I, artificial-intelligence-lawyer

Panic is ensuing. Lawyers are scared. Aren't they always? The same fears the Luddites had during the Industrial Revolution are sweeping many more industries than ours. In one sense, the Luddite mill workers were not incorrect: many lost their jobs, wages did not improve for them, and rich landowners benefited while workers did not. A hundred years later, wages had increased, and the improved efficiency of machines had created jobs no one could imagine existing. The job market grew because of machines, eventually.

Most large commercial aircraft could fly themselves. In fact, most of the time they do. In the age of Twitter, news media very seldom break a story. However, the news has not disappeared, at least not yet. Social media users fall prey to a hundred thousand different scams. The knowledge and skills of the journalist, in providing an authentic and verifiable voice, are indispensable in a world of disinformation.

Do-it-yourself (D.I.Y.) legal contracts had been available for years from Horters. Sage Pascal has now entered the same business, with their LegalWrite software platform, offering over one hundred contracts to laymen seeking to avoid a visit to the office of an average lawyer. I went through every one of these contracts in preparation for one of my board exams. As I read through them, I could think of a hundred scenarios where something could go wrong if a lawyer did not in the very least bit read through the final contract with the knowledge of the person's circumstances.

Many lawyers fear that clever AI (that is, artificial intelligence) will replace them as legal advisors, contract drafters, researchers, and as the writers of wills. And yet, for the same reason that large commercial aircraft companies still insist on pilots in their planes, and that news media still exist despite Twitter, artificial intelligence will not take the jobs of lawyers.

Laymen have drafted their own contracts for many years. Much of litigation is thanks to this practice. A nonlegal mind is often unable to adapt a contract to their inevitably very specific circumstances. Even if an artificial intelligence, or pro forma contract could be adapted to every circumstance, people would still require lawyers for the same reason that they require pilots. My suggestion is that artificial intelligence will not take our jobs as lawyers, but that it might automate some of our processes, speeding up our ability to do our jobs. People go to lawyers, because they want to be absolutely certain that their interests, embedded in their contracts, will stand the test of time. Even if machines land up drafting our contracts, legal eyes will still need to read over the contract, and edit it where necessary.

What once took a lawyer six hours, might, within coming decades, take a lawyer six minutes, with the help of a deep learning machine to draft the actual contract. However, the same product would be bought from the lawyer, namely an ability to properly interpret the law, foresee pitfalls, and ensure the quality of the contract, the requested will, or of a memo giving legal advice.

Just as the Internet adage goes, that a product which takes a person fifteen minutes to create, and cost an absolute fortune, is worth a fortune. What is being paid for, is not the fifteen minutes it took to create the product, but the many years of study, skill, and experience required to make the product in fifteen minutes.

What is likely to happen, is that, over time, legal services, with the help of deep learning machines, will reduce radically in cost. This is what happened with the Industrial Revolution, in relation to blue-collar jobs that did not require much thinking. What also happened, is that demand for the products of the machines increased. Every person wanted to own a cotton shirt, several if possible. If anything, the deep learning machine revolution, will allow legal services to be more swiftly and easily provided by expert lawyers. With less effort required by the lawyers providing the services, fees will likely go down. With fees going down, more people will be able to afford legal services, more of the time.

Economics being as they are, the advent of personal computers, meant to reduce the effort and work human beings have to put in, in doing so, increased their workload. If anything, with the aid of deep learning, artificially intelligent machines, lawyers will have more work than they ever have. The deep learning machine industry, furthermore, will impact all other areas of the economy, where human intelligence is currently required. If your architect does not have to draw the plans, but merely go over them to make sure that they are safe and accurate and compliant, more people will be able to employ architects. Intellectual services that once only were available for the elite, could suddenly become available for everyone. If anything, the future holds the potential of more jobs for lawyers, not less. It also holds the potential that what money these lawyers earn will get them further than ever before.

So fear not, my colleagues. The machines are not out to get you. Like a personal computer, and that brilliant invention known as email, they are merely here to increase your workload.

Smile if you want to be happy.

I am, alas, an unfortunate fan of sociological magazines, such as the much trumpeted: Pacific Standard.

Such high brow publications always talk about these obtuse studies, where people are asked to think or write about some distant past situation, in their short and no doubt meaningful earthly existence. The unwitting-subjects-of-these-experiments' subsequent decisions? They are compromised by these purposely engineered prior thought crimes, and sociological conclusions are quite rapidly drawn on everything from social exclusion, power and poverty to the effectiveness of game theory.


Think about a time when little old you were... gasp... socially excluded, and you, yes, you - with the crooked smile and the coffee stained teeth, are statistically likely to become... wait for it... more likeable.

Think about when you were weak, and you will gain empathy for those in a pinch.

People who think of others as their superiors - are better able to read their emotions. When told a picture is of an inferior, it becomes perplexingly difficult for the people - inevitably called 'subjects' - to read the emotions of the lads and lasses in those same pictures.

Think about yourself as smart, and you lose intelligence in subsequent test results, but think of your humble little muggins as trying hard, and always doing your best, and your results in tests somehow go up.


When, as a young boy, I moved to a new school... I moved from the government syllabus to the posh IEB, and along with it, to a school outsiders called... 'snobbish' - at the best of times. It was not a pleasant shift, needless to say.

One of the girls in my class once did a thoroughly boring prepared-speech on none other than 'happiness'.

She said that smiling itself caused the systems in the human body to magically release those special chemicals that cause happiness. I left that class with a fake smile, and faked happiness that day, until I was a happy lil' chap.

Life being as it is, I soon returned to blank expressions, and held to that for a few years, way back when... but c'est la vie, especially when moving to a different school.

Besides, I prefer to see my emotions as alarm bells, warnings of something that my subconscious mind has secretly picked up upon, and that poor old inobservant me just hasn't picked up yet... I would rather be genuinely sad, than peppy happy, any day of the week except Sunday. I do believe I am genuinely happy, but that does not mean a few thought crimes don't sometimes help me become better at what I need to achieve.


Actors will teach you something similar, they say that if you want to be successful, pretend you already are. Your posture changes how you view the world. It also changes how others view you in a given moment. The most annoying opponent is one who smiles when they lose a game. The absolute worst, is one who encourages you when you miss the ball, and insists on wishing you the best of luck.


Returning to those ridiculous, yet bizarrely effective, thought experiments that the inevitable sociology obsessives gravitate to...

Put a pencil in your mouth, so as to force yourself to smile. You will be less critical of what you are reading or being told at that moment... try doing so while reading this very article, and await that spinning wheel television shows portray as hypnosis. You will be an optimist, or more so, if you insist upon a breakneck speedy smile.

P.S. dear reader, you being less critical at such a critical moment, will not prevent your nearby colleagues from being critical of you, for your use of a pencil (hopefully your own): as what they might, for-some-unknown-reason, perceive as a chew toy.

Frown heavily now, and you will spot far more errors. I often enjoy a hardy frown, and a bit of bitter coffee... when it comes time to edit my tremendous or horrendous prose... it works wonders that a smile never could.


So, back to those lessons that unfortunate aspiring actors do get at sub-par-and-above schools of the arts...

By mimicking powerful or successful people, actors do something they don't even notice at first. Think of the first time a beautiful lass or two said she loved you (or, for the ladies, and those so oriented, the first time a lad did... mutatis mutandis, and all). Your posture will straighten. You will smile from ear to ear.

Just, as going to sleep at a certain time, will set and reset your biological clock, smiling from ear to ear, even without those champagne bubble memories, and standing up straight - along with that - will undoubtedly affect your internal confidence and happiness clocks.


The saying that you should treat everyone you meet as an old friend, in order to curry their favour (stop being so diabolical, dear reader) - also seems to ring true. What we think, and the way we behave, influences our mind and the behaviour of others.


So, if you are not feeling particularly confident, after you phoned up that first girl... or lad - who ever said s/he loved you - and s/he quite politely told you that s/he just isn't whatsoever interested in you anymore...

Pretend you are a puppet on a string, being held up by the top of your head, or that you are hanging on for dear life - by a wooden beam between your teeth.

Mind you, in the second example, don't put your teeth to the sky: have your face at exactly 90% from the ground... otherwise, it just looks a tad strange. In fact, so strange, that you might be socially excluded by your colleagues... priming you effectively for the coming example about social exclusion.


On that sour note, read on, to just another sociology topic...

