's between 5 and 21 times riskier than vaginal sex for the receptive partner.

For comparison, the studies cited by the Wikipedia article on HIV list the risks of the non-sexual modes of transportation as follows: Blood transfusion, 90%; Mother to child, 25%; Needle sharing drug use, 0.67%; Percutaneous needle stick, 0.3% [4].

******

1. Boily M-C, Baggaley RF, Wang L, et al. (2009). "Heterosexual risk of HIV-1 infection per sexual act: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies". Lancet Infect Dis 9 (2): 118-129. PMID 19179227.
2. UNAIDS (2008). Report on the global AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS, Geneva. p. 43
3. Wawer MJ et al. (2005). Rates of HIV-1 transmission per coital act by stage of HIV-1 infection, in Rakai, Uganda. Journal of Infectious Diseases, 191:1403–1409. http://www.who.int/hiv/events/artprevention/wawer.pdf
4. Wikipedia article on HIV -- Transmission. Check the table to the right and the studies they cite.

2. Perhaps HIV doesn't discriminate, but it certainly doesn't affect all groups of people equally.

Certain groups are disproportionately[1] affected by HIV. These include prostitutes (or commercial sex workers as they say in HIV/AIDS-speak), injecting drug users and gay men. Knowing what is commonly taught about HIV/AIDS, it isn't hard to figure out why prostitutes and injecting drug users would be disproportionately affected by HIV. It's perhaps less obvious why gay men -- or, as they say in the HIV/AIDS epidemiological community, men who have sex with men (MSMs) -- are disproportionately affected. As a matter of fact, they were the first group known to be affected by the virus.

The virus that would later be termed HIV and the disease that would later be called AIDS were first discovered among gay men in the United States[2]. In some countries, men who have sex with men make up the majority of the male HIV/AIDS cases (despite being estimated to comprise between 5% and 7% of the male population)[3], and in many countries any man who admits ever having had sex with another man on his blood donor form is permanently barred from donating blood[4]. Men who have sex with men are also disproportionately affected in the Caribbean and experts believe that we underestimate how much of our epidemic is a result of sex between men, but they do not believe that our epidemic is significantly driven by sex between men [5]. In all but two countries, the AIDS epidemic is thought to be driven by heterosexual intercourse with roughly equal proportions of men and women having HIV and AIDS. The two exceptions are Dominica and Cuba. In both of those countries the majority of infected persons are men and sex between men is thought to be the main mode of transmission [6].

*****

1. A group X is disproportionately affected by HIV if the proportion of Xs in a population differs significantly from the proportion of Xs with HIV in that same population. For example, Xs are disproportionately affected by HIV if they make up 2-5% of the general population but 20-25% of the HIV-positive population.
2. This is fairly well known but many people may not have heard it since there's little reason for the Caribbean's HIV/AIDS campaigns to mention it. Evidence: This BBC article, this link on the US Centers for Disease Control website, and this random blog entry.
3. The USA, Canada and Australia are three such countries. Check here for the US, here for Canada and here for Australia. The 5% to 7% figure is in the link for the US.
4. See National Health Service of the United Kingdom, Exclusion of Men who have Sex with Men from Blood Donation Position Statement: 12th March 2009; National Health Service of the United Kingdom, Summary of International Policies relating to the Exclusion of Men who have Sex with Men from Blood Donation (March 2009); and Medscape Today, Debate Continues Over Blood Donation From Men Who Have Sex With Men 27 Feb 2009. I believe countries in the Caribbean have a similar restriction. In some countries, the person is only barred if he had sex with another man since ~1977. In others countries, the bar is not permanent and it may apply to the female sexual partners of MSMs. For example, the NHS document on international policies says that the bar in Australia is for 1 year since the last sexual encounter and applies both to MSMs and their partners (including women) and the bar in New Zealand is for 5 years since the last encounter.
5. UNAIDS (2008). Report on the global AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS, Geneva. p. 53
6. ibid, p 54

3. Not that many people in the Caribbean have HIV.

You may be accustomed to hearing that the Caribbean has the second highest HIV rate in the world, a rate second only to that of sub-Saharan Africa. Well, that's true. But have you ever wondered what the figures are? Is it that we're really close to them? Are we close but are both figures really that high? And what's our HIV rate?

The Caribbean's adult prevalence rate stands at 1.1%, just over one fifth of Sub-Saharan Africa's 5.0%. The world average is 0.8%. [1] By country, our adult prevalence rates range from a low of 0.1% in Cuba to a high of 3.0% in the Bahamas with notable mentions of Haiti at 2.2%, the Dominican Republic at 1.1%, Jamaica at 1.6% and Trinidad and Tobago at 1.5% [2]. (SVG's rate in the general population is at least 0.4% [3]. Not all countries report their prevalence rates; you can download your country's report here to see if it's given in the report.) Sub-Saharan Africa's rates range from less than 0.1% in the Comoros to 26.1% in Swaziland with notable mentions of Botswana at 23.9%, Lesotho at 23.2% and 4 other countries with rates over 15%. [4]

As you can see, although we're the second worst-hit region, the epidemic in Africa is considerably worse than the epidemic in the Caribbean.

*****

1. UNAIDS (2008). Global facts and figures 2008. UNAIDS, Geneva.
2. UNAIDS (2008). Report on the global AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS, Geneva. p. 230
3. St Vincent and the Grenadines UNGASS report, p 5. Internet link. The prevalence rate was clearly calculated by dividing the 472 reported cases by the 106,253 persons living in the country according to the census so it doesn't take into account those people who have HIV but haven't been tested for it. Since we don't have universal testing for HIV, this means that this figure is certainly too low.
4. UNAIDS (2008). Report on the global AIDS epidemic. UNAIDS, Geneva. pp 39, 215

4. HIV/AIDS prevalence statistics have been revised downwards several times in the past.

The Caribbean's measurement and surveillance are generally poor in almost every area that matters, but it seems that we aren't the only ones with problems when it comes to estimating the impact of HIV and AIDS in populations. Since most (all?) countries in the world do not have universal testing for HIV, statistical techniques are often [1] used to make educated guesses of the HIV prevalence rates of entire populations based on the rates of people who are tested. These techniques aren't always as accurate as we'd like them to be. In November 2007, there were widespread reports of UNAids having to readjust and revise statistics of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS downwards in several places around the world because of significant errors in the statistical models used to estimate national prevalences. (This is probably not usually UNAIDS' fault; the organisation can only go on the data it receives from governments and other partners.) The reports centred on a revision of the Indian estimate by 7 million people and on revised estimates in some African countries, but by looking at the UNAIDS reports over the years, it seems that the Caribbean is also one of the places where figures had to be adjusted.

UNAIDS has issued a global report on the HIV/AIDS epidemic at the beginning of every even year since 1998. The organisation also issues epidemic update reports at the end of every odd year. One only has to look at the figures for the 2003 epidemic update report and the 2005 epidemic update report to see that something is amiss. The 2003 report numbers the Caribbean's general HIV population as somewhere between 350,000 and 590,000 people with an adult prevalence rate between 1.9% and 3.1% [2]. The 2005 report revised these figures for 2003; it gives a general HIV population of between 200,000 and 510,000 with an adult prevalence rate of between 1.1% and 2.7% [3].

One can also see downward revisions of figures in the prevalence rates of some countries. In the Caribbean, the global reports have only consistently reported country statistics for the Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago. I'll take three of them to make my point, but you can check the statistical tables at the end of the reports to see the others. The percentage given in normal type is the percentage that was given by that year's report. The italicised rates in parentheses are revised rates given in a 2008 WHO/UNAIDS document on the history of the epidemic from 1990 to 2007 [4].

