Alan’s blog

When the delayed SATS results eventually arrive, I’m sure there will be the regular navel gazing at the state of basic numeracy and literacy in UK schools. But what about those who were in primary schools 30 years ago?

This morning on BBC News Channel an interviewer was talking to an economist from the City. They were discussing the reduction in bank lending (a fall of 3% during June, with 32% year-on-year drop ) and its implications for the housing market and the economy in general. The interviewer asked if it was accelerating and the economist agreed, mentioning how the year-on-year drop had gone from 10% in one quarter to 20% in the next and now over 30%.

Of course these figures are all based on a year-on-year average that includes the period before the credit crunch began last autumn and in fact are consistent with a steady linear fall of around 3% per month for the 9 months since the Northern Rock collapse. That is an alarming rate of fall, but not evidence of an accelerating fall.

This apparent lack of basic numeracy reminds me of a discussion some years ago with senior financial executives who dismissed any attempt to quantify projected company income as ‘just numbers’. Having lost money in the Northern Rock collapse I wonder whether the executives in Northern Rock and other banks had a similar attitude!

I know it is easy for me as a trained mathematician to hold up my hands in horror, but still these are people who are playing not only with their own livelihoods, but also the lives of their investors, ordinary people and even the state of the entire economy.

We do have a peculiar attitude in the UK where it is acceptable for highly educated people (including many computer scientists) to just ‘not do math’, and furthermore say so with a level of pride, whereas to say the same about reading would be unconscionable. Other European countries seem far more numerate, so this seems to be a cultural phenomena not an intellectual problem.

I have heard that one of the best predictors of educational success is if a child is willing to put off a treat for another day. Mathematics does require doing work at one stage to see benefit maybe many years later, but this to some extent runs counter to the increasingly common expectation of students to want to know fully and completely how something is useful to them now.

Maybe the answer is for schools to have lessons in leaving sweeties until tomorrow … and perhaps remedial lessons for City economists who matured during the Thatcher years.

A few weeks ago Nad took part in a fund raising event for injured forces; on the television this week I watched “Battle for Haditha” recreating the events leading to a massacre of Iraqi civilians by US Marines and “The Passion” recreating the events leading to the first Easter and the crucifixion of Jesus; and in the news are the reflections of 5 years of bloodshed, occupation, freedom, and fledgling velocity (choose your own words) in Iraq and of rioting in Tibet.

Look around you, can you see
times are troubled, people grieve
see the violence, feel the hardness
all my people, weep with me
Kyrie Eleison, Jody Page Clark

Nad maintains the website for ForcesHospitalCharity.org, which was set up by the emergency services at Birmingham Airport in response to seeing the injured soldiers brought back from Afghanistan and Iraq. The charity does not in any way support the forces in the field, or politically support the conflicts themselves, but is purely about humanitarian aid for those people who have returned, often with severe injuries, and for their families. However, despite this Nad has been criticised by those who ask “question why (he), a Muslim, (has) chosen to support a charity that attempts to aid the very soldiers that are killing our brothers and sisters abroad.” (see Nad’s blog entry).

In the “Battle for Haditha” both US Marine’s and Iraqi ‘insurgents’ were shown as people who in different ways cared and protected their own. It is natural and human to care for those close to us, who share ties of family, nationality, race or religion. Those closest to us, our children, parents, friends, have first place in our affections and often a special call on us. This human love is a good thing. But is not the end of things.

I was disappointed that the Dalai Lama, whilst outspoken against Chinese actions against Tibetan rioters, was relatively muted in addressing Tibetans themselves. The riots there began with Tibetan crowds attacking ethnic Han Chinese and even Muslim Hui¹. The targets here were not police stations and public buildings, but shops, homes and ordinary people. It seems the Chinese held back for fear of international sentiment while ordinary people were killed or made homeless. Then when the Chinese security forces were unleashed they struck hard … hitting back at those who had hurt their own.

In the Dalai Lama’s press release he says that “a form of cultural genocide has taken place in Tibet”, “the Chinese government discriminates against these minority nationalities”, and in their response to the situation the authorities “believe that further repressive measures” are the way forward - this is I am sure all true. However, in contrast, about the rioters themselves, the Dali Lama merely says “the demonstrations and protests taking place in Tibet are a spontaneous outburst of public resentment built up by years of repression”.