When you next meet someone new, think of a time your were socially excluded from some portion of society - one that you so desperately wanted to be included with... statistics analysis suggests you will be more charming as a result.

Perhaps, you might be thinking to yourself - you should have done so before you called up that first lass/lad/etc who - once upon a blue moon - said she... or he... or s/he... loved you. Maybe you would have been just charming enough to reignite the inexplicable spark she... or he... once somehow - for no reason you can ever seem to comprehend - felt.


So, sit up straight in your chair, and pretend you love your day job as much as you love hearing other people say they love you. You might just become more focussed on your work, and you might just get that promotion you always wished you had. You might also not, but isn't it worth a try?

In the very least, you might find that you visit your physiotherapist or chiropractor just a pinch less, and are far happier now that you have that extra bit of cash to spend. Sitting up straight can, somehow or other, do wonders for your posture.

Medical council appeal posthumous death warrant!

A while ago, I wrote about a bizarre set of circumstances that led to a ruling which authorised what otherwise would be the murder of a supposedly dying cancer patient, a Robert Stransham-Ford. Capetonian advocate, Stransham-Ford, in a further turn of fate, was quite dead as the Pretoria based judge read out the verdict.

I referenced a case in the British commonwealth, where a court authorised the killing of a Siamese twin, to save the life of its equally young sibling, and where the court also sought to claim it was not creating a precedent. I thought the Pretoria Euthanasia ruling might not protect any doctor involved from actual prosecution, due to a concept known to lawyers as ripeness.

The court in the British case was the highest in the land, and it had the necessary constitutional authority to make the decision it had, to authorise a medical operation which would save one life and end another. In any case, the court specifically stated that it was not setting a precedent, and the death of the Siamese twin was never prosecuted.

The primary problem for me, with the current euthanasia ruling, lay in the court pre-judging a matter which was not yet ripe for trial, in that the killing had not yet taken place. I have little trouble with a court in a criminal matter developing our case law to allow euthanasia, after a killing has occurred, assuming it has enough authority to overturn the accepted practice of dealing with euthanasia in sentencing but still convicting of murder. This case however does not involve facts already at play, but facts which would not happen without the warrant to break with the current standing decisions of the South African courts, and to kill, issued by the court.

Any law student will be taught in Constitutional Law that the courts cannot be allowed to decide on matters that are as yet merely theoretical, and not yet arrived upon. My Constitutional law lecturer, was quite the activist type, he used to say that if you wanted a law changed, you should find someone prepared to break it, and defend them after the fact. The courts only have jurisdiction over matters which are already pressing, that is to say, over ripe matters. The judiciary furthermore, do not have jurisdiction over matters which are moot, that is, matters which their rulings will no longer affect.

The place of the courts, where there is established law, is reactive. It is not the place of the courts to judge matters which have not yet occurred. Were this not the case, I could at this moment ask the courts to decide the fate of the famed cannibals of the future: the Speluncean Explorers. They certainly can rule that certain laws are unconstitutional, but were the high court to do so, for instance, where a statute infringes on the constitution, it would need the endorsement of the Constitutional Court to back up its decision. Courts can also issue declarations on the law, or interdicts in accordance with it, but they cannot authorise its breaking ahead of time without invalidating the law for the rest of us. Even the law involving criminal informants who break minor laws, is heavily regulated by case law. In effect, the decision, by basing itself on facts as yet to occur, and contradicting set criminal law, was in danger of pre-empting a criminal law case, and one, what is more, likely in a different territorial jurisdiction.

One cannot imagine the nightmarish predicament the judge adjudicating a murder trial would find themselves in, had another judge already ruled in his matter before the facts had occurred. Imagine if the cancer patient had at the last minute backed out and told his doctor he did not want to die, and the doctor decided to go ahead with the euthanasia. This is a major variation of the facts, which would call into question the decision to authorise the killing, but were this or another variation to occur, it would hurt the perception of justice and make the job of the trial judge extremely difficult. Also, it would create a presumption that the cancer patient still wanted to die, even if he had decided contrary. Would the doctor now no longer need to prove that the man still desired death to the end? In Dignitas, a suicide clinic, the patients are asked if they still want death throughout their medically induced demise.

The practical problem with such a case as the present matter, would lie in a new authority created for the courts, to warrant the breaking of the law ahead of time, without bothering to set aside the law itself as unconstitutional... Not the Constitutional Court, but mere high court judges, and judges before whom the otherwise criminal act-to-be has not even occurred.
I argued at the time of the judgement, that any reliable precedent would only occur if there were a decision to prosecute the doctor who administered the suicide, and if a court in the jurisdiction of the murder were then to uphold the pre-emptive decision.
The decision in fact occurred and was given when the whole thing was already moot. As Hans Fabricius, the judge in the case read out the decision, after his spending much of the trial emphasizing his concern for the cancer patient's wellbeing - the cancer patient was already lying dead, allegedly of natural causes. Media state that Dignity SA, and the man's lawyers were unaware that he had passed away and did not purposely deceive the court of law.

In today's Stop Press, from LexisNexis Current Awareness, there is an update on this fascinating incident. It was already well established that the state would be appealing the unusual decision which sought to bar it from prosecuting what the standing precedent setting decisions of the courts consider to be a murder. Joining the state however, report The Times, is the Health Professions Council of South Africa, the body that regulates the medical profession. The HPCSA is quite upset with the part of the decision which would see the doctor not lose their medical licence for acting in what otherwise would be classed as unethical medical negligence and the intentional ending of the life of their patient.

'Robert Stransham-Ford, who won the right to die with a doctor’s help, was wrong when he said his terminal cancer had robbed him of his constitutional right to dignity.
This is according to the Health Professions Council of SA’s appeal against the landmark ruling that Stransham-Ford be allowed to commit doctor-assisted suicide.
Stransham-Ford, 65, argued that his slow death was undignified.
In appeal papers filed this week the council said: “The process of dying does not constitute an insult upon human dignity. Infirmity, incompetence, dementia and immobility, all of them of natural origins, limit human possibility. But sooner or later they are unavoidable, the products of inevitable bodily and or mental decay.”
An appeal has been lodged by the state and its papers, filed by the minister of health, minister of justice and the director of public prosecutions, assert: “Dying is part of life; its completion.”' (The Times | 'Medics, state line up to challenge euthanasia ruling' 27th May 2015)

Notably, Dignity SA is quoted as saying that they welcome the matter being appealed, and that rightly the Constitutional Court should be the court to decide the matter. Indeed, it would be, but for such a precedent setting case, why it wasn't approached as court a quo on an urgent basis is beyond me. As it is, we sit with a situation where a court of law states that it can authorise the breaking of standard law beforehand, and that each decision in such regard must be made based on its own merits. This is a scenario where two doctors both euthanise a patient, one with a court order and another without one, and where one goes to jail and the other does not. It is a strange scenario indeed. Perhaps it will become our standing law, but it is up to the Constitutional or other appeal court to decide that now.   Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice.

 
 

Only the long-dead will be surprised by the slight emerging crest of the long-made rising tsunami of Ireland's shift

Has anything really changed between today and yesterday in Ireland?

We have had gay marriage for about a decade now in South Africa. No smiting as yet has occurred, although society has become more amicable to the idea of gay marriages over time, just as it has to legal abortion, and to divorce.

I expect that within 50 years most of the world will endorse gay marriage, the endorsement being the natural follow-on to the popular support it has. I also expect euthanasia to be legal just as swiftly. Even the pope promotes gay lifestyle, and now divorce. What you are seeing is laws changing as society does.


If anything, any fight to be had was over years ago when society pitched left.

The introduction of laws to meet society's wishes, and to punish those who don't support gay marriage such as cake makers or lifestyle venues, well, that is a natural progression of society's wishes being granted. The criminal penalties against pro-life protestors in South Africa, are far more daunting than those faced by wedding venues for refusing weddings. Nothing has changed in Ireland, although in the lives of certain individuals - those affected by the change, something has happened.

That does not mean I agree or disagree with what has happened, it just means that only the long-dead will be surprised by the slight emerging crest of the long-made element of the rising tsunami of Ireland's complete cultural shift.

Law is just that, law. It has winners and losers. To create rights you inevitably take away rights. Any argument to the contrary does not stand in practice. However, a law which represents the beliefs of the people, whether heinous or beautiful, does not really change much on the ground, especially if it has been voted through in a democratic manner. Laws come and go and change as society does. Ireland's laws better represent what Ireland is today, than they did yesterday, when it still more fully pretended to cling to Catholic moral teachings which had held such force for centuries, and now have been rebuked and what is more, loudly rejected as no longer representing the left wing Irish. The Irish have done what many a teen actor has, and shed their religious fatigues for different clothing, and have been roundly applauded by many around the world for it.

