Scottish independence is a restoration of nationhood and not a withdrawal from Great Britain.

Scottish independence 

by Tom Thorne

I have made two trips to the auld sod in recent memory. The first one was in 2007 and it was a general tour that took my wife and I to see the Highlands, the ancient stone rings on the Hebrides at Callanish and also the neolithic sites on Orkney.  Then in 2013  I went on a three week research trip to places where my Munro family originated in Argyllshire and later lived in Dumbartonshire. 

On the first trip as we came south to Edinburgh and Glasgow we stopped at Inverness and the nearby site of The Battle of Culloden where in 1746 the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie was brutally routed by The Duke of Cumberland’s forces.

The bleak battlefield at Culloden left its mark on me since it is also the burial ground of the carnage unleashed in that battle. Here Scottish attempts at self determination 40 years after union with the rest of Britain were dashed. Here Scots tried to restore the Stuart monarchy for all of Britain.  

The aftermath of the battle was punitive and nothing short of ethnic and cultural cleansing as the defeated were hunted down and killed and their homes burned and pillaged by the victors. They were not allowed the wear kilts or tartans and could not have any arms. Prince Charles Edward Stuart hid for months until his loyal followers managed to get him away to France. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat was hunted down taken to London and beheaded for his alleged and largely unproved part in the “rebellion”.

Hundreds of rebellion prisoners were transported to Australia and America or rotted literally in prison ships waiting to sail in English ports. Prisoners were also hanged by lot. If you picked a hanging ticket out of a hat you were strung up. One in ten faced this fate. The aftermath of Culloden was horrific and to this day leaves a stain on the history of the United Kingdom. The price of the United Kingdom in the middle 18th Century has a very bloody origin.

Long before the Union in 1707 Scotland was an independent country with its own monarchy. Admittedly the aristocrats of Scotland were widely intermarried with the aristocrats of England and as a result of these unions much of Scotland was property of English lords. The Scots played England against France continually in a bid to remain independent but often when the chips were down Scottish aristocrats sided with England in self interest or played a duplicitous role in the politics of the British Isles.

Scotland, after the reign of Elizabeth I, provided King James the First of England the Sixth of Scotland. His reign was followed by the calamity of Charles I but later his son became Charles II for the restoration after the rule of Cromwell. And so there has been continual links with England and Scotland for centuries and those links have always been tenuous and fragile when faced with the real politic of English-Scottish relations. 

During the late 18th Century and early 19th Century Scots were cleared from their lands held often by aristocrats who lived in England. The land held by the people from their clan chiefs was taken and turned over to mass sheep farming. The people went to new towns to learn how to fish or take up a trade. Many found this impossible to do and without any economic base for their future left Scotland for Canada, United States and Australia in droves.

Now the Scots are to vote on an restoring their independence this week. The links as always with England and the rest of Britain are there as they have always been since the time of William The Conqueror in the 11th Century. During the 12th and 13th Centuries the Scots tried to take back their country from Norman fiefdom status with many uprisings such as Sir William Wallace executed so well followed by Robert Bruce. Ultimately the power in the south prevailed either by warfare or finally by The Act of Union in 1707 which benefitted the landed aristocrats more than the people.

What will change in this relationship if the Scots vote yes?  History tells us that the tight relationships between the English and Scots are still there. Maybe a yes vote will tell the rest of Britain that the Scots want a more equitable deal than they have experienced for many centuries. A no vote is really for the historic status quo brought about by the Act of Union. I suspect that the yes vote will be a close winner because Scots realize that they must assert themselves against a top down Conservative England that has developed under David Cameron. If Scots reflect on their history with England they may vote with their heart to actively get changes and to wake up an England that takes them for granted. 

Quebec separatists who see this referendum as useful for their cause should reflect that Quebec has never been a country with its own government like Scotland. They have only been a colony of France that was abandoned in a treaty after an 18th Century war between Britain and France. Their status is not the same as the Scots. The Scots have a clear claim to nationhood if they are willing to pay the price. 

© Copyright 2014 Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

British Prime Minister David Cameron and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond both fight 

off  Excedrin headaches as they contemplate the Scottish Independence vote this Thursday.