Why is it so hard for him to denounce the ethnic attacks of Tibetans themselves as well as the repression of the Chinese authorities? But I know I am the same, overlooking the understandable failings of those close to me or those I support, whilst feeling righteous anger over the way they, the other, treat my own kind.

The Dalai Lama shows a deep, and human love for those he is responsible for.

In Gethsemane, one of Jesus’ friends, tries to defend him when temple guards come to arrest him². The unnamed disciple (I always assume Peter), strikes with his sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s slave. Jesus admonishes his followers and heals the slave. On other occasions Jesus talks with, shares food with or heals Jewish Priests, Roman Centurians, lepers and prostitutes - friends and enemies, the unclean and the immoral,

In a recent blog “A Charter for Compassion“, Nad discusses a TedTalk by Karen Armstrong on the Golden Rule. This comes in many forms, some more about harm “Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you”, some about behaviour “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”³. Most personal is the form from Leviticus “Love your neighbour as yourself”.

But who is my neighbour? My family, friends, the Welsh (maybe even the English), people I work with, the person next door, in this Internet age perhaps FaceBook friends, or people who add my photos as Flickr favourites? Jesus is asked this and in response tells the story of the “Good Samaritan”. In school I recall we wrote variants of this where the Jew and the Samaritan were replaced by rival football teams, or Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. This story of the Samaritan caring for someone who would have despised and persecuted him goes beyond human love, it is the love of God.

If the story were told today who more likely that an injured British soldier and young Muslim man.

Those who criticise Nad, show that very human love, just like the Dali Lama, just like I see so often in myself - caring for those close to us, “our brothers and sisters” in race, religion or political beliefs. In working beyond that, Nad shows no less than the Love of God.

1. see Guardian report
   ‘Oh my God, someone has a gun …‘ [back]
2. Matt. 26:51, Mark 14:47, Luke 22:50 [back]
3. see Wikipedia’s page on the “Ethic of reciprocity” for a wide variety of versions fo this from nay cultures and religions [back]

I forgot last week when I wrote my post “the electronic village shop – enhancing local community through global network” that Fiona had mentioned a blog, Silversprite, from the Outer Hebrides that mentioned the flip side of this; in a post “Tesco comes to the Outer Hebrides“, he mentions the potential conflicts between Tesco online and village shops. It is interesting that Tesco does not itself deliver direct, but you can give a local delivery firm as your drop off point and they do the last leg of the delivery … of course this delivery point could be the local shop!

I also remembered after that some years ago (2002) I had an email enquiry from someone who had found a reference to the electronic village shop in one of my talks. He was wondering how to revitalise his own village shop which was about to close and asked if I had any advice. The following is edited version of my reply where I pondered on what was possible as a single shop without buy-in from one of the big franchise chains:

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The internet seems to be about remote connections, international communities and globalisation. We may surf the web, scan blogs or talk to friends across the globe, but may not know the person next door. Indeed in Channel 4’s recent documentary “My Street“, Sue Bourne, who produces TV documentaries seen by millions, gets to meet her neighbours for the first time.

But there is another side, where global networks could help local communities to grow and reconnect with one another. Some things are happening grass roots up, some need changes in public policy or intervention, and some may never happen.

The electronic village shop is a dream I’ve had for now well over 15 years, and may happen, or may not … and maybe definitely will not if I don’t do something myself! However, there are other signs of local connections growing.

I have talked about these issues and the electronic village shop at different times over the years¹, but have never previouslly written about them, so eventually …
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1. Talks mentioning the electronic village shop: Understanding the e-Market and Designing Products to Fit, London, Jan. 2000, Cyber-economies and the Real World, Pretoria, Sept. 2001. and Toys for the Boys or Jobs for the Girls, Cheltenham, Nov. 2001 [back]

By chance I just came across this BBC New article “Iraqi bloggers at home and abroad“. Short poignant snippets from active bloggers from Iraq: Mohamed a dentist form Baghdad, Sunshine a 15 year-old girl in Mosul, Najma an engineering student at Mosul university and Riverbend who recently left Iraq to become a refugee in Syria. In each case I was amazed not just by the stories, but by their hope and spirit amongst appalling conditions. I loved the names of the blogs of Sunshine and Najma: “Days of My Life” and “A Star form Mosul”, and was humbled by Riverbend’s description of her new neighbours: one a Christian family escaping persecution in Kurdistan and another a Kurd family driven from Baghdad and yet showing kindness in trouble and poverty - a toothless boy bringing cake.

