Learning from Dogs

More than a film, a message from dogs to mankind.

Richard Gere and Hachi

We recently watched a film about an Akita dog called Hachi, Hachikō in Japanese, that demonstrates the loyalty that dogs can have for their human owners.

Here’s the official movie trailer. [UPDATE - for copyright reasons that movie trailer has been removed from YouTube.]

It’s a very moving film – seriously so!  Expect to shed many tears.  Even more so when one reflects that the Hollywood film is based, reasonably accurately, on a true story.  The details of this story are in Wikipedia from which is quoted:

In 1924, Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor in the agriculture department at the University of Tokyo took in Hachikō as a pet. During his owner’s life Hachikō saw him out from the front door and greeted him at the end of the day at the nearby Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered from a cerebral hemorrhage at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting. Hachikō was loyal and every day for the next nine years he waited sitting there amongst the town’s folk.

Hachikō was given away after his master’s death, but he routinely escaped, showing up again and again at his old home. Eventually, Hachikō apparently realized that Professor Ueno no longer lived at the house. So he went to look for his master at the train station where he had accompanied him so many times before. Each day, Hachikō waited for Professor Ueno to return. And each day he did not see his friend among the commuters at the station.

The permanent fixture at the train station that was Hachikō attracted the attention of other commuters. Many of the people who frequented the Shibuya train station had seen Hachikō and Professor Ueno together each day. They brought Hachikō treats and food to nourish him during his wait.

This continued for nine years with Hachikō appearing precisely when the train was due at the station

This hasn’t been the only film about this dog.  See below:

Back to the Wikipedia entry:

That same year, another of Ueno’s faithful students (who had become something of an expert on the Akita breed) saw the dog at the station and followed him to the Kobayashi home (the home of the former gardener of Professor Ueno — Kikuzaboro Kobayashi) where he learned the history of Hachikō’s life. Shortly after this meeting, the former student published a documented census of Akitas in Japan. His research found only 30 purebred Akitas remaining, including Hachikō from Shibuya Station.

Professor Ueno’s former student returned frequently to visit the dog and over the years published several articles about Hachikō’s remarkable loyalty. In 1932 one of these articles, published in Tokyo’s largest newspaper, threw the dog into the national spotlight. Hachikō became a national sensation. His faithfulness to his master’s memory impressed the people of Japan as a spirit of family loyalty all should strive to achieve. Teachers and parents used Hachikō’s vigil as an example for children to follow. A well-known Japanese artist rendered a sculpture of the dog, and throughout the country a new awareness of the Akita breed grew.

Eventually, Hachiko’s legendary faithfulness became a national symbol of loyalty.

Hachikō died on March 8, 1935. He was found on a street in Shibuya. His heart was infected with filarial worms and 3-4 yakitori sticks were found in his stomach. His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo.

Hachiko

The Akita breed has a great reputation for loyalty.  But knowing that doesn’t in any way weaken the power of the message for the present times.

A dog offers loyalty, trust and love in exchange for being treated, in turn, with integrity and compassion.

That’s why we have so much to learn from dogs.

Smarter than we realise!

By Paul Handover

Awesome!  Plain and simply awesome.

V838 Monocerotis

From the Hubble website.  Here’s the description of the image:

“Starry Night”, Vincent van Gogh‘s famous painting, is renowned for its bold whorls of light sweeping across a raging night sky. Although this image of the heavens came only from the artist’s restless imagination, a new picture from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope bears remarkable similarities to the van Gogh work, complete with never-before-seen spirals of dust swirling across trillions of kilometres of interstellar space.

This image, obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on February 8, 2004, is Hubble’s latest view of an expanding halo of light around a distant star, named V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon).

The illumination of interstellar dust comes from the red supergiant star at the middle of the image, which gave off a flashbulb-like pulse of light two years ago. V838 Mon is located about 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Monoceros, placing the star at the outer edge of our Milky Way galaxy.

Credit:

NASA, the Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI) and ESA

Here are my thoughts.

A single light-year is approximately 6 trillion miles, or 9,460,730,472,580.8 kms for the metric brigade!  Thus 20,000 light-years is 120,000 trillion miles, or 120,000,000,000,000,000 miles.

It is beyond imagination – yet it is real!

It humbles one beyond measure that in this short lifetime on mine, science has reached out so far.  And then one looks more closely to home and remains appalled that we have learnt so little about living in peace and with integrity on this funny third rock from the Sun.

The ultimate paradox!

By Paul Handover

Let’s all pray to keep the flame of hope burning brightly for these guys.

On the 24th August, Learning from Dogs published a piece about 33 Chilean miners trapped underground.  I’m sure many read that.

Well the BBC are still covering the event and their news web site has an informative update on what is happening.

The plan to rescue the 33 men trapped 700m (2,300ft) underground in the San Jose copper mine in Chile is a complex undertaking that could take engineers until the end of the year to achieve.

In a similar operation in 2002, American rescuers spent two days drilling a hole just wide enough to fit a man to rescue nine miners trapped underground.

The Americans had to drill down just 74m. By comparison, the plan to rescue the 33 men in Chile nearly three quarters of a kilometre underground is a much greater challenge. But, says John Urosek, who took part in the 2002 Quecreek mine rescue in Pennsylvania, it is not “mission impossible.”

“I would put this at the tough end of things. It’s not mission impossible but it’s a difficult mission,” says Mr Urosek who is now chief of mine emergency operations for the US Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The key to the operation is the use of a specialist drilling machine, designed to bore deep narrow holes through any rock to a depth of just over a kilometre.

Strata 950 raise bore machine

Do read the article in full on the BBC site.

RUC Cementation in Australia have an interesting website that includes pictures of the Strata 950 bore machine that will be sinking the rescue shaft.

Best of luck to all involved and to all the families and friends having to sit this out!

By Paul Handover

A modern adaptation of World War II for the American teenager.

Hat tip George Foster on Facebook. The source is the website College Humor.

How it might have been reported

Rather neat!

By Paul Handover

A spotlight on some tough truths

I have long subscribed to Baseline Scenario and the latest article from James Kwak is a great example of why.

On August 23rd James published a Post with the compelling title of, “Housing in Ten Words”.  Here