2013 Hyundai Sonata fire that gutted the car gets a forensic report six months after the date of loss. The report says fire cause undetermined.

The fire gutted interior of the 2013 Hyundai Sonata.

Update: 

2013 Hyundai Sonata fire. Fire expert says cause of the fire is undetermined. 

by Tom Thorne

A fire forensic report concerning the 2013 Hyundai Sonata fire done by professional engineer, Brian D. James states “The origin of the fire is located within the rear seating area of the passenger compartment.  All burn patterns are consistent with this as an area fire origin” this report was submitted to the driver’s insurance company on 16 June 2014 almost six months after the incident.

Mr James preliminarily examined the car on 22 January 2014 two days after the date of loss which was 20 January 2014. A further examination was conducted on 15 April 2014. This  time the car was  “destructively examined and the various circuits and components were examined within the vehicle and associated to the area fire origin.” 

The 15 April examination was conducted “with other parties” present. Who these other parties were is not recorded in the report. The car was fitted with seat heaters and the report states “did not show any remnants of seat heaters or wiring components”. Because these components could not be located  Mr. James concludes that there are “no indications of any failures”.

However there is evidence that there was a seat heater under the back seat because Mr. James reports “that the seat heater fuse was open, however, the could be the result of the fire spread and or the fire spread to the forward seat heaters”. The ambiguity of these statements enables Mr. James to say “that the cause of the fire is undetermined”.

There was some concern that the “aftermarket anti corrosion module” may have been the cause. That is ruled out by this report since there was “no evidence of malfunction”. The report rules out any gas line or gas origins for the fire since it is clear that the fire started in the passenger compartment back seat. The drivers destroyed lap top computer is also ruled out as a cause of the fire.

If the cause of the fire is undetermined the fire patterns do indicate that it started in the passenger back seat. The real problem now is whether or not Hyundai is negligent in their engineering, design of components or in their manufacturing. This report is ambiguous enough to provide a defence against any alleged Hyundai negligence. 

This case is perhaps complicated by the fact that the car was a dealer demonstrator before the sale to the driver. Assessing any liabilities to Hyundai now could involve a second party namely Hyundai’s local Belleville, Ontario dealership.

The purchasers and the specific driver of this Hyundai Sonata are really between a rock and a hard place. If an expert witness like Mr. James says the cause of the fire is unknown but he does say it started in the back seat. Without any direct connection to a failed or malfunctioning component in this Hyundai Sonata it could be difficult to make a serious case.

It may be sufficient to ignore this report as inconclusive and to really state the obvious in any legal claim. Hyundai is accountable for all the component parts making up the entire car. The fact that there was a fire and its burn patterns clearly shows it started in the components of the car, then a suit could go forward indicating negligence in the manufacturing of such a car. It is obvious even in the ambiguity of this report that a manufactured part of the car caused of the fire. 

No external component or after  market anti corrosion device can be blamed. The Lithium battery of the lap top lying on the backseat didn’t overheat and therefore set the car on fire. Hyundai’s components somewhere in this car started the fire.

It is not normal that a car barely a year old should close down all its systems and then  ignite in the backseat. Hyundai Canada or at least their local dealer should have taken the car to a heated garage early in this forensic process, and read out its computer systems. Perhaps that action could provide clues about why a fire starts spontaneously. 

Hyundai and the insurance company left the car in a wrecking yard. It was subject to to the wiles of a long and severe Canadian winter from 22 January to 15 April 2014. The engine compartment was completely intact so computer connection was possible. Only the interior of the car was gutted by fire.

The question is when will Hyundai Canada or the head office in Korea step up to the plate and acknowledge that this kind of spontaneous fire needs attention both for after sale customers and their car buying public in general. Their customer relations department simply gave excuses for their lack of action for almost six months as their email correspondence with the driver attests.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

The Hanoski case remains in limbo at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kingston. When will we know its costs and ramifications?

Where the rubber hits the road.

