BBC Censorship

Rowan Atkinson made a mild and amusing sketch portraying the Arch Bishop of Canterbury which was recently broadcast as part of the BBC telethon Comic Relief.  It drew around 2000 complaints, citing the subject matter, language used and the timing of the broadcast.  The BBC's response was to issue a grovelling apology, withdraw its support from one of the nation's greatest comedy talents, and cut the clip from the BBC online catchup service, iPlayer.

Why not take a look and see for yourself how offensive it really is...

In reply to a call for action from this blogger, I posted the following complaint on the BBC website.

I am shocked that the BBC has chosen to remove Rowan Atkinson’s Red Nose sketch from iPlayer coverage. While the BBC received many complaints citing the subject matter, language and timing of the broadcast, there is no substance to those complaints. I challenge each of the three justifications, and the decision of the BBC:

SUBJECT MATTER
BBC Comic Relief is well known for its irreverent humour, and Atkinson’s sketch is entirely in keeping with the spirit and custom of the event. If the BBC is now judging the established religion to be beyond the acceptable limits of mild mockery, then this represents a significant change which deserves open, public debate.

LANGUAGE
The sketch carries two words, arse and shag, used sparingly, which according to the BBC’s own editorial guidance on language have the potential to cause mild offence, and are generally permitted without referral and for broadcast before the watershed in suitable contexts such as comedic satire.

TIMING
BBC guidelines permit the use of mild language before the watershed. Furthermore, the sketch was broadcast prior to the decision to censor it from iPlayer, and removing it from iPlayer provides absolutely no remedy for the timing of the original broadcast.

THE BBC DECISION
It is evident that the decision of the BBC was made to pander to a hypersensitive religious lobby, and not based on editorial content whatsoever. The decision is without sound justification and threatens democratic free speech.

If you disagree, and think that Rowan Atkinson's sketch was beyond the limits of acceptable humour to be broadcast, please let me know - I really am interested to know why.  If instead you'd prefer to make a complaint yourself, feel free to do so here...

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!

"Last year Handguns Killed: 48 in Japan, 8 in Great Britain, 34 in Switzerland, 52 in Canada, 58 in Israel, 21 in Sweden, 10,728 in the United States." 

On that basis, the 77 people killed by Anders Behring Breivik in Sweden are matched by those killed by handguns alone in the United States EVERY 63 HOURS.

If you have a child in the US, then taking account of the population ratio, YOUR CHILD is 6,705 times more likely to be killed by a handgun than my child in the UK. It's not 10% more, or 50% more, or even 100% more,... 

IT'S 670,400% MORE.

WTF is going on America? If you cannot see the magnitude of this problem you have, you are seriously deluding yourselves. Wake up and smell the coffee people, it's not about "guns don't kill people..." or "a right to bear arms..." or "the government wants to control us...", it's about an epidemic of homicide in your nation which has now added these poor little children. If you understand this, and you're okay with that, then you're seriously fucked up. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!! Do something about this, and DO IT NOW!!!

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!

Revitalise the Reformation

Today, Cardinal Keith O'Brien has his army of priests read out the following message against inclusive marriage.