Haiti: 2001 6.1% [2.2%]; 2003: 5.6% [2.2%]; 2005: 3.8% [2.2%]; 2007: 2.2%.
Bahamas: 2001 3.5% [3.1%]; 2004 3.0% [3.0%]; 2005: 3.3% [3.0%]; 2008: 3%.
Trinidad and Tobago: 2002: 2.5% [1.4%]; 2004: 3.2% [1.4%]; 2006: 2.6% [1.5%]; 2008: 1.5%.

In each case, you can see that the current estimates are significantly lower than the estimates before 2008. This is most pronounced for Haiti and least pronounced for the Bahamas. Given Haiti's large population, it seems that the overestimates in Haiti are partly to blame for the bloated regional figures in the earlier reports.

*****

1. Often but not always. For example, it seems that Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica use such techniques, but at least some of the nations of the OECS don't. The calculation of SVG's 'prevalence' rate as note in point 3 of note 3 above suggests that SVG does not use such statistical techniques.
2. UNAIDS (2003). AIDS epidemic update 2003. December. UNAIDS, Geneva. p. 5
3. UNAIDS (2005). AIDS epidemic update 2005. December. UNAIDS, Geneva. p. 53
4. Figures for the normal type rates are from the UNAIDS 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008 global reports, pages 198, 203, 530 and 230 respectively. Figures for the italicised rates are from Adult (15-49) HIV prevalence percent by country, 1990-2007, a WHO/UNAIDS document.

5. A study found that, genetically, black people tend to be more susceptible to HIV than people of other races.

A study released last year reported that a gene that protects black people from malaria also increases their vulnerability to HIV infection by about 40%. Strangely, this same gene apparently allows those people to live an average of two years longer than HIV-positive people without the gene. About 90% of Africans and 60% of African-Americans possess the gene. I have no idea what proportion of Afro-West Indians or people of other races have the gene.

As far as I know, this is the first and only study that has found anything like that. It hasn't been confirmed by other studies as yet, so it isn't quite scientific fact just yet.

UPDATE: A follow-up study[4] attempting to confirm the results of this first study[5] found evidence contradicting the first study. The second study's researchers found that there was no difference in HIV susceptibility or AIDS progression in people who possessed the supposed gene. While I saw news of the first study in the media, I'm yet to see anything on the second study. Many thanks to Meisha Bynoe for alerting me to this follow-up study.

*****

1. BBC News. "Malaria gene 'increases HIV risk'". 16 July 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7509210.stm
2. The Washington Post. "Genetic Trait Boosts AIDS Risks in Blacks". 16 July 2008. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/16/AR2008071601539_pf.html
3. MedPage Today. "Anti-Malaria Mutation in Blacks Promotes HIV Infection." 16 July 2008. http://www.medpagetoday.com/HIVAIDS/HIVAIDS/10141
4. Winkler, Cheryl A et al. (2009). "Expression of Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines (DARC) Has No Effect on HIV-1 Acquisition or Progression to AIDS in African Americans." Cell Host Microbe. 2009 May 21; 5(5): 411-413. ScienceDirect Link. You'll need to have an institutional login, connections or money to retrieve it.
5. He, Weijing et al. (2008). "Duffy Antigen Receptor for Chemokines Mediates trans-Infection of HIV-1 from Red Blood Cells to Target Cells and Affects HIV-AIDS Susceptibility." Cell Host Microbe. 2008 July 17; 4(1): 52–62. PubMed Central Link to entire document.

6. There are people who are resistant to HIV, there are people who seem immune to HIV, and there's this one guy whose doctor has apparently cured him of HIV....

Researchers have long observed that some people seem uncommonly resistant or even immune to HIV. It is now believed that certain genetic combinations confer virtual immunity to HIV, other combinations heighten resistance to HIV, and still others prolong the life of HIV-positive individuals by slowing the progression of AIDS. Knowing this, when an American man living in Germany who had been HIV-positive for 10 years needed a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukaemia, his doctor sought and found a compatible person who possessed the immunity gene. (White blood cells are produced in bone marrow.) It has been over two years since the man's transplant and he now seems to be HIV-free.

Unfortunately, this procedure is fairly expensive and rather dangerous. It is only used as something of a last resort to treat leukaemia patients and, even then, it kills up to 30% of the people it is used on.

*****

1. Wired. "Genetic HIV Resistance Deciphered" 7 January 2005 (or is that 1 July 2005?) http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/01/66198?currentPage=all
2. The Independent. "Gene therapy offers hope of cure for HIV". 12 February 2009. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/gene-therapy-offers-hope-of-cure-for-hiv-1607227.html
3. The Wall Street Journal. "A Doctor, a Mutation and a Potential Cure for AIDS: A Bone Marrow Transplant to Treat a Leukemia Patient Also Gives Him Virus-Resistant Cells; Many Thanks, Sample 61". 7 November 2008 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602394113507555.html

7. Male circumcision significantly reduces the risk of men contracting HIV.

Several studies have found that male circumcision reduces the risk of sexual transmission of HIV from a woman to man in penile-vaginal intercourse by about 60%. As a result, the WHO and UNAIDS now recommend its use as part of the package of HIV-fighting measures [1]. Research is currently unclear on the impact of male circumcision on the sexual transmission of the virus from male to female and on its effect on transmission to the insertive partner in anal intercourse. Studies so far suggest that male circumcision does not significantly reduce HIV transmission in male to male sexual transmission [2].

*****

1 UNAIDS. "Male circumcision." http://www.unaids.org/en/PolicyAndPractice/Prevention/MaleCircumcision/default.asp
2. BBC News. "Circumcision HIV impact doubted". 7 October 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7656229.stm.

8. There's evidence that condoms may negatively interact with other anti-HIV/AIDS strategies.

This one is a tip back to the entry I made about that controversy the Pope got into in Africa some time ago. This time, though, I'll skip the Pope stuff and go straight into what the scientists on his side said. This is a repeat of what I said in that note.

The Irish Times[1]</a> quotes Dr. Edward Green[2], the director of Harvard's HIV Prevention Research Project, as saying that "there is not a single country in Africa where HIV prevalence has come down primarily because of condoms". He claims that many of the reductions in African HIV/AIDS rates are because of reductions in the number of sexual partners that Africans have. The Catholic news Agency quotes him more extensively and even has him saying -- in some appropriately fancy scientific language, of course -- the same thing that some regular people argue: that condom use may increase risky behaviour[3].

And he isn't the only one. In 2003, Norman Hearst, a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco published a study on the effect of condom promotion on AIDS prevention in the developing world[4]. The study's summarised results:

Condoms are about 90% effective for preventing HIV transmission, and condom use has grown rapidly in many countries. Condoms have produced substantial benefit in countries like Thailand, where both transmission and condom promotion are concentrated in commercial sex, but the public health benefit of condom promotion in settings with widespread heterosexual transmission remains unclear. In countries like Uganda that have curbed generalized epidemics, reducing numbers of partners appears to have been more important than condoms. Other countries continue with high HIV transmission despite high condom use. Impact of condoms may be limited by inconsistent use, which provides little protection, low use among those at highest risk, and negative interactions with other strategies, such as partner reduction.

There are, of course, more than two people in the epidemiological community. In the CNA article Dr Green plainly says that his views aren't popular. But that, of itself, doesn't render them without merit.

*****

1. Irishtimes.com. "Harvard director backs pope on condoms". 30 March 2009. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0330/1224243690652.html
2. His profile page on the website of the Harvard AIDS Prevention Research Project.
3. Catholic News Agency. "Harvard Researcher agrees with Pope on condoms in Africa". 21 March 2009. http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15445
4. Hearst, Norman and Chen, Sanny. Condom Promotion for AIDS Prevention in the Developing World: Is it Working? 26 March 2003 http://www.usp.br/nepaids/condom.pdf

9. Your 'epidemic' probably isn't your epidemiologist's.

When most people hear the word 'epidemic' they think of a rapidly-spreading, deadly disease that infects a large proportion of the population in a region. They then understand a 'pandemic' as an epidemic that is widely distributed geographically, such as across continents or around the world. This seems to be a good description of the casual, non-scientific use of 'epidemic', but as the issue with H1N1 (swine flu) and raising the world flu pandemic level hinted at [1], it isn't the really the definition of epidemic. In fact, it isn't the definition that health officials mean when they talk about the AIDS epidemic.