The Joe Hanoski Case: 

Some questions still need answers. If the civil suit launched by Joe Hanoski is settled what has it cost the Diocese of Kingston? 

by Tom Thorne

One of the most read set of articles on this blog are the Joe Hanoski series that I wrote in 2012. These articles concern an alleged sexual abuse of Joe Hanoski by Father Paul Hamilton.  Another priest, Father Michael Reed is also mentioned in the Hanoski civil suit.  Both Fathers Hamilton and Reed remain on the books of the Diocese of Kingston at this time.

Even after two years these stories continue to be accessed all the time. There is a pent up interest concerning the outcome of this civil case and at the moment we do not know that outcome because it can be settled out of court. Silence by both Joe Hanoski and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kingston Ontario can be a provision of the settlement agreement. If that is true then this case remains an enigma.

In the case of retired priest Rene Labelle, also of the Kingston Roman Catholic Diocese, criminal charges were laid by the police and Crown and by January 2014, and after a very public trial offering details of the sexual assault, interference and exploitation Labelle was sentenced to 16 months in jail to be followed by 30 months of probation and counselling. A very public process. Currently Father Labelle is still listed as a priest by the Diocese of Kingston, in care of the Catholic Pastoral Centre in Kingston, Ontario.

The Joe Hanoski case is very different. Hanoski brought a civil suit rather than a criminal charge against father Paul Hamilton. The action was also registered against theRoman Catholic  Diocese of Kingston. Also mentioned in this case was Father Michael Reed. Father Hamilton was abruptly removed eight years before this suit was launched and sat in a limbo for almost a decade with no charges and no action on the part of the police or the Crown that I am aware of. Father Michael Reed was removed from his parish when Hanoski launched his civil suit.

Currently Father Paul Hamilton remains on the books of the Archdiocese of Kingston. He seems to remain in limbo at the Catholic Pastoral Centre. Father Michael Reed at the moment can be reached according to the Diocese website, through Blessed Sacrament Parish in Amherstview, Ontario where the pastor is Father Stan Alanen. A look at the parish website reveals no mention of Father Reed. Why is he listed at this parish in the Diocese website list of priests? Does he have duties at this parish? 

It seems that the Diocese of Kingston uses the Catholic Pastoral Centre as a place where priests languish when they are taken from their parishes. It also seems that when charges cannot be established beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court alleged victims resort to a civil action to get justice.

As a member of a parish that is part of the Diocese of Kingston the silence about the Hanoski civil suit is irritating. Either the case is sitting in some kind of legal logjam or it is settled. If the civil suit was settled, then funds from the Diocese of Kingston or from some insurance company were used to get a settlement. 

Civil suits are not launched for esoteric reasons. There has to be a dollar value placed on the case. In addition, there are the legal costs for Hanoski’s lawyers and the lawyers for the Diocese of Kingston that have to be accounted for in any settlement.

In this case Hanoski sued for an alleged $3.5 million dollars.  There simply needs to be a transparent accounting of these costs by the Diocese including the legal costs on top of the settlement for defending the diocese’s liability for priests in this kind of trouble. 

© Copyright Tom Thorne 2014, All Rights Reserved.

Ontario Election: Voters will likely elect a Conservative minority choosing from the bland options before them. That means a replay of this election in two years.

Angela Horwath, Tim Hudak and Kathleen Wynne all want our vote 

without showing any real leadership for Ontario's future.

The Ontario Election: voting for the bland, the blander and most bland option. 

A move to the right is possible but only held in check by the NDP keeping a Conservative minority government on a short leash.

by Tom Thorne

On the eve of the 2014 Ontario Provincial Election it looks as if we are moving towards another minority government of some kind. The electorate may change from Liberal to Conservatives mostly for a change mainly because  Liberals have been in office for 11 years and they are looking tired.  

Many polls show a dead heat. This of course will leave Angela Horwath's New Democrats with the balance of power again whether the Liberals or Conservatives form the new government. That also means in two years or so we will probably return to the polls.

Kathleen Wynne is wearing the perceived negative excesses of her predecessor Dalton McGuinty. It's hard to escape gas plant scandals when the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) interview former premier McGuinty during the election. Wynne has to also wear the fact that she was a senior member of the McGinty cabinet. This situation is perceived as an election negative. It may be the reason why the electors change horses.