A Message for Marriage Sunday
26 August 2012

from The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland

In all things, we as Catholics look to Jesus Christ as our model and teacher.   When asked about marriage He gave a profound and rich reply: “Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, ‘made them male and female’, and said: ‘This is why a man must leave father and mother and cling to his wife and the two become one body’.”   (Matthew, 19: 4-5)
In the Year of Faith, which begins this October, we wish to place a special emphasis on the role of the family founded on marriage.   The family is the domestic Church, and the first place in which the faith is transmitted.   For that reason it must have a primary focus in our prayerful considerations during this period of grace. 
We write to you having already expressed our deep disappointment that the Scottish Government has decided to redefine marriage and legislate for same-sex marriage. We take this opportunity to thank you for your past support in defense of marriage and hope you will continue to act against efforts to redefine it.   We reaffirm before you all the common wisdom of humanity and the revealed faith of the Church that marriage is a unique life-long union of a man and a woman.
In circumstances when the true nature of marriage is being obscured, we wish to affirm and celebrate the truth and beauty of the Sacrament of Matrimony and family life as Jesus revealed it;  to do something new to support marriage and family life in the Catholic community and in the country;  and to reinforce the vocation of marriage and the pastoral care of families which takes in the everyday life of the Church in dioceses and parishes across the country.
For that reason, in the forthcoming Year of Faith we have decided to establish a new Commission for Marriage and the Family.   This Commission will be led by a bishop and will be composed mostly of lay men and women.   The Commission will be charged with engaging with those young men and women who will be future husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, and with those who already live out their vocation to marriage and parenthood in surroundings which often make it hard to sustain and develop the full Catholic family life we cherish. 
We wish to support too, those who are widowed, separated and divorced and all who need to feel the Church’s maternal care in the circumstances in which they find themselves.   The new Commission will promote the true nature of marriage as both a human institution and a union blessed by Jesus.   The Commission will be asked to develop an online presence so that prayer, reflection, formation and practical information on matters to do with marriage and family life can be quickly accessible to all.   It will also work to produce materials and organise events which will support ordinary Catholic families in their daily lives.   During the course of the coming year we will ask for your support for these initiatives.
Our faith teaches us that marriage is a great and holy mystery.   The Bishops of Scotland will continue to promote and uphold the universally accepted definition of marriage as the union solely of a man and a woman.   At the same time, we wish to work positively for the strengthening of marriage within the Church and within our society.
This is an important initiative for all our people, but especially our young people and children.  We urge you to join us in this endeavour.   Pray for your own family every day, and pray for those families whose lives are made difficult by the problems and cares which they encounter.   Finally, we invite you to pray for our elected leaders, invoking the Holy Spirit on them, that they may be moved to safeguard marriage as it has always been understood, for the good of Scotland and of our society.

This is precisely the kind of unwarranted political interference that the Reformation and Act of Supremacy in England, and similar laws in Scotland, were designed to prevent. 

This poor excuse for a Christian describes equal marriage rights as a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".  What human right is being subverted, Cardinal?  None at all.  As a celibate bachelor, what makes you an authority on what subverts a loving marriage?

The message reveals clearly the flaws in his argument on the matter.  It describes the biblical account of Christ's teaching on marriage:

“Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, ‘made them male and female’, and said: ‘This is why a man must leave father and mother and cling to his wife and the two become one body’.”   (Matthew, 19: 4-5) 

Here Christ describes an example of marriage, he does not mandate this as the only form of marriage.  Indeed, the question he answers is about divorce, not homosexuality,  (Matthew, 19: 3).  And he goes on to describe celibacy in various circumstances saying "He who is able to accept it, let him accept it".  (Matthew, 19: 11-12).  Christ teaches not one dogmatic rule which all must follow, but freedom to live a sexual life according to individual needs and circumstances, within a loving and faithful framework.  What could better promote a loving and faithful sexual relationship than marriage?

Then the bishops say,

"The family is the domestic Church, and the first place in which the faith is transmitted.   For that reason it must have a primary focus".

So there we have it: this is not about the good of society, or following the teachings of Christ, this is about evangelizing the Roman Catholic faith.  Surely these men are calling on gay people to deny their sexuality, enter into deceitful heterosexual marriages and raise more child fodder for their church.  Here we see the sordid, evil, subversive motives of the church laid bare.

But not content with subverting families and children to their own purposes, (a trait you will recall that is not new), they also hope to subvert the democratic process:

"Finally, we invite you to pray for our elected leaders, invoking the Holy Spirit on them, that they may be moved to safeguard marriage as it has always been understood...".

So you want your congregation to pray for god to overrule the consciences of the democratically elected representatives of the Scottish people, and do the dirty work of a foreign papal power?  This is the 21st century - I mean: are you nuts?

But there is humour to be found in this rotten diatribe too:

"Our faith teaches us that marriage is a great and holy mystery".

Yeah mate, marriage may be a mystery to you bunch of alleged celibates.  But the real mystery is the reason you think that anyone should listen to a bunch of sexually repressed paedophile-protectors in dresses on matters of love, sexuality, marriage and family.  You guys are about as unqualified to speak authoritatively on these matters as it's possible to be.

So perhaps this kind of papal vitriol is a sure sign you guys in Scotland are heading in the right direction. Keep up the good work!

Am I really a bigot?

I have a confession to make: When I saw the story linked to below, my first reaction was delight that someone who had clearly suffered such a long and difficult identity crisis now had the chance to resolve it, and at such a stage in life when many people would not consider something so drastic.