One technical definition of an epidemic is "the occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specified health behaviour, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy; the community or region, and the time period in which cases occur, are specified precisely" [1]. The article I got that definition from goes on to point out that "the definition does not specify a minimum number of cases. The area covered by an epidemic may be limited to a small area such as a school classroom, or it may extend to include many countries. Epidemics may also last from a few hours to many years." Note also that the definition says nothing of the severity of the disease.

Note also the key phrase "...in excess of normal expectancy..." (emphasis mine). I don't know how it is defined and who defines it, but it seems that 'normal expectancy' -- what is considered a normal incidence rate for a disease -- depends on the disease being described. For a disease with an expected incidence rate of 25%, 50% would exceed normal expectancy; for a disease with an expected incidence rate of 0.1%, 1% would exceed normal expectancy. So while the word 'epidemic' tells us that the incidence of a disease is worryingly high, it doesn't tell us anything about the severity of a disease, nor does it tell us what proportion of the population has it.

I haven't been able to find out for sure what is considered normal expectancy for HIV or AIDS. Google has quite failed me there v_v. The only thing I've found is a reference in the 2004 report on the global aids epidemic to a generalised epidemic being where HIV prevalence is above 1% [3]. Is it still defined as that? If I had to guess I'd guess 'yes', but I really have no idea. Does this mean that a specialised epidemic in, say, women would be where their prevalence is over 1%? Once again, I'd guess 'yes' here, but, once again, I really don't know.

And does this mean that if our prevalence rate were only 0.4% it would be incorrect to say that there's an HIV epidemic in the general population of St Vincent and the Grenadines?

*****

1. I'm referring to the WHO's consideration of a flu pandemic purely in terms of how widespread the disease is without regard for its deadliness. This BBC News article hints to that and also talks about concern for the panic that declaring a flu pandemic might have caused. Check also the WHO's own pandemic scale, which says nothing about deadliness, and talk of devising a flu pandemic severity index in the US.
2. Green, MS et al. When is an Epidemic an Epidemic? Israel Medical Association Journal 2002; 4: 3 - 6. http://www.ima.org.il/imaj/ar02jan-1.pdf. This is a short, easy read on the different ways different people use the word 'epidemic' and the impacts those differences may have.
3. Page 24. The sentence, "By 2002, only 36% of low- and middle-income countries had a fully implemented surveillance system; however, 58% of countries with a generalized epidemic (where HIV prevalence is above 1%) had such a system."

**************

Some UNAIDS publications

AIDS epidemic update report archive
2001 AIDS epidemic update
2002 Report on the global AIDS epidemic
2003 AIDS epidemic update
2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic
2005 AIDS epidemic update
2006 Report on the global AIDS epidemic
2007 AIDS epidemic update
2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic

Catholicism and Carnival II

2009-07-04T06:10:18Z

This is a follow-up to my previous entry Catholicism and Carnival. The responses [on Facebook] went a good distance towards helping me answer my questions. I started typing my thoughts on those responses with the intention of posting them as comments to that [Facebook] post, but I think they're long enough to deserve a blog entry of their own.

The main question was why does the Catholic Church not oppose carnival? My objective here isn't to criticise Catholicism, though I do realise that because of my position and the way I phrase my questions it may come across as though I'm doing that. What I want to do is figure out how the Catholic non-opposition and support for Carnival are justified within a Catholic framework. I'm basically wondering why the rationale for the evangelical condemnations of Carnival does not result in a similar Catholic condemnation of the the festivities. I realise that the Catholic church isn't the only one with such a stance, but I've chosen it for a variety of reasons, among which are that I know more about Catholicism than, say, Anglicanism, and because I think Catholicism typifies some of the other, older, established Christian denominations in this regard.

So to the follow up. People said lots of stuff in their comments. I'm using this note to address the points that were made in direct response to my questions. I commented on the other contributions in the comments section of the last note.

The reasons given for the Catholic church's non-opposition/support were:

It's our culture; it's part of our identity. [Shanique]
It's tradition. The church has not opposed (or has supported) carnival for years. [Kevon?, Kevyn, Anya]
It brings in money. Carnival is profitable so it would be difficult for the church to oppose it. [Kevon, Anya]
You can participate in Carnival without sinning. It isn't necessarily about excess. [Shaun, J'elle, Jomokie]
We're small, so it isn't something that would've attracted the attention of the Vatican. [Shaun]

I hope I didn't miss or conflate any.

From the above, I'd first strike out the money one. It may be a pragmatic concern for some Catholics and maybe even some leaders in the Caribbean's Catholic Church, but I don't think it's an ideological one. I don't think it addresses how Carnival fits into the Catholic worldview or ethic. If anything, I think that such a reason would be outrightly and soundly rejected on ideological Catholic grounds.

On the matter of culture/identity, the only way I could see a Catholic cogently arguing from that angle is if s/he says it's part of his/her Catholic culture and identity. I say this because I don't see how any Christian could seriously argue that something tolerated, accepted or promoted just because it is part of a society's culture or identity. The "It's our culture!" cry simply doesn't interact with the kind of universal, objective moral arguments that Christians usually make. One can imagine or read about a hundred and one cultural practices (honour killings, female circumcision...) that would not hold up to a second's scrutiny in any discussion set in a Christian moral framework. Perhaps one could argue something like:

1. Since something is cultural and
2. Given another reason
3. We should do Ex or we shouldn't do Zed

But I don't see how one could just say "It's our culture!" alone and expect that to stand.

Now if someone argues that it's part of his/her Catholic culture and identity (and it seems that a case can be made there given Carnival's origin as a pre-Lenten festival), that quite naturally raises the question of why. Why is it part of Catholic culture? Why has it become a Catholic tradition? If we phrase the question in terms similar to the ones I initially asked we'd see that we're back to the start. Saying it's part of our Catholic culture and identity doesn't answer the question.

From there we could go nicely into the "It's tradition" reason, but I'll put that off for a bit because I think there's really something there. So before I get to that, I want to talk about the last reason that I find insubstantial. That reason runs something like "we're too small for the Vatican to pronounce on it". That sounds reasonable. But not everything is left up to the Pope or the Vatican to decide, right? Surely if there's an issue in a region then the priests, bishops and cardinal(s) of that region can come together and decide something, can they not? Plus, I gather that Brazil's carnival is rather like ours in the respects that I've outlined. I think Brazil has the world's largest Catholic population, so it is anything but insignificant.

So now to the "It's tradition!" reason. I can see how that would be compelling to Catholics. Whereas Protestants champion (or claim to champion) sola scriptura, Catholics are unapologetic about the role that 'Holy Tradition' plays in their faith. As most Catholics should know, though, in Catholicism there's a difference between common-t 'tradition' and capital-t "Holy Tradition". Whereas one is considered fallible and not truly an indispensable part of the Catholic faith, Catholics consider the other as authoritative as Protestants take the Bible. Granted that Holy Tradition is usually used to mean the teachings and practices handed down from the Apostles, the early Christian community and prominent later Christians, I don't think that any Catholic would seriously argue that the Caribbean carnivals are part of Holy Tradition.

So if it's a tradition it's definitely a common-t tradition. We're familiar with the history of Carnival, so we have an idea as to why that tradition has developed. It seems that good question can be raised as to why it was allowed to develop in the first place (see Jo-Ann's comment in the last note), but let's leave that aside for now and ask another question: why has it persisted after its initial development when, by almost everyone's assessment, the Caribbean's Carnivals have changed?

I think the Catholic answer to that question might be in the final reason: that Carnival isn't necessarily about excess and sin. A person can participate in and enjoy Carnival without sinning, without participating in its excesses, and without condoning the wrongdoing by his/her mere participation.