The same tsunami could just as easily swing the other way. In many European nations with liberal laws, 'homophobia' has been secretly rising, according to surveys of the people. In America it has swung the opposite way, with once popular abortion, though the laws remain as they were.

Society changes and so does its laws. It signifies little in the long run, except when laws outlast the centuries. Then perhaps we can say something has changed. For now however, an idea of rising popularity is now to be law in Ireland.

p.s. Please keep any comments on this post civil and within South African law.

Judge authorises killing of lawyer... doctors might still be prosecuted

A Pretoria based judge has authorised the "mercy killing" of a Cape Town based lawyer... the lawyer's doctors might still be prosecuted.

The life of a Siamese twin depended upon the killing of their sibling. In Great Britain, the courts were asked to authorise the slaying of the marked out sibling twin. The courts created something never attempted before, in authorising the killing. The judgement set out a judgement without precedent, a judgement that future cases could not reference as a binding authority. This is something the courts attempted, in an authorised, legal murder of a little child, to save the life of an equally little child.


The standing law in South Africa is that if you kill a person out of feelings of mercy to the victim, you are convicted of murder, but are given a minimal sentence.

A Pretoria judge, Hans Fabricus, has authorised the euthanasia of a lawyer, 65 year old Adv. Robin Stransham-Ford, who practices law in Cape Town. The judge attempted something similar to the British court, setting out that each future case must be decided on its merits.

listen to ‘Judge authorises killing of lawyer. Lawyer dies on same day.’ on audioBoom

News report that the judgement set out that the doctors would neither be prosecuted nor convicted, nor held civilly liable for their intentional killing of a cancer patient.

Therein lies the problem. It is set out by our system of government that it is the role of the National Prosecuting Authority to decide whether to prosecute. The law furthermore states clearly, through precedent, that euthanasia is still murder, that is to say, no matter your motive, you may not intentionally kill another human being without justification. Cases where people have sought legal advice and acted in accordance with it, while still breaking the law, have found the violator of the law still guilty.

Can a judge authorise a battered wife to kill her husband? Can it authorise a police team to assassinate a kidnapper or criminal? The problem with the judgement authorising the killing of the lawyer, is its shady quality. The real precedent if it comes will occur if the prosecutor decides to prosecute the doctors. Then, the courts will need to decide whether a judge can issue a death warrant by authorising killings which oppose standard law. Further, the facts are not at issue yet, the killing is not yet done, the judge might well have pre-empted an issue, and further his decision could be viewed by courts as merely legal advice, and thus not binding.

One would have expected a Capetonian judge to adjudicate such a matter, of note is that the judge is question is a Pretoria based judge, and yet, he is deciding on the fate of a Capetonian. Perhaps there is also an issue of physical territorial jurisdiction beyond that of basic concepts of jurisdiction. It would take a brave or reckless doctor to be willing to be the test case in this matter. Otherwise, we might find ourselves in a country where any odd member of the judiciary issues authorisation for any number of usually illegal activities, from killings, to burglary, to any number of cases. An attempt to pre-judge or authorise a series of events, certainly may not stand the test of time.

Ultimately the real case is yet to come. It will likely follow on police sirens, and the injection of a green substance resembling Spar Letta Cream Soda.

Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice.

A statue of Rhodes is set to fall, but a history cast in stone, persists...

Statues have a strange effect on the human psyche. Their stone absurdities haunt mankind, or comfort men and women, as though their strange figures still breath, walk and sprint upon the far-flung hinterlands of the mind. The fall of the statue of a somewhat unfortunate dictator, a Mr Saddam Hussein, seemed a perfect signifier of sentiment in Iraq, as the very glorious westerners brought lifelong democracy and eternal salvation with them... That the CIA orchestrated the event in question, was not immediately announced, but subsequently hit page 9 of some newspapers, years later.

Statues make us think. In Europe, the way a statue is crafted can tell you how its namesake died.

In a little mineral based economy at the southern tip of a largely unnoticed little continent called Africa, a statue of a man who died ages ago is causing a bit of a hiccup.

listen to ‘A statue has been sentenced to banishment, still, a history cast in stone remains’ on audioBoom

The man in question was the great, and terrible industrial businessman of his time. He acquired abundant wealth, and lived in luxury. Like most wealthy monopolists of his time, his wealth and conditions of life were quite opposed to what his workers and employees could expect from their own second hand cradle and soon to be dug grave. He insisted people wear trousers, which caused great hardship to people who farmed for a living. His egregious must-wear-trousers  scheme gave him cheap labour to extract minerals within the devil's mouth of his mines.

Make no mistake, many of the most essential parts of South African infrastructure exist today because of the man in question. Our economy and business world owe certain amounts of their profits to the business acumen of the ruthless man Rhodes.

He set up the University of Cape Town, and is the namesake of Rhodes University (which in modern times owes more to its name than to any current reputational gap with its competitors).

Rhodesia quickly became Zimbabwe when its colonial rulers were militarily thwarted. South Africa has also taken upon itself to change the names of landmarks, even those which are quite neutral, poetic, and known across the world (or were until their names were changed).

The ancient Egyptians had a poetic curse. Those who were most particularly worthy of infamy, where wiped from the historic record. Their monuments were destroyed, and their name was pencilled over. The most monstrous of people, or the least liked were erased.This approach is distinct from the approach of the Chinese dynasties, which had history rewritten to blacken the names of their predecessors. The approach of that fearless thing, democracy, has been slightly different. Rather than fear the ghosts of yesteryear, an approach has emerged, that seeks to preserve history, both good and evil. History, is a lesson according to such an approach. It is a hard fought knowledge that must be heard, and must be remembered, with tales of caution, and carefulness to study from the ruin of others.

Napoleon might have mercilessly pursued his opponents, but the French would not dismantle his statues or his monuments. Even those who believe him akin to a secular anti-christ, would hardly dare desire to lay ruin to his statues. His monuments, remind them of both his terrible wrath and madness, and of the great feats he achieved in other areas.

Statues make us ask about history, they bring it to life in a way that writing alone will not.

Ghandi, had some very racist things to say about black South Africans, when he was still walking the earth. From his horrendous statements, one might think he believed his fellow human beings to be below the basic dignity of human rights.

We do not remember Ghandi for this reason however. We remember him for his pursuit of peace. We do not tear down his statues, and demand that the world view him by one context only. In fact, we recognise that his views were more a product of his social upbringing at the time, a defect, than something that is connected to his greatness. We view Ghandi as a whole human being, we view the good with acclaim, and we view the bad with sadness.

A poll conducted around the time UCT decided that they would be moving or removing the statue, found that the vast majority of students opposed such a move.

The 'debates' held, involved black African students chanting 'k*ff*r', and shaming white students in general, according to media reports. The white students who attended, shared how ashamed they were to be white, because certain white people had been evil towards black people in the past. Whether race shaming is acceptable if the person doing it is the skin colour, or whether it is still the judgement of a race based on the actions of individuals is another issue entirely. The whole thing started with vandalism of the statue, with a student proudly taking responsibility for dumping human excrement upon the stone-faced image. The students campaigning against the statue placed Nazi swastikas around campus, and did other disruptive things. Beyond the statue, they announced that they wanted more black lecturers, and inevitably less white ones.

An early industrialist, who was expert at business, and lacking in respect for human dignity, has become the centre of a storm. A lynch mob, at odds with the majority of students at UCT, shouting and plastering up offensive symbols, has succeeded in calling for the removal of a statue.

The ANCYL now wants the statue of Paul Kruger to be removed. He too, like Ghandi and like Cecil John Rhodes, was a product of his times. His faults were almost inevitable, given the society he was raised in, in a world that had no concept yet of civil rights. He is also one of the shaping forces which made South Africa what it is today.

Students who want Rhodes University to change its name will succeed in graduating from a university that no one has heard of, rather than from one with a reputation spanning many years, a reputation no longer linked to Cecil John Rhodes, but to academic excellence.

Wiping Cecil John Rhodes from textbooks, and from public spaces, will deny those same students the opportunity to teach their children about what good, and what evil Rhodes did, there will be no reason to ask about him, or his role in shaping South Africa.

