Monday 19 July 2010
Monday 12 July 2010
'The problem isn't beef, bananas, cultural diversity or the patenting of life. The problem is the WTO'
Leading development analyst Susan George on why the world trade talks in Seattle next week won't help the great majority of people or the environment
The ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, which open next Tuesday in Seattle, is being blandly presented as a straightforward negotiation on international trade in which everyone will have to make a few concessions. The WTO message, however, is not getting through, and mass demonstrations are planned to greet the delegates and the lobbyists from the multinationals.
Europe has already had to contend with bananas, hormone-fed beef and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), all of which have helped to mobilise opinion against the tyranny of any international organisation that thinks it is a cut above everyone else. But how have things come to such a pass?
Since 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) had been working discreetly to get customs duties on all kinds of goods reduced. Following the eighth round of talks in Uruguay (1986-93), that came to fruition. In March 1994, ministers gathered in Marrakesh to sign the document that created the WTO. Its 800 pages gave world trade a framework far more constraining than the feeble Gatt.
The lobbyists of transnational corporations, who had long had the ear of official negotiators, rubbed their hands with glee: the WTO gave them the ideal tool to complete their globalisation and impose their own rules on all human activities now defined as objects of "trade".
The WTO, which, unlike Gatt, has the status of an international organisation, has 134 member states and 30 observers. Its headquarters in Geneva are home to Gatt, which is still responsible for liberalising trade in goods, and a dozen other agreements. Among the most important of these are those on agriculture and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats), which covers more than 160 sectors and sub-sectors, including education, health and the environment. The agreement known as Trips governs intellectual property - including biotechnology and the patenting of micro-organisms and microbiological processes - while the Trims agreement is concerned with "trade-related" investments.
One of the WTO's tasks, the elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade, is performed in part through two other agreements. The agreement on technical barriers to trade and the one on sanitary and phytosanitary measures each claim to "harmonise" standards and rules for the protection of the environment, public health and consumers. In practice, "harmonisation" imposes ceilings that effectively reduce national laws to the lowest common denominator and dispenses with the precautionary principle. Anyone who refuses to import a product on the grounds that it may be hazardous to health or destructive to the environment must provide scientific proof. One of the battles between WTO countries will be over the principle of on whom the burden of proof lies.
Formerly, when Gatt wanted to penalise a country that was not playing by the rules, every member had to agree, even the one that was to suffer the penalties. As a result, Gatt carried little authority. The WTO, with its implacable discipline, is the opposite. If its dispute settlement body orders sanctions, the members - including the plaintiff - must be unanimous if the sanctions are not to apply. Hence the undeniable right of the US to penalise roquefort cheese, foie gras and Dijon mustards by imposing prohibitive customs duties. If the Europeans refuse to import hormone-fed beef, despite the WTO ruling, no matter. They must then compensate the US and Canada every year for their lost earnings.
The conditions under which the WTO's panels, which have settled more than 170 disputes, are appointed are obscure. The names of the "experts", who meet behind closed doors and who hear no outside witnesses, are not made public. This impenetrable procedure is astonishingly quick: disputes are generally settled in 12 months, 18 at the most. Canada, the world's biggest asbestos producer, hoped to take advantage of this to force Europe to import the carcinogen again.
Without warning, the WTO has created an international court of "justice" that is making law and establishing case law in which exist ing national laws are all "barriers" to trade, and is sweeping aside all environmental, social or public health considerations.
In so doing, it is merely following the principles that govern all its activities. For example, the "most favoured nation" clause demands equality of treatment for similar products from different member countries. With the banana decision, the WTO was able to deny the EU the right to have a foreign policy. In the WTO's eyes, a banana is only a banana, be it from Ecuador or the former European colonies.
The national treatment clause prohibits any discrimination affecting products of foreign origin, especially on the basis of the human or ecological conditions under which they were produced. In other words, no account may be taken of the "processes and methods of production". No reference may be made either to sustainable development or to human rights, and trading partners may not be rewarded or punished on the basis of their respect for those ideas. The article on "eliminating quantitative restrictions" penalises quotas and the refusal to import or export. This provision could invalidate many multilateral environmental agreements and some social conventions.
How, then, are we to prevent trade in endangered species or toxic waste? How can we limit exports of cereals when there is a national food shortage, or of tree trunks when the forests are being laid waste? The agreements on technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary measures reinforce this legal arsenal. An incalculable number of national standards, rules or laws could easily be classed as "barriers to trade".
These are just a few of the pitfalls along the road to the meeting of the WTO's supreme body, the ministerial conference in Seattle. The previous conferences have set the agenda: to review the agreements on agriculture, services and intellectual property. Seattle will decide the precise content of what Sir Leon Brittan has pompously termed the "Millennium Round".
It is planned to conclude the round with a global agreement in three years' time. The talks will move liberalisation forward and prevent any backtracking; that is how the WTO does things. And the US is reluctant to see the Trips agreement and GMO controversy re-opened, especially as the African countries have declared their opposition to the patenting of life.
A battle to the death is looming between the Cairns group of major agricultural exporting countries (Argentina, Australia and Brazil) and the US on one side, and Europe and Japan, which are considered too protective of their farmers, on the other. The Cairns group simply wants agricultural products to be allowed to compete like any other merchandise. Under pressure from France, the EU stresses the "multi-functionality" of agriculture as protecting diversity, the environment and rural life. Producers in the US, though, are urging their government "to resist any attempt to introduce the concept of multifunctionality".
We do not yet know the order in which the fields covered by the agreement on services will be tackled. If the word "horizontal" is heard, however, it is time to show one's claws: in WTO parlance, it means that a liberalisation measure accepted in one field must be extended to all. A liberalisation applied to banks or insurance, for example, would also have to be applied to education and health.
If governments have their priorities, business has its own. The US Coalition of Service Industries stresses distribution, finance, information technologies, telecommunications, tourism and health. The European Service Leaders' Group, presided over by the chairman of Barclays Bank, is concerned with 21 sectors.
The US Coalition of Energy Services is calling on the US special trade representative and chief negotiator, Charlene Barshevsky, to get their activities added to the agreement on services. The coalition - whose 27 members represent hundreds of billions of dollars - looks as if it will get its way. Brazil, France and Norway, which still regard these areas as public services, have been identified as "possible opponents".
Nobody knows what other sectors might be added to the agenda. The Europeans want the list to be as long as possible. For them, anything is useful in establishing a better balance of power with Washington.
The US negotiators prefer not to include investment, lest they reawaken the citizens' movement that scuppered the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in October last year. In any case, agreement on services would open up many advantages for investors. Neither do the Americans want to include electronic commerce: they want this virgin sector to remain a green pasture of zero customs tariffs. Public contracts, which account for 15% of most countries' gross national product, are clearly a juicy target that the US would like to see included.
The Americans, however, will be adamant that the so-called accelerated tariff liberalisation initiative (ATL) be placed on the agenda, defining as it does eight disparate fields in which zero tariffs should quickly become the norm. Alongside jewellery, toys or medical equipment, we find forestry and fishery products - fields in which zero tariffs would accelerate the destruction of these non-renewable resources. In this, Washington has the support of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, whose member countries account for 60% of world trade.
Where are the countries of the southern hemisphere in all this? The EU says that they deserve special care. Many of them have no ambassador to the WTO, and complain that they have made concessions without getting anything in return - especially in the field of textiles and clothing. Their priority is to see the commitments given to them in the Uruguay Round enacted. They are also suspicious of the European and North American desire to discuss ecological or social clauses. They see this as protectionism in disguise.
The movement that brought down the MAI has quickly mobilised itself again, this time against a WTO that is anti-democratic and destroys freedom and the environment. Accused by the partisans of free trade of wanting to take the world back to the 1930s and the trade wars, the movement replies that international trade needs rules, but not those of the WTO. There is another international law - that of human rights, multilateral environmental agreements and labour law, to which trade should be subordinate. The economy should serve the people and their natural environment, not the other way round. Too much liberalisation spells death to freedom.
The protesters, who will be many in Seattle, are united around one certainty: the need to fight for each other - failing which all will be defeated.
The problem isn't beef, bananas, cultural diversity or the patenting of life: the problem is the WTO.
• Susan George is president of the Observatoire de la mondialisation (Globalisation Observatory) and associate director of the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam).This is an edited extract of an article in the November edition of Le Monde Diplomatique. To subscribe to the English version, published jointly with the Guardian Weekly, phone 0161-832 7200 x 8712, or email gwsubs@guardian.co.uk
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
The ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, which open next Tuesday in Seattle, is being blandly presented as a straightforward negotiation on international trade in which everyone will have to make a few concessions. The WTO message, however, is not getting through, and mass demonstrations are planned to greet the delegates and the lobbyists from the multinationals.
Europe has already had to contend with bananas, hormone-fed beef and genetically modified organisms (GMOs), all of which have helped to mobilise opinion against the tyranny of any international organisation that thinks it is a cut above everyone else. But how have things come to such a pass?
Since 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) had been working discreetly to get customs duties on all kinds of goods reduced. Following the eighth round of talks in Uruguay (1986-93), that came to fruition. In March 1994, ministers gathered in Marrakesh to sign the document that created the WTO. Its 800 pages gave world trade a framework far more constraining than the feeble Gatt.
The lobbyists of transnational corporations, who had long had the ear of official negotiators, rubbed their hands with glee: the WTO gave them the ideal tool to complete their globalisation and impose their own rules on all human activities now defined as objects of "trade".
The WTO, which, unlike Gatt, has the status of an international organisation, has 134 member states and 30 observers. Its headquarters in Geneva are home to Gatt, which is still responsible for liberalising trade in goods, and a dozen other agreements. Among the most important of these are those on agriculture and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats), which covers more than 160 sectors and sub-sectors, including education, health and the environment. The agreement known as Trips governs intellectual property - including biotechnology and the patenting of micro-organisms and microbiological processes - while the Trims agreement is concerned with "trade-related" investments.
One of the WTO's tasks, the elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade, is performed in part through two other agreements. The agreement on technical barriers to trade and the one on sanitary and phytosanitary measures each claim to "harmonise" standards and rules for the protection of the environment, public health and consumers. In practice, "harmonisation" imposes ceilings that effectively reduce national laws to the lowest common denominator and dispenses with the precautionary principle. Anyone who refuses to import a product on the grounds that it may be hazardous to health or destructive to the environment must provide scientific proof. One of the battles between WTO countries will be over the principle of on whom the burden of proof lies.
Formerly, when Gatt wanted to penalise a country that was not playing by the rules, every member had to agree, even the one that was to suffer the penalties. As a result, Gatt carried little authority. The WTO, with its implacable discipline, is the opposite. If its dispute settlement body orders sanctions, the members - including the plaintiff - must be unanimous if the sanctions are not to apply. Hence the undeniable right of the US to penalise roquefort cheese, foie gras and Dijon mustards by imposing prohibitive customs duties. If the Europeans refuse to import hormone-fed beef, despite the WTO ruling, no matter. They must then compensate the US and Canada every year for their lost earnings.
The conditions under which the WTO's panels, which have settled more than 170 disputes, are appointed are obscure. The names of the "experts", who meet behind closed doors and who hear no outside witnesses, are not made public. This impenetrable procedure is astonishingly quick: disputes are generally settled in 12 months, 18 at the most. Canada, the world's biggest asbestos producer, hoped to take advantage of this to force Europe to import the carcinogen again.
Without warning, the WTO has created an international court of "justice" that is making law and establishing case law in which exist ing national laws are all "barriers" to trade, and is sweeping aside all environmental, social or public health considerations.
In so doing, it is merely following the principles that govern all its activities. For example, the "most favoured nation" clause demands equality of treatment for similar products from different member countries. With the banana decision, the WTO was able to deny the EU the right to have a foreign policy. In the WTO's eyes, a banana is only a banana, be it from Ecuador or the former European colonies.
The national treatment clause prohibits any discrimination affecting products of foreign origin, especially on the basis of the human or ecological conditions under which they were produced. In other words, no account may be taken of the "processes and methods of production". No reference may be made either to sustainable development or to human rights, and trading partners may not be rewarded or punished on the basis of their respect for those ideas. The article on "eliminating quantitative restrictions" penalises quotas and the refusal to import or export. This provision could invalidate many multilateral environmental agreements and some social conventions.
How, then, are we to prevent trade in endangered species or toxic waste? How can we limit exports of cereals when there is a national food shortage, or of tree trunks when the forests are being laid waste? The agreements on technical barriers and sanitary and phytosanitary measures reinforce this legal arsenal. An incalculable number of national standards, rules or laws could easily be classed as "barriers to trade".