This seems like a very slim line to use as a route of escape, especially given the strict and largely consistent Catholic sexual and larger moral ethic. So far I don't think it works, but, as I said, the responses have moved me some way along understanding the Catholic position here, so I guess I'll work with this new-found understanding for now.

Catholicism and Carnival

2009-07-02T05:25:00Z

I don't get the (official?) Catholic non-opposition and outright support for Carnival. I really don't. Does anyone know a sound rationale for it? How can a church with such a strong and apparently consistent sexual ethic not condemn the hypersexualised carnivals of the Caribbean? Perhaps it will help if I sketch the evangelical opposition to the practice. Maybe someone can identify where a Catholic worldview would identify a failure in our reasoning and show me why it differs on this. But before I do that, I'll try to outline my understanding of the supporters' position. (Maybe someone can also point out where I'm wrong in this.)

As any apologist who enjoys Carnival will tell you, Carnival is about culture and fun. It's about cultural expression that fuses the region's Christian and European traditions with its African and tribal traditions. It's about creativity. It's about having a good time. It's about social commentary -- airing the societies' problems in songs about poverty, gender inequalities, abuses and politics in creative ways. It's about showcasing women's beauty, talent and (lack of) knowledge.

But it's also a festival of and to the flesh. In the 'original' form that we still see in Trinidad and Tobago and Dominica, it's about a farewell to the flesh before the 40-day Lenten period. It's the time you free up and forget your inhibitions. It's the time we bend the rules of fidelity and make exceptions to our codes of integrity and decency.

And we can go further. As the Christian and other prudential opponents to Carnival say, it's also about excess. It's about sex, sex and more sex -- sex with (barely any) clothes on, protected sex, unprotected sex, sex between people who don't know each other, sex between unmarried people, and sex between a married woman and a man she isn't married to (yuh woman butting me!). It's about alcohol (the only thing better than rum is more rum!). And it's not about alcohol in moderation. It's about getting so drunk that you're brave enough to wind on that woman or sleep with that man. It's about those nights you hope you'll never remember with the friends you may very well forget.

With all this in mind, it's hard for me to imagine a coherent Catholic (or Anglican or Methodist or any other orthodoxish Christian) apology for Carnival. So, what's the reason? What're the arguments? What's excuse? Does anyone know?

And oh, I'm talking about the official (or semi-official or de-facto official) reasoned and/or revealed position of the church or the majority of its clergy here. We all know that in every denomination of Christianity the practice of the laity (and even the clergy) can differ widely from the church's official doctrine or accepted norm. This isn't about the hypocrisy of the young evangelical pastors who preach about abstinence and preach against carnival and end up drunk and wasted J'Ouvert morning. (Yes, that's a major issue, but it isn't the issue I want to deal with here.) This is about the pastors and priests and deacons and churches that don't see anything intrinsically or otherwise wrong with Carnival.

With what before the Lord?

2009-06-19T16:19:17Z

⁶"With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
⁷Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?"
⁸He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
~ Micah 6: 6 - 8 (ESV)

Hating Reason?

2009-06-19T07:06:18Z

I told a good Internet friend of mine the other day that I hate moralising. I had just reasoned, fairly cogently, I think, in defence of the people who did not condemn outright the murder of one of three or so prominent American abortion doctors. And I hated it. I hated that I could come up with that reason; I hated that I could see a light under which I found that reasoning compelling. I hated my empathy. I hated, I think, reason itself. But I couldn't find a good reason to justify my hatred.

And that wasn't the first time I hated reason. I generally love reasoning and thinking about all sorts of things largely because the rudimentaries come easy to me and I think I am fairly good at it. In my teens I relished the chance to go online, read things, and spar with others. Back then, my biggest concern was thinking through my beliefs, trying to find ways to defend them, and trying to make corrections where needed. I'd pretend that human justifications are stricly rational, even if some of the premisses are hidden or something. I'd argue strongly for objectivity and absolutism, and against subjectivity and relativism. I'd think that finding a single, apparently irrefutable argument against a system should've been enough for someone to drop that system right there.

It's very different today. I still generally believe in objective truth and that the subjectivity is in experience, but I've been almost compelled to focus, it feels, more on the subjectivity of experience than the objectivity of the truth. I still enjoy reasoning to conclusions from premisses and discovering wonderful new things I didn't know. And I still learn sobering things that contradict what I believe and force me to change. But right now, I'm really, really preoccupied with some frustrating things about reason.

I sometimes hate the finality of reason. I hate how unavoidable some conclusions are because of certain premisses. At the same time, I hate the uncertainty of the finality of reason. There's always this thought near the back of my head that I could just be missing that piece of information or two that would drastically change the picture. Just because I've been checking and rechecking my working several times a month for the last seven years doesn't mean that I'm right. Maybe I'm forgetting something. Maybe I never knew it.

And perhaps most of all, I really hate what these things mean for my personal morality. When I was younger, I understood and accepted many of the moral teachings of my faith. But it was a sort of distant understanding. These things are plain, I thought. I get them and they're easy. I know people are different -- different people are tempted in different ways; but why do people still repeatedly do such wrong things when the moral imperative against them is so obvious and undeniable?

Well, today, I don't think I understand those things much less than I did then, but there are new pieces of things to consider. Hahaha. I now know firsthand why people do wrong things even when all their powers of reason tell them they're wrong. And it's exceedingly frustrating how good I've become at making excuses and crafting explanations. Although I find the existence of an objective ethic compelling, I find it hard to condemn people for almost anything. It's as though I think people's weakness is excuse enough to not demand good of them.

But, as you can imagine, I don't really think that.

And I feel as though this entry was crap.

Pope Benedict XVI, Africa and Condoms

2009-03-30T06:04:30Z

The Pope said quite a lot of things when he went to Cameroon, but the mainstream media have been hung up on a few words. As the BBC put it in this article:

HIV/Aids was, he argued, "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

Since then, there have been a conspicuously timed UNAIDS press release and outright condemnations from all sorts of random people, including editors, bloggers, world leaders and governments. Most of these have, I think, been predicated on a misunderstanding of what the Pope said. They've been running around as though the Pope made a scientific statement. I think it's rather clear that he neither made a scientific statement nor intended to make one. Furthermore, he wasn't talking about just the AIDS pandemic; he was talking about all the bad things it causes and all the bad things that cause it. He was talking primarily about the human condition and how it contributes to the AIDS pandemic, and secondarily about the particularly African condition that exacerbates the problem. He was talking about the people of Africa -- like the people of the Americas, the people of Europe, the people of Asia and the people of Australasia -- needing salvation.

But could he have made a scientific statement to that effect?

Maybe. In a recent article, the Irish Times quotes Dr. Edward Green, the director of Harvard's HIV Prevention Research Project, as saying that "there is not a single country in Africa where HIV prevalence has come down primarily because of condoms". He claims that many of the reductions in African HIV/AIDS rates are because of reductions in the number of sexual partners that Africans have. The Catholic News Agency quotes him more extensively and even has him saying -- in some appropriately fancy scientific language, of course -- the same thing that some regular people argue: that condom use may increase risky behaviour.

And he isn't the only one. In 2003, Norman Hearst, a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco published a UNAIDS-supported study on the effect of condom promotion on AIDS prevention in the developing world. The study's summarised results:

Condoms are about 90% effective for preventing HIV transmission, and condom use has grown rapidly in many countries. Condoms have produced substantial benefit in countries like Thailand, where both transmission and condom promotion are concentrated in commercial sex, but the public health benefit of condom promotion in settings with widespread heterosexual transmission remains unclear. In countries like Uganda that have curbed generalized epidemics, reducing numbers of partners appears to have been more important than condoms. Other countries continue with high HIV transmission despite high condom use. Impact of condoms may be limited by inconsistent use, which provides little protection, low use among those at highest risk, and negative interactions with other strategies, such as partner reduction.