Take away the Voortrekker monument, and there is no longer a reason to ask why the Afrikaners fled the cape, or what role rivalry between English and Afrikaans South Africans played in the lead up to Apartheid. The main English language party at the time gained many votes from coloured South Africans, denying them the vote, was a pragmatic move for the Afrikaner nationalists, in their political war against the British. Political opportunism caused what today is called a crime against humanity. Opportunism based on hatred of another culture, born from wars between the four colonist nations that once formed South Africa.

When we finally stop seeing the world in black and white, and instead see people who offer us lessons with their good and ill judgements, perhaps we can be comfortable with history.

Insisting white lecturers be replaced, will only mean that the standard is no longer that the best lecturer gets a job, but rather another criteria, which can then become one of a vast list of criteria. The result is that the students in question are no longer guaranteed the best education they can afford. Instead, they are offered something less, something yet still more befitting their comfort zone.

There are two ways of viewing history: objectively, as that which really has happened, or, subjectively, seeking to destroy the fame and infamy of the long dead, who neither benefit, nor lose any sleep, either way. It is we who lose, when the hard learned, deeply painful lessons of history are erased for the sake of staying within a false comfort zone.

Because, heaven doesn't exist... yet... according to the early Christian writings

Ancient writings make a peculiar read. They can subvert our preconceptions, revealing that what we hold to be sacred modern knowledge, is ancient. It can shock the spirit to discover that the ancients believed in a spherical globe of an earth. It can unnerve the inner form, to discover how close the mind of some writers is to the essence of our so-called Western civilization. Augustine's City of God, is often credited as a founding force in our modern world. Virgil's poetry teaches us values such as duty and family, which the ancient Greeks had no concept of.

The early Christian writings are particularly fascinating in their literalism.

The followers of the All Encompassing Church, as early Christians called themselves (even those who disagreed with each other, and formed their own denominations), the 'Catholic' church, to use the modern phrase, which still holds its place even in the creeds of protestant churches... these followers believed in a physical death and a physical resurrection.

The fact Jesus came back from the dead, not as some disembodied spirit, but as a physical creature with real wounds, is definitely of great importance to these early Christians. Roman Catholics even today believe that it is real, living human blood, and human flesh that they eat during communion, the blood and flesh of Jesus as he hung dying upon a tree, a cross as modern language labels the instrument of the death of God.

The dead are only raised, and judged after the death of the universe in the bible. All is destroyed, and human beings are raised and judged. The good inhabit a physical city, with physical bodies, made anew, perfectly made.

The New Jerusalem, Zion, is created after the destruction of everything, and this is where the early Christians believed they would spend eternity, in physical bodies, accompanying their deity.

Heaven, in the sense of the rule of God, of course existed to Christians. Where goodness was on earth, there was heaven. Heaven as a place inhabited by the risen dead however, was a place yet to exist.

In fact, the Catholic church, for centuries has taught that the soul is not separable from the body. It is the blueprint of our body through eternity.

In recent years, as philosophies have changed, these philosophies have influenced religious beliefs also. The idea of an abstract heaven emerges from poetry and philosophy, the concept of saints walking around on clouds, and a hell where the damned are already punished.

These concepts however are modern concepts.

Early Christianity believed in a heaven to come, and in an earth fading away.

The Council of Vienna, in discussing beliefs that the soul was separate from the body, in 1311-1312 stated:

'Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.' (EWTN | COUNCIL OF VIENNE (1311-1312))

The human mind, is essentially a mix of electricity and the reactions of various chemicals. It can be affected by substances, circumstances, even fatigue. To suggest that the mind and the soul are the same thing would seem highly irregular. The soul, if it is inseparable from the human body, can surely then be the blueprint, the writing in of the plan of God for a person. The Lutherans thought this to be an absolute plan, where we are born good or evil. The Catholics however held that choice must be involved, even if God might know the choice that will be made. To the Catholic, mortal sin damages the soul. If the soul is the blueprint of the person written by God, and sin is disobedience against God, then this makes a deep amount of sense. It links with the idea voiced by Jesus in the Christian gospel, that man does not live by bread alone but by the words of God, and to the idea that opens that famous book in the bible, that through the word God made everything.

It's wrongly, but perhaps not unexpectedly suggested by a reader that I was advocating the advent of soul sleep in my analysis. Such a belief, is not what I was suggesting. An interesting article on the controversy over the idea a few centuries ago, also sets out the Catholic position, as I shall quote it:

'We, with apostolic authority, define the following: According to the general disposition of God, the souls of all the saints […] already before they take up their bodies again and before the general judgment, have been, are and will be with Christ in heaven […] and these souls have seen and see the divine essence with an intuitive vision and even face to face, without the mediation of any creature' (Rorate Caeli | A POPE WHO FELL INTO HERESY, A CHURCH THAT RESISTED: John XXII and the Beatific Vision)

However, Christianity from earliest times has held that the spiritual is not physical. The soul, is spiritual, in the same way that the writing which forms the pages of a book is not a part of the story created by the book, but its governing foundation. Heaven in the sense of the presence of God has, as I was aware before the debate, was widely believed by Christians from the start. However, the sense of a heaven that includes any sort of moving about in a body, must be restricted to a heaven to come, for the soul is spiritual.

Spiritual things, like the rules of the physical universe such as gravity, certainly can interact one with the other, just as mathematical formulae interact in the real world. In this spiritual sense, heaven certainly can be said to exist, even in the early Christian writings, it is the presence of God, into which the spiritual soul is governed, awaiting its body, and the heaven to come.

However the concept of heaven as another dimension, or a present physical place existing just out of view does not correlate with the concept of something being spiritual. Spiritual in the sense carried through centuries relates to that which can neither be touched nor seen. The words which create a novel, the code which runs a computer. The writing of God which creates all things.

The modern sense of heaven however, where an alternative realm exists, or people wonder around the lofty heights cannot be said to exist in analysing the ancient writings. That sort of heaven is only something early Christians expected to come about in the future.

Except in the concept of purgatory, where the soul is said to be readjusted before heaven due to slight deviances from God's plan, after the death of a person, in analysing the beliefs in question, their soul cannot be said to change. It, in that sense, of time being the measurement of before and after in change, cannot be said to interact with the divine writing that is considered the soul. Yes, the soul, if it were said to be exposed to time might interact with it in sequence, but could not be said to be changed by the physical world any longer.


However you define the spiritual heaven early and later Christians believed in, the one pre-dating the establishment of a physical heaven, it does not match the concept of heaven the modern world holds. That concept is a mash up of the ideas of a physical heaven, with a cultural shift that envisages almost another dimension, and elysian fields, a mount Olympus, an Avalon. These ideas are foreign both to the bible, and to the early Christian writings.

Why fire ignites infinity...

Among the most despised gods of the savagely civilised ancient Greeks, was Kronos, the God of time.

It flickers softly, as the airflow passes through. Fire is not light. It is not heat. The fire is not the mere sacrificial smoke, or the altruistic, dead or dying fuel which feeds it.

listen to ‘The Fire flares and it ignites infinity’ on audioBoom

Define it, the philosopher challenges our limited three dimensional minds. Define it, the philosopher screeches loudly. The fire burns destructively ahead of us, and yet we worship it for what it creates. We fill our churches, temples and synagogues with the flame of this magical, mysterious dead being.

The reason we struggle with defining fire is the same reason that we struggle to define life or love. Scientists say that we do not truly see the world. It is this reason that permits optical illusions, and allows colours to appear different than they are when the illusion of shadow is permeated through the mind. We see a very limited small part of the world, and even that the mind filters out, we see only what we need to survive.


It is easy to define a chair. The sky is less easy, the mind can easily comprehend it.

What we struggle to define, we the creatures who believe, in our major world religions, that God created us to name all the creatures of the world: is that which consistently changes, and that which itself is change. I am a sinner, I am a saint… The old popular music song brays against the world. Many authors of novels, of late, have come to despise the fiction art: refusing to believe that the caricatures of fiction can exist in real life. That which changes is hard to define. Fire itself is change. It is why we struggle with it.

Fire, ignites infinity. The basis of Buddhism, a spiritual suicide. The Buddha believed that life was suffering, and that Nirvana needed to be reached, that a being always coming out the birth canal as something different, is something that needed to be stopped. The God of Christianity calls himself I Am. He insists that he does not change, and that in the end all judgements will be final. Our major world religions circle around change. Repentance, reconciliation, and the criminal justice system depend on the concept. That which is most easily defined can never change.

