After the recent Suffolk murders, there have been a lot of angry letters written to newspaper letters pages demanding the Death Penalty be reinstated in the UK, anyone who’s been reading me for any length of time can probably guess where I stand on this.

However, I felt that it was time that I put my own opposition to this into more definite terms by writing something up in a bit more detail.  This has turned into something more resembling a short essay than a blog post, so, I’ve popped it onto my essays page rather than taking up the blog with it.

You can find my thoughts on it here: Why I oppose Capital Punishment.

I was given the heads up on this very interesting short film a little while ago and finally got round to watching it the other day, it’s certainly worth the 20 or so minutes it takes to run.

It covers our consumer culture, the origins and processes and a possible solution to our predicament.  I saw a strong case for ethical shopping in there and this film has started me thinking about the way I shop and the consequences of that.

Take a look at The Story of Stuff, oh if you’re using Firefox and NoScript, you’ll need to enable scripts for the site.

For me, questioning is a large part of spirituality, I feel that an unexamined belief is not worth holding.  That’s a large part of what I like about Buddhism, that spirit of enquiry and examination, in fact I was pleasantly surprised to find a virtual Sangha in Second Life which feels exactly the same way.

The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha is a place for Buddhists (and anyone else who wants to drop in and talk on the subject) to meet in Second Life.   I have to say it’s very useful to have them there, I’m finding that Second Life is a very useful tool for allowing communities to form and interact in a new way that I’ve not quite seen anywhere else.  I’ve been involved in some truly stimulating discussion meetings in the Sangha and have to say it’s certainly helped me along the path.

As an aside, I’m finding Second Life to be more useful when viewed as an enhancement to my Real Life and given a balance with that as appropriate.  I try not to spend more time there than I feel appropriate and always try to bear in mind my reasons for being there.

Well, I’ve decided to make the effort to go Vegetarian again.  I started this a little over two weeks ago, this’ll be the third time in my life I’ve tried, all these attempts have been recently in the last couple of years.

My reasons are for health and because of my Buddhist / Taoist views.  It also feels right on level that I can’t articulate, I know that if I fail this time, then there will be a fourth attempt.

I’m trying a gradual change, my breakfast is already fully veggie, lunch is my next target and I’ve already achieved it.  I just need to get my diet right to sustain my gym activity before I start to move my evening meals over.

It’s interesting that I seem to be eating a greater quantity of food and experiencing some light headedness.  A vegetarian friend tells me that the greater volume is normal and I think the light headedness is because I need to get my dietary balance worked out fully, but this is exactly why I’m doing a gradual change. 

Last time, it was my exercise habits that beat me, but from what I can see there’s no reason whatsoever that a Vegetarian can’t be a bodybuilding or triathlete or whatever.

I’ll keep my blog updated with the things I learn as I go along, hopefully my trial and error will come in handy for someone else!

I was wandering Google news recently, when I noticed that our very own Prince Andrew has thrown his hat into the ring over the post war handling of Iraq.  Criticising the way it’s all been allowed to fall apart.

I’m not going to go into the for and againsts of post war Iraq or even whether we should be in there at all, this blog is usually noticeably silent on current affairs these days.  That’s intentional, but I will say that my view tends to be that how we got here is not at present as important as where we go from here.  Or equally in this case how frankly and openly we discuss it, and are allowed to.

That’s why I think Andrew was right to say what he did, the actual content could be taken as being British arrogance and he’s come in for a lot of  flak in some areas of the UK press, I won’t go into that either.  My point is that there is an underlying message there, in between the lines;  It goes like this: “You’ve screwed up.  You’ve ruined a nation and condemned them to suffer years of fear and strife.  Every civilian death in Iraq is on your heads.”  My own additional comment is that this mess is not going to stay nice and confined in the Middle East, it’s going to spread and it already has.

Whatever your view on Andrew himself, the fact remains that it’s about time someone in the establishment gave voice to a deep discontent that the people in charge seem to be happy to ignore.