BBC News - East Sussex pensioner to have sex change op

No, that's not the confession.  The confession is that not long ago I know my first reaction would have been a visceral repulsion, followed by a rational re-evaluation, and shame at the contradiction.

Gender identity is such a deeply ingrained part of human consciousness that it can be a real challenge to accept that which crosses intuitive gender boundaries.  Reason and empathy tell me that homosexuality is perfectly valid, that gender reassignment can be positive and transforms the lives of those in need of it.  But in my teens, when I met a transsexual who came to my family home, I was too confused and afraid look her in the eye.  In my twenties, when meeting a colleague and her girlfriend, at a gay bar in California, I was too afraid to leave the car park and go inside.  I knew it was okay, but couldn't confront the reality myself.  So I was a closet, intuitive bigot, and I was ashamed of myself for that.

But in the years since, I've known many delightful people who happen not to share my bedroom tastes, and it doesn't matter a damn.  For years, I've let my gut get on with what it does, and made decisions with my head.  And now, finally, I find my gut has fallen into step with my reason and my instinctive reaction to this story is joy.

Like many faculties, my gut reactions evolved long ago, for reasons which no longer apply, and I can live with that, allow them to be arcane and accept that as a personal limitation.  But I now know that by getting to know different kinds of people, who are different from me in all sorts of ways, I can become a better person and put aside visceral prejudices and be open to anyone.

So what does this story do to you?  What's your gut reaction?  What does your rational head say, and which are you going to allow to win?  What do you make of my conflicted sensibilities?  Are you shocked and appalled at my inner prejudice, or can you recognise the conflict?  All civil comments welcome!

Orbital Mechanics for Dummies - Orbital Energy

Now we're going to consider the energy in an orbit, and we'll consider two forms of energy: kinetic energy from the speed of motion around the central body; and gravitational potential energy by virtue of the forces in a gravitational field, (which we'll call gravitational  energy for short).

First we need to consider a reference point.  Here on Earth, it is tempting to consider being at rest on the ground to be the zero orbital energy point.  But that means for flight between different planets we have different references to consider and that won't do.  The solution is to consider the reference point to be stationary at an infinite distance from the central body, where the gravitational field is zero.  Then we can use this reference for flight between as many different bodies as we wish.

Kinetic energy is easy, and from high school physics I remember it is given by

E_k = ½mV²

But from our equation [1] we found that in a circular orbit,

V_C² = GM/r

So in such an orbit,

E_k = ½GMm/r = GMm/2r   [2]

This is an important equation and we'll call it [2].  Just take a moment to consider what this means: the kinetic energy of a body in circular orbit is proportional to the masses of the bodies, and inversely proportional to the distance between them.  So as the mass of either body increases, so the kinetic energy increases.  As the distance increases, so the kinetic energy decreases.  This fits with equation [1] which told us that as distance increases, so orbital speed decreases.

Now gravitational energy is a little harder to understand.  It is the work done by gravity to bring a body from infinite distance to a radius r from the central body.  At each step along the way, the gravity from the central body applies a force of GMm/r².  At each step dr along the way from infinity to r, the work done is the force GMm/r² multiplied by the distance dr.  And we add all those steps together by integrating the force from infinity to r as follows:

If calculus puts you off, feel free to take my word for it and skip to equation [3]

E_g = ∫_∞^r GMm/r² dr 

=  GMm  ∫_∞^r 1/r²

= GMm  [-1/r]_∞^r

= -GMm  [  (1/r)  - (1/∞) ]

= -GMm  [  (1/r)  - 0 ]

E_g = -GMm/r     [3]

This too is an important equation and we'll call it [3].  Just take a moment to consider what this means: the gravitational energy of a body in circular orbit is proportional to the masses of the bodies, and inversely proportional to the distance between them.  But it has a minus sign, I hear you say.  Yes indeed, and that means that gravitational energy increases (becomes less negative) as an object is lifted away from the central body.  That fits with the idea that energy is required to do work in lifting the object.  It also has some convenient consequences for orbital mechanics which we'll see later on.

Now this is the hardest piece of maths we'll do in this series, and there is no further calculus at all!  Whether you followed the integration or skipped it, please go back and make sure you understand these two energies because they lay the foundation for truly understanding orbits, and all kinds of interplanetary travel.