Fire fascinates us because it is never the same, from the moment we look at it, from the moment we are born and from the moment we die and pass from this world. Fire is never the same, this fraying thread of a candle in the vicious and softly caressing winds.

It is said that if something is unexpected enough, the brain does not even perceive it. If it does perceive it, it does not remember it. And if it does remember it, it remembers it for ever, for whatever it is that it is deemed important enough to be remembered, despite being unknown, must inevitably have an impact upon our survival.

Whether baptism or a hallucinogenic spirit journey, guided by the beating of drums and the shaman's incessant whispering, the concept that a person can become something that they are not is the core of our spiritual being as human beings.

Change, the fourth dimension, is the foundation of the spiritual human person, and the basis of all of our religions. That is why we fear the unknown, it is why we dream and imagine and long and lust.

Life is the opiate of the scientific community, is what they seek to create with every discovery as they move forward. Life, change which directs itself.

Fire ignites our infinite intrigue, for it appears to mimic life, for life is change. And yet, the random flickering of gaseous flames is not alive, yet it somehow is still unpredictable enough to appear so to the human mind.

And fire is what differentiates a human being, from many of the beasts upon the plains and from the named and unnamed things hidden subtly within various mysterious forests, and from the creatures that inhabit the oceans that decorate and accessorise the ever fertile planet Earth.

To which change do you direct your aeviternal life? From the moment of our conception, we are never the same, and upon death our mortal body will decay, even in death our form will always change, and in the end there will be nothing left of us, we only exist for as long as we change.

Like the fire, we will never be the same, and even in death we will never be the same until we are void. To what do you direct your aeviternal life? How do you, a creature born of fertile earth – define yourself, if you only exist for as long as you are change? You're not fuel which feeds the fire, you are not the smoke, you are not the light, and you are not the heat. Like fire, you, life, at a cellular level, take in oxygen and fuel and release the smoke of carbon dioxide, and with it the energy that drives on the change, the fire within you that goes on until you are no more.

Fire ignites infinity, because like fire we may not truly be alive, we might simply be random chemical processes, a reaction as old as life itself. Fire ignites infinity, it is an analog for all of our spiritual lives, our strange and incessant search for meaning, for something constant and unchanging, for something as yet still alive, in the change that is our lives.

Always be prepared to quit your job!

Always be prepared to quit your job!

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My philosophy to work is a bit different than perhaps many others'. I will work longer, under far more pressing duress and against more intransigent difficulty than many other people are prepared to contemplate facing against. I also am not amongst the victim-survivor class who tend to view a job as a desperately needed life raft, without which they would immediately die.


In the modern world we live in, it is all the more important not to view your job as a necessary prison or a fenced in time locked inhumane work camp. If you're employed by someone, in fact you are not merely an employee, you are a provider of a needed service. Your boss is your primary client. They are not by any means your lord and master, but rather someone who buys a product or service. They are someone who has bought into you, and what you can provide for them.


If you do the work you do for nothing other than to avoid being fired, counting down the hours, ever in fear of your vehement boss shouting at you, your life is additionally probably very, very, highly stressful.

listen to ‘Always be prepared... to quit... your job.’ on audioBoom

You, as an individual, probably have a very different approach to clients however. Do you fear a client shouting at you? Does their raising their voice feel like the rug is being pulled out from under you, is the floor quickly approaching your unprotected face? Probably not. You probably also have a much higher tolerance for inappropriate behaviour from a client. They are not your life raft, you're not desperate to please them with sacrifice in the fruits of fear.



A job is a wonderful thing and it is something very hard to find for many people. However, if you view your work as a survivor's-only-option-life-raft, to be selfishly guarded and held onto for every moment, you're likely to treat it with the same divine fear, and under the same God forsaken stress as a shipwreck survivor might treat their last chance log rolling on the death besotted waves.


I personally believe that God put me where I am today. It might be bumpy seas or clear skies. Either way that log which is floating in the ocean, my job, is not my last chance of salvation. The stress of your job might leave you every day: crying out in your head 'I quit, I quit', and along with that 'I am certain today is the day I will be fired'. You will not drown if you are fired. You're not a survivor on the ocean, clinging on for dear life to a small splinter riddled piece of wood.


Often people are more terrified of their boss, than they are motivated to do a good job. If your boss is your superior and not your client, then your reputation with your boss might be much like a slave's reputation with their master. If however you view your boss as your primary client, you are far more likely to gauge your reputation with your boss, and to treat your boss in a professional manner. If you are a product, you need to be a product with a good reputation.


I like to treat my work as though I'm not working for my boss, but for God or some higher being who demands diligence and perfection. I get along very well with people in authority over me, but even if I did not get along well with them I would make sure that my standard of work was up to scratch in every way. The difference between working for a boss and working for a boss, all the while knowing and well-knowing, that your boss is not your master but rather your primary client, in the end comes down to your motivation. Are you motivated by fear, or rather by something much better then fear: the development of your personal brand and the selling of your services? The old adage of only following orders only stands up to scrutiny when your boss is the monstrous dragon of many a tale, seeking the decapitation of your head from your body, and chucking you out of windows in an old form of defenestration. You're far more likely to save your money producing company from destruction by speaking up at the right time, if you view your company as a client of yours. The destructive silence of the cowering employee along with many other results of having a master servant relationship with your boss, can be largely eliminated by viewing them as your primary client or as a representative of it. You are also much less likely to let go of your morals, if you view your job as a place to sell your skills-based work, rather than your last chance to avoid the gulag.


An employee who views their boss as their client, is far more likely to let their boss get on with their boss's work. They are separate from the company to some degree, they need only concern themselves with their own work, their own soul and their own integrity. Such a person is also much less likely to write a scathing resignation letter, or engage in too much workplace politics. The company merely is their primary client, they are selling their services to their client, and not their souls to a master.


Have you ever seen a hawker by the side of the road? They do not own the part of the street that they sell on. Your job is a contract perhaps, but in truth it is something figurative. What it consists of is you doing work and if it is good work, being paid for it. What makes you valuable is ultimately determined by the standard of your work, your ability to communicate this in words and actions, and the betterment of your brand. Nothing stops you from being very dedicated to your primary client, the company you work for.


The days of company loyalty are not over. However, the days of company loyalty to employees, nurturing them for 50 years until they become CEO, are something of the past. If you want your company to be loyal to you, you need to make yourself a supplier of skilled labour, and valuable to the company. You are a product, and if you want to survive in the modern world you need to be a product which people want to buy. Discussion of fairness or unfairness, is something that might emerge in the relationship between a master and the servant of a master. In a different sense it might appear between a client and a supplier. In the first, it might be in the sense of one complaining. In the second it might emerge in negotiation. In the first, below the surface, the person feels powerless and a desire to lash out. In the second they are empowered by the better framed status of their mind.



Whether your boss is middle management or in charge of your company, they are your interface with your primary client. Treat them as such. It will not only reduce your stress, it will hopefully make you work with a higher quality of output, with better strategic thinking and efficiency, and in such a way as to stand your ground and to make the living you desire to make.


In the end of the day, no matter who your primary client is, you are your own boss, and your business is something you need to look after in the long run. Your boss is your client, they are not your slave master. Run your business well, manage your finances soundly, and use your resources in a fit and proper manner. You are in charge of your own riptide through life. Your boss in the end of the day is not. So, always be prepared to quit your job. It is not the end of the world if you do. Rather, it is a strategic decision to be made with caution. It is no less strategic, and should require no less caution than continuing to work where you do.

My experience with an Internet sexbot

My experience with an Internet sexbot

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In Japan and other such nations there is quite a market for virtual girlfriends, for lonely men who will never find love with any real creature. A good search on Google will bring up many a program from textbased to graphics based, to stem the tides of loneliness and make men feel as though they have company. Pornography and the ancient art of striptease fulfil similar market niches' desires for great satisfaction and unhappy happy endings.




During my high school years I created a simple textbased answer program. It had its own favourite colour, but did not have a sex, and was not designed to abate loneliness with the alimentation of a virtual compensate. More than anything, it was a fun programming project.


Today I decided to log into Skype on my cellular phone. I was quite surprised to find that I had a number of invites to connect with other people on Skype. I accepted the invites. The moment I did, one of the accounts instantly began speaking to me.