There are, of course, more than two people in the epidemiological community. In the CNA article Dr Green plainly says that his views aren't popular. But that, of itself, doesn't render them without merit.

So could the Pope have made the kind of scientific statement that some think he did? It seems so.

Caribbean Racism?

2009-03-23T01:07:09Z

I usually half-joke that it's best to transit Grantley Adams International Airport when an international flight has just landed. Those're the only times I've found more than a couple immigration officers on duty and the "NOTHING TO DECLARE" part of the customs area unblocked.

So when I came off LIAT's last flight from St Vincent tonight and saw a Virgin plane on the ground, I felt pretty lucky. My spirits fell a bit when, as I walked past the glass wall, I noticed that all the immigration desks were empty, but by the time I got to the desks there were more than two immigration officers on duty -- a sign that the Virgin passengers hadn't been cleared too long ago. That sign was confirmed a few moments later when I headed towards the bag section and saw a good number of white travellers in that area.

Things got even better, it seemed, when I only had to wait a few minutes for my bag to come onto the carousel. This is great, I thought as I approached the almost-double line of people at the customs section. I say 'almost-double line' because there seemed to be one line -- or rather, a gathering of people and suitcases -- near the back, but there were apparently two at the front near the customs officers. One of the lines was roughly towards the red sign marked ITEMS TO DECLARE on the left and the other towards the green sign marked NOTHING TO DECLARE on the right.

There didn't seem to be anything special about the lines at first; they were a fairly ordinary mixture of West Indians and Britons (if the plane on the ground and the accent of the woman I accidentally bumped into are anything to go by), some white and some black. The kind of racial mixing typical of a Caribbean airport, right? When I looked ahead in the region of the signs and the customs officers, though, I had to look again. It seemed as though only white people were being allowed through the NOTHING TO DECLARE section.

"But surely not", I thought. "Look longer."

And longer I looked. I watched as some black people towards the front of the line on the left headed towards the NOTHING TO DECLARE branch in apparent confusion and were pointed to the ITEMS TO DECLARE side by a customs officer who apparently had no need to glance at their passports or customs forms. I watched as some other black people in the NOTHING TO DECLARE line were pointed to the ITEMS TO DECLARE branch when they got to the customs officer at the front of their line. I watched as a customs officers took some white travellers' forms from the fronts of both lines and let them pass the NOTHING TO DECLARE sign without so much as glancing at the forms. And I watched and listened to an exchange between a customs officer and a white traveller a person or two ahead of me.

"Where are you coming from?", the black customs officer asked the white traveller.
"St Vincent", the traveller replied. As as he said that I remembered seeing him on the same flight as me.
The customs officer then said something else that I didn't make out, and the traveller said something in response that I also didn't make out. What I did make out, though, is what happened next: the customs officer waved him over to the NOTHING TO DECLARE SECTION.

I barely had time to register my shock before it was my turn.

"Are you coming from Jamaica too?", the customs officer asked me.
Jamaica? I thought. "No, St Vincent", I replied.

And with that he dismissed me with a point to the ITEMS TO DECLARE branch and a look at the next person behind me. He didn't ask me anything else. He didn't glance at my passport. He didn't look at my customs form. But I'm certain he saw my skin colour, and he must've recognised my accent -- what it wasn't, I'm sure, if not what it was -- and that was enough for him.

And being a submissive black West Indian, I wordlessly did as he directed.

Cork!

2008-12-27T03:01:17Z

We're finally in Cork!

So our long journey to our destination is almost done. We're currently staying at the Radisson SAS Cork Airport. We move to the Jurys Inn hotel in the city centre tomorrow for registration before being assigned to our final hotel, which we suspect will be the Clarion, Cork.

Lemme backtrack what we've done quickly. On the night of December 23rd (Eastern Caribbean time, GMT -4) we departed Barbados for London with Virgin Atlantic. We arrived in London just after 8:00 AM (GMT) on Christmas Eve (an 8 hour flight!), left our luggage at the Sofitel London Gatwick hotel, and spent the day shopping for winter clothes at Oxford Street. I hated that we spent most of the day walking up and down shopping because I hate spending days walking up and down shopping, but it was quite an experience. I mean, this was London! We took the Gatwick Express from Gatwick to London Victoria (a train ride!), got lunch there, then took the tube to Oxford Street. There wasn't any snow u_u...but sometimes, when I breathed, my breath would turn to mist!

I've always wanted to do that. ^_^

We left for Dublin that night on Aer Lingus, an Irish carrier. We stayed in Dublin for Christmas Eve night and all of Christmas Day at the Days Inn and Premier Apartments. That was a mixed bag. Apparently, Ireland shuts down completely for Christmas -- the only places open in our area were our hotel, a 24 hour gas station, and a convenience store (that closed early). So instead of eating out at a restaurant as we planned, we got what we could from the convenience store, cooked dinner, and had a delightful gift exchange.

The following morning, we departed for Cork on a LIAT-like plane run by Aer Arann. The Administrators paid several hundred euros in overweight -- more than the cost of the tickets, I believe. Some of us think we should've taken the bus. It would've taken about 4 hours, but it would've been MUCH cheaper and we would've gotten to see more of Ireland. I hope and suspect that the bus will be an option on the way back to Dublin when we're heading home. Nevertheless, the flight itself wasn't bad. We actually saw the sun! Apparently, it's being blocked by a thick blanket of clouds that is far more beautiful from above than below.

So that's my rather boring chronicle of our trip so far.

School! ^_^

2008-10-17T02:54:18Z

This semester is shaping up marvellously.

I'm enjoying all my courses. I love the maths courses for their rigour, their abstractions, and the way that they stretch my thinking. I love Discrete Maths, a Computer Science course, for its layers of depth (despite my teacher's insistence on doing only what is required). I love Information Structures for its concepts and the way it's developing my programming skills, although I think there are clear ways in which the course can be improved. I love the foundation course I'm doing -- Law, Governance, Economy and Society in the Caribbean -- because of how different it is from the maths and computer science courses, because of its breadth, and because of the intrinsic value of much of the things it deals with.

I'm also enjoying the co-curricular groups I'm in. The Debating Society is beginning to take on the form that we'd like it to, and it's great being a part of that transformation. I'm still getting into UWI STAT, but I like the idea of it (although, there again, there are clear ways to improve implementation). Campus Crusade for Christ is fruitful and supportive, and VINSA is Vincentian. I really need to get more into UNA-UWI, though. :P

NBC = Nothing But Crap

2008-08-16T18:05:02Z

A lot of us are in shock right now. NBC -- the holders of the exclusive 'rights' for the covering of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on TV and online in the USA -- did not show the 100 metre final live. They did not show Usain Bolt smash the world record (again). Apparently, they're going to show about 10 hours after the event during 'prime time' -- after everyone has heard the results. More than that, they did not hype this event, at all. This is THE signature event of the Olympics and they didn't so much as advertise it as one of the major things they'd be covering during prime time tonight. (They mentioned swimming, of course, as well as beach volleyball and women's tennis, iirc.)

Understandably, even Americans are annoyed. But really, since residents of St Vincent and the Grenadines are not in the US (we can't even access the online coverage), why on earth is this our problem? How could Karib Cable let this happen? I understand that CMC has the broadcasting rights and a coverage package for the region and then redistributes it to local companies. Why does our coverage consist entirely of this rubbish Ameri-centric NBC coverage? Where is our CMC coverage?

Did people anywhere else in the Caribbean NOT have the opportunity to watch this thing live on tv?