Tim Hudak on the other hand is seen as a right wing ideologue who no one really likes. Well spoken in an evangelical way, he has trouble doing math about his election program. Independent economic experts easily pull apart his Million Job plan and his 100,000 public sector job cuts. That makes his competence an issue. Just how he expects to carry out this simultaneous cut and growth plan is anyone's guess. He's short on detail and credibility. 

But Tim Hudak could come up the middle to become Ontario's new minority government premier despite his vagueness and penchant for right wing viewpoints. One thing is certain if he doesn't become premier this time his life as leader of the Ontario Conservatives is limited. In addition Ontarians may do their usual balancing act of electing a Liberal government when there is a right wing federal government in power.

Ontario is slipping economically. We are losing classic manufacturing jobs along with the Rust Belt  border US states. The economy is in some kind of transition. To what is a serious question that goes unanswered by all Ontario political parties.  

That transition seems to feature high educated youth unemployment or under employment. Manufacturing is becoming more automated and the need for well paying jobs is lessoned. Jobless recoveries are the new reality and Ontario companies are sitting on capital waiting for some sign that the economy can and will improve.

A major food processor Heinz can destroy the economic well being of Leamington and Essex County because they claim their costs are too high to operate profitably in Ontario we need to rethink our economic strategies. 

Heinz, after a 100 years in Ontario, is shifting their operations to low cost right wing US states who have destroyed unions with right to work legislation. There is no loyalty to any Ontario community when profits drop or multinational boards of directors make their decisions.

In my view Tim Hudak will implement similar labour policies in Ontario if he ever gets a majority.  He will make the argument that our labour costs are too high to compete in North America and the world and to implement his Million Jobs Plan he will need anti union legislation. Wages will have to drop as too many people look for too few jobs.

When we examine the 100,000 public sector job cuts Tim Hudak says much of this operation will be done by retirements and natural attrition. This remains troubling.  If someone retires it doesn't mean that the job they do is unnecessary. 

The wider public service involves organizations  from TVOntario to our hospitals and social services not just Queen's Park bureaucrats. A 100,000 wage earners taken out of the Ontario economy is guaranteed to become an economic downer. Shades of Mike Harris but this time on steroids.

So Ontario voters face a Liberal regime with 11 years in office and a tawdry reputation from the McGuinty years. The New Democrats are really only looking to realistically become the balance of power while irritating organized labour during the election. The Conservatives have gone much further to the right where trickle down economics, lower corporate taxes and less government is their mantra. 

Truly a bland hokum election. None of the leaders have told us what they intend to do about the rising costs of electricity in Ontario.  Few exciting ideas have emerged from this campaign. There has been no real definition of how high technology information based economies develop and thrive. 

The status quo concerning youth unemployment and under employment is all we get. None of them have solutions to this social ill. There is nothing in this campaign that shows us a future we can get behind and vote for with any conviction.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Teens take the Internet for granted. They believe that it's their birthright. Why not? They have never known a world without it.

He is connected to the most powerful network 

that has ever existed just to interact with his friends.

Some thoughts about Internet use by pubescents and teenagers. 

My own grandchildren all have smart cell phones, iPads and some have portable computers. The oldest is 16 and the other seven are recent new teenagers and younger. It is a normal part of lives to use this networked technology. They don't know a world without it. It’s routine.

Students with smart phones and pads are constantly connected to the most complex two way broadband network that has ever existed. We know of no other experience like this in human history save the introductions of printing in the middle 16th Century which created an almost glacial change to society. 

This was followed by electric based broadcast radio and later TV which was faster in its socio-political impact when it brought the Vietnam and presidential assassinations into our living rooms. Now a two way broadband network can instantly stream video of a school dance indiscretion to the world.

Grade 7 and 8 pubescents are connected to this endless ever expanding network and use it to define their social norms with each other as they mature towards relationships. What they develop becomes networked social norms and values. In fact their growth towards adulthood may well be formed not only by direct human interaction but by these socially taut mediated network experiences. This is a phenomenon that needs a lot more study.