This is now old news (it takes me a long time to get to the blog!), but anyone in the UK will know the story of the missing child benefit disks – 25 million records containing parents and children’s names addresses, dates of birth, bank account and national insurance details … an identity fraudsters’ gold mine. This has caused worries of millions of parents and embarrassment for Alistair Darling in Parliament. The BBC has a timeline of the events and Computer Weekly has (very) slightly more techie focused account.

Anyway a week ago last Thursday (22nd Nov) I did a short radio interview on Radio Cumbria, which forced me to consider the issue in a little more detail. I think they expected more a security angle, but obviously this is very much a human story also.

Despite the gravity of the event I was shocked but not surprised. In the end if you put people in a severely time pressured, cost-controlled context mistakes will inevitable happen.

So what went wrong? …

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Yesterday morning I was on my way into Lancaster and listening to the Today programme. Google’s ‘internet evangelist’ Vint Cerf was being interviewed by John Humphrys and the topic was ’should the internet be regulated like other media’.¹

Not surprisingly Vint Cerf thought not, but I was surprised how well he avoided actually saying so. John Humphrys is experienced and politicians fear him in these early morning interviews, but to be honest he was completely outclassed by Vint Cerf who sidestepped, avoided and generally never addressed the question.

Web 2.0 was the heart of the issue. With end-user content now dominating the internet do service providers such as YouTube (of course owned by Google) have any responsibility for the kinds of material hosted?

This was in the context of videos of ‘happy slappers’ and other violent attacks being posted, but more generally that whereas TV in many countries is limited in the kinds of material it can show, particularly early in the evening when children are more likely to be watching, is limited by a mixture of voluntary and satutory codes. Why not the internet?

Vint Cerf repeatedly re-iterated the same message “Google is law abiding” if content is not legal it is removed. Implicitly the message was “if it is not illegal it is OK”, but as I said he carefully avoided saying so.

The closest point to actually addressing the question was when John Humphrys suggested that technologies could be misused like research for atomic power being used for nuclear weapons (strange I thought it went the other way round?). Vent Cerf’s response was, the standard neutrality of technology stance, that the makers of roads were not responsible for car deaths, strip development … the same argument used by arms dealers, manufacturers of gas guzzling cars, and scientists in every repressive regime in recent history.

According to Cerf if you are a worried parent you need to buy good filtering software; the solution is at the edges of the net … and of course does not involve the likes of Google … who it appears from the context is at the centre?
Now there are very good arguments against regulation both ethical (freedom of expression) and practical (volume of material, international access). The disappointing, and worrying, aspect of this interview was that Google’s key public face was unwilling or unable to constructively enter the debate at all.

1. ”The 0810 Interview: Godfather of the Internet”, BBC4, Today Programme, Wednesday, 29th August 2007 [back]

As well as Hurricane Dean which has been dominating much of the news, two items have caught my attention over recent days. One is the debate surrounding the court decision preventing the deportation of Learco Chindamo, the killer of school teacher Philip Lawrence 12 years ago. The other is the release of statistics showing drop-out rates from UK Universities.

Learco Chindamo came to the UK when he was 5, killed Philip Lawrence when he was 15 and has been in prison since. His life sentence carried a minimum term of 12 years and next year he will be eligible for parole. He is also a Filipino by birth and has an Italian passport, so the Home Office intended to deport him on his release, but were prevented by the courts.

Philip Lawrence was a Head Master who died protecting one of his pupils. His wife and family have had to live with that ever since. Furthermore, she had been promised by officials that he would be deported.

The case is distressing and traumatic, but in the end clear. The mark of a civilised society is surely how we treat the undeserving. This is not a man who came to the UK to work and then murdered, but someone who has spent all his childhood here, albeit under the influence of London youth gang culture, and who knows no other country. Deportation would not be sending back but throwing away, like those sent to Australia in the past.

