MYALGIC ENCEPHALOMYELITIS, also known as CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME (CFS).

In the course of my 30 year career, most of it in a critical care setting, I have never seen anyone admitted to hospital with ME, I have never seen anyone in Intensive Care with ME and I have certainly never seen anyone die of it.
Not until now that is; in a recent court case Kay Gildersdale was acquitted of murder after killing her daughter who suffered from ME. This case is deeply troubling; are we saying that it is okay to kill people with psycho-somatic illnesses?
The Euthanasia lobby have welcomed the outcome of this trial and it sets a very worrying precedent. When people demand physician assisted suicide for the pain they feel are we discussing physical pain (which can be alleviated with opiates if neccesary) or are we talking about existential angst? By which I mean the pain of living in a fallen world?

EGALITARIAN JUSTICE versus RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. After the 2010 Soccer World Cup Final in which the Netherlands lost to Spain the manager of the losing team complained bitterly that they had been treated unfairly by the referee. Bert Van Marwijk pointed to the match statistics as proof of grotesquely biased decisions by the officials. The Netherlands had received 28 bookings compared to Spain's 19, and the Netherlands had been further penalised by having Heitinga sent off, meaning their team was reduced to ten men compared to Spain's eleven. Using statistics alone as a meaure of fairness that would indeed seem to indicate a heavy bias against the Dutch side. If we are to judge these things on an egalitarian basis one would expect the statistics to be evenly balanced at the end of the match and it is to this that Van Manwijk pointed. In an Egalitarian framework the penalties should have distributed evenly by the end point. In contrast a Retributive framework awards penalties according to infractions against an objective standard. The reality of that football match was that the Dutch team played an extremely dirty game involving some quite vicious fouls. Personally I think Marwijk's team was lucky not to have been down to nine men! It was thoroughly disgraceful behaviour on their part which led to the disproportionate number of bookings. But think about it, what if the referee had applied Egalitarian justice? That would have meant that the Spanish would have received an equal number of bookings. Think about the implications of that; in such a situation there is no incentive to play by the rules, in fact quite the opposite, you "may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb". There will inevitably be a deterioration in the standard of behaviour as perverse incentives are introduced by an Egalitarian/Statistical frame of justice. But let's face it you can't get more even-handed than condemning the innocent with the guilty!

NIALL FERGUSON, THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC AND THE RING OF TRUTH . Last night on Channel 4 we had the final part of historian Niall Ferguson's analysis of "Civilization: Is the West History?" Over the preceding weeks he has pointed to several (what he calls) 'killer apps' which enabled the West to progress in a way that other cultures could not; these included Competition, Science, Medicine and Democracy. Last night we had "the Protestant Work Ethic". I believe that Niall Ferguson is correct in saying that part of the West, that is Europe, has learnt to despise the work ethic while other cultures have embraced it. Do we live to work or work to live? I believe we live to be active and creative. Furthermore he is correct in his observations that the Chinese have more Christians than the whole of Europe! As a European Christian I think that is wonderful! Truly wonderful and a remarkable testimony to the work of the Holy Spirit despite decades of persecution the church there has prospered! Christianity can no longer be perceived as a western phenomena - and quite rightly so - because it never was! In contrast to the USA Europe has sold its share of the Christian heritage for a mess of pottage. As a Christian from Europe I can see the consequences of such a dereliction. Niall Ferguson is perceptive in parts; he alludes to a loss of faith within European society which now requires the affirmation of all beliefs, no matter how crackpot, on the basis that no belief is any better than any other. He has hit the nail on the head there. But his solution is not however a reaffirmation of Protestant Christianity but a renewal of faith in ourselves.... hmmm. The problem there is that Europe has already been engaged in an experiment of substituting faith in God for faith in humanity. At that point, you will realise, that Niall Ferguson has lost the plot of his own argument. There has never been a loss of faith in ourselves! Indeed that faith has always been humankinds fundamental problem. The reality is once one abolishes God one also abolishes Man! What do I mean by that? I will argue that the intellectual environment cultivated by Protestant Christianity (which is shorthand for genuine, biblical, apostolic Christianity) has had a number of positive consequences for society and that when we abolish God and substitute Man in his place negative consequences follow. I will follow up this train of thought in the next couple of months by looking at 'Democracy & the Rule of Law' and 'Science' as attributes of a Christian worldview under a series called 'The Ring of Truth'. But for now I will confine myself to the 'Protestant Work Ethic'. I will add one caveat; Capitalism is not the ultimate goal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! From his description I do not believe Niall Ferguson really understood the work ethic. Properly understood it is not about living driven lives under the whip hand of God. It is actually about realising that a believer can glorify God in whatever sphere of life they find themselves in. One does not have to become a priest, monk or nun in order to serve God, one can do so whatever one's circumstances if one's attitude is right. The split between the sacred and secular was broken down and different sets of spiritual and moral standards no longer applied... all are equally called. This is what was meant by the Protestant/Biblical concept of "the priesthood of all believers"; which is also a democratising influence but I'll leave that for another day! Why is it particularly a 'Protestant' work ethic? The priesthood of all believers implies a degree of activism, involvment and personal engagement which will be absent in societies which defer to a special priestly caste. I recall a commentator once saying that the difference between north and south America was that in the south the settlers came to find paradise and in the north they came to build it! That has more than a ring of truth about it. Critics of 'religion' will point out that it reduces the believer to helpless passivity. Well, there may be more than a ring of truth to that too. But I will argue that Protestant/Biblical Christianity is the exception which proves the rule. The work ethic founded on the Creation mandate of Genesis is hardly a call to inaction!

Veteran presenter slams ‘Guardianistas’ at the BBC "VETERAN PRESENTER SLAMS 'GUARDIANISTAS' AT BBC." Michael Buerk criticises the BBC for its bias and for taking its creed from the Guardian newspaper. The piece is interesting although I do find the use of the phrase 'political correctness' overused and tiresome these days. I also feel very strongly that the word liberal (a great word!) is too often misapplied to the metropolitan elite who in practice do not believe in liberty but have taken on themselves the role of policing those beliefs they disapprove of. They have a meddling statist attitude which presuposes that they know best for everyone.

Tree

The Shard