Children this age know the techniques but not the outcomes of these cyber techniques. I  know from my questions to them, that they understand the surface of this network but do not realize that the personal profiling that social media providers build about their users profiles them for life. They don't realize that future employers now see this trail of social interactions as fuel for their hiring decisions.

Instant tweets of bullying are compounded by these networked connections. It has created recent cyber bullying legislation as governments react to tragedies. This is the result of young impressionable teenagers first warning of a suicide and then actually doing it. And before they commit suicide they do a show on YouTube with cue cards expressing their angst.

Living a cyber life or a mediated life through the network can be dangerous. Selfies, comments all expressed in a short hand cyber language indicates that the medium is clearly the message as it redefines social interactions. To be negatively featured on Tweets and Facebook has had drastic outcomes. When bullying was confined to the school yard or neighbourhood it was manageable. Now that it posted on a network and it compounds literally at the speed of light and becomes unmanageable by anyone.

This is the first time in history that culture develops using a networked cyber techniques. The implications of this technology in the hands of impressionable sensitive kids is now being seen by the increase in suicides. 

School is now a real life drop in centre. Kids attend real school but remain connected to the internet. School becomes a convenient WiFi connection centre. Teachers are now using the internet with their tech savvy students to advance educational opportunities. The extent  that curricula is also integrated into the internet is growing and it to has implications to learning when it is cyber focused. Anything this network touches is transformed.

Certainly constant networking via cyber techniques will redefine culture.  This is normal for anyone born after 1985. Internet is "normal" to a pre millennium 20 somethings. Everyone born after 2000 does not know a world that is not networked. 

This change to society not only a first world phenomenon. Third world cell phone and now smart phone use is very large and also not expensive as I found out in 2010 on a visit to Egypt. 

Cell phones were everywhere even in remote areas at the bottom of the country on Lake Nasser. When the Arab Spring started in 2011 the Egyptian authorities tried to turn off the cell phone networks and the internet. Much of the protest of the Mubarak regime was fuelled by either cell phone networks or the internet social media.

Social change comes to our kids using powerful networks for their social interactions as much as socio-political change occurs when and where these technologies are available. You cannot have a broadband networks running 24/7 worldwide without creating changes to how humans interact with each other. What is personal  can quickly become viral and takes off on tangents never intended by the person who posted the information.

© Copyright 2014 Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Before the World Wide Web really got rolling there was the hard work of developing the content of the new medium. Pioneering content is not always profitable.

The original menu of the TVOntario Telidon Project.

A sample of Telidon graphics on a standard NTSC television.

The Information Age: The timing of innovation and the introduction of ancillary technologies really make it possible for a new medium to develop. Here is an account of such a time ten years before the World Wide Web was launched. 

 by Tom Thorne

In 1982 the concepts for the World Wide Web was still only in the heads of a few people such as Tim Berners-Lee. The idea was current in very limited academic and military circles. Those in the know thought it might become a networked system for general use about ten years in the future. That time line turned out to be relatively correct when the web took off in the middle 1990's.

During the 1980's I began to work on Telidon systems which had started out in the fertile labs of the Canadian Federal Department of Communications (DOC). The DOC labs were involved in the science of how digital information could be transported over television signals and telephone lines. 

What made the DOC work really interesting was they saw this effort not as a text based system, such as the work of the BBC in Britain and other experiments like Antiope in France, but as a series of graphic primitives combined with text. In effect they pioneered the way web graphics and text are largely done today but at the lower resolution of NTSC North American television standards.

This clever notion suggested that a new digital graphic and text medium would be born. Combined with the first web work mentioned earlier, this idea was very promising. In 1981 I had visited Britain in my capacity as Director of Information for TVOntario to look at their alpha mosaic (text based graphics) service they had put up in prototype. They had two systems, one on line by telephone and Ceefax which stored its digital content in the blanking interval of a television picture.

I liked both BBC services when I saw them and immediately thought of the Telidon work going on in Ottawa as a natural extension using more sophisticated graphics and text than the British systems. The Canadian system was technically more advanced than the BBC. However the British had already produced content on line and across their broadcasting network which gave them a leading editorial application edge.