I immediately suspected that I was being exposed to something beautiful, unique and fascinating. I got the impression that I was finally being exposed to a scam I'd only read about in online articles about criminal syndicates and their activities.




Those who desire to oppose human trafficking, created a virtual sex robot that pretends to be a little girl, and lures bad men in. The sexbot I had the pleasure of meeting however was designed to lure ordinary grown men. You might well expect a sexbot to be more responsive than the one I had the privilege of meeting. It did not matter what my responses were, the program clearly simply worked on any response. Some journalists have had the privilege of dealing with more advanced tools used by scammers. Mine did not even have a fake human picture. Nonetheless, by pure numbers it probably has worked on many, many men. Below are the screenshots of my enjoyable conversation with an all too responsive trap used by hackers and scammers. I hope you enjoyed the scintillating conversation.

Sending the troops in to stop Ebola, might repeat the American caused Spanish flu

Sending the troops in to stop Ebola, might repeat the American caused Spanish flu

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The Spanish flu is about as Spanish as an immigrant to America from Mexico. It was called the Spanish flu because the Spanish first reported on it, Spain still had a semi-free press at that stage as compared to the United States in whose regular forces a terrible flu came to be birthed, and spread unabated in a national security climate of war.

'Epidemiological data indicate that pandemic began in the US in March 1918, at a crowded army camp in Fort Riley, Kansas. Subsequently, the transport of hundreds of thousands of infected troops in close physical contact between camps caused influenza to spread quickly even before troops assembled in East Coast ports en route to France. The troops brought the influenza to the trenches of the opposing armies and to other parts of Europe and beyond. ' (Harvard | 'Contagion')

During the war in question, American troops were tightly packed together, and health concerns were largely ignored. It was the troops who spread the flu from one end of the theatre of operations in which they operated to the other. The civilian population also caught the flu. Nothing is quite like an army to spread a disease. The Spanish flu was American, not Spanish. It was spread across countries by American troops and those they came into contact with.

Barack Obama has decided that he wants to send thousands of American troops to Ebola affected countries. Troops traditionally interact very closely and in close and intimate proximity to one another. Putting thousands of people into a dangerous situation, only for them to be expected to leave the situation, could well set up a similar catastrophe.

What would a better approach be? Simple to be quite honest: either sending in doctors, although America does not have any good record with Ebola on their own soil, never mind in Africa. The other option is something called subsidiarity: the money spent on deploying thousands of troops into a foreign nation, could just as easily be spent on funding local efforts to defeat the disease in such countries.

The same goes for any other country that desires to send the troops in to fight a disease. Those troops will eventually have to come home. The contingency available to the nations of the world of using resources already in danger and on the ground is certainly a better option in such a scenario.

The Islamic State succeeds for the same reason that Hollywood does.

 The Islamic State succeeds for the same reason that Hollywood does.

 

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The latest research into the Islamic State, which I prefer to refer to as Islamic Caliphate, a more accurate rendering: suggests that Islam is not the reason young British men are gallivanting off to Iraq and Syria, in search of thrills, forced concubines and the eternal sunshine of the violent sociopathic mind. It must be surprising for many, that a group which advertises how violent it is across social media, and brags about catching women and selling them as sex slaves for $10 each: could possibly not be about religion, as much as it is about sex and violence. Indeed, the Islamic State, the Goody-Goody Caliphate of the Righteous Martyrs Heading to Heaven, Might Not Be Such a Religious Group After All.

 

So why is this message, this gospel of sex, violence and sexual violence so popular among what young Westerners happen to flock like seagulls upon the fast food that is Iraq and Syria? It is the same message that Hollywood has sold centuries before it even existed. There is a reason why gory horror movies sell, the Islamic State Is selling front row seats to sociopaths, so close you can smell the blood on the bad guy’ s murder knife, in their version you can feel the knife in your hand… The same sort of garbage which fills up cinemas, which for years we have been told is harmless, has found a place to be harmful to the nth degree.

 

It has been said that Islamic State was inspired by Boko Haram (which my speech recognition technology with which I am dictating this article: thinks is: ‘Barker Horror’). Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of little schoolgirls, and stated that they would be selling them as sex slaves. This advertising by Boko Haram, gained global attention, as social media users flocked like beachgoers with fast food into the territory of seagulls. Boko Haram grew as a result, the fact that they were kidnapping little girls to become sex slaves no doubt appealed greatly to the sort of people who might want to join Boko Haram. Islamic State might have taken note. Boko Haram’s strategy will no doubt be seen as a great fait accompli, a great strategic victory, something to be emulated: by the many other violent men who desire to wreak havoc upon the world. After all, the Nigerian government decided upon a ceasefire, allowing Boko Haram to keep their substantial territorial gains, in exchange for the girls: who have since been radicalised, and likely support Boko Haram’s agenda.

 

The horrors presented by Islamic State, so delicately screened across television screens should not however hide the fact that their enemies are as bad as they are in many ways. Shia militias, and the Iraqi army, have been slammed by human rights groups for committing similar atrocities against Sunni women and men. These groups have even advanced into Yemen, undercover of media attention focused on Sunni militia such as Islamic State. Nor is the savageness of Boko Haram and Islamic state unique to their causes. The Libyan revolution for instance, and the counterrevolution currently occurring in Libya were both barbarically conducted. Amnesty International and others warned that the original fight to oust Gaddafi, with Western approval: was being driven by propaganda aimed at driving sub Saharan black Africans out of Libya. In such a case it is unusually strange that the International Committee of the Red Cross in Libya at the time was refusing access to humanitarian camps to non-Libyan citizens: that is: to sub Saharan African black immigrants.

 

Research has shown that veterans of wars are no more likely to commit crimes than other parts of the population, but the crimes they commit are proportionally more violent and induce more feelings of utter horror at what they have done among the general population. Post-traumatic stress creates violence. The Islamic State In Iraq And The Levant (ISIS) aka Islamic state, have an army that do not live upon bread alone, but upon post-traumatic stress and a love of sex and violence.

 

Many western children are raised upon both of these by the television screens. Any wonder then, that so many of the worst offenders amongst the Jihadist hordes hail from places such as Great Britain, and America. The little snake of sex and violence has eaten much sex and much violence, and has graduated into a massive anaconda. The video gamers who desperately wanted more real virtual reality have found reality to be even more enticing to the sickening urges they feel.

Research linking Islamist atrocities to sex, is not something new. It is alleged that pornography was found by the Americans in the house of Osama bin Laden. Many pieces have been written on the link, between violent pornography and groups similar to Islamic State: at the time being Al Qaeda, a less vitriolic but still utterly evil brother of its offshoot: The Islamic State.

 

The Islamic State might find their playground to be the Middle Eastern battlefield, but their nursery and the milk upon which they were fed are both located in the West, in movies, videogames, and music videos, in violent pornography and other sources that groomed these men into potential recruits for extremist organisations.

 

The wrongdoer is not Islam, but something far more primal, something far more primaeval than the Western mind can comprehend in any mind but its own. The Islamic State does not recruit solely through Islam, but rather upon promises of gore, rape and violence. Promises of power, not constrained by virtue. Sex and violence. Stirred in a teacup, in the house of naturalised British immigrant, powerless as they feel, they are gripped by the power that power promises, and the meaning that joining a terrorist group no doubt gives such poor examples raised upon the milk of violence, and a feeling of powerlessness in a western world that does not truly accept them, but has melded them from their very birth.

Why the Catholic Church would be unwise to change its policy on communion for divorcees.

Why the Catholic Church would be unwise to change its policy on communion for divorcees.

When I first started working as a divorce lawyer in early 2013, as a student counsellor at the University of Witwatersrand, I was worried I might be sinning or doing something wrong. I asked my confessor and reached out to Opus Dei, as well as Catholic friends in order to find out whether or not I should ask for a transfer to another unit. The answer was quite uniform. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, divorce does not exist. As far as my priest was concerned, as with Opus Dei: I was not divorcing anyone, but rather litigating over custody of children and the property of the marriage. They informed me that I was doing nothing wrong whatsoever.

A lot of my work remains divorce, I’ve divorced quite a number of people and will likely divorce many more. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned however, I’ve divorced no one. For me this is an important distinction.

