Jim McGovern's Personal Blog

I was shocked by reports last week, e.g. Lara Marlowe’s article in the Irish Times, of George W Bush's admission that he approved of and, indeed, ordered torture. Torture is wrong. Not to be tortured, physically or mentally, is a fundamental human right. When things are totally wrong there is no point trying to compare magnitudes. The magnitudes of the impacts of wrongness may vary or may be immeasurable, but all things that are totally wrong are equally totally wrong.

Unlike me, George W. Bush is a religious man. I believe in love not hate, positivity not negativity, respect not disrespect, fairness not unfairness, justice not injustice, equality not inequality. I believe in freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom from oppression, liberty, the security of person, recognition everywhere as a person before the law, effective remedy for those whose human rights are violated—in fact, I believe in all thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My personal concept of God is very much identified with good not bad and with right not wrong.

The danger of supporting what is wrong is that there is no knowing where it may lead. I believe that any leader who advocates torture offends not just those who are tortured as a result, but all those they lead.

I have written this blog simply because it is right and feels necessary for me to declare that I believe torture is wrong.

The railway station in Newbridge is beautiful and quaint, persisting from another time. I appreciate beauty and form and function. However, I am an engineer of today, who is keen to address the needs of today’s society. I believe it is right and proper to dismantle (let me be blunt, destroy) beauty that has outlived its era. Let’s log it, digitize it or store samples of it in heritage parks or museums. The Earth is not big enough to leave our former built environment in place as we continue our development.

I need to digress momentarily. In my view, the beautiful stone bridge in the photograph is highly dangerous for the citizens of Newbridge who use it as a road. Newbridge has expanded greatly in recent years and that small narrow bridge without footpaths now links large housing estates to the town and schools of Newbridge. Children and parents with babies walk over the bridge in great numbers and are in danger from the two-way traffic.

I had been thinking about how one might take a sample of suds floating on the surface of a river. The photo to the left shows suds on the Liffey at Newbridge, Co. Kildare, Ireland. It was taken on my mobile phone from the upstream side of the bridge at Newbridge, looking down on the water. The water level and the rate of flow on the river were quite low at the time: 16:53 24 September 2010.

With a small container on a string it would be easy to take a grab sample of the water. However, I felt there was a possibility the water itself was very pure and that the suds floating on top were of entirely different composition.

Yesterday I saw a a fly fisherman wearing waders in the river a short distance upstream from the bridge in Newbridge and at another time I saw a swan swimming there. They were both surrounded by these suds. I do not know whether or not the suds disturbed them. I just imagine that they did, because they did disturb me.

‘Suds on the beautiful River Liffey and a dog’ is a 39-second-long movie on YouTube with a wonderful actor in the starring role that highlights, presumably mild, pollution consisting of suds on the River Liffey at Newbridge, Co. Kildare, Ireland. River pollution is an engineering issue that can and should be addressed. The technical failure to resolve the problem over an extended period of time points to a failure of regulation. This video was shot on 12^th September 2010 from the bridge over the Liffey at Newbridge, which is shown in the photo above. The pollution was mentioned by Jim McGovern at an international conference on sustainable energy and environmental protection in August 2009 (see http://arrow.dit.ie/engschmecoth/8/). The dog in the starring role swam unexpectedly into the movie frame and transformed a dull technical exhibit into something rather more appealing.

In today’s England vs Germany match in the World Cup an English goal was disallowed by the referee and match officials, even though millions of viewers around the world could see that the ball had clearly entered the goal. Would it not make sense for FIFA to ensure, as far as reasonably possible, that decisions are seen to be fair?

A somewhat special experience I currently enjoy happens when people who know me (more or less well) refer in one friendly way or another to the fact that I have returned to being a senior lecturer—a true academic and practitioner—in my field of Mechanical Engineering. Very often the exchange begins with the person, of whom I am an acquaintance or friend, commenting that I seem far more relaxed or happier since I returned to the lecturing role. Judging from what people say to me, it sounds as though I appeared uncomfortable, unhappy, or both in the role of Head of School. Overall, this would not capture how I actually felt generally while I was in the role, although I am sure I felt like that on occasion. I felt proud and honoured to be in a role of serving learners and colleagues. I do not regret the time that I spent as Head of School and there are many memories that I cherish from that period.

My office is not the most pleasant place to be right now. Yesterday there was a serious water leak nearby (from a downpipe coming from the roof). I understand that this has been dealt with. Unfortunately water came into my office and wetted the carpet. It caused quite an unplesant smell, which will probably remain until the carpet has dried out. Together with the ongoing rumbling noise mentioned in Thinking Space (which is not serious enough to have merited quick action) the working environment is far from ideal.

Further to my previous blog on the topic, I heard on TV that FIFA is to have two extra goal line officials in the World Cup to help detect incidents such as the Henry hand ball goal in the Ireland France World Cup qualifier match of 2009. I am not sure that the lesson has been learned, although I hope it has.

On the way to a conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on 18th May 2010 I flew with US Airways. Owing to a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland, the departure of my outgoing first-stage flight, Dublin to Philadelphia, was delayed by three hours. This would have made it impossible to make my original connecting flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix, but I was efficiently provided with a boarding pass for a later flight to Phoenix. However, while the first flight arrived in good time, at Phoenix there was a waiting period of more than an hour for checked baggage to arrive at the baggage hall. Many of my co-passengers had been transferring to connecting flights and a number, like me, missed them because of the excessive wait in the baggage hall. I was sorry that I had not compressed my baggage into one carry-on case. For the return trip I did so.

As a kid I enjoyed reading Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, but even then felt a certain revulsion at some of his antics. I was never big into swinging cats.
 
I get great satisfaction from doing things well, sometimes even too well, hyper-well, better-than-necessary. This has to be one of my raisons d’être. Because of that I can also feel frustrated if circumstances prevent me from doing my job well. To a certain extent I have adapted to the exigencies of reality; I realise I have an inclination towards certain types of work and a disinterest in certain other types: I call on willpower. In relation to things that interest me I like bringing together diverse threads and teasing out linkages in a painstaking (but it is not pain) way. I came across an article recently that suggested confined spaces favoured concentration on detail. Mind you, I love open spaces. Perhaps the open spaces provide the inspiration and confined spaces allow for ideas to be refined and distilled.