It was at this moment that TVOntario got involved in a Telidon project which would insert our networked television blanking interval with about 100 pages of information. Simultaneously we decided to  create an online telephone content with a trial called VISTA sponsored by Bell Canada. Soon we were joined by a CBC project and the digital media world was born. 

We worked very hard on our services producing pages of content for both of these new services. The promise of the television blanking interval system was having student or teacher notes to accompany an educational program imbedded in the broadcast. A Telidon box attached to the TV could bring them up on the screen. Much of our TVOntario work focused on these kinds of application along with weather and our broadcast schedule.

The VISTA trial with Bell took us into the world of telephone dial up digital services. The big problem of these systems was the slowness, even at 1500 baud, of our pictures. We knew very early that something had to give on the speed front if these services online were to be commercially viable. 

We saw the future one day at the DOC labs. It was fibre optic phone or cable TV lines. In all technologies there are promising starts but the online world as we know it now can only be achieved if line speeds are fast and fibre optics was the answer. 

Fibre optics was an infrastructure logistics problem that took Canadian telcos and cable companies the next decade to install. Only then could the web be available with any kind of viable wait times.

After I had worked on the TVOntario Telidon Project I was approached by some people who wanted to use Telidon for commercial applications. Their plan was to provide a stock market charting service using this technology. It meant that they could get some help from the Federal Department of Communications for equipment. They had also had a bite from Statistics Canada who also wanted to provide their information in chart form.

I joined this group in 1982  and we named the company Faxtel Information Systems Ltd.

We began to write the software for a Telidon-based charting and graphing service and it went very well due to some former Bell Labs people and some excellent free lance software experts in the VAX-VMS operating systems.

The stock market charts we produced were revolutionary. Technical analysis experts were literally blown away that we could instantly chart all major stock market historical data right up to the day's closing numbers. Not only that, we could put other useful statistical lines through the charts that indicated trends for technical analysts.

Before our system, which we dubbed Marketfax, technical analysis was done by hand. One service that felt threatened by our new service put out a weekly booklet of charts for the market. They worried that their business was now passé. By computerizing their business we had made their weekly chart book a dodo. We thought their expertise in interpreting charted market data was invaluable and we offered them a terminal and an association with us. They refused.

We very soon had terminals in six Toronto brokerages and in several sites in New York. We also pioneered the use of the first  1984 Apple Macintosh computer as an intelligent terminal for Marketfax. This was a radical step because we wrote software to make this happen that meant that Apple personal computers could access our services on line. It was the first  service specific App.

However our market was limited to those brokers who did technical analysis of the the stock markets. Not every brokerage had such a person on staff and so our excellent product had a limited market.  Technical analysts were very keen to have one of terminals and high rollers paid for it themselves rather than wait for their firms to provide it.

Marketfax was a MiniVAX head end software package that drew raw data from stock market databases on mainframe computers and massaged it into usable dynamic graphic charts. The important change in this service was the user defined aspect. Customers chose what charts they wanted and how to display them for decisions. That is what dynamic means.  

We drew the raw data from mainframe storage companies for one cent and sold it for six cents. Marketfax was the first service of its kind and it is now commonplace within the investment community. After the first year the raw data providers wanted more money for their data because our service added value.

A bright spot for our fledging firm was a contract we got from Statistics Canada to chart their data. This was a great help to keep our  business afloat. Although our systems were excellent we had the usual start up problems of limited capital and a tight technical analysis marketplace. Several offers came from stock market firms to buy us out but no real interest in long term development of our firm Faxtel.

About this time I began to plan a post Marketfax set of  services for Faxtel to develop. One major service I saw was Economic Development for municipalities. Our charting expertise would be applicable in this project  and we could sell to companies that were looking to locate a factory.  

The information on this service would be drawn from statistical data like the sources we used for the stock market. In addition we would provide editorial material about each community. This service would be online and would first cover Ontario and then the rest of Canada. It could be cloned for any jurisdiction once it was running. However this project ran afoul of governments who held this data and didn’t want to release it to a private company.