Protestant Christians often quote a part of the New Testament of the Bible, where Jesus Christ states that man must not divide what God has combined, except in the case of what Protestants call adultery. The actual verse does not refer to adultery, but to sexual immorality, with a specific Greek word which refers to a specific Hebrew word: which refers specifically to the immorality set forth by the law of the Old Testament. Catholics might not readily admit it, but the reason they oppose homosexual marriage is because they believe that no marriage takes place based on this verse. The purpose for which Catholics do not believe in incestuous marriage: is that based on this verse they do not believe marriage takes place.

It is a bit of a misnomer to say that Catholics who have divorced and civilly remarried are forbidden communion. This is not true, because as far as the church is concerned no divorce has taken place and no remarriage has taken place. The reason such people might be forbidden from taking communion is the same reason as I might be forbidden from taking communion: their actions or their thoughts consist of what the Catholic Church considers as mortal sin. In their specific case it is the sin of extramarital sex. But the list goes on and on: use contraception? You shouldn’t be taking communion. Spend a good time fantasising about extramarital sex, French kiss someone outside of marriage or without the intent of having sex later, masturbate, miss church the week before? You probably shouldn’t be taking communion.

A friend of mine in fact was informed by the Catholic Church that if they wanted to have an annulment within the church, they would have to firstly divorce civilly.

So what if that verse in fact referred to adultery? What is adultery? Adultery is sex with someone who is not your husband or wife when you in fact have a husband or wife. So the moment either party has sex with anyone else, a divorce is possible? Is marriage not at its essence a promise of sex and exclusivity in such? Is not divorce the dissolution or breaking apart of a marriage? So if you break the promise, you’re no longer bound by the promise? In such a sense marriage is only a gentleman’s agreement, or rather a gentleman’s and lady’s agreement. ‘I will only have sex with you until I have sex with someone else.’

If marriage is not exclusivity of sex, then it is not a lot of other things.

The Catholic interpretation of that verse is that God will not create a marriage where marriage is not possible, and a marriage is not possible where its essence is sinful.

Catholics will usually divorce and then get an annulment. An annulment itself is merely informative, of what God has or has not done. An annulment means that God did not cause a marriage to occur. Making the standards for annulments more lax, does not make it more or less likely that God did or did not cause an aeviternal bond to take place.

If you are in something the Catholic Church calls mortal sin, you should not take communion. That is the rule. Treating divorce or remarriage as a sin, other than perhaps the sin of scandal, is an incorrect view: the sin in accordance with Catholic doctrine is that of extramarital sex or adultery. A period of penance for divorcing and remarrying would thus be largely pointless. The divorce was not a sin. The extramarital sex which is ongoing throughout the penance is what the church would consider the sin. Thus the suggestion by many Catholic bishops of penance for divorce, completely and entirely misses the point. As it is in any case, such things are usually left up to parishioners and not to the priest. Churches are usually large, and urban. Plenty of divorced and remarried Catholics in any case take communion weekly.

I myself often commit mortal sins. I tend not to take communion on a Sunday unless I confessed the Saturday before. I value my privacy and I do not go into detail with my sins. I merely list one of the seven deadly sins and say that I have either done it once or many times within the past week or so. Mortal sin is very common among Catholics. Chances are, if they were honest with themselves: 90% of Catholics would not be taking communion every Sunday. That does not mean however that a 2000 year old tradition, tracing back to early writings attributed to the apostles: should so readily change simply because human beings do not always comply with the precepts of Catholic morality. What is so beautiful about the Catholic Church is that its doctrines do not change. It is a relic before modern conceptions of time began. The fact that the Catholic Church does not believe in divorce in a very literal sense is in fact to some degree something deeply beautiful.

Recent research has found that the split itself in divorce, causes deep trauma to children even when their parents perceive them to be doing well with the divorce, even in amicable divorces. Granted, parents in a death match will have much more trauma upon a child and likely on a regular basis. However, the baseline of stress which causes children to achieve low grades, and other such consequences: exists even in amicable divorces. Research also finds that divorcees live shorter lives than couples who remain married. There is no doubt that divorce is something highly traumatic both for those who go through it and for their children. I regularly divorce people and I am not ashamed of it, but I don’t think the Catholic Church, the Catholic religion to which I belong: should change one of its oldest precepts, merely for the sake of appearing trendy. To the Catholic Church something highly traumatic, divorce, does not exist. To me that is something beautiful. It should not be changed.

Get a grip, you don’t have Ebola.

Get a grip, you don’t have Ebola.

Ebola no doubt is a terrible disease. It is incredibly deadly, it is very dangerous, and if not dealt with properly it can spread far and wide.

However, wondering about fear mongering does not help anyone. Do you want to prevent yourself from getting Ebola? Wash your hands regularly with soap and hot water, avoid touching your eyes and mouth and any cuts or injuries. Still not satisfied? Carry about some hand sanitiser with you, the type that kills diseases: and regularly apply it. Something like 4000 people have Ebola or rather had Ebola. That is a very small portion of the world population, and is much smaller then malaria, AIDS, or any number of diseases. At the current stage, people who want borders to be closed are more at risk of dying from snakebite than Ebola.

The massive spread in Liberia and other areas, is because of the deep superstition of the people in these areas, which saw them rejecting Western medicine, and blaming witchcraft for the disease, never mind their turning to witchcraft as its cure. When Ebola went into Nigeria, Ebola was quickly dealt with. Other countries likewise have quickly snuffed out the epidemic.

Yes, someone got Ebola, and a hospital negligently sent them home in America. Yes, despite purportedly wearing a full hazmat suit or whatnot: the American healthcare worker who treated this individual, has been diagnosed with Ebola. No doubt that sends shivers through your spine.

Unfortunately, even the best of doctors make mistakes, this is not a sign of the apocalypse, but something to be expected. Many healthcare workers, including the best in their profession, in the areas where Ebola has been ravaging: have died of the disease. The fact that this was picked up in the healthcare worker and he was isolated: is in fact a good sign.

As I have previously reported, measures such as thermal scanners at airports can only pick up Ebola sufferers once they have entered into the contagious stage of the disease. For about two weeks before that they might not show any symptoms at all.

So how can you protect yourself from Ebola? Basic hygiene. It is not foolproof, and you may not survive until the next apocalypse, but it is the best thing you can do right now. Go out and buy yourself some antiseptic hand sanitation. Wash your hands regularly with soap and hot water, and definitely wash your hands or sanitise them properly prior to eating. Don’t go around touching sick people and dead bodies. And if you do think you have Ebola, contact your local doctor and make sure you get good advice. Ebola cannot reliably be cured by medicine, but it can be treated and many people survive the ravages of the terrible disease in question.

C’est la vie. There is always a risk in being alive. Take the risk as it is: real, but unless you are in a certain country or a certain area, not quite as imminent as media would have you believe. Take precautions, be cautious, but don’t hyperventilate. You aren’t in the woods just as yet. Unless you are of course.

Rules for interpreting Facebook:

Rules for interpreting Facebook:

– The funnest times and parties are never photographed or put onto Facebook. Posing to appear that you are having a good time probably means you aren't having such a good time. A photograph speaks 1000 lies, but no doubt for you it is much fun having people believe them, or rather you think they believe them.
– Posting how much you and your lover are in love: probably means you're going through relationship troubles, or are dating them for their aesthetic or other markings. Literature and history is full of such things. But yes, do show public affection, which is not there in private.
– Posting about how rich you are, how blessed you are, how much stuff you are most blessed: the possessor of: might make you look slightly shallow, and might indicate that the products you claim to own are not in fact yours, or that you are secretly nursing depression or feelings of inadequacy, that Gatsby himself would aspire to mimic. Yes, we realise that you're not posting about people but about things which you hope other people will feel jealous of you for. They probably do feel jealous, which probably doesn't help your relationships with them.
– People are only capable of keeping up real relationships with 150 people: your friend with 5000 friends probably doesn't know who 4850 of them are any more than you do. But yes, feel jealous of them, and the 5000 friends, who they might not even have met, or may have met briefly in a bar, we hope, but don't have any real relationship with: except maybe about 150 of them.
– You might admire your friend with all of their wonderful photographs of them drinking and partying: their prospective future bosses do not. Be glad that you're boring, your friend who posts all of these is probably just as boring as you are, but nonetheless, in their delightful way: they always remember to bring a camera out with them and photograph themselves looking drunk, and appearing to be up to no good.
If you must use Facebook, use it to better mankind, to communicate honestly with friends and make connections. As for the other uses, we all know. It isn't a secret, it was not even a secret 10 years ago. It might seem good fun and no doubt, for you: it is, but it is not real life you are portraying. And we know that. So I guess it's fine. If you like things that way. But if not, consider making your Facebook about expressing yourself in a cordial and well thought out manner: rather than about impressing others with a persona who's not you. Just a thought, you don't have to listen to it, and please don't photograph it or hashtag it as a selfie. That is all for now. Do continue on with whatever it was you were doing. Yes, I can see that camera which you so visibly are pointing at yourself.