If this has not been such a public case, we might have never have heard of this decision. And because it is public we have some inkling of the anguish we might feel if it were our family not some other. But the purpose of law is precisely to protect us from the retribution we would want if we know the victim and balance that with the mercy we would seek if we knew the criminal.

We might ask questions about our criminal justice system. Is twelve years enough for a cold blooded killing, even if the killer is 15 years old? Is 15 a child or a man? Do we trust the parole system to only release him if it is safe to do so? These questions seem valid no matter the passport a man carries, and it is right to debate them. But to deport a man, who has served half his life in jail, to a country he has never known would have been simply wrong.

It seems frivolous to move from this to university drop out rates, but they are not so far distant.

In some universities the rate is nearly 20% compared to near 2% for the ‘best’. In the TV report other figures were quoted … and certainly the 20% figure at one point sounded as if it were the national average rather than the average at the ‘worst’ institution.

The TV report also noted that those with worst drop out rates were largely ‘new universities’¹ and the Vice-Chancellor of Liverpool Hope was interviewed and staunchly defended his own institutions policies to inform students about the nature of courses.

What was left unsaid was that these institutions mainly take those with the lowest academic achievement at entry.² In other words these serve the ‘lowest’ in society and, as I am sure in other countries also, this is as much determined by social situation as academic ability.

There is often debate about the university system and whether these are ‘real universities’. I have written about this before when I was education columnist for SIGCHI Bulletin: I had recently returned from a visit to South Africa and read on my return a particularly scathing attack in The Times on new university courses. ³ Recently this has been in the media again when “The Taxpayers Alliance’ (I assume representing everyone except children, the elderly and the poor) issued a “non-courses report“, damning degrees such as “Equestrian Psychology” and “Golf Management”.

Now we might debate the academic merit of particular courses (although strangely the ones cited by the TPA sound more academic than many … perhaps reflecting their own understanding of academic content?) … and I stand on shaky ground as my own discipline of computer science, would have been in a similar position 40 years ago. Also it is certainly true, although it is politically incorrect to say, that academic degree classifications at different institutions are not worth the same and indeed, although even more politically incorrect, classifications now at the ‘old universities’ are not the same as they were 15 years ago. We can also ask whether the move to push more and more post-18 education into universities, or whether the changes in that education are in the right directions.

However, notwithstanding all this, it is the new universities that have borne the brunt of the expansion of higher education in the UK and not surprisingly have the most difficult job to do. They take students who at 18 have the lowest A Level grades and, even taking into account the different meaning of classifications, take many of those students to a high level of academic achievement.

These are students who would not have had that chance when I was 18.

Not surprisingly some find that it is not for them, but the 20% drop out rate at the ‘worst’ institutions should be seen against the 80% of students at these institutions who are succeeding, but would never have been given the chance in the past.

Whether even the 20% of drop outs can be seen as a sign of failure, depends on whether they see themselves as having ‘failed’ or having learnt where their true abilities and interests lie. My guess is that for many it will be the former and this is the issue to tackle: how we can have an education system that is about allowing people to develop and learn their strengths not simply learn what they cannot do?⁴

And what of those 80% who have been given a chance they might not have had. Is it right to say that a person has no more to learn and be judged for life by what they achieve at 18 years old? And is it right to say that a man cannot change and be judged for life by what he did or was at 15 years old, 26 or even 47?

1. In the UK the former polytechnics become universities in 1992 and since then various other educational institutions have been given university status. It is these that are the ‘new universities’ as opposed to the pre-1992 ‘old universities’ [back]
2. I am carefully choosing words here as achievement at 18 years may not be a good measure of initial promise, current ability or future potential. [back]
3. opportunities for change, SIGCHI Bulletin, January/February 2002, written in response to “Professor scoffs at ‘useless’ degrees”. Reported by John O’Leary, Education Editor, The Times, Wednesday October 3rd 2001, page 13. [back]
4. see also my SIGCHI Bulletin columns “abject failures” and “on the level” [back]

I had been struck by Blair’s long-awaited statement about the manner of the execution of saddam, that he belatedely made last Tuesday evening. However, I wanted to be suer of what he said, so yesterday evening attempted to find out. Perhaps I am just too poor a web-user, but I found it incredibly difficult. Google seraches fund many earelier news articles about the fact that he hadnlt said anthing at that stage, and ones from earelier last week saying what he was about to say something and what it would be (now-a-days it seems news is written before the event), but nothing reporting what he said or when he said it (I couldn’t recall the exect day either).Having found earlier or later articles in newspapers and on the BBC I thought it should be easy to trace from them to related ones and hence the statement I was after … but no. While most seem to offer long term “most important stories in 2005″ archives, there does not appear to be an easy way (or possibly any way) to say “what was the BBC online stories for Wednesday January 12th 2007?”.

