Month: Apr 2021

A day in the life of Sam

It takes a long time to get to the other side of the country.

To be sure, there are adventures to be had, mortal dangers to avoid and many different, friendly and unfriendly people to meet on the way. The variety of the different kinds of food would be a wonderful experience, if you are brave enough to taste them.

Sam woke up one morning with a tingling in his foot. He had been born with only one foot – that was the one that was tingling! He reckoned that the tingling must mean something. Then he had the brainwave! It means I need to travel. Where should I go? Just look North and step forth as they say in the classics!

So that is what he did. He hoisted all his worldly possessions on his back, checked where the sun was to find North and slipped silently on his way. No goodbyes or explanations to any of the others, who still slept – this was his own adventure!

He made good progress, crossing a patch of forest, but it was hot! Sam realised that moving during the day was not as wise as doing it in the cool of night. As he was thinking about perhaps holing up for the rest of the day, he was knocked over by a mighty blow!

Looking up he saw the face of a great furry monster looming over him. He quickly dived into his house and sealed the entrance with his foot. Nothing happened for a moment, although he thought he could hear heavy breathing.

All of a sudden, his foot was tickled and he began to giggle, even though there was something very big and dangerous out there…

The cat pulled a face and said Yuchh! and spat out the taste of the slimy snail foot and stalked away, sure that he would never taste a snail’s foot again.

Phew ! said Sam after a while, that was a lucky escape! He stretched out of his shell, tested the grass with his tongue (it tasted a bit different to the lettuce he was used to) and looked about to see if it was safe to go on. Which it was, so he slipped along for a while, up and down over grass blades, until he got to a flat hard desert like surface.

Far on the other side he could see some green, so he set off. It was very hot and he began to feel sorry that he had left home and his family and friends. There was no one to talk to and… suddenly there was a loud squeewitt!! and a shadow fell over him. It was a Magpie Lark who thought Sam could be lunch; but Sam was fast. He slipped into his shell and gripped the ground tightly with his muscular foot. Tap! tap! peck, peck! on his shell, but it was too hard for the bird, which flew off with a disgusted Sqweewitt!

And that was enough adventure for Sam. He turned away and sprint-slipped back the way he came. He got back home as the sun was going down.

All the other snails who lived under the same pot as he did said Where have you been? You were gone when we woke up and we searched and searched but couldn’t find you…

The other side of the world Sam said, don’t go there and fell asleep.

The Shadow of the Cross

For a lapsed Catholic, I spend a lot of time thinking about religion. Even more so as I have been asked to stand as a Godparent for my grandson. Now that is awkward, as my belief in God is constrained.

I believe God is the manifestation of our need for God and has been substantiated by many accounts and in many forms. However, I have no faith in the reliability of man’s accounts of God.

Quite rightly for Christians, Good Friday is a sombre day for repentance and spiritual contemplation. In Catholic churches, icons are covered, the altar is bare and bells are replaced by wooden clappers. It is probably the most meaningful of Christian holy days as it has not been commercialised, other than supermarkets touting fish as good for Lent!

The ritual of Stations of the Cross is observed on Good Friday, visualising the indignities and agonies Jesus suffered before and during his crucifixion. It engenders powerful feelings which are probably confirmatory of beliefs.

Rituals reinforce beliefs and involvement demonstrates piety. The Way of the Cross engenders religious ecstasies in some cultures, where devotees flay themselves and carry heavy crosses wearing thorny crowns.

The last days of Jesus provided most of the symbols, rituals and beliefs that base the Christian faith, enshrining sacrifice and matyrdom and ensuring that Jesus is remembered whenever Christians eat and drink.

Notwithstanding the earthquake and the tearing of the veil in the Temple when he died and the mysterious disappearance of his body, Jesus’ divinity was rejected by most of the Jews.

Nevertheless, the testimony of his disciples and Jesus’ return founded a religion which has the greatest following in the world.

I remain unconvinced but cannot deny that I am aware of the shadow of the cross.

Memory is not what I thought it was

“Many people believe that memory works like a recording device. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: you can go in there and change it, but so can other people”

So says Elizabeth Loftus an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory*. And she walks her talk with an impressive array of research.

She was consulted by Harvey Weinstein who asked her: ‘How can something that seems so consensual be turned into something so wrong?’ 

Memories are reconstructions; they are not literal representations of what actually happened … (memory) is highly malleable and open to suggestion.

She has also shown that false memories can be embedded by leading questions and psychotherapy.

In a 2013 TED talk entirled “How reliable is your memory” she reported that one project had identified some 300 people who were convicted of things they didn’t do, based on DNA analysis. Three quarters of the cases were due to faulty eyewitness memory.

The implications for eyewitness based testimony and the validity of repressed memories are huge. It means that single witness evidence should not be regarded as sufficient evidence of truth, unless there is other direct evidence to support it.

In the US, some states refuse to prosecute cases based on recovered memory testimony and some insurers decline cover to therapists on recoved memory malpractice suits.*

Testimony from Professor Lucas in the two headline inquiries in Australia into rapes by a Minister or in a Minister’s office may well be enlightening.

But sadly, the outcomes of those inquiries have already been decided, without the need to hear evidence.

In my view, the sooner we get rid of juries, eyewitness evidence and judges the better: we need to promote universal surveillance, compulsory truth serums and lie detection and use a computer to evaluate the evidence.

*Wikipedia – Elizabeth Loftus