The Olympics and Internet media 'rights' in the Caribbean

2008-08-10T22:48:45Z

So the Olympics began on Friday with much praise from those who saw the ceremony, and annoyance from those -- like me -- who couldn't see it live. I'm still not sure which company holds the 'rights' to broadcast the game in my country, but we had to do with the NBC coverage 12 hours after the event. And when that came on I was somewhere where I couldn't see the NBC coverage, so. :(

While it was showing live, however, I figured I should be able to find a stream online. I couldn't find a good stream from my usual sources, but while searching I found out that, apparently, there's International Olympic Committee (IOC)-approved access to online coverage for the Olympics in every country in the world! (Not all of it is live, though.) Apparently, the IOC struck a deal to have highlights on Youtube for all the countries that didn't secure exclusive web deals. From an IOC press release:

IOC Director of Television and Marketing Services, Timo Lumme said: “The IOC’s priority is to ensure that as many people as possible get to experience the magic of the Olympic Games and the inspirational sporting achievements of the Olympic athletes. For the first time in Olympic history we will have complete global online coverage, and the IOC will have its own broadcast Channel and content production facilities. The IOC’s Channel will make fantastic Olympic footage available where young generations of sports fans are already going for online entertainment, and will complement the footage offered in these territories by our broadcast partners across all media platforms.”

Except that that part about having "complete global online coverage" is apparently false. I can't get on to the Youtube channel and none of the other options I've tried worked. Apparently, if that experience and this list of the Internet 'rights' holders are anything to go by, Grenada is the only English-speaking Caribbean country with IOC-approved online access to Olympic footage. Netizens of Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago have no such access options. The same seems to be true for the Caribbean British overseas territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, although the British Virgin islands and some non-Caribbean British overseas territories (like the Falkland Islands) are apparently better off.

So what's going on here? Is the IOC lying? If it isn't, who is (or are?) our Internet 'rights' holder(s) for the games? And will this situation be fixed before the games are over?

And what was the cause of this? Is it that the IOC believes it can afford to not have such coverage for these few (hundred?) thousand Caribbean Internet users? (Though I wonder if they realise this affects wealthy tourists from nice, big, powerful countries and the compatriots of the world-class sprinters Usain Bolt and Aafa Powell as well as residents from these other countries they may not care about.) Or is it an honest oversight by the IOC?

Abortion in the Caribbean

2008-03-04T19:11:52Z

Hello,

Just thought I'd share these pages with you. Most people seem to think that abortion is (generally? absolutely?) illegal in SVG and the rest of the Caribbean. As I'm finding is quite often the case, most people are wrong. According to the UN, in SVG's case abortion is permitted to save the woman's life, to preserve her physical health, to preserve her mental health, in cases of rape, in cases of incest, in cases of severe foetal abnormality, and for sufficient economic or social reasons. Abortion "on demand" (ie, just because the woman wants without providing reason) is illegal. Of the Commonwealth Caribbean countries, only Guyana's laws are more liberal than ours. Barbados' are roughly as liberal but it seems that our policy is either less substantial or more conservative than theirs. It has been like this for quite a few years now.

Here're a few links if you're interested:

A nifty map of abortion laws around the world. You'll need to check the list of places too small for the map in the bottom right-hand corner to see most of us.
A wallchart by the UN. The pdf is more useful for just viewing. The Excel document is good if you want to do some statistical analysis of your own.
And a UN report on the policies that includes a 2+ page report for each country. Check the country profiles link for those.

It is said that the greatest object to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge. So can we count this as another obstacle in the path to discovery (or maybe action in this case) removed? :)

Black people 'less intelligent', scientist claims

2007-10-17T22:21:10Z

One of the world's most respected scientists is embroiled in an extraordinary row after claiming that black people are less intelligent than white people.

The 79-year-old geneticist said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.". He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because "there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don't promote them when they haven't succeeded at the lower level". He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so".

That's from this Times report. These aren't his first ever remarks of this kind. As the same report says on the following page:

Dr Watson is no stranger to controversy. He has been reported in the past saying that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual.

In addition, he has suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, proposing a theory that black people have higher libidos.

He also claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great."

Not knowing who he is and what he based his statement on, I'm not giving much weight to these statements. But what he said about the me of something I read about a year ago. In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Ann Coulter mentioned -- though probably not explicitly in these terms -- that the intelligence measures of African Americans have averaged consistently lower than the measures of white Americans. She included a footnote that referred to a report by a task force of the American Psychological Association (APA) that was set up in response to a book called The Bell Curv e in the late 90s. (The book posited, among other things, that there is a real difference between the intelligence of some races and that this is a result of the races' peculiar genetic traits; it apparently caused quote a furore in the US as a result.) In its 1995 report entitled Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, the APA's task force concluded, among other things, that:

6. The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.

Some things I thought about when I read that:

Most psychological research is still done in the US and Europe, so if this report is based on results biased to those populations its results will reflect those biases. This may not be relevant if we can validly generalise to the world from the samples they took in the US and Europe. As an layman, It's not obvious to me either that it's invalid to generalise or that it's valid to generalise.
The task force was supposedly composed of people of a variety of views. The introduction to the report says:

Disputes were resolved by discussion. As a result, the report presented here has the unanimous support of the entire Task Force.

So the report's phrasing is a compromise among the members of the group. That should mean that there are people who think that things like that conclusion are too generous, and there are others that think they aren't generous enough. (In other words, I'm guessing that there's a non-insignificant body of psychologists who think that there is evidence that supports the genetic interpretation, and that there's also a non-insignificant body of psychologists who think that there isn't even good evidence for a differential in race.) From the phrasing of the conclusion, though, it seems to me that the report's position may be roughly the most cautious position that the evidence allows. It says there's no direct empirical support for a genetic interpretation. Does this mean that there's indirect support? Is there correlational evidence that supports it?

Thoughts? Comments?

Eternal!

2007-10-12T06:08:38Z

All propositions are eternal!!

On Objective Beauty

2007-06-26T03:14:19Z

"Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives."

~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

We often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, maybe it is; but it seems that it's also in the appearance (and, where appropriate, nature) of the beautiful. There's this idea that truly beautiful things will be recognised as such by most people who know how to call anything beautiful and by all who truly know what beauty is. It's an idea that says that beauty is not wholly subjective, but at least partially objective (and significantly so). For people hearing it the first time it may sound a bit silly -- almost (but not quite) as silly as hearing that humour is partially objective. But I think they're both correct: beauty and humour are at least partially objective. I have two shadows of arguments in favour of this idea.

Firstly, there's a simple argument based on our idea of perversion. We may think "to each his own" when it comes to these things, but we generally don't push this adage to its limits. British humour may be different, but it's still humour. Things like rape, genocide, torture and suffering are not humorous, even though some of us may find the occasional joke about them funny (which is a rather disgusting feature about those of us who do). We say that people who find these things consistently funny have twisted senses of humour; their sense of humour is perverse and corrupt. We wouldn't think this if we didn't think there's a 'proper' sense of humour -- twisted things are straight or set things that have gone bad, and perverted and corrupt are spoken in relation to what's good. Maybe we don't know what that proper sense is, and maybe it's a broad sense rather than a narrow one, but it may still be objective.

Secondly, there's an argument from similarity and commonality. We may not all find the same things funny, but there are some things that most people would find funny. We may not all have the same taste in women, but there are some women who few would say are not beautiful, even if they aren't their 'type'. (And there's the fact that we can appreciate some people's beauty, as well as beauty in nature, without being sexually attracted to them.) There's something that ties jokes and beautiful people together, and it seems too common and universal to be confined to the joker or an eye.

Those arguments are not perfect so they may not convince you, but I'm sure you can at least see where they're coming from. Here's another quotation by C.S. Lewis which talks a bit about objective, heavenly, divine beauty. Maybe a glimpse of Lewis' poetic descriptions will convince you where shadowy outlines of arguments did not. :p

"Of Psyche's beauty--at every age the beauty proper to that age--there is only this to be said, that there were no two opinions about it, from man or woman, once she had been seen. It was beauty that did not astonish you til afterwards when you had gone out of sight of her and reflected on it. While she was with you, you were not astonished. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. As the Fox delighted to say, she was "according to nature"; what every woman, or even every thing, ought to have been and meant to be, but had missed by some trip of chance. Indeed, when you looked at her you believed, for a moment, that they had not missed it. She made beauty all round her. When she trod on mud, the mud was beautiful; when she ran in the rain, the rain was silver. When she picked up a toad--she had the strangest, and I thought, unchanciest love for all manner of brutes--the toad became beautiful."
~C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

(Incidentally, I was inspired to look for these passages (which I vaguely remembered from reading the books) and to talk about this after seeing Last Holiday on Saturday. :P)

Of Heroes and Speakers

2007-03-17T03:17:39Z

I just sent this (place another piece) as an email to some of my friends.