I did find the ‘number 10‘ site that does have a list of the prime minister’s speaches and statements, but of course not all his statements, just the ones they want you to read!

Eventually yahoo! news came to the rescue (albeit found through Google!) with a more recent article, but with links to background including a guardian online article from last wednesday … which yes! did have the full text of the relevant part of the statement:

As has been very obvious from the comments of other ministers and indeed from my own official spokesman, the manner of the execution of Saddam was completely wrong. But that should not blind us to the crimes he committed against his own people, including the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, one million casualties in the Iran/Iraq war and the use of chemical weapons against his own people, wiping out entire villages.

So the crimes that Saddam committed does not excuse the manner of his execution but the manner of his execution does not excuse the crimes.

Now to be fair, knowing this was accessible I tried an alternative tack and searched inside the guardian site using keywords and was able to find the article that way. Having realised this and did some searches on the bbc site and got the video of the statement. (Once I’d found suitable serach terms!)

So on newspaper and the bbc sites it seems you can do google-style searches, but not (unless I’m still missing something) ask “what was on the news last Wednesday” or (reasonably completely) what are the related articles to this one.

Obviously in a pre-web world I would not expect to be able to do this. I could (and still could) visit the British Library for old copies of newspapers (I assume they keep them) and for the last week possibly the local library. But of course when information is available it is not what you could find that counts, but what is easiest. The information that is available is the information that gets seen. Even in university our students are reluctant to read books as they believe they can find all they need on the web.

Now the reason I wanted to find the Blair statement was the reference to “one million casualties in the Iran/Iraq war”. He was rightly pointing out that the failings of the legal process of his execution should not blind us to the horror of his crimes. Now given the delay I assume the words were well prepared, and yet of three crimes things he noted one was this.

I guess the figure of 1 million sounded good (big numbers always impress), but to mention this without also noting that that war was waged with the complicit and explicit support of many countries including the UK and US seems at best amnesiac and at worst deceptive. Does he really not know this? Or is he simply hoping most who hear it won’t?

I can recall the Iran-Iraq war as a young adult, but those younger will have been in school and even for those around at the time I’m sure the memories get a little fuzzy, so perhaps he can get away with this type of manipulation. Or perhaps it is tht he only partly recalls the events and honestly presents this?

The US involvement is well documented, both in terms of miltary presence in the Gulf at the time, officially neutrally, but with minimal pretense acting against Iran who was then the ‘evil power’. Indeed (recalling my own and Nad’s earlier posts about the execution), in looking for this I found George Washington University’s National Security Archive of declaissified documents. In this there is a photograph of Donald Rumsfeld, then a special envoy from President Reagan, shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. This is not surprising, diplomatc have to do this all the time. Significantly though this meeting was, as the national secturity archives show, shortly after US intelligence had confirmed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons (Blair’s point 3) and discussed this at a presidential level. The US (in full knowledge) then went on to block UN resolutions deploring Iraq use of chemical weapons … initially with UK support. the ful story of UK support, I’m sure is there, but even harder to find … I seem to recall British warships in the gulf, but it was more than 20 years ago!
I an age of instant information, it is amazing that getting the basic facts of ongoing news items is so difficult. I recall a year or so back there was a call for journalists to give more context in theor reporting. However, when interviews a respected journalist insisted that theor job was the news, the changes not the backgrund … but without the background the interpretation of what we hear is different.

If journalists do not see it as their job to give such background and it is still so hard to find elsewhere, then politicians can go on deceiving themselves and their people.

Nadeem has written a really detailed analysis of the Saddam trial in “…a tragic assault upon truth and justice“. He describes the US and general western collusion in the Halabja Poison Gas Attack that I refered to briefly in my earlier post on the execution.