Use cannabis and you will go long-term bonkers, study finds.

Use cannabis and you will go long-term bonkers, study finds.


'Smoking the class-'B' drug while pregnant is linked with reduced birth weights, while long-term use can cause cancer, bronchitis and heart attacks, according to the paper' (The Daily Telegraph | 'Cannabis as addictive as heroin, major new study finds' by the Telegraph reporter on 7 October 2014: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11145094/Cannabis-as-addictive-as-heroin-major-new-study-finds.html )

A 20 year long-term study of cannabis use and mental illness has found that the drug also known as dagga, marijuana, pot, or weed: can turn an average human being into a regular cooking pot.

I have never tried cannabis or any other drug. I have always associated cannabis with schizophrenia. While media, desiring to push the drug don't tend to report on this, it has been well known for many years. Research, spanning 20 years, conducted by Prof Wayne Hall of King's Cross College in London: who as it happens, also acts in an advisory capacity to the World Health Organization, has found that dagga indeed is quite the bad news plant. The professor is quoted as saying that if cannabis isn't addictive then nor are heroin or alcohol.

According to the Daily Telegraph, reporting on the study: 'one in six teenagers who regularly smoke cannabis become dependent on it, as are one in 10 regular adult users… Cannabis doubles the risk of psychosis and schizophrenia, with withdrawal symptoms including anxiety, insomnia, loss of appetite and depression… Driving after smoking cannabis doubles the risk of a car crash with the risk heightened yet further if you have had a drink… As many teenagers now smoke cannabis as cigarettes.'

The study also links it to poorer academic performance and to underweight babies where mothers smoke cannabis.

A 20 year long study, no doubt does not reap the full effect of the much stronger modern cannabis, thought to be four times more disastrous to human mental health. So, to reiterate: the dagga is a bad news drug, and unlike pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by doctors: it harms you, it does not heal you. Speaking of bonkers, certain American states have legalised recreational use of dagga. When I took forensic medicine, in my final year of law school, we were taught by the morgue's experts on the matter: that increased drug use, in either victims of crime or perpetrators, directly correlated to an increase in murders and violent crime, and an increase in accidental deaths and non-survival of survivable situations. Cannabis is a bad news drug. Like other dangerous drugs, which were once used to relieve pain as medical marijuana users claim they use their drug for: dagga needs to be kept out of the hands of the vulnerable. An epidemic of mental illness is a threat to the public and a danger to innocent bystanders. Cigarettes present the danger of second-hand smoke. Cannabis also known as dagga: by contrast causes mental incompetence, and exposes innocent people to death by murder, negligence and plain stupidity. Dagga is a bad news drug. Make no mistake, alcohol likewise is linked to an increase in crime: however public drunkenness is a crime, and alcohol in low levels does not cause the same effects as drunkenness does. Dagga in contrast, has an intoxicating effect in small or large doses, to an extent that alcohol does not. There is no double standard when alcohol is allowed and drugs are not: excessive alcohol use in any public arena is met with jail time in the Republic of South Africa.

Those, however, who use dagga, can well find themselves in the prison of a most unsound mind.

Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice, any reference to law is made purely for argumentative or entertainment purposes.

The latest Dragon NaturallySpeaking: bombs speech recognition out of the water.

If you are a lawyer by profession, you have probably heard of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I have used it for several years now. I have just updated from Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13. The difference between the two is just amazing.

I almost feel as though Dragon reads my mind as I speak. The transcriptions are more often than not, perfect.

I have decided to put Dragon through the ultimate test, transcription. How can I do this? I was going to take one of my old podcasts and ask Dragon to turn it into text. Yes there are errors, and it does not do well when I'm speaking in French at the beginning. However, in every other respect the result is amazing. As I speak now, I'm speaking slightly slower than I ordinarily do, with more gaps between the words I am saying. I always write with Dragon and this is what I'm used to doing. In the podcast however, I was simply aiming at speaking in an understandable and comprehensible manner for my readers.

Compare the transcript of Dragon, below to the version I painstakingly created as I am creating this very article and you will find very few differences. For me this is a massive step in the right direction. Dragon seems to comprehend me better than ever.




Follow the link to my original article, and read the transcription below to compare:

http://sacns.scripturelink.net/2014/08/50-illegal-crossing-points-from.html


The following transcription is by automation by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 platform.

[To listen to the podcast: follow the following link: https://audioboom.com/boos/2419944-50-illegal-crossing-points-from-zimbabwe-to-south-africa-pose-a-major-health-terrorism-threat-to-the-population ]

From Zimbabwe to South Africa pose a major health terrorism threat to the population agree Candice Bell fleeing their elaborate homeland for South Africa is not a top priority for the Zimbabwean police people who claim to lack adequate resources to close down 51 illegal border crossings which are operated under the auspices of business persons 50 of these illegal entry points are into South Africa the point allegedly are used by people smugglers and cigarette smugglers Zimbabwean authorities are not perplexed about 10% of South African of the South African population are not South African whatsoever a massive influx since the end of Apartheid has seen the nation upon the southern tip of the dark continent become a vastly diverse melting pot of people's and cultures recent controversial immigration laws have made one of the most liberal immigration systems in the world slightly more restrictive as a previous article by house new service has demonstrated the immigration restrictions likely are in response to sporadic South African incidence of deadly xenophobia Borders are a bit like tonsils in the most serious sense they hope to filter out undesirable pathogens such as terrorism commonality and disease which could kill the body at which service they rest in the case of South Africa I'll border defences against diseases such as Ebola are rendered useless when masses of population do not go through border checkpoints granted Ebola has an incubation period of some weeks and there is a massive chance that an Ebola sufferer will pass into South Africa before developing symptoms with a population density such as is found in Gauteng province Ebola could spread much faster in South Africa than it has in West Africa just as massive fires often destroy dozens of homes in South Africa's informal settlements and closely packed formal townships the extensive population density is ripe for the spread of disease persons in South Africa illegally are also likely to avoid treatment options such as hospitals xenophobia could also be worsened should the virus enter South Africa through an illegally present foreign individual besides haemorrhagic fever terrorism is a very real threat in South Africa Independent research by journalists and church organisations suggest that Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist group terrorism group Al should about has been operating in South Africa for several years now the group is thought responsible for many immigrant deaths specifically targeting Christians fleeing Somalia illegal entry points into South Africa also make it ripe for human trafficking and evil activity for which South Africa has become an international hub weapons trafficking is another very real concern Zimbabwe is unstable to say the least and our other neighbours are sometimes on the verge of civil war instability in South Africa's neighbours is hardly good for South Africa's economy and stability as a whole whether South Africa's laws on immigration are liberal or conservative should have no impact upon whether or not we adequately secure our border against illegal immigration the problem with illegal immigration is not immigration itself so much as what gets in through the border by the weak spots created by the influx of population South African police just recently announced the arrest of several dozen foreign nationals with false documents or expired documents some experts have estimated that several million individuals in South Africa are in the country clandestinely such a scenario is neither ideal for bona fides clandestinely immigrants who are often preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals taking advantage of their illegal status nor is it preferential for the internal and external security needs of the nation South Africa's rhino population would not be at risk of extinction were our border with Mozambique better patrolled also about would not be able to operate within our borders committing atrocities were our security systems at the border more efficient the location of each of these 50 illegal border crossings needs to be ascertained strategically by the South African government and combated with immediate effect as for the other debate as to whether or not South Africa should be liberal or conservative in its immigration policy that debate should be fought where it is rightly fought in Parliament there is very little danger in immigration to South Africa that this danger should not be under estimated in its very real impact upon the poor there is however very much danger inherent with this weakness in our border through which undesirable figurative and literal pathogens can spread undeterred and undeterred and damage the South African population whether in the interim or permanently Ebola spread so easily through three countries because the first case of an infant boy occurred very close to the border of the three main countries where it is ravaging a strong border is a vital first defence against many an evil the relatively strong protections at South African border posts mean little in protecting the population of the nation if vast numbers of people completely ignore all these points of intersection I neighbours Marc Aupiais thank you and good day