*****

Lemme show my ignorance and ask some questions while I'm at it....

Heroes

Wednesday gone was National Heroes' Day. Although the day's name is in the plural we currently only have one National Hero: Joseph Chatoyer. This year more than the previous years, I've been wondering why he's our hero and if his death is worth commemorating as a hero's. I'm quite ignorant of things Chatoyer, so I figure I'll have to do some reading (and question-asking like this email) on that. So far, all I know is that he resisted the British for some time and the Caribs -- uh, Callinago/Garifuna (Mr. Gonsalves says we should only use the word 'Carib' in quotations when we're referring to what Europeans mis-called them) -- he resisted the British for some time and the Callinago/Garifuna that he lead were the first indigenous people of the Americas to get the British to sign a peace treaty with them.

Hmmm.

So until I find out more about it, I've been wondering about the concept of heroism such as we studied in English B (and which I don't remember too well) and if Mr. Chatoyer is really hero.

So what do you guys think? From what you know, why is he our National Hero and do you agree with it?

Heroes and Speakers

In related news, our dear Minister of Culture, the Honourable Rene Baptiste, said some things comparing Chatoyer to some other historical figures at the commemoration ceremony on Heroes' Day (Wednesday). The Searchlight (pg 4, article entitled PM wants Chatoyer depicted as chief) doesn't quote her, but I'll quote what it says she said:

Meanwhile Minister of Culture the Hon. Rene Baptiste called Chatoyer a legend in history who equals and surpasses people such as Churchill, Wilberforce, Newton and Einstein.

The things people say when they're in front of a crowd with a mic in their hands....

I can think of several things to say about this, none of which are good. >_>

~Perceivence

PS: Is Joseph his first name? Is that a Car...Garifuna/Callinago name?

Back to Africa

2007-03-13T02:45:57Z

A poem I got from a friend. Just pretend the "Jamaican" in the fourth stanza is "West Indian."

Back to Africa
By Louise Bennett

Back to Africa, Miss Mattie?
You no know wha you dah seh?
You haf fe come from somewhe fus
Before you go back deh!

Me know say dat you great great great
Granma was African,
But Mattie, doan you great great great
Granpa was Englishman?

Den you great granmader fader
By you fader side was Jew?
An you granpa by you mader side
Was Frenchie parlez-vous?

But de balance a you family,
You whole generation,
Oonoo all barn dung a Bun Grung-
Oonoo all is Jamaican!

Den is weh you gwine, Miss Mattie?
Oh, you view de countenance,
An between you an de Africans
Is great resemblance!

Ascorden to dat, all dem blue-yeye
White American
Who-fa great granpa was Englishman
Mus go back a Englan!

What a debil of a bump-an-bore,
Rig-jig an palam-pam
Ef de whole worl start fe go back
Whe dem great granpa come from!

Ef a hard time you dah run from
Tek you chance! But Mattie, do
Sure a whe you come from so you got
Somewhe fe come back to!

Go a foreign, seek you fortune,
But no tell nobody say
You dah go fe seek you homelan,
For a right deh so you deh!

We are not Africans

2007-02-26T22:58:23Z

I’m black. I’ve never been to Africa though. I’d like to go there some time, but I’ve never been there. None of my ancestors have set foot on African soil for a couple hundred years or so. If I go back further than that, I’d find that some of them lived in Africa, yeah, but some of them also lived on the other side of the Atlantic (the Caribs), and some of them were Europeans shivering in European winters. I think that I’m representative of most West Indians in this regard. Some of us have Indian ancestry as well as African and European. Some are only Indian and European; some are only Carib and African or some other combination. Some are practically ‘purely’ race or another. But all of us born, bred and self-claimed West Indians are alike in that we are not Africans, Europeans, Indians, Chinese, Arabs or Amerindians. We are West Indians.

But what does this mean? I have noticed that there are some who are disgusted at how European they think we West Indians are. (In fact, this entry is primarily aimed at them and their arguments.) They hated our singing “God Save the Queen” and shouting “Hail Britannia!” when we were British Crown Colonies, and now as then, they disapprove of the ‘European orientation’ of our education system, the European perspective of our history, the European-ness of our clothes, and the European-like denigration of African practices and customs. They call for a radical change of the social and governmental systems of our islands, but they fall short of condemning and calling for a renunciation of the Judeo-Christian values we’ve inherited from the Europeans and on which these systems are based. You can hear them talking about Africanising our clothes, our perspective -- our whole worldviews, really -- yet you hardly hear them talking much about Africanising our religion (which was preached to us by Europeans), or changing our European languages to African or Amerindian ones, or changing our most popular sports of football and cricket to some sports that are more African or Amerindian.

I won’t deny that they are correct in some respects. I don’t see any reason for us to sing of Britain’s glory, or for us to learn all about European geography and history while we learn nothing of our own. I also don’t think that we ought to inherit everything that Europe has passed to us wholesale without any changes at all. But at the same time, many of the European marks we bear are indelible and some of their benefits are undeniable. (I should not have to mention that they are also quite relevant and applicable to those West Indians of significantly European descent, and they’re as West Indian as the rest of us…right?) Speaking English, Spanish, French or Dutch as first languages is undeniably preferable to speaking some obscure African or Amerindian language. There are advantages to basing our education systems on the British system, not least of which are the high standard of the British system and its recognition worldwide. And, of course, Christianity and its value-system are preferable to African animism, ancestral worship and so on simply because Christianity is true.

Simply put, what these people are doing is substituting one erroneous extreme in one direction for an erroneous extreme in the other. They want to replace excessive European-ness with excessive African-ness. They are proposing that we stop pretending we’re Europeans in order to pretend that we’re Africans. I say we do neither. I say we be West Indians: that blend of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas that you see in our people, hear in our music, taste in our food and feel in our thought. Maybe we ought to add more of one ingredient here and cut back a bit on another there, but why should we go further than that? Why should we spoil our broth -- our West Indian broth -- or try to reduce it to one of its ingredients?

Déjà Vu -- A Movie Worth Watching

2007-01-08T00:01:20Z

Warning: This entry contains spoilers for the movie Déjà Vu. Read at your own risk.

Apologies are often a rather appropriate place to start whenever they are due, so I think I'll start with some here. I'd like to say I'm sorry for what I said about the movie right after I came out of the cinema. The movie made me angry, and because I didn't understand it, I said some really foolish things. If I came across as pompously dogmatic, it's because I kinda was. So I apologise for that bit of stupidity on my part.

Having seen the movie and thought it over, I think that the movie was great -- almost excellent, even. That wasn't what I was thinking when I was watching it though. For me, the first 15 or so minutes dragged on with apparently aimless, needless and confusing pedantry. Then as things started to clear up, the movie introduced some outlandish (albeit cool) scientific elements and some spiritual elements that, initially, seemed out of place. (I found these ironic, because it seems they were all done to make the movie as relatable as possible to its American audience.) But after what has to be one of the strangest vehicle chase scenes I've ever seen in a movie, the pace of the movie picked up, and everything got better. The pedantry gave way to enough action, strange happenings, dialogue and intimacies to keep everyone engaged (judging from the crowd's reaction). But as the movie reached its climax and turning point, and gracefully eased off to its resolution, I found that I was angry. It just didn't make sense. Here it was, giving explanations and hinting at thing after thing throughout, but in the end it made no sense. What was the point of the movie? (It was obviously the kind of movie where the makers really wanted to make a point or say something.) Where did all of that go?