All of these services are available today. The point is that all services and technologies have their time and space when they are commercially viable or come into a time when it is obvious to produce a service. 

The World Wide Web provided the opportunity to develop a new medium and that has happened. At the beginning most of the websites were purely informational. Very few interacted with the customer to the level of Marketfax. Even fewer websites were transactional and could take an order.

My early work in an interactive service was instrumental in what came in the next decade and my work before that with TVOntario always makes me think that in a certain space and time innovation sometimes has a long way to go before it is viable. I left Faxtel in 1984 and came to a college to teach digital marketing. Over the past 30 years all marketing has become digitally based.

A useful book about the early World Wide Web:

Weaving the Web The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor, Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti, Harper Collins Publishers, San Francisco, 1999, ISBN 0-06-251586. Paperback: ISBN 0-06-251587X

A web site about early Telidon projects:

http://www.friendsofcrc.ca/Projects/Telidon/Telidon.html

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Spirituality is changing because of the Information Age. It is all becoming "me" centred.

Information Age Spirituality: Personalized religion is here to stay.

by Tom Thorne

In the past I have made the point that one of the outcomes of the Information Age is a more personal focus on all aspects of life. This situation is brought about by highly personalized digital media largely focused on the individual and their needs and wants. Life events are focused as a series of "selfies".

This phenomenon may account for the much more personal view that people have towards how they see metaphysics and God. They now do not need a church liturgy or structure to have highly personalized ideas about spirituality and ethical behaviours. They can do it themselves without the benefit of clergy or if they go to a church for help they ask clergy to adapt to their personal spiritual and religious ideas.

Pentecostal church attendance has grown mainly because they enable ways for people to define and focus their personal views and find their way to come to Jesus. Other churches maintain a formula way to God which has less appeal than finding your personal Saviour.

Churches with hierarchical liturgies are in decline because contemporary people have to fit into a way of thinking rather than define and tailor their own. Decline is also partially due in North America and Europe to an aging demographic. Younger people are less evident in hierarchical places of worship. 

However, they seem to have a sense that life, death, and events like births,  and marriages need some kind of ceremony. The actual regular attendance at churches and other places of worship has fallen off. Church is now a drop in centre where liturgical services are accessed as needed.

This change may be a result of the downgraded  influence and importance of hierarchical structures in daily life. It may also be  the general dislike people now have for top down ways to worship. One thing is certain attendance at church is falling as most clergy can attest. 

Because people do not attend places of worship it does not mean that they have abandoned goodness or abandoned themselves to wanton lifestyles. They have personalized how they deal with ethical matters and religious ideas.  Some see nature as a spiritual experience. Some focus on their families and children without the benefit of clergy and formal churches, often bringing up highly motivated and ethical children. Church is often Christmas and Easter services that evoke some ethereal connection to another time and place. 

They don't like rituals or formal services. They tend to take over wedding liturgies of churches and tailor them with their own vows to each other. They ask traditional clergy to do untraditional things with their formal services such as having a wedding outside of the church or allowing people to comment and make highly personal commitments concerning their union.

I have seen a Roman Catholic priest deal with two funerals both held at a funeral home. The children provided input to the priest about what they wanted to do for their parent's funeral and the priest wove the traditional Catholic commitment service into their ideas as best he could. When I quizzed the priest about this he said that he would rather do something than nothing. He also said that the children had no real idea about Catholic practice for a funeral and so the starting point was to listen to what they wanted. The children simply wanted to honour their parents who were practicing Catholics.

Nothing was really compromised. The service turned out to be respectful and a refreshing celebration of life. It never occurred to the children that what they wanted for their parent's funeral was wrong or stressed out any church principles. They personalized what they thought was appropriate and in this case it turned out well if not really a traditional Catholic funeral.

Doing your own thing is an effect of the Information Age. If you need a wedding or a funeral you Google the topic where you will find a plethora of notions, ideas and ways to do the job. Then you pick and choose what you think is appropriate for you. It is very "me" focused which is a feature of the children of the Information Age. Information technologies are so ubiquitous today that they will be the toolkit to redefine deeper thoughts and spirituality of their users.

© Copyright 2014, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.