To wrap up orbital energy, we'll add kinetic energy and gravitational energy together into a single value.

E_o = E_k + E_g

= GMm/2r - GMm/r

E_o = -GMm/2r     [4]

Notice that orbital energy is negative, and increases in value as radius increases.  It's as though this energy represents how far the body is located down into the gravity well of the central body.  And if you imagine raising this energy past zero to a positive value as representing the orbiting body climbing out of the gravity well, then this will lead nicely on to the concept of escape velocity which we'll cover next time.

That's enough for this post.  Next time we'll consider how energy oscillates between kinetic and gravitational energies in elliptical orbits, and look at escape velocity.

Orbital Mechanics for Dummies - Kepler's Third Law

This post is an aside.  Here I show how to prove Kepler's third law of planetary motion from what we have done so far.  Nothing which follows depends on it, and if you choose to skip this post then you will lose nothing of substance from the series on Orbital Mechanics.

Kepler's third law states that

the square of the period of a planetary orbit is proportional to the cube of its distance from the Sun.

In one orbit, the orbiting body travels a distance equal to the circumference of the circle with radius r.  This distance is 2πr.  So the time taken to travel this distance, or the period of the orbit in seconds, P, is given by

P = 2πr / V_C

Taking the square of both sides gives

P² = 4π²r² / V_C²

Now from our last post we know that

V_C² = GM/r

Putting this into the equation for the period squared gives

P² = 4π²r² / (GM/r)

which simplifies to

P² = 4π²r³ / GM

Now if this equation is applied to planets orbiting the Sun, then the square of period of the orbit, P², is directly proportional to the cube of the distance from the Sun, r³.  So we have proved Kepler's third law.

Orbital Mechanics for Dummies - Circular Orbits

Last time we looked at the kinds of basic orbits, and gave a description of how the orbiting body moves in each.  Now we will dip our toe in the maths water.

The first step is to define the parameters of the orbit, according to the following diagram.

M is the mass of the central body, in kilograms (kg).
m is the mass of the orbiting body, in kilograms (kg).
r is the orbital radius between the centres of the bodies, in metres (m).
v is the speed at which the orbiting body moves around the central body, in metres per second (m/s).

There are a few other parameters we'll use along the way:

G is Newton's gravitational constant, and is equal to 6.67 x10^-11 m³/kg/s².

V_C is the speed of a body moving in a perfect circular orbit, in metres per second (m/s).

V_E is the speed of a body moving just fast enough to escape from orbit, in metres per second (m/s).

A is an acceleration, expressed as a change in speed per second (m/s²).

From the previous post we know that for a circular orbit the orbiting body moves under centripetal acceleration which is provided by the gravity field of the central body.  So we need formulae for both centripetal acceleration and gravitational acceleration.

From high school physics we recall that centripetal acceleration is given by

A_C = V²/r

and gravitational acceleration is given by

A_G = GM/r²

Now since centripetal acceleration is provided by gravitational acceleration, A_C = A_G so

V²/r = GM/r²

and because we can eliminate the /r on each side, and in a circular orbit V = V_C

V_C² = GM/r  [1]

There we have it, our first equation for orbital mechanics.  Wasn't so hard, was it?   It's such an important equation that I've labelled it [1] so we can refer to it again.  What it tells us is that the square of the orbital speed is proportional to the mass of the central body, and inversely proportional to the orbital radius.  The constant of proportionality is Newton's gravitational constant.

Example

To try this out, let's work out how fast the International Space Station (ISS) travels around the Earth.  As I remember, it's around 17,500mph.  But can our equation [1] confirm that?

The mass of the Earth is 5.97 x10²⁴ kg.

The radius of the Earth is 6.37 x10⁶ m.

The ISS orbits at 350km above the surface, so the orbital radius is 6.72 x10⁶ m.

V_C² = GM/r = 6.67 x10^-11 x 5.97 x10²⁴ / 6.72 x10⁶ = 59.3 x10⁶.

Taking the square root gives

V_C =7,700 m/s.

Since there are 1,610 metres in a mile, and 3,600 seconds in an hour,

Orbital Speed = 7,700 x 3,600 / 1,610 = 17,200 mph.

That works for me!  Next time we'll take on the giant of orbital mechanics and prove Kepler's third law.