That was then. I still think that it made no sense -- none of the sense that I was looking for it to make, that is. And now, I see what the point of the movie was...and that I was stupidly blind.

I still think some of the pedantry in the beginning was excessive, but it is now obvious that it wasn't unnecessary. Much of that detail made more and more sense as the movie passed a certain point (I gotta watch it again, btw). And the spiritual elements -- from what seemed to be an incidental instrumental rendition of When the Saints go Marching In in the beginning, to oddly placed prayers throughout, strange interjections in dialogue, and finally to statements made by the antagonist at the turning point of the movie -- were clearly the whole point of the movie. I completely missed this for the entire movie and some time after it.

So what was this point? To answer that, I first have to say what I think the movie was about below the surface. Superficially, the movie was about a terrorist attack and a detective's effort (helped by an able team) first to find the perpetrator and bring him to justice, and then to stop him from carrying out the attack. Yes, you read correctly: he wanted to stop the terrorist from carrying out an attack that had already happened. That's because he and his time had a way to look back about four days into the past, and even to send things like notes back to that time. But they weren't allowed to send back anything as big or complex as a human to stop it. It was theoretically impossible and lab tests and proved this.

That's on the surface. Below the surface, the movie concerned issues of free will, predestination and fate, and foreknowledge. At first, the movie espoused a rigid, fatalistic view of predestination to the harm of free will: characters authoritatively stated and the movie seemed to imply that we are not free, and that the things we do are set in stone without our consent to the detriment of our freedom. This was clearly stated by the crook at the movie's turning point when he said something to the effect that people, like bombs, are set to do exactly what their Creator intends them to do. More significantly, it was strongly implied by the many instances when the star and his team tried to change the past and ended up making things just as they are.

But then the movie's resolution shot down the thesis of an un-free will caused by rigid predestination and foreknowledge. This was artistically done; the defeat wasn't stated in dialogue -- though there was some significant foreshadowing of it -- but I think the plot leaves no ambiguity about what the directors and producers wanted to say. So what was the point? I think it's difficult to state directly and more rewarding to see for yourself in the movie, so I'll just leave it at what I just said: it involves the triumph of free will over a rigid definition of predestination despite the existence of foreknowledge.

Most of these things concern the movie's plot. Though it was unclear at some points, I think that is the movie's strongest point. But the rest of the movie was great too. The music was good and appropriate. (It was done by Harry Gregson-Williams, the same person who composed the music for Narnia and some of the Metal Gear games.) I didn't have any problems with the cast. The visual effects were great, though either there was a strange blur effect in the movie or the projector was out-of-focus. There was enough of a strange kind of romance to keep people who watch movies for that kinda stuff satisfied (it wasn't a chick-flick though), and the humour was great too.

Go watch it!

A Savoury Dose of Poison

2006-10-29T03:01:01Z

I saw V For Vendetta tonight. 'Twas a thoroughly engaging movie with a good plot and better character development. The action was also fairly good, though I've seen much better. However, as with the Wachowski Brothers' Matrix series, the point of the movie wasn't so much to advance an engaging plot, develop interesting characters, or even provide good entertainment -- although it did all these things...and better than the last two Matrix movies -- as it was to communicate a message. These are people who seem to believe that stories ought to have morals, and that the central and peripheral morals ought to pervade the story's plot, dialogue, action, characters and flow.

Though, really, I should say that they think stories ought to have messages, since there was little moral about the "moral" of this story.

From beginning to end -- as I realised starting somewhere around the middle -- the movie is an attack on a variety of positions and people, including conservative Christianity, the Republican Party of American politics, the current US president George W Bush, the administration of that president, and those who support some or more key aspects of these people’s positions. The evil totalitarian regime advances an overtly (and superficially) Christian message. The evils of arbitrary oppression by corrupt people in the name of a lie are mixed with the 'evil' of believing that homosexual actions are wrong, the 'evil' of thinking that all religions aren't equally right and valid, and the (actual) evil of racism. The truth of the power of ideas, the virtue of fighting for a worthy cause and skilful Hollywood emotionalism are masterfully combined to advance this politically and ideologically charged message. A message that, by the way, includes the suggestion that a forceful revolution may be warranted to halt the ‘evils’ of these ‘oppressive’ people....

I don't think there's any innocence in the inclusion of many of these elements. The Wachowski Brothers don't seem the type to randomly select such things as the ideology of the ruling, evil totalitarian party and the reasons for which people were arrested, tortured and killed by this party. Noting this, the fact that these elements were chosen and not another set raises some questions, not least of which is why this set was chosen and not another.

There's more to be said about the film, but I’ll stop here for now. I repeat: the film was very engaging and I found it very entertaining. However, these aren't the only or even the most important aspects of movies. We shouldn't ignore the message behind movies like this one. Having tasted and enjoyed the flavour, savoury poison like this should always be consciously rejected when we realise what it really is…or it may just kill us.

People are equal in the same way that pennies are equal

2006-10-18T00:13:42Z

"People are equal in the same way that pennies are equal. Some are bright, others are dull; some are worn smooth; others are sharp and fresh. But all are equal in value, for each penny bears the image of the sovereign. Each person bears the image of the King of kings." ~ G.K. Chesterton

What non-religious reason is there for thinking that people are equal? The way it looks, people are so different that it's hard to see how anyone could substantiate the claim that all people are equal. I can see that some would say that, in the sight of the law, all people are equal. But I'm asking here about objective equality here: Are people actually equal? Are people equal in lawless lands and countries where the equality of all isn't enshrined in a constitution or something like it? For the countries that enshrine the equality of all, what is the basis for the claim that all men are creat--ahem, born equal?

I think it's obvious that it isn't a self-evident truth.

Incoherent Rambling + Questions: Imposing Freedom

2006-10-13T02:10:30Z

Greetings,

How can I impose liberty on you? How can I impose the absence of restrictions on you? By not forcing you to not curse? By not forcing you to pray? By not forcing you to have a specific ideology? If so then yes, I am indeed saying that my beliefs of non-enforcement are superior to your beliefs of enforcement.

The general context of this paragraph is a bit hard to explain, since it's all over the place. But it basically has to do with the idea of a secular government -- one that legislates and makes policies completely based on non-religious principles, morals and such. If this secular government happens to follow a secular philosophy with a stated aim of liberty for all with the underlying principle that any action is permissible so long as it causes no harm to anyone and, if it does, it is done by and between consenting adults, would its legislation of liberty be an imposition of liberty?

Before I go further, I should probably try to explain that mouthful -- "secular philosophy with a stated aim of liberty for all with the underlying principle that any action is permissible so long as it causes no harm to anyone and, if it does, it is done by and between consenting adults". This is kind of a simplification of the belief system (aka philosophy). But, by it, I mean a non-religious belief system where everything is allowed except most of those things that cause harm to others. Those that do or may cause harm may be allowed if they're done between consenting adults.

Back to the issue.

(In answering the question it may be useful to ignore the author's red-herrings in the third through fifth questions. The second question should probably be taken with some salt.)

Do you think a person can impose liberty on another? On a group of persons? Do you think a government can impose freedom on its people? How could that be done? If I want a group of people to be free, would I have to impose the freedom of an individual on another individual in order to allow the first individual to be free?

Why do I ask these things? Because I'm toying with the idea that, in group settings of free people with an authority who wishes for all to be as free as possible, the authority may usually be forced to impose one person's freedom on another. (I don't like the word impose in this, but I'm sticking to it.) If Jaime wants to enslave or do some other mean thing to Foxx, and the authority wishes Foxx to be free, wouldn't he be imposing Foxx's freedom on Jaime if he stops Jaime from doing what he wants to do?

I get the feeling that this is false because I'm missing or misinterpreting something, but I haven't figured out what it is as yet.

I need some sleep.