These are just a few of the pitfalls along the road to the meeting of the WTO's supreme body, the ministerial conference in Seattle. The previous conferences have set the agenda: to review the agreements on agriculture, services and intellectual property. Seattle will decide the precise content of what Sir Leon Brittan has pompously termed the "Millennium Round".
It is planned to conclude the round with a global agreement in three years' time. The talks will move liberalisation forward and prevent any backtracking; that is how the WTO does things. And the US is reluctant to see the Trips agreement and GMO controversy re-opened, especially as the African countries have declared their opposition to the patenting of life.
A battle to the death is looming between the Cairns group of major agricultural exporting countries (Argentina, Australia and Brazil) and the US on one side, and Europe and Japan, which are considered too protective of their farmers, on the other. The Cairns group simply wants agricultural products to be allowed to compete like any other merchandise. Under pressure from France, the EU stresses the "multi-functionality" of agriculture as protecting diversity, the environment and rural life. Producers in the US, though, are urging their government "to resist any attempt to introduce the concept of multifunctionality".
We do not yet know the order in which the fields covered by the agreement on services will be tackled. If the word "horizontal" is heard, however, it is time to show one's claws: in WTO parlance, it means that a liberalisation measure accepted in one field must be extended to all. A liberalisation applied to banks or insurance, for example, would also have to be applied to education and health.
If governments have their priorities, business has its own. The US Coalition of Service Industries stresses distribution, finance, information technologies, telecommunications, tourism and health. The European Service Leaders' Group, presided over by the chairman of Barclays Bank, is concerned with 21 sectors.
The US Coalition of Energy Services is calling on the US special trade representative and chief negotiator, Charlene Barshevsky, to get their activities added to the agreement on services. The coalition - whose 27 members represent hundreds of billions of dollars - looks as if it will get its way. Brazil, France and Norway, which still regard these areas as public services, have been identified as "possible opponents".
Nobody knows what other sectors might be added to the agenda. The Europeans want the list to be as long as possible. For them, anything is useful in establishing a better balance of power with Washington.
The US negotiators prefer not to include investment, lest they reawaken the citizens' movement that scuppered the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in October last year. In any case, agreement on services would open up many advantages for investors. Neither do the Americans want to include electronic commerce: they want this virgin sector to remain a green pasture of zero customs tariffs. Public contracts, which account for 15% of most countries' gross national product, are clearly a juicy target that the US would like to see included.
The Americans, however, will be adamant that the so-called accelerated tariff liberalisation initiative (ATL) be placed on the agenda, defining as it does eight disparate fields in which zero tariffs should quickly become the norm. Alongside jewellery, toys or medical equipment, we find forestry and fishery products - fields in which zero tariffs would accelerate the destruction of these non-renewable resources. In this, Washington has the support of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, whose member countries account for 60% of world trade.
Where are the countries of the southern hemisphere in all this? The EU says that they deserve special care. Many of them have no ambassador to the WTO, and complain that they have made concessions without getting anything in return - especially in the field of textiles and clothing. Their priority is to see the commitments given to them in the Uruguay Round enacted. They are also suspicious of the European and North American desire to discuss ecological or social clauses. They see this as protectionism in disguise.
The movement that brought down the MAI has quickly mobilised itself again, this time against a WTO that is anti-democratic and destroys freedom and the environment. Accused by the partisans of free trade of wanting to take the world back to the 1930s and the trade wars, the movement replies that international trade needs rules, but not those of the WTO. There is another international law - that of human rights, multilateral environmental agreements and labour law, to which trade should be subordinate. The economy should serve the people and their natural environment, not the other way round. Too much liberalisation spells death to freedom.
The protesters, who will be many in Seattle, are united around one certainty: the need to fight for each other - failing which all will be defeated.
The problem isn't beef, bananas, cultural diversity or the patenting of life: the problem is the WTO.
• Susan George is president of the Observatoire de la mondialisation (Globalisation Observatory) and associate director of the Transnational Institute (Amsterdam).This is an edited extract of an article in the November edition of Le Monde Diplomatique. To subscribe to the English version, published jointly with the Guardian Weekly, phone 0161-832 7200 x 8712, or email gwsubs@guardian.co.uk
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Saturday 10 July 2010
RACHEL CORRIE: A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIBERATOR
Dr. James J. Zogby ©
President
Arab American
A very different kind of American liberator was tragically killed last week, days before the Iraq war began.
Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old student from the state of Washington, was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver in Gaza. She was part of a courageous group of activists who have come to Palestine from all over the world to provide non-violent assistance to the Palestinian people.
During the past few years, these peace activists have: placed themselves between Israeli tanks and Palestinian demonstrators; worked to stop Israeli bulldozers from destroying Palestinian homes; and provided eye-witness testimony to Israeli behavior at checkpoints and other human rights violations.
Without any official support and often times ignored even by the international media, this band of civilian liberators has bravely risked their lives to support the Palestinian people's struggle for freedom.
Last week, Rachel, who had taken six months off from her college work to go to Gaza, became the first of these international peace activists to be the victim of what appears to be a cold-blooded murder. The Israeli bulldozers had arrived in Rafah to demolish the home of the Samir family. After a two-hour argument and standoff between Rachel and the vehicle's driver, Rachel sat down refusing to allow the bulldozer to move on the house. The driver drove right over Rachel and then reversed and drove over her again. Her body was crushed and though rescued by her colleagues-she died from massive injuries a short while later.
The story of Rachel spread like a wildfire throughout the United States. Newspapers featured the story and websites of dozens of organizations showed pictures of this young woman's courageous standoff with the machine that ended her life.
Many of these websites have carried Rachel's extensive writings about her experiences in Gaza and her growing understanding of the Palestinian situation. She was an extraordinarily, perceptive young woman and gifted writer. In one of her letters from Gaza she wrote:
February 7
No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting...
February 27
Sometimes the adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the situation. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he thought his house was going to be exploded.
...If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things grow and what a labor of love it is. I really think, in a similar situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could.
...This is what I am seeing here. The assassinations, rocket attacks and shooting of children are atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm terrified of missing their context. The vast majority of people here - even if they had the economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen (Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as genocide.
On March 16, Rachel's pen stopped writing. Her parents in their horror and pain reacted bravely. In a statement they issued after visiting members of Congress who promised to work for an investigation into the cause of their daughter's death they said:
We are speaking out today because of Rachel's fears about the impact of a war with Iraq on the people in the Occupied Territories. She reported to us that her Palestinian friends were afraid that with all eyes on Iraq, the Israeli Defense Forces would escalate activity in the Occupied Territories. Rachel wanted to be in Gaza if that happened.
...In the last six weeks, Rachel became our eyes and ears for Rafah, a city at the southern tip of Gaza. Now that she's no longer there, we are asking members of Congress and, truly, all the world to watch and listen.
...We are asking members of Congress to bring the U.S. government's attention back to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and to recognize that the occupation of the Palestinian territories is an overwhelming and continuous act of collective violence against the Palestinian people.
...Rachel would not want her death to overshadow that of others. In barely glancing at headlines since word came of Rachel's death, I note that many have died this week in the Occupied Territories - one a four-year-old child. I would like to be able to hold the mother of that child and to have her hold me.
Rachel and her parents make me proud to be an American. They represent a uniquely American spirit. Rachel should not be forgotten, as the war with Iraq steals the world's headlines and attention. Many Americans have come together to support Rachel's parents' call to Congress to: provide protection both for international volunteers who are in Palestine to promote human rights and justice and for the Palestinian people as a whole during these difficult times.
We are also calling for a complete investigation into Rachel's murder. Finally, we are working to establish a scholarship in Rachel's name so that her memory and her commitment to human service and liberation lives on.
Washington Watch
March 24, 2003
Thursday 8 July 2010
How the Church of England became the Church of State
A dispute between Henry VIII and the Pope over the legitimacy over divorce led to a new church under the monarch
The Church of England's position as the country's established church dates back to the upheavals of the 16th century Reformation.
The disagreement between the English monarch and the Vatican saw the church gradually emerge out of Henry VIII's dispute with the papacy over his right to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
The king used the split from the Catholic church to divorce his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, too, having seen his second beheaded, and third die.
The monarch became the supreme governor of the state church and its doctrine was officially defined through the 39 Articles in the reign of Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I.
The church's continuing privileged position gives 26 of its bishops seats as a right in the House of Lords, gives institutional rights on state occasions, including the coronation of the sovereign, and protects it through a complex and ancient web of legislation.
Among the historic legacies are such archaic hangovers as the Act of Settlement, preventing the monarch from being – or marrying – a Catholic: a 300 year-old piece of legislation that some bishops still defend to this day.
As part of the modern constitutional tie-in, the church's synod can create legislation determining its affairs. The resulting legislation then has to be approved, but cannot be amended, by parliament.
In return, the Church of England maintains a presence in every parish in the country, runs a network of state-funded schools, claims to be available to all and insists that it speaks on behalf of faith communities on spiritual and religious matters.
It also maintains the upkeep of many of the country's most historic buildings.
Senior church appointments are still nominally made by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister based on recommendations by the church.
Nominations can be vetoed or altered at the behest of Downing Street.
Critics allege that the church can no longer claim public influence and authority because only about half the population identify themselves as Anglicans, and very few go to church. Unravelling the church's established status would be complex and time-consuming: it took parliament 70 years to disestablish the much smaller church in Wales.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
The Church of England's position as the country's established church dates back to the upheavals of the 16th century Reformation.
The disagreement between the English monarch and the Vatican saw the church gradually emerge out of Henry VIII's dispute with the papacy over his right to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
The king used the split from the Catholic church to divorce his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, too, having seen his second beheaded, and third die.
The monarch became the supreme governor of the state church and its doctrine was officially defined through the 39 Articles in the reign of Henry's daughter, Elizabeth I.
The church's continuing privileged position gives 26 of its bishops seats as a right in the House of Lords, gives institutional rights on state occasions, including the coronation of the sovereign, and protects it through a complex and ancient web of legislation.
Among the historic legacies are such archaic hangovers as the Act of Settlement, preventing the monarch from being – or marrying – a Catholic: a 300 year-old piece of legislation that some bishops still defend to this day.
As part of the modern constitutional tie-in, the church's synod can create legislation determining its affairs. The resulting legislation then has to be approved, but cannot be amended, by parliament.
In return, the Church of England maintains a presence in every parish in the country, runs a network of state-funded schools, claims to be available to all and insists that it speaks on behalf of faith communities on spiritual and religious matters.
It also maintains the upkeep of many of the country's most historic buildings.
Senior church appointments are still nominally made by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister based on recommendations by the church.
Nominations can be vetoed or altered at the behest of Downing Street.
Critics allege that the church can no longer claim public influence and authority because only about half the population identify themselves as Anglicans, and very few go to church. Unravelling the church's established status would be complex and time-consuming: it took parliament 70 years to disestablish the much smaller church in Wales.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
What every couple should read before getting married
Kate Figes has, in the nicest possible way, made a career out of being a nosy parker. For her latest book, Couples: The Truth, she spent three years asking 120 people questions about love, about sex, about who does the washing-up and who pays the mortgage, about children, about infidelity, about living happily, and unhappily ever after.
Awkward questions, asked in the twinkliest way imaginable, are her speciality. (Though sometimes she gets an answer to an entirely different question. 'Many of the men assumed I was referring to their sex lives when I asked them how love had changed through their relationship,' she says.)
And now here is the 52-year-old author – who in the past has delved into other dark corners such as female bullying, and the alienation that can reside at the heart of motherhood – twinkling her way through an interview of her own, in a cosy north London kitchen, with the odd interruption from her GCSE-ridden younger daughter, Grace, and her blind dachshund, Rollo.
'What I was most surprised by when researching the book was, given this notion there is today that marriage is miserable, mundane, troubled, how many people do make it work,' she tells me. 'We are all doing much better than we give ourselves credit for. When you talk to people and listen to their stories most people want to make relationships work. We know in our heart of hearts they are good for us.'
Why then is there so much negativity, fear even, around the topic of modern marriage? 'We like to look at the disasters more than at happiness. Also you only tend to hear about other people's relationships once they have broken down. Very few people want to talk about what is going on inside their marriage. It is like the "glass shade" that EM Forster writes about that cuts off married couples from the world. Which means you have no way of judging whether what you are going through in your own marriage is normal, or abnormal, and what you should do about it. And so then all you ever see are the disasters. And you think, aahhh, divorce is some kind of car crash that is going to happen to you, but you have no real idea how to stop yourself from getting there.'
It seems paradoxical that the more fearful we become about marriage, and its failure, the more expensive our weddings become (now £18,500 on average). Yet Figes believes the two are connected. 'We need to put marriage on to a pedestal, to show that we value it, because we want to believe that love can last a lifetime. And many of us feel that if we spend enough on our wedding then maybe we can beat the odds on divorce. But also we love the traditions of the wedding day – even though many of them are not age-old but 20th century. And we believe that, by buying into these "old" traditions, we are getting married in the right way and increasing the odds on marriage lasting "like it used to".'
Figes, who has herself been happily married to Christoph, a teacher, for more than 20 years, and with whom she has two daughters, identifies the current period as one of almost elemental renegotiation between men and women, particularly in the sphere of cohabitation and parenting. She writes that 'couples are arguing their way, often ferociously, towards a more democratic fairness, compromised by the assumptions they have grown up with about how men and women should be as "husbands" and "wives".'
Yet, as she observes to me now, there remains 'this idea that love will just see you through, that you meet this person and that it is all going to be all right. There is very little discussion. I was surprised by the number of people who don't talk about basic things like whether or not you want children, or where you want to live. There is this notion with relationships that somehow you trust an external force – love, or the institution of marriage, or romance – to keep you together when it is the two of you that have to do it. All I wanted to do with the book was to say to people, "Take responsibility for your relationship."'
But can relationships skills really be learnt? 'If you take a heart disease metaphor we know you shouldn't eat too many saturated fats and that you should exercise to keep healthy, and I think you could say there are similar things in relationships.'
And what are those things? 'A sense of individual self and respect for the other person's sense of self. That is the number one thing, because from there everything else flourishes. The courtesies of daily life – good manners, tolerance, forgiveness, a sense of humour. Then there is the ability to talk when you are unhappy about something before it becomes too entrenched a resentment. To accept imperfections, to be realistic as to what a relationship can offer – not expecting it to make you secure, rich, happy. It can't do all those things – those things have to come from yourself. And finally, when you have difficult times, to learn from them.'
Figes has robust views on 'learning from' infidelity in particular. 'Couples betray each other in all sorts of ways. Why is it that a sexual thing is more of a betrayal than, you know, lying about the fact that you haven't been paying the mortgage? Infidelity is going to be the subject of my next book. Most people have affairs for complex relationship or personal reasons. It is not just necessarily that they are not getting enough sex in their marriage. If you address that then you have a chance to rebuild your relationship on a better footing. I think that from the research – the stuff I am looking at now for the new book – most people who do forgive affairs move on to something better as a result.'
In Couples she refers disapprovingly to how, from the 1970s onwards, agony aunts have become more likely to counsel not forgiving your husband for an affair. 'I think we have become more sanctimonious about it. There is a notion that because marriage is a relationship we perceive as being less stable, because the social sanctions seem fewer, less reliable to us, fidelity has become more of a symbol of trust and commitment.'
Has she experienced infidelity herself? 'No. I have been married for 21 years and, no, I have never wanted to, and so far as I know neither has my husband. But both of us had lots of sex before we got married; we had lots of other partners.' Her own marital challenges have been her struggles with undiagnosed postnatal depression – which prompted her to write Life After Birth – and a period when her husband Christoph was out of work for 18 months, 'a hugely challenging period for us both'.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle was to get married in the first place. Her mother, Eva Figes, the author of the feminist tract Patriarchal Attitudes, divorced her father when Kate was five, and never remarried. 'My parents made all the mistakes that couples made at that time, when divorce was rare. You don't want to enact the same things on your children as were enacted on you.'
She spent much of early adulthood in a series of destructive relationships and, while she says she consciously chose Christoph 'because he was completely unlike the people I'd had relationships with before … someone I could be content with', she only agreed to marriage at his insistence, and 'spent the first 10 years wondering when he was going to leave me'.
(Figes's only sibling, the historian Orlando Figes, was himself recently the subject of a gripping marital melodrama, when his wife stepped in to cover his tracks after he had been posting laudatory comments about his own books online, and derogatory ones about other historians. Figes tells me she can't comment for legal reasons.)
She moves on to one of her favourite themes, the importance of difference, of space, in a relationship. 'There is the idea in this confessional culture that you have to be everything to each other, so therefore we are very confused about where the borderline lies between being totally honest, and holding back. We don't know where that line lies. In fact, it is important to preserve your own separate sense of space. Your partner has no right to know everything in your head. The most successful relationships consist of two autonomous grown-ups who are able to be together, respect each other's autonomy, and be apart, and trust when they are apart that the foundations are still solid. It is a very unromantic notion in a way that you should be these two separate beings but that it is how it is more flexible.'
Figes says that the strongest marital structure is that of a triangle. 'We may be each other's most important person, but that does not mean we do not need anyone else.' That said, she tells me that she was struck, during her research interviews, 'by how many different ways there are of being a couple'.
She is particularly optimistic about the rise of the so-called 'peer marriage', in which the importance attached to work is similar, domestic responsibilities are fairly evenly split – though at 60-40 the woman is still doing the lion's share – and both partners have equal influence over key decisions.
'Research shows that when couples feel more equal, when they are able almost to replace each other, then they are happier. They are more invested in each other's emotional contentment. What's more, the whole stability of a relationship often depends upon how much a man is willing to accept his partner's influence.' So the sensible husband will let his wife get her own way? 'If a man wants to stay with his partner it is in his best interest to listen to what she wants and change. Women are more likely to end a relationship.'
Figes observes that most divorces are triggered by 'disappointment rather than irretrievable breakdown'. She quotes statistics that suggest it takes couples six years to go to counselling for a particular problem, by which time it is usually too late. Figes advises, 'At the first hint of trouble, such as that you are arguing badly, just go to someone who interprets what you are both saying, so you really understand each other.'
Do people give up too readily on marriage? 'There are people who do divorce too easily. It is a bit like moving house – you don't realise what you have lost until you have moved. Shared history and a shared understanding can matter hugely. But then the other side of the coin is that there are people who don't divorce who should. So there is that question of how unhappy do you have to be. Only you can work it out but at least try and go into it with your eyes open.'
Of course we, as a society, are much exercised by our see-sawing rates of marriage and divorce, and what they may say about us. Yet fascinatingly, Figes points out that prior to 1850 it was only the wealthy, prompted by dynastic and inheritance concerns more than anything, who chose to marry. 'Up until the end of the 19th century many more people cohabited in common-law unions than married, just as they are beginning to do today.'
What is more, the average length of the modern marriage – about 13 years – is the same as throughout much of history. According to the historian Lawrence Stone, it was only between 1920 and 1950 – 'when death rates of young adults had dropped precipitously and divorce had not yet taken on a major role' – that the average marriage lasted much longer.
So our collective sense of failure in marriage and personal relationships is based on a historical misapprehension? 'Yes. This has been instilled in us by the 1950s – it is amazing how powerful that decade and its values are. That ethos that we think has been with us for ever – men as the breadwinner, women at home – it wasn't like that in the past. Yet we think that is the norm, and that we are all betraying old values.'
What about the role of children in marriage? 'For my husband's parents, for that generation, the marriage came first and the children were second to it, and it has completely flipped. We now have control over when we have children, so you therefore have to justify that choice. But I also wonder how much we have replaced … your children are for ever … your husband may leave, and you can't trust that love in a marriage will last forever but you can trust that children will, or at least you think you can. I think women do that, they over-invest.'
The fact is, says Figes, that whatever happens to rates of marriage and divorce our commitment as human beings to commitment itself remains undiminished. 'These relationships matter to us as much as they ever did, in terms of support, care, community, love. And this is reflected in the industry of marital guidance and "How To" books. Where we haven't quite yet made the leap is to taking responsibility ourselves for everything, even divorce. People behave so badly: they will give all their money to solicitors rather than sort it out amicably. We have got to be much more grown-up: there is no reason why you can't separate sensibly when it has come to an end, however hurt you may be.'
Endearingly, for Figes herself, endings are the last thing on her mind. 'The thing which for me is incredibly life-affirming, and which I was reminded of through talking to people for the book, is how you have the chance to grow up again. Even if you had bad childhood experiences, as I did, if you go into your relationship with your eyes open you can be reborn, through the stability and nourishment and love that you get.'
Or as she puts it, with moving absolutism, in Couples: 'I can say with complete confidence that an intimate, committed relationship holds the power to heal old hurts.'
'Couples: The Truth' (Virago, £14.99), by Kate Figes, is available from Telegraph Books (books.telegraph.co.uk; 0844 871 1515;) at £12.99 plus £1.25 p&p
Awkward questions, asked in the twinkliest way imaginable, are her speciality. (Though sometimes she gets an answer to an entirely different question. 'Many of the men assumed I was referring to their sex lives when I asked them how love had changed through their relationship,' she says.)
And now here is the 52-year-old author – who in the past has delved into other dark corners such as female bullying, and the alienation that can reside at the heart of motherhood – twinkling her way through an interview of her own, in a cosy north London kitchen, with the odd interruption from her GCSE-ridden younger daughter, Grace, and her blind dachshund, Rollo.
'What I was most surprised by when researching the book was, given this notion there is today that marriage is miserable, mundane, troubled, how many people do make it work,' she tells me. 'We are all doing much better than we give ourselves credit for. When you talk to people and listen to their stories most people want to make relationships work. We know in our heart of hearts they are good for us.'
Why then is there so much negativity, fear even, around the topic of modern marriage? 'We like to look at the disasters more than at happiness. Also you only tend to hear about other people's relationships once they have broken down. Very few people want to talk about what is going on inside their marriage. It is like the "glass shade" that EM Forster writes about that cuts off married couples from the world. Which means you have no way of judging whether what you are going through in your own marriage is normal, or abnormal, and what you should do about it. And so then all you ever see are the disasters. And you think, aahhh, divorce is some kind of car crash that is going to happen to you, but you have no real idea how to stop yourself from getting there.'
It seems paradoxical that the more fearful we become about marriage, and its failure, the more expensive our weddings become (now £18,500 on average). Yet Figes believes the two are connected. 'We need to put marriage on to a pedestal, to show that we value it, because we want to believe that love can last a lifetime. And many of us feel that if we spend enough on our wedding then maybe we can beat the odds on divorce. But also we love the traditions of the wedding day – even though many of them are not age-old but 20th century. And we believe that, by buying into these "old" traditions, we are getting married in the right way and increasing the odds on marriage lasting "like it used to".'
Figes, who has herself been happily married to Christoph, a teacher, for more than 20 years, and with whom she has two daughters, identifies the current period as one of almost elemental renegotiation between men and women, particularly in the sphere of cohabitation and parenting. She writes that 'couples are arguing their way, often ferociously, towards a more democratic fairness, compromised by the assumptions they have grown up with about how men and women should be as "husbands" and "wives".'
Yet, as she observes to me now, there remains 'this idea that love will just see you through, that you meet this person and that it is all going to be all right. There is very little discussion. I was surprised by the number of people who don't talk about basic things like whether or not you want children, or where you want to live. There is this notion with relationships that somehow you trust an external force – love, or the institution of marriage, or romance – to keep you together when it is the two of you that have to do it. All I wanted to do with the book was to say to people, "Take responsibility for your relationship."'
But can relationships skills really be learnt? 'If you take a heart disease metaphor we know you shouldn't eat too many saturated fats and that you should exercise to keep healthy, and I think you could say there are similar things in relationships.'
And what are those things? 'A sense of individual self and respect for the other person's sense of self. That is the number one thing, because from there everything else flourishes. The courtesies of daily life – good manners, tolerance, forgiveness, a sense of humour. Then there is the ability to talk when you are unhappy about something before it becomes too entrenched a resentment. To accept imperfections, to be realistic as to what a relationship can offer – not expecting it to make you secure, rich, happy. It can't do all those things – those things have to come from yourself. And finally, when you have difficult times, to learn from them.'
Figes has robust views on 'learning from' infidelity in particular. 'Couples betray each other in all sorts of ways. Why is it that a sexual thing is more of a betrayal than, you know, lying about the fact that you haven't been paying the mortgage? Infidelity is going to be the subject of my next book. Most people have affairs for complex relationship or personal reasons. It is not just necessarily that they are not getting enough sex in their marriage. If you address that then you have a chance to rebuild your relationship on a better footing. I think that from the research – the stuff I am looking at now for the new book – most people who do forgive affairs move on to something better as a result.'
In Couples she refers disapprovingly to how, from the 1970s onwards, agony aunts have become more likely to counsel not forgiving your husband for an affair. 'I think we have become more sanctimonious about it. There is a notion that because marriage is a relationship we perceive as being less stable, because the social sanctions seem fewer, less reliable to us, fidelity has become more of a symbol of trust and commitment.'
Has she experienced infidelity herself? 'No. I have been married for 21 years and, no, I have never wanted to, and so far as I know neither has my husband. But both of us had lots of sex before we got married; we had lots of other partners.' Her own marital challenges have been her struggles with undiagnosed postnatal depression – which prompted her to write Life After Birth – and a period when her husband Christoph was out of work for 18 months, 'a hugely challenging period for us both'.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle was to get married in the first place. Her mother, Eva Figes, the author of the feminist tract Patriarchal Attitudes, divorced her father when Kate was five, and never remarried. 'My parents made all the mistakes that couples made at that time, when divorce was rare. You don't want to enact the same things on your children as were enacted on you.'
She spent much of early adulthood in a series of destructive relationships and, while she says she consciously chose Christoph 'because he was completely unlike the people I'd had relationships with before … someone I could be content with', she only agreed to marriage at his insistence, and 'spent the first 10 years wondering when he was going to leave me'.
(Figes's only sibling, the historian Orlando Figes, was himself recently the subject of a gripping marital melodrama, when his wife stepped in to cover his tracks after he had been posting laudatory comments about his own books online, and derogatory ones about other historians. Figes tells me she can't comment for legal reasons.)
She moves on to one of her favourite themes, the importance of difference, of space, in a relationship. 'There is the idea in this confessional culture that you have to be everything to each other, so therefore we are very confused about where the borderline lies between being totally honest, and holding back. We don't know where that line lies. In fact, it is important to preserve your own separate sense of space. Your partner has no right to know everything in your head. The most successful relationships consist of two autonomous grown-ups who are able to be together, respect each other's autonomy, and be apart, and trust when they are apart that the foundations are still solid. It is a very unromantic notion in a way that you should be these two separate beings but that it is how it is more flexible.'
Figes says that the strongest marital structure is that of a triangle. 'We may be each other's most important person, but that does not mean we do not need anyone else.' That said, she tells me that she was struck, during her research interviews, 'by how many different ways there are of being a couple'.
She is particularly optimistic about the rise of the so-called 'peer marriage', in which the importance attached to work is similar, domestic responsibilities are fairly evenly split – though at 60-40 the woman is still doing the lion's share – and both partners have equal influence over key decisions.
'Research shows that when couples feel more equal, when they are able almost to replace each other, then they are happier. They are more invested in each other's emotional contentment. What's more, the whole stability of a relationship often depends upon how much a man is willing to accept his partner's influence.' So the sensible husband will let his wife get her own way? 'If a man wants to stay with his partner it is in his best interest to listen to what she wants and change. Women are more likely to end a relationship.'
Figes observes that most divorces are triggered by 'disappointment rather than irretrievable breakdown'. She quotes statistics that suggest it takes couples six years to go to counselling for a particular problem, by which time it is usually too late. Figes advises, 'At the first hint of trouble, such as that you are arguing badly, just go to someone who interprets what you are both saying, so you really understand each other.'
Do people give up too readily on marriage? 'There are people who do divorce too easily. It is a bit like moving house – you don't realise what you have lost until you have moved. Shared history and a shared understanding can matter hugely. But then the other side of the coin is that there are people who don't divorce who should. So there is that question of how unhappy do you have to be. Only you can work it out but at least try and go into it with your eyes open.'
Of course we, as a society, are much exercised by our see-sawing rates of marriage and divorce, and what they may say about us. Yet fascinatingly, Figes points out that prior to 1850 it was only the wealthy, prompted by dynastic and inheritance concerns more than anything, who chose to marry. 'Up until the end of the 19th century many more people cohabited in common-law unions than married, just as they are beginning to do today.'
What is more, the average length of the modern marriage – about 13 years – is the same as throughout much of history. According to the historian Lawrence Stone, it was only between 1920 and 1950 – 'when death rates of young adults had dropped precipitously and divorce had not yet taken on a major role' – that the average marriage lasted much longer.
So our collective sense of failure in marriage and personal relationships is based on a historical misapprehension? 'Yes. This has been instilled in us by the 1950s – it is amazing how powerful that decade and its values are. That ethos that we think has been with us for ever – men as the breadwinner, women at home – it wasn't like that in the past. Yet we think that is the norm, and that we are all betraying old values.'
What about the role of children in marriage? 'For my husband's parents, for that generation, the marriage came first and the children were second to it, and it has completely flipped. We now have control over when we have children, so you therefore have to justify that choice. But I also wonder how much we have replaced … your children are for ever … your husband may leave, and you can't trust that love in a marriage will last forever but you can trust that children will, or at least you think you can. I think women do that, they over-invest.'
The fact is, says Figes, that whatever happens to rates of marriage and divorce our commitment as human beings to commitment itself remains undiminished. 'These relationships matter to us as much as they ever did, in terms of support, care, community, love. And this is reflected in the industry of marital guidance and "How To" books. Where we haven't quite yet made the leap is to taking responsibility ourselves for everything, even divorce. People behave so badly: they will give all their money to solicitors rather than sort it out amicably. We have got to be much more grown-up: there is no reason why you can't separate sensibly when it has come to an end, however hurt you may be.'
Endearingly, for Figes herself, endings are the last thing on her mind. 'The thing which for me is incredibly life-affirming, and which I was reminded of through talking to people for the book, is how you have the chance to grow up again. Even if you had bad childhood experiences, as I did, if you go into your relationship with your eyes open you can be reborn, through the stability and nourishment and love that you get.'
Or as she puts it, with moving absolutism, in Couples: 'I can say with complete confidence that an intimate, committed relationship holds the power to heal old hurts.'
'Couples: The Truth' (Virago, £14.99), by Kate Figes, is available from Telegraph Books (books.telegraph.co.uk; 0844 871 1515;) at £12.99 plus £1.25 p&p
Monday 5 July 2010
Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar?
Jesus may not have died nailed to the cross because there is no evidence that the Romans crucified prisoners two thousand years ago, a scholar has claimed.
The legend of his execution is based on the traditions of the Christian church and artistic illustrations rather than antique texts, according to theologian Gunnar Samuelsson.
He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion - only that Jesus bore a "staurus" towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a "pole".
Mr Samuelsson, who has written a 400-page thesis after studying the original texts, said: "The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature.
"The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don't say anything."
The ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature from Homer to the first century AD describe an arsenal of suspension punishments but none mention "crosses" or "crucifixion."
Mr Samuelsson, of Gothenburg University, said: "Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely challenged.
"And what's even more challenging is the same can be concluded about the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn't say as much as we'd like to believe."
Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross is strikingly sparse - both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-Biblical literature as well as The Bible.
Mr Samuelsson, a committed Christian himself, admitted his claims are so close to the heart of his faith that it is easy to react emotionally instead of logically.
Mr Samuelsson said the actual execution texts do not describe how Christ was attached to the execution device.
He said: "This is the heart of the problem. The text of the passion narratives is not that exact and information loaded, as we Christians sometimes want it to be."
Mr Samuelsson said: "If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels."
A lot of contemporary literature all use the same vague terminology - including the Latin accounts.
Nor does the Latin word crux automatically refer to a cross while patibulum refer to the cross-beam. Both words are used in a wider sense that that.
Mr Samuelsson said: "That a man named Jesus existed in that part of the world and in that time is well-documented. He left a rather good foot-print in the literature of the time.
"I do believe that the mentioned man is the son of God. My suggestion is not that Christians should reject or doubt the biblical text.
"My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we think it is. We should read on the lines, not between the lines. The text of the Bible is sufficient. We do not need to add anything."
BNN June 27, 2010
The legend of his execution is based on the traditions of the Christian church and artistic illustrations rather than antique texts, according to theologian Gunnar Samuelsson.
He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit references the use of nails or to crucifixion - only that Jesus bore a "staurus" towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can also mean a "pole".
Mr Samuelsson, who has written a 400-page thesis after studying the original texts, said: "The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are remarkably absent in the antique literature.
"The sources where you would expect to find support for the established understanding of the event really don't say anything."
The ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature from Homer to the first century AD describe an arsenal of suspension punishments but none mention "crosses" or "crucifixion."
Mr Samuelsson, of Gothenburg University, said: "Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely challenged.
"And what's even more challenging is the same can be concluded about the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn't say as much as we'd like to believe."
Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross is strikingly sparse - both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-Biblical literature as well as The Bible.
Mr Samuelsson, a committed Christian himself, admitted his claims are so close to the heart of his faith that it is easy to react emotionally instead of logically.
Mr Samuelsson said the actual execution texts do not describe how Christ was attached to the execution device.
He said: "This is the heart of the problem. The text of the passion narratives is not that exact and information loaded, as we Christians sometimes want it to be."
Mr Samuelsson said: "If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels."
A lot of contemporary literature all use the same vague terminology - including the Latin accounts.
Nor does the Latin word crux automatically refer to a cross while patibulum refer to the cross-beam. Both words are used in a wider sense that that.
Mr Samuelsson said: "That a man named Jesus existed in that part of the world and in that time is well-documented. He left a rather good foot-print in the literature of the time.
"I do believe that the mentioned man is the son of God. My suggestion is not that Christians should reject or doubt the biblical text.
"My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we think it is. We should read on the lines, not between the lines. The text of the Bible is sufficient. We do not need to add anything."
BNN June 27, 2010
Monday 14 June 2010
The pope and a puzzling African king
By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist | August 4, 2005
It is traditional for newly elected popes to adopt a new coat of arms, displaying heraldic imagery symbolizing their heritage or their attitudes toward the church. It has been widely noted, for instance, that a bishop's hat, or miter, sits atop Pope Benedict XVI's new coat of arms, and not a crown. That is viewed as an expression of the new pope's humility, that he comes not to reign over the church but to continue his work as one of God's servants.
Another prominent feature of the pope's new crest has also attracted attention: the picture of the ''African king" facing left on the coat of arms. For one thing, the portrait is practically a caricature of an African male, with exaggerated lips painted ruby red. ''It's not good," says Holy Cross professor of religious studies Matthew Schmalz, who has written about the crest for the Catholic magazine Commonweal.
There is little doubt why the image of the African king appears on the crest. It symbolizes the Pope's commitment to rallying Catholic worshipers in Africa, the fastest-growing province of the church. (In June, Benedict said he would summon a special synod of African bishops, the first since 1994.) ''For me, [the African king] is an expression of the universality of the Church," the then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his 1998 book ''Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977." He also wrote that he did not know where the African image, which appeared on his coat of arms when he was archbishop of Munich-Freising, came from.
He is not alone. No one really knows who the African king might be. ''It probably strikes people as being really odd," Schmalz says. ''They look at it and think, 'What is going on here?' "
Mario Valdes, a researcher for WGBH's ''Frontline," strongly believes the black king can be one of only two people: Balthazar, one of the three kings from the ''Orient," who brings myrrh to the newborn Jesus Christ; or Prester John, the mythological king of the ''three Indias," or, alternatively, Ethiopia. Prester John, who in some versions of his legend is white, was supposed to have ruled over a land where spiritual and temporal powers coexisted in perfect harmony. Pope Alexander III is said to have written a letter to Prester John in 1177, although the Catholic Encyclopedia casts doubt on this event.
But there are two other possible identities for the unknown Moor. He could be St. Maurice, a Roman commander from Africa whose Christian soldiers refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods after an important victory, and were themselves massacred. (Valdes discounts this, noting that Maurice is usually depicted wearing a centurion's helmet.) And there is a more grisly possibility. At the time of the Crusades, some Christian kings displayed a severed Moor's head on their flags or crests to symbolize victories over their Islamic enemies. It is conceivable that the king, known as the ''Moor of Freising," evolved from such an image, although the figure shown on Benedict's coat of arms is wearing a collar and has suffered no violence. ''It's certainly one of the possibilities," Schmalz says.
'Twas ever thus
In a recent outing, Berkshire Eagle columnist Howard Herman reviewed the first season of the Pittsfield Dukes, the New England Collegiate Baseball League team owned by former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette. Herman noted that ''Subtract the on-field aspect of the 2005 NECBL season, and the Dukes were a roaring success." The Dukes finished last in their division, with a won-lost record of 11-31.
At the end of his column, Herman includes this quote from NECBL executive vice president Joel Cooney: ''[Duquette's] going through a learning curve in how to recruit players. [The record] is not a direct reflection on the organization. If you give him time, he will definitely turn it around."
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com
Wednesday 12 May 2010
A lesson in displacement
When an ice cube melts in a glass of water, does the level of the water fall or rise?
Neither. Archimedes' principle states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. When the ice cube is floating, the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the ice cube, but since the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the water displaced by the submerged portion of the ice cube, the floating ice cube displaces its own weight in water. When the ice cube melts, it turns into its own weight in water, thereby leaving the overall water level unchanged.
Neither. Archimedes' principle states that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. When the ice cube is floating, the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the ice cube, but since the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the water displaced by the submerged portion of the ice cube, the floating ice cube displaces its own weight in water. When the ice cube melts, it turns into its own weight in water, thereby leaving the overall water level unchanged.
Saturday 6 March 2010
Swimming with Dolphins: Green or Not?
When is it not okay to swim with dolphins, and why?
Swim with the Dolphins (SWTD) programs at resorts and get-aways seems like so much fun, right? How neat it is to be able to get in the water and play with these smart, wonderful mammals! So often, it seems like a great, green activity - after all, you're hopping in a lagoon or well-cared-for tank and hanging out with healthy, loved animals. The United States alone has between 14 and 18 SWTD attractions, and the NMFS estimated that in 1990 over 40,000 people swam with captive dolphins in the US, with the number dramatically increasing over recent years.
But there's a few big problems with these programs that take the green shine right off the activity. If you're thinking of adding swimming with dolphins to your vacation itinerary, check out why you may want to reconsider the idea.
1. Harmful and Traumatic Round-Up Techniques
As shown in the documentary "The Cove," dolphins that end up in SWTD programs are often caught under the most horrifying of circumstances. In Japan, tens of thousands of dolphins are rounded up into a small cove. Trainers come to pick out which dolphins they want for various aquatic centers. The dolphins are then rounded up as the other members of their pod are slaughtered. Not all capture techniques are so abusive, but they are all always traumatic for the dolphins, often causing a fatal condition known as capture stress or capture myopathy. According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals, of those dolphins that survive the capture and are brought into captivity, 53% will die within their first 3 months in a tank. Captive breeding programs, on the other hand, avoid the trauma of capture, but often do little to ensure that capture of wild dolphins ends.
2. Unnatural Habitats and Living Situations
Wild dolphins swim upwards of 40 miles a day with their family pods, hunt for their own food, and spend only 20% of their time at the surface of the ocean. On the other hand, captive dolphins swim in circles, are fed fish already caught and killed for them, are no longer part of their family pod - and dolphins are extremely social animals - and spend around 80% of their time at the surface. The environment, no matter how clean, goes against a dolphin's basic instincts and is usually not nearly stimulating enough to keep the animals from suffering stress and boredom.
Additionally, the conditions of aquatic centers where SWTD programs exist are barely regulated in the US, and often not regulated in other countries. From the numbers known, every seven years, at least 50% of all captive dolphins die due to the violence of their capture, intestinal disease, chlorine poisoning and stress-related illness. Even Sea World reports an average of 3 dolphin deaths per year.
3. Ensuring Continued Capture of Wild Dolphins
While some aquatic centers have breeding programs and express the desire to promote dolphin conservation, the fact is dolphins are taken in large numbers from the wild to support SWTD programs. The practice is ultimately inhumane, which is why Brazil, Italy, and the U.K. have banned interactive marine-mammal programs. It may seem like a great green activity while on vacation, but in the larger scheme of ocean and animal health, SWTD programs aren't so eco-friendly.
What You Can Do!
The Humane Society of the United States suggests:
Write or visit SWTD attractions and express your concerns. There are currently almost 400 bottlenose dolphins in captivity in the United States, with many more in facilities around the world, many of whom are used in breeding programs. If these programs are as successful as captive facilities claim, then capture from the wild can and should be eliminated.
Consider bypassing hotels, resorts, and cruise lines that offer SWTD attractions to tourists. Let the facility know that while you would normally have booked your stay with them, you see that they support this un-green activity and are therefore booking elsewhere.
Contact your U.S. senators and representative and tell them to support an amendment to the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibiting the capture of marine mammals from the wild for public display during the Act's next re-authorization.
By Jaymi Heimbuch
San Francisco, CA, USA Thu Aug 6, 2009
Swim with the Dolphins (SWTD) programs at resorts and get-aways seems like so much fun, right? How neat it is to be able to get in the water and play with these smart, wonderful mammals! So often, it seems like a great, green activity - after all, you're hopping in a lagoon or well-cared-for tank and hanging out with healthy, loved animals. The United States alone has between 14 and 18 SWTD attractions, and the NMFS estimated that in 1990 over 40,000 people swam with captive dolphins in the US, with the number dramatically increasing over recent years.
But there's a few big problems with these programs that take the green shine right off the activity. If you're thinking of adding swimming with dolphins to your vacation itinerary, check out why you may want to reconsider the idea.
1. Harmful and Traumatic Round-Up Techniques
As shown in the documentary "The Cove," dolphins that end up in SWTD programs are often caught under the most horrifying of circumstances. In Japan, tens of thousands of dolphins are rounded up into a small cove. Trainers come to pick out which dolphins they want for various aquatic centers. The dolphins are then rounded up as the other members of their pod are slaughtered. Not all capture techniques are so abusive, but they are all always traumatic for the dolphins, often causing a fatal condition known as capture stress or capture myopathy. According to the World Society for the Protection of Animals, of those dolphins that survive the capture and are brought into captivity, 53% will die within their first 3 months in a tank. Captive breeding programs, on the other hand, avoid the trauma of capture, but often do little to ensure that capture of wild dolphins ends.
2. Unnatural Habitats and Living Situations
Wild dolphins swim upwards of 40 miles a day with their family pods, hunt for their own food, and spend only 20% of their time at the surface of the ocean. On the other hand, captive dolphins swim in circles, are fed fish already caught and killed for them, are no longer part of their family pod - and dolphins are extremely social animals - and spend around 80% of their time at the surface. The environment, no matter how clean, goes against a dolphin's basic instincts and is usually not nearly stimulating enough to keep the animals from suffering stress and boredom.
Additionally, the conditions of aquatic centers where SWTD programs exist are barely regulated in the US, and often not regulated in other countries. From the numbers known, every seven years, at least 50% of all captive dolphins die due to the violence of their capture, intestinal disease, chlorine poisoning and stress-related illness. Even Sea World reports an average of 3 dolphin deaths per year.
3. Ensuring Continued Capture of Wild Dolphins
While some aquatic centers have breeding programs and express the desire to promote dolphin conservation, the fact is dolphins are taken in large numbers from the wild to support SWTD programs. The practice is ultimately inhumane, which is why Brazil, Italy, and the U.K. have banned interactive marine-mammal programs. It may seem like a great green activity while on vacation, but in the larger scheme of ocean and animal health, SWTD programs aren't so eco-friendly.
What You Can Do!
The Humane Society of the United States suggests:
Write or visit SWTD attractions and express your concerns. There are currently almost 400 bottlenose dolphins in captivity in the United States, with many more in facilities around the world, many of whom are used in breeding programs. If these programs are as successful as captive facilities claim, then capture from the wild can and should be eliminated.
Consider bypassing hotels, resorts, and cruise lines that offer SWTD attractions to tourists. Let the facility know that while you would normally have booked your stay with them, you see that they support this un-green activity and are therefore booking elsewhere.
Contact your U.S. senators and representative and tell them to support an amendment to the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibiting the capture of marine mammals from the wild for public display during the Act's next re-authorization.
By Jaymi Heimbuch
San Francisco, CA, USA Thu Aug 6, 2009
Tuesday 9 February 2010
‘Hypocritical’ EU gives €34.5m to fleets fishing tuna to extinction
The European Union has given out tens of millions of euros to subsidise the Mediterranean tuna fishing fleets despite warnings from scientists that overfishing is pushing the species close to extinction.
Between 2000 and 2008 a total of €34.5 million (£31.4 million) was given by the EU to support the fishing fleets, Joe Borg, the European Commissioner, revealed after a parliamentary question from a Spanish MEP.
“I am shocked at the scale of the subsidies given to the bluefin fleet,” said Raül Romeva i Rueda, who represents the European Green Party. “This shows clearly the hypocrisy of the EU, which insists on the need to conserve fish stocks while simultaneously encouraging the rapid expansion of a fleet that was already too large.”
Spain received more than half of the subsidy, with French and Italian fleets the next biggest beneficiaries. Cyprus, Malta and Greece were also given money.
Over the eight-year period, €23 million was given to fund the construction of new boats, including ultra-modern purse seiners that are able to land 100 tonnes in one haul. A further €10.5 million was given to modernise existing vessels, increasing their ability to track down and catch the tuna. Only €1 million was used to decommission vessels, but mainly for small-scale, local boats.
Overcapacity has been a problem in the world’s fishing fleet, with too many boats chasing too few fish. According to the European Commission, EU vessels are able to catch almost 21,900 tonnes of tuna a year, approaching twice the EU’s 2009 quota of 12,400 tonnes.
Stocks of the Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna are at risk after more than half a century of overfishing.
The International Council for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna was established in 1969 after concerns that the species was being fished unsustainably when the fish came to spawn in the Mediterranean.
Since 1955 populations have shrunk to a quarter of their former size, with the bulk of the reduction occurring since 2002. Between 2001 and the present, the average size of bluefin tuna has shrunk by half.
In October the organisation’s scientists found that the stock was below 15 per cent of its pre-exploitation levels, qualifying it for a ban on trade via the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It is not known if the EU will support a proposal from Monaco to ban the trade when CITES meets in March next year.
“We’ve always suspected the amount of public subsidy was very high, but until now it’s been very hard to get a good picture,” said Sergi Tudela of WWF. “These figures are not even complete yet. This is just the funding from Brussels, and the figures do not include the national subsidies, which in many cases equal them. It’s a real scandal,” he said.
“The EU has now committed to reducing overcapacity, but we’re going to have to pay again for that. We’ve paid once to make these ships that have been used to make a few people rich. They’ve destroyed the bluefin — a common stock — and now they are going to ask for more money.”
The Times December 4, 2009
Between 2000 and 2008 a total of €34.5 million (£31.4 million) was given by the EU to support the fishing fleets, Joe Borg, the European Commissioner, revealed after a parliamentary question from a Spanish MEP.
“I am shocked at the scale of the subsidies given to the bluefin fleet,” said Raül Romeva i Rueda, who represents the European Green Party. “This shows clearly the hypocrisy of the EU, which insists on the need to conserve fish stocks while simultaneously encouraging the rapid expansion of a fleet that was already too large.”
Spain received more than half of the subsidy, with French and Italian fleets the next biggest beneficiaries. Cyprus, Malta and Greece were also given money.
Over the eight-year period, €23 million was given to fund the construction of new boats, including ultra-modern purse seiners that are able to land 100 tonnes in one haul. A further €10.5 million was given to modernise existing vessels, increasing their ability to track down and catch the tuna. Only €1 million was used to decommission vessels, but mainly for small-scale, local boats.
Overcapacity has been a problem in the world’s fishing fleet, with too many boats chasing too few fish. According to the European Commission, EU vessels are able to catch almost 21,900 tonnes of tuna a year, approaching twice the EU’s 2009 quota of 12,400 tonnes.
Stocks of the Eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna are at risk after more than half a century of overfishing.
The International Council for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna was established in 1969 after concerns that the species was being fished unsustainably when the fish came to spawn in the Mediterranean.
Since 1955 populations have shrunk to a quarter of their former size, with the bulk of the reduction occurring since 2002. Between 2001 and the present, the average size of bluefin tuna has shrunk by half.
In October the organisation’s scientists found that the stock was below 15 per cent of its pre-exploitation levels, qualifying it for a ban on trade via the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It is not known if the EU will support a proposal from Monaco to ban the trade when CITES meets in March next year.
“We’ve always suspected the amount of public subsidy was very high, but until now it’s been very hard to get a good picture,” said Sergi Tudela of WWF. “These figures are not even complete yet. This is just the funding from Brussels, and the figures do not include the national subsidies, which in many cases equal them. It’s a real scandal,” he said.
“The EU has now committed to reducing overcapacity, but we’re going to have to pay again for that. We’ve paid once to make these ships that have been used to make a few people rich. They’ve destroyed the bluefin — a common stock — and now they are going to ask for more money.”
The Times December 4, 2009
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Know Your Champagne
New Year's Eve means champagne. And nothing loosens up a crowd (read: the ladies) faster than a little bubbly. Whether you'll be drinking it all night, or just for a private midnight toast for two, you'll need to know what, and how much, to get. And what to do once you get it.
Here are five things every guy should know about champagne:
1 - What is Champagne?
All champagne is sparkling wine. But not all sparkling wine is champagne. The difference? True champagne is produced in the Champagne region in northeastern France. If it's made in California from champagne grapes it cannot be called "champagne". It has to be called "sparkling wine."
When buying a sparkling wine look for the words "methode champenoise", meaning the wine has undergone a second fermentation in the bottle. This is what creates the bubbles. Lesser quality sparkling wines create bubbles by adding carbonation. Just like 7-Up. Enough said.
Most champagne is made as a "cuvee", meaning it's a blend of three kinds of grapes: two reds and a white, usually Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
If you see "Blanc de Blancs" on the label that means the champagne is made entirely of white grapes and will have a lighter, more elegant taste. "Blanc de Noirs" means it is a white wine made from red grapes, like Pinot Noir, making the wine more full bodied, and giving it a golden color. "Rose" is made by blending in a little red wine and gives the wine a pink color. (Don't equate this with cheap rose wines. Rose sparkling wines are not lesser in quality.)
2 - What Does "Brut" Mean?
The level of sugar in sparkling wine determines if it will be dry or sweet. "Brut" is very dry, and is considered the standard for fine champagne. The scale runs as follows:
Extra Brut (Too dry for most people)
Brut
Extra Dry (Which is not as dry as Brut, so keep that in mind)
Sec (this is where it begins to get sweet)
Demi-Sec (usually served with dessert and wedding cake)
Doux (could put you in a diabetic coma)
3 - How Much Should I Spend?
This is a matter of personal preference. Rappers sing the praises of Crystal, and wouldn't be caught by the paparazzi drinking anything less. But they can afford the $300+ price tag. You, being the middle class warrior you are, need to be more realistic. You can get a great bottle of California sparkling wine - like Mumm Cuvee Napa NV or Roederer Estate Brut NV - for about $20. And when you're buying five or six bottles for a party, that's a helluva lot easier to handle.
4 - How Much Should I Get?
Depends on how loose you want your guests. The average bottle serves six glasses. If your party is going all night, figure about a bottle per person. If you're not partying that hard, figure 2-3 glasses, or half a bottle, per person.
Guy at the liquor store trying to talk you into buying a magnum? And you don't know what a "magnum" is? Easy. It's a bottle equivalent to two regular bottles of champagne. If you really want to impress your guests, get a Jeroboam. That big boy is equivalent to four bottles. And women love a guy with a big bottle.
5 - How Do I Serve It?
One word: cold. Champagne is meant to be served between 43 and 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Which means you should put it in the fridge for 2-3 hours before the party. Don't have that kind of time? Never put champagne in the freezer. The contents are under pressure and the bottle tends to explode in freezers. And you don't want to pop prematurely. You can chill it in an ice bucket filled with half ice and half water for about a half hour. And if you sprang for the Crystal and don't want the label soaking off in the water before your guests can see how much you spent? Don't worry. Champagne labels are adhered with waterproof glue. The label isn't going anywhere.
Once the bottle is open, (and a detailed explanation of how to open a champagne bottle is coming next), pour into thin flutes about three quarters full. Never fill the glass to the top. And never use wide, shallow glasses. Flutes preserve the bubbles. And you know how she loves it when the bubbles tickle her nose.
Here are five things every guy should know about champagne:
1 - What is Champagne?
All champagne is sparkling wine. But not all sparkling wine is champagne. The difference? True champagne is produced in the Champagne region in northeastern France. If it's made in California from champagne grapes it cannot be called "champagne". It has to be called "sparkling wine."
When buying a sparkling wine look for the words "methode champenoise", meaning the wine has undergone a second fermentation in the bottle. This is what creates the bubbles. Lesser quality sparkling wines create bubbles by adding carbonation. Just like 7-Up. Enough said.
Most champagne is made as a "cuvee", meaning it's a blend of three kinds of grapes: two reds and a white, usually Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
If you see "Blanc de Blancs" on the label that means the champagne is made entirely of white grapes and will have a lighter, more elegant taste. "Blanc de Noirs" means it is a white wine made from red grapes, like Pinot Noir, making the wine more full bodied, and giving it a golden color. "Rose" is made by blending in a little red wine and gives the wine a pink color. (Don't equate this with cheap rose wines. Rose sparkling wines are not lesser in quality.)
2 - What Does "Brut" Mean?
The level of sugar in sparkling wine determines if it will be dry or sweet. "Brut" is very dry, and is considered the standard for fine champagne. The scale runs as follows:
Extra Brut (Too dry for most people)
Brut
Extra Dry (Which is not as dry as Brut, so keep that in mind)
Sec (this is where it begins to get sweet)
Demi-Sec (usually served with dessert and wedding cake)
Doux (could put you in a diabetic coma)
3 - How Much Should I Spend?
This is a matter of personal preference. Rappers sing the praises of Crystal, and wouldn't be caught by the paparazzi drinking anything less. But they can afford the $300+ price tag. You, being the middle class warrior you are, need to be more realistic. You can get a great bottle of California sparkling wine - like Mumm Cuvee Napa NV or Roederer Estate Brut NV - for about $20. And when you're buying five or six bottles for a party, that's a helluva lot easier to handle.
4 - How Much Should I Get?
Depends on how loose you want your guests. The average bottle serves six glasses. If your party is going all night, figure about a bottle per person. If you're not partying that hard, figure 2-3 glasses, or half a bottle, per person.
Guy at the liquor store trying to talk you into buying a magnum? And you don't know what a "magnum" is? Easy. It's a bottle equivalent to two regular bottles of champagne. If you really want to impress your guests, get a Jeroboam. That big boy is equivalent to four bottles. And women love a guy with a big bottle.
5 - How Do I Serve It?
One word: cold. Champagne is meant to be served between 43 and 48 degrees Fahrenheit. Which means you should put it in the fridge for 2-3 hours before the party. Don't have that kind of time? Never put champagne in the freezer. The contents are under pressure and the bottle tends to explode in freezers. And you don't want to pop prematurely. You can chill it in an ice bucket filled with half ice and half water for about a half hour. And if you sprang for the Crystal and don't want the label soaking off in the water before your guests can see how much you spent? Don't worry. Champagne labels are adhered with waterproof glue. The label isn't going anywhere.
Once the bottle is open, (and a detailed explanation of how to open a champagne bottle is coming next), pour into thin flutes about three quarters full. Never fill the glass to the top. And never use wide, shallow glasses. Flutes preserve the bubbles. And you know how she loves it when the bubbles tickle her nose.
Thursday 14 January 2010
A History of Zero
One of the commonest questions which the readers of this archive ask is: Who discovered zero? Why then have we not written an article on zero as one of the first in the archive? The reason is basically because of the difficulty of answering the question in a satisfactory form. If someone had come up with the concept of zero which everyone then saw as a brilliant innovation to enter mathematics from that time on, the question would have a satisfactory answer even if we did not know which genius invented it. The historical record, however, shows quite a different path towards the concept. Zero makes shadowy appearances only to vanish again almost as if mathematicians were searching for it yet did not recognise its fundamental significance even when they saw it.
The first thing to say about zero is that there are two uses of zero which are both extremely important but are somewhat different. One use is as an empty place indicator in our place-value number system. Hence in a number like 2106 the zero is used so that the positions of the 2 and 1 are correct. Clearly 216 means something quite different. The second use of zero is as a number itself in the form we use it as 0. There are also different aspects of zero within these two uses, namely the concept, the notation, and the name. (Our name "zero" derives ultimately from the Arabic sifr which also gives us the word "cipher".)
Neither of the above uses has an easily described history. It just did not happen that someone invented the ideas, and then everyone started to use them. Also it is fair to say that the number zero is far from an intuitive concept. Mathematical problems started as 'real' problems rather than abstract problems. Numbers in early historical times were thought of much more concretely than the abstract concepts which are our numbers today. There are giant mental leaps from 5 horses to 5 "things" and then to the abstract idea of "five". If ancient peoples solved a problem about how many horses a farmer needed then the problem was not going to have 0 or -23 as an answer.
One might think that once a place-value number system came into existence then the 0 as an empty place indicator is a necessary idea, yet the Babylonians had a place-value number system without this feature for over 1000 years. Moreover there is absolutely no evidence that the Babylonians felt that there was any problem with the ambiguity which existed. Remarkably, original texts survive from the era of Babylonian mathematics. The Babylonians wrote on tablets of unbaked clay, using cuneiform writing. The symbols were pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of a stylus and so had a wedge-shaped appearance (and hence the name cuneiform). Many tablets from around 1700 BC survive and we can read the original texts. Of course their notation for numbers was quite different from ours (and not based on 10 but on 60) but to translate into our notation they would not distinguish between 2106 and 216 (the context would have to show which was intended). It was not until around 400 BC that the Babylonians put two wedge symbols into the place where we would put zero to indicate which was meant, 216 or 21 '' 6.
The two wedges were not the only notation used, however, and on a tablet found at Kish, an ancient Mesopotamian city located east of Babylon in what is today south-central Iraq, a different notation is used. This tablet, thought to date from around 700 BC, uses three hooks to denote an empty place in the positional notation. Other tablets dated from around the same time use a single hook for an empty place. There is one common feature to this use of different marks to denote an empty position. This is the fact that it never occured at the end of the digits but always between two digits. So although we find 21 '' 6 we never find 216 ''. One has to assume that the older feeling that the context was sufficient to indicate which was intended still applied in these cases.
If this reference to context appears silly then it is worth noting that we still use context to interpret numbers today. If I take a bus to a nearby town and ask what the fare is then I know that the answer "It's three fifty" means three pounds fifty pence. Yet if the same answer is given to the question about the cost of a flight from Edinburgh to New York then I know that three hundred and fifty pounds is what is intended.
We can see from this that the early use of zero to denote an empty place is not really the use of zero as a number at all, merely the use of some type of punctuation mark so that the numbers had the correct interpretation.
Now the ancient Greeks began their contributions to mathematics around the time that zero as an empty place indicator was coming into use in Babylonian mathematics. The Greeks however did not adopt a positional number system. It is worth thinking just how significant this fact is. How could the brilliant mathematical advances of the Greeks not see them adopt a number system with all the advantages that the Babylonian place-value system possessed? The real answer to this question is more subtle than the simple answer that we are about to give, but basically the Greek mathematical achievements were based on geometry. Although Euclid's Elements contains a book on number theory, it is based on geometry. In other words Greek mathematicians did not need to name their numbers since they worked with numbers as lengths of lines. Numbers which required to be named for records were used by merchants, not mathematicians, and hence no clever notation was needed.
Now there were exceptions to what we have just stated. The exceptions were the mathematicians who were involved in recording astronomical data. Here we find the first use of the symbol which we recognise today as the notation for zero, for Greek astronomers began to use the symbol O. There are many theories why this particular notation was used. Some historians favour the explanation that it is omicron, the first letter of the Greek word for nothing namely "ouden". Neugebauer, however, dismisses this explanation since the Greeks already used omicron as a number - it represented 70 (the Greek number system was based on their alphabet). Other explanations offered include the fact that it stands for "obol", a coin of almost no value, and that it arises when counters were used for counting on a sand board. The suggestion here is that when a counter was removed to leave an empty column it left a depression in the sand which looked like O.
Ptolemy in the Almagest written around 130 AD uses the Babylonian sexagesimal system together with the empty place holder O. By this time Ptolemy is using the symbol both between digits and at the end of a number and one might be tempted to believe that at least zero as an empty place holder had firmly arrived. This, however, is far from what happened. Only a few exceptional astronomers used the notation and it would fall out of use several more times before finally establishing itself. The idea of the zero place (certainly not thought of as a number by Ptolemy who still considered it as a sort of punctuation mark) makes its next appearance in Indian mathematics.
The scene now moves to India where it is fair to say the numerals and number system was born which have evolved into the highly sophisticated ones we use today. Of course that is not to say that the Indian system did not owe something to earlier systems and many historians of mathematics believe that the Indian use of zero evolved from its use by Greek astronomers. As well as some historians who seem to want to play down the contribution of the Indians in a most unreasonable way, there are also those who make claims about the Indian invention of zero which seem to go far too far. For example Mukherjee in [6] claims:-
... the mathematical conception of zero ... was also present in the spiritual form from 17 000 years back in India.
What is certain is that by around 650AD the use of zero as a number came into Indian mathematics. The Indians also used a place-value system and zero was used to denote an empty place. In fact there is evidence of an empty place holder in positional numbers from as early as 200AD in India but some historians dismiss these as later forgeries. Let us examine this latter use first since it continues the development described above.
In around 500AD Aryabhata devised a number system which has no zero yet was a positional system. He used the word "kha" for position and it would be used later as the name for zero. There is evidence that a dot had been used in earlier Indian manuscripts to denote an empty place in positional notation. It is interesting that the same documents sometimes also used a dot to denote an unknown where we might use x. Later Indian mathematicians had names for zero in positional numbers yet had no symbol for it. The first record of the Indian use of zero which is dated and agreed by all to be genuine was written in 876.
We have an inscription on a stone tablet which contains a date which translates to 876. The inscription concerns the town of Gwalior, 400 km south of Delhi, where they planted a garden 187 by 270 hastas which would produce enough flowers to allow 50 garlands per day to be given to the local temple. Both of the numbers 270 and 50 are denoted almost as they appear today although the 0 is smaller and slightly raised.
We now come to considering the first appearance of zero as a number. Let us first note that it is not in any sense a natural candidate for a number. From early times numbers are words which refer to collections of objects. Certainly the idea of number became more and more abstract and this abstraction then makes possible the consideration of zero and negative numbers which do not arise as properties of collections of objects. Of course the problem which arises when one tries to consider zero and negatives as numbers is how they interact in regard to the operations of arithmetic, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In three important books the Indian mathematicians Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara tried to answer these questions.
Brahmagupta attempted to give the rules for arithmetic involving zero and negative numbers in the seventh century. He explained that given a number then if you subtract it from itself you obtain zero. He gave the following rules for addition which involve zero:-
The sum of zero and a negative number is negative, the sum of a positive number and zero is positive, the sum of zero and zero is zero.
Subtraction is a little harder:-
A negative number subtracted from zero is positive, a positive number subtracted from zero is negative, zero subtracted from a negative number is negative, zero subtracted from a positive number is positive, zero subtracted from zero is zero.
Brahmagupta then says that any number when multiplied by zero is zero but struggles when it comes to division:-
A positive or negative number when divided by zero is a fraction with the zero as denominator. Zero divided by a negative or positive number is either zero or is expressed as a fraction with zero as numerator and the finite quantity as denominator. Zero divided by zero is zero.
Really Brahmagupta is saying very little when he suggests that n divided by zero is n/0. Clearly he is struggling here. He is certainly wrong when he then claims that zero divided by zero is zero. However it is a brilliant attempt from the first person that we know who tried to extend arithmetic to negative numbers and zero.
In 830, around 200 years after Brahmagupta wrote his masterpiece, Mahavira wrote Ganita Sara Samgraha which was designed as an updating of Brahmagupta's book. He correctly states that:-
... a number multiplied by zero is zero, and a number remains the same when zero is subtracted from it.
However his attempts to improve on Brahmagupta's statements on dividing by zero seem to lead him into error. He writes:-
A number remains unchanged when divided by zero.
Since this is clearly incorrect my use of the words "seem to lead him into error" might be seen as confusing. The reason for this phrase is that some commentators on Mahavira have tried to find excuses for his incorrect statement.
Bhaskara wrote over 500 years after Brahmagupta. Despite the passage of time he is still struggling to explain division by zero. He writes:-
A quantity divided by zero becomes a fraction the denominator of which is zero. This fraction is termed an infinite quantity. In this quantity consisting of that which has zero for its divisor, there is no alteration, though many may be inserted or extracted; as no change takes place in the infinite and immutable God when worlds are created or destroyed, though numerous orders of beings are absorbed or put forth.
So Bhaskara tried to solve the problem by writing n/0 = ∞. At first sight we might be tempted to believe that Bhaskara has it correct, but of course he does not. If this were true then 0 times ∞ must be equal to every number n, so all numbers are equal. The Indian mathematicians could not bring themselves to the point of admitting that one could not divide by zero. Bhaskara did correctly state other properties of zero, however, such as 02 = 0, and √0 = 0.
Perhaps we should note at this point that there was another civilisation which developed a place-value number system with a zero. This was the Maya people who lived in central America, occupying the area which today is southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. This was an old civilisation but flourished particularly between 250 and 900. We know that by 665 they used a place-value number system to base 20 with a symbol for zero. However their use of zero goes back further than this and was in use before they introduced the place-valued number system. This is a remarkable achievement but sadly did not influence other peoples.
You can see a separate article about Mayan mathematics.
The brilliant work of the Indian mathematicians was transmitted to the Islamic and Arabic mathematicians further west. It came at an early stage for al-Khwarizmi wrote Al'Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning which describes the Indian place-value system of numerals based on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. This work was the first in what is now Iraq to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation. Ibn Ezra, in the 12th century, wrote three treatises on numbers which helped to bring the Indian symbols and ideas of decimal fractions to the attention of some of the learned people in Europe. The Book of the Number describes the decimal system for integers with place values from left to right. In this work ibn Ezra uses zero which he calls galgal (meaning wheel or circle). Slightly later in the 12th century al-Samawal was writing:-
If we subtract a positive number from zero the same negative number remains. ... if we subtract a negative number from zero the same positive number remains.
The Indian ideas spread east to China as well as west to the Islamic countries. In 1247 the Chinese mathematician Ch'in Chiu-Shao wrote Mathematical treatise in nine sections which uses the symbol O for zero. A little later, in 1303, Zhu Shijie wrote Jade mirror of the four elements which again uses the symbol O for zero.
Fibonacci was one of the main people to bring these new ideas about the number system to Europe. As the authors of [12] write:-
An important link between the Hindu-Arabic number system and the European mathematics is the Italian mathematician Fibonacci.
In Liber Abaci he described the nine Indian symbols together with the sign 0 for Europeans in around 1200 but it was not widely used for a long time after that. It is significant that Fibonacci is not bold enough to treat 0 in the same way as the other numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 since he speaks of the "sign" zero while the other symbols he speaks of as numbers. Although clearly bringing the Indian numerals to Europe was of major importance we can see that in his treatment of zero he did not reach the sophistication of the Indians Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara nor of the Arabic and Islamic mathematicians such as al-Samawal.
One might have thought that the progress of the number systems in general, and zero in particular, would have been steady from this time on. However, this was far from the case. Cardan solved cubic and quartic equations without using zero. He would have found his work in the 1500's so much easier if he had had a zero but it was not part of his mathematics. By the 1600's zero began to come into widespread use but still only after encountering a lot of resistance.
Of course there are still signs of the problems caused by zero. Recently many people throughout the world celebrated the new millennium on 1 January 2000. Of course they celebrated the passing of only 1999 years since when the calendar was set up no year zero was specified. Although one might forgive the original error, it is a little surprising that most people seemed unable to understand why the third millennium and the 21st century begin on 1 January 2001. Zero is still causing problems!
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
The first thing to say about zero is that there are two uses of zero which are both extremely important but are somewhat different. One use is as an empty place indicator in our place-value number system. Hence in a number like 2106 the zero is used so that the positions of the 2 and 1 are correct. Clearly 216 means something quite different. The second use of zero is as a number itself in the form we use it as 0. There are also different aspects of zero within these two uses, namely the concept, the notation, and the name. (Our name "zero" derives ultimately from the Arabic sifr which also gives us the word "cipher".)
Neither of the above uses has an easily described history. It just did not happen that someone invented the ideas, and then everyone started to use them. Also it is fair to say that the number zero is far from an intuitive concept. Mathematical problems started as 'real' problems rather than abstract problems. Numbers in early historical times were thought of much more concretely than the abstract concepts which are our numbers today. There are giant mental leaps from 5 horses to 5 "things" and then to the abstract idea of "five". If ancient peoples solved a problem about how many horses a farmer needed then the problem was not going to have 0 or -23 as an answer.
One might think that once a place-value number system came into existence then the 0 as an empty place indicator is a necessary idea, yet the Babylonians had a place-value number system without this feature for over 1000 years. Moreover there is absolutely no evidence that the Babylonians felt that there was any problem with the ambiguity which existed. Remarkably, original texts survive from the era of Babylonian mathematics. The Babylonians wrote on tablets of unbaked clay, using cuneiform writing. The symbols were pressed into soft clay tablets with the slanted edge of a stylus and so had a wedge-shaped appearance (and hence the name cuneiform). Many tablets from around 1700 BC survive and we can read the original texts. Of course their notation for numbers was quite different from ours (and not based on 10 but on 60) but to translate into our notation they would not distinguish between 2106 and 216 (the context would have to show which was intended). It was not until around 400 BC that the Babylonians put two wedge symbols into the place where we would put zero to indicate which was meant, 216 or 21 '' 6.
The two wedges were not the only notation used, however, and on a tablet found at Kish, an ancient Mesopotamian city located east of Babylon in what is today south-central Iraq, a different notation is used. This tablet, thought to date from around 700 BC, uses three hooks to denote an empty place in the positional notation. Other tablets dated from around the same time use a single hook for an empty place. There is one common feature to this use of different marks to denote an empty position. This is the fact that it never occured at the end of the digits but always between two digits. So although we find 21 '' 6 we never find 216 ''. One has to assume that the older feeling that the context was sufficient to indicate which was intended still applied in these cases.
If this reference to context appears silly then it is worth noting that we still use context to interpret numbers today. If I take a bus to a nearby town and ask what the fare is then I know that the answer "It's three fifty" means three pounds fifty pence. Yet if the same answer is given to the question about the cost of a flight from Edinburgh to New York then I know that three hundred and fifty pounds is what is intended.
We can see from this that the early use of zero to denote an empty place is not really the use of zero as a number at all, merely the use of some type of punctuation mark so that the numbers had the correct interpretation.
Now the ancient Greeks began their contributions to mathematics around the time that zero as an empty place indicator was coming into use in Babylonian mathematics. The Greeks however did not adopt a positional number system. It is worth thinking just how significant this fact is. How could the brilliant mathematical advances of the Greeks not see them adopt a number system with all the advantages that the Babylonian place-value system possessed? The real answer to this question is more subtle than the simple answer that we are about to give, but basically the Greek mathematical achievements were based on geometry. Although Euclid's Elements contains a book on number theory, it is based on geometry. In other words Greek mathematicians did not need to name their numbers since they worked with numbers as lengths of lines. Numbers which required to be named for records were used by merchants, not mathematicians, and hence no clever notation was needed.
Now there were exceptions to what we have just stated. The exceptions were the mathematicians who were involved in recording astronomical data. Here we find the first use of the symbol which we recognise today as the notation for zero, for Greek astronomers began to use the symbol O. There are many theories why this particular notation was used. Some historians favour the explanation that it is omicron, the first letter of the Greek word for nothing namely "ouden". Neugebauer, however, dismisses this explanation since the Greeks already used omicron as a number - it represented 70 (the Greek number system was based on their alphabet). Other explanations offered include the fact that it stands for "obol", a coin of almost no value, and that it arises when counters were used for counting on a sand board. The suggestion here is that when a counter was removed to leave an empty column it left a depression in the sand which looked like O.
Ptolemy in the Almagest written around 130 AD uses the Babylonian sexagesimal system together with the empty place holder O. By this time Ptolemy is using the symbol both between digits and at the end of a number and one might be tempted to believe that at least zero as an empty place holder had firmly arrived. This, however, is far from what happened. Only a few exceptional astronomers used the notation and it would fall out of use several more times before finally establishing itself. The idea of the zero place (certainly not thought of as a number by Ptolemy who still considered it as a sort of punctuation mark) makes its next appearance in Indian mathematics.
The scene now moves to India where it is fair to say the numerals and number system was born which have evolved into the highly sophisticated ones we use today. Of course that is not to say that the Indian system did not owe something to earlier systems and many historians of mathematics believe that the Indian use of zero evolved from its use by Greek astronomers. As well as some historians who seem to want to play down the contribution of the Indians in a most unreasonable way, there are also those who make claims about the Indian invention of zero which seem to go far too far. For example Mukherjee in [6] claims:-
... the mathematical conception of zero ... was also present in the spiritual form from 17 000 years back in India.
What is certain is that by around 650AD the use of zero as a number came into Indian mathematics. The Indians also used a place-value system and zero was used to denote an empty place. In fact there is evidence of an empty place holder in positional numbers from as early as 200AD in India but some historians dismiss these as later forgeries. Let us examine this latter use first since it continues the development described above.
In around 500AD Aryabhata devised a number system which has no zero yet was a positional system. He used the word "kha" for position and it would be used later as the name for zero. There is evidence that a dot had been used in earlier Indian manuscripts to denote an empty place in positional notation. It is interesting that the same documents sometimes also used a dot to denote an unknown where we might use x. Later Indian mathematicians had names for zero in positional numbers yet had no symbol for it. The first record of the Indian use of zero which is dated and agreed by all to be genuine was written in 876.
We have an inscription on a stone tablet which contains a date which translates to 876. The inscription concerns the town of Gwalior, 400 km south of Delhi, where they planted a garden 187 by 270 hastas which would produce enough flowers to allow 50 garlands per day to be given to the local temple. Both of the numbers 270 and 50 are denoted almost as they appear today although the 0 is smaller and slightly raised.
We now come to considering the first appearance of zero as a number. Let us first note that it is not in any sense a natural candidate for a number. From early times numbers are words which refer to collections of objects. Certainly the idea of number became more and more abstract and this abstraction then makes possible the consideration of zero and negative numbers which do not arise as properties of collections of objects. Of course the problem which arises when one tries to consider zero and negatives as numbers is how they interact in regard to the operations of arithmetic, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In three important books the Indian mathematicians Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara tried to answer these questions.
Brahmagupta attempted to give the rules for arithmetic involving zero and negative numbers in the seventh century. He explained that given a number then if you subtract it from itself you obtain zero. He gave the following rules for addition which involve zero:-
The sum of zero and a negative number is negative, the sum of a positive number and zero is positive, the sum of zero and zero is zero.
Subtraction is a little harder:-
A negative number subtracted from zero is positive, a positive number subtracted from zero is negative, zero subtracted from a negative number is negative, zero subtracted from a positive number is positive, zero subtracted from zero is zero.
Brahmagupta then says that any number when multiplied by zero is zero but struggles when it comes to division:-
A positive or negative number when divided by zero is a fraction with the zero as denominator. Zero divided by a negative or positive number is either zero or is expressed as a fraction with zero as numerator and the finite quantity as denominator. Zero divided by zero is zero.
Really Brahmagupta is saying very little when he suggests that n divided by zero is n/0. Clearly he is struggling here. He is certainly wrong when he then claims that zero divided by zero is zero. However it is a brilliant attempt from the first person that we know who tried to extend arithmetic to negative numbers and zero.
In 830, around 200 years after Brahmagupta wrote his masterpiece, Mahavira wrote Ganita Sara Samgraha which was designed as an updating of Brahmagupta's book. He correctly states that:-
... a number multiplied by zero is zero, and a number remains the same when zero is subtracted from it.
However his attempts to improve on Brahmagupta's statements on dividing by zero seem to lead him into error. He writes:-
A number remains unchanged when divided by zero.
Since this is clearly incorrect my use of the words "seem to lead him into error" might be seen as confusing. The reason for this phrase is that some commentators on Mahavira have tried to find excuses for his incorrect statement.
Bhaskara wrote over 500 years after Brahmagupta. Despite the passage of time he is still struggling to explain division by zero. He writes:-
A quantity divided by zero becomes a fraction the denominator of which is zero. This fraction is termed an infinite quantity. In this quantity consisting of that which has zero for its divisor, there is no alteration, though many may be inserted or extracted; as no change takes place in the infinite and immutable God when worlds are created or destroyed, though numerous orders of beings are absorbed or put forth.
So Bhaskara tried to solve the problem by writing n/0 = ∞. At first sight we might be tempted to believe that Bhaskara has it correct, but of course he does not. If this were true then 0 times ∞ must be equal to every number n, so all numbers are equal. The Indian mathematicians could not bring themselves to the point of admitting that one could not divide by zero. Bhaskara did correctly state other properties of zero, however, such as 02 = 0, and √0 = 0.
Perhaps we should note at this point that there was another civilisation which developed a place-value number system with a zero. This was the Maya people who lived in central America, occupying the area which today is southern Mexico, Guatemala, and northern Belize. This was an old civilisation but flourished particularly between 250 and 900. We know that by 665 they used a place-value number system to base 20 with a symbol for zero. However their use of zero goes back further than this and was in use before they introduced the place-valued number system. This is a remarkable achievement but sadly did not influence other peoples.
You can see a separate article about Mayan mathematics.
The brilliant work of the Indian mathematicians was transmitted to the Islamic and Arabic mathematicians further west. It came at an early stage for al-Khwarizmi wrote Al'Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning which describes the Indian place-value system of numerals based on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 0. This work was the first in what is now Iraq to use zero as a place holder in positional base notation. Ibn Ezra, in the 12th century, wrote three treatises on numbers which helped to bring the Indian symbols and ideas of decimal fractions to the attention of some of the learned people in Europe. The Book of the Number describes the decimal system for integers with place values from left to right. In this work ibn Ezra uses zero which he calls galgal (meaning wheel or circle). Slightly later in the 12th century al-Samawal was writing:-
If we subtract a positive number from zero the same negative number remains. ... if we subtract a negative number from zero the same positive number remains.
The Indian ideas spread east to China as well as west to the Islamic countries. In 1247 the Chinese mathematician Ch'in Chiu-Shao wrote Mathematical treatise in nine sections which uses the symbol O for zero. A little later, in 1303, Zhu Shijie wrote Jade mirror of the four elements which again uses the symbol O for zero.
Fibonacci was one of the main people to bring these new ideas about the number system to Europe. As the authors of [12] write:-
An important link between the Hindu-Arabic number system and the European mathematics is the Italian mathematician Fibonacci.
In Liber Abaci he described the nine Indian symbols together with the sign 0 for Europeans in around 1200 but it was not widely used for a long time after that. It is significant that Fibonacci is not bold enough to treat 0 in the same way as the other numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 since he speaks of the "sign" zero while the other symbols he speaks of as numbers. Although clearly bringing the Indian numerals to Europe was of major importance we can see that in his treatment of zero he did not reach the sophistication of the Indians Brahmagupta, Mahavira and Bhaskara nor of the Arabic and Islamic mathematicians such as al-Samawal.
One might have thought that the progress of the number systems in general, and zero in particular, would have been steady from this time on. However, this was far from the case. Cardan solved cubic and quartic equations without using zero. He would have found his work in the 1500's so much easier if he had had a zero but it was not part of his mathematics. By the 1600's zero began to come into widespread use but still only after encountering a lot of resistance.
Of course there are still signs of the problems caused by zero. Recently many people throughout the world celebrated the new millennium on 1 January 2000. Of course they celebrated the passing of only 1999 years since when the calendar was set up no year zero was specified. Although one might forgive the original error, it is a little surprising that most people seemed unable to understand why the third millennium and the 21st century begin on 1 January 2001. Zero is still causing problems!
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
Monday 4 January 2010
I Remember Reading This Book As A Child
Island of the Blue Dolphins
by Erika Cox
In 1960, author Scott O’Dell, who also wrote “The King’s Fifth, The Black Pearl, and Sing Down Moon, wrote and published one of the most popular children’s books of all time - Island of the Blue Dolphins.
The story is based loosely on the real-life story of Juana Marie, a Native American woman who lives alone on the island of San Nicolas from 1835 until 1853, after being left behind when the rest of her tribe was brought to the main lands.
She is otherwise known as the “Lone Woman of San Nicolas,” and when found, no one understand her language any longer because the rest of her tribe has since perished due to disease. O’Dell’s novel went on to win the Newberry Medal for children’s literature.
Scott O’Dell was born Odell Gabriel Scott in Los Angeles, CA in 1898. He attended a number of colleges, including Occidental College, the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University before serving in the Air Force during World War II. He then went on to work as a cameraman, director, and book editor.
He wrote nonfiction and fiction for adults in these early years, but didn’t begin writing children’s novels until the 1950s. It was here he found his niche. Island of the Blue Dolphins is just one of 26 children’s books he wrote, and he received the Hans Christian Anderson Award for lifetime achievement in the early 1970s.
He went on to win a number of other awards as well before tragically dying from cancer in 1989.
Island of the Blue Dolphins centers on a main character named Karana who lives on an island with her tribe. Trappers arrive to hunt the otters found on the island, and try to leave without paying Karan’s father, the chief.
A battle ensues and the trappers escape, but an older native suggests to the chief that they should follow the trappers tot he main land, where a better life awaits. A ship comes to take them away, but just as they are ready to leave, Karana realizes that her younger brother is not on board.
The ship captain cannot wait because a storm is coming, and Karana jumps overboard to go back to the island with her brother. The brother is soon after killed by the wild dogs on the island, and Karana begins to learn to survive on her own.
Karana avenges her brother’s death by killing many of the wild dogs on the island, but has a change of heart after injuring one of them and thereafter keeps him as a pet, naming him Rontu.
She finds a small cave and stocks it with provisions, knowing that the greedy trappers will once again come to the island someday and she doesn’t want them to find her.
She builds a home and learns to kill animals to use for food and clothing. After time, she becomes a vegetarian because she realizes that the animals have become her friends and she no longer wishes to kill them.
One day, the trappers return to the island. Karana is frightened of their evil ways and hides in the cave she has prepared, taking Rontu with her. Karana is careful not to be seen, but one day the women whom the trappers brought to cook and clean meets Karana.
The two cannot speak one another’s language, but they exchange words for some items and become friends. Karana realizes that she is lonely on the island, no matter how good of a companion Rontu has been.
After a number of years, a ship arrives to the island and Karana realizes that she is finally being rescued. She puts on her very best clothing and goes to the beach to be seen. The men take Karana back to the ship and give her an American dress to wear, which symbolizes to her the transition into a new life.
In 1964, Island of the Blue Dolphins was made into a movie, directed by James B. Clark and with the actress Celia Kaye as Karana. The film itself had mixed reviews, but Kaye won a Golden Globe for her performance. Later, O’Dell wrote Zia, a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins told from the point of view of Karana’s niece.
by Erika Cox
In 1960, author Scott O’Dell, who also wrote “The King’s Fifth, The Black Pearl, and Sing Down Moon, wrote and published one of the most popular children’s books of all time - Island of the Blue Dolphins.
The story is based loosely on the real-life story of Juana Marie, a Native American woman who lives alone on the island of San Nicolas from 1835 until 1853, after being left behind when the rest of her tribe was brought to the main lands.
She is otherwise known as the “Lone Woman of San Nicolas,” and when found, no one understand her language any longer because the rest of her tribe has since perished due to disease. O’Dell’s novel went on to win the Newberry Medal for children’s literature.
Scott O’Dell was born Odell Gabriel Scott in Los Angeles, CA in 1898. He attended a number of colleges, including Occidental College, the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University before serving in the Air Force during World War II. He then went on to work as a cameraman, director, and book editor.
He wrote nonfiction and fiction for adults in these early years, but didn’t begin writing children’s novels until the 1950s. It was here he found his niche. Island of the Blue Dolphins is just one of 26 children’s books he wrote, and he received the Hans Christian Anderson Award for lifetime achievement in the early 1970s.
He went on to win a number of other awards as well before tragically dying from cancer in 1989.
Island of the Blue Dolphins centers on a main character named Karana who lives on an island with her tribe. Trappers arrive to hunt the otters found on the island, and try to leave without paying Karan’s father, the chief.
A battle ensues and the trappers escape, but an older native suggests to the chief that they should follow the trappers tot he main land, where a better life awaits. A ship comes to take them away, but just as they are ready to leave, Karana realizes that her younger brother is not on board.
The ship captain cannot wait because a storm is coming, and Karana jumps overboard to go back to the island with her brother. The brother is soon after killed by the wild dogs on the island, and Karana begins to learn to survive on her own.
Karana avenges her brother’s death by killing many of the wild dogs on the island, but has a change of heart after injuring one of them and thereafter keeps him as a pet, naming him Rontu.
She finds a small cave and stocks it with provisions, knowing that the greedy trappers will once again come to the island someday and she doesn’t want them to find her.
She builds a home and learns to kill animals to use for food and clothing. After time, she becomes a vegetarian because she realizes that the animals have become her friends and she no longer wishes to kill them.
One day, the trappers return to the island. Karana is frightened of their evil ways and hides in the cave she has prepared, taking Rontu with her. Karana is careful not to be seen, but one day the women whom the trappers brought to cook and clean meets Karana.
The two cannot speak one another’s language, but they exchange words for some items and become friends. Karana realizes that she is lonely on the island, no matter how good of a companion Rontu has been.
After a number of years, a ship arrives to the island and Karana realizes that she is finally being rescued. She puts on her very best clothing and goes to the beach to be seen. The men take Karana back to the ship and give her an American dress to wear, which symbolizes to her the transition into a new life.
In 1964, Island of the Blue Dolphins was made into a movie, directed by James B. Clark and with the actress Celia Kaye as Karana. The film itself had mixed reviews, but Kaye won a Golden Globe for her performance. Later, O’Dell wrote Zia, a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins told from the point of view of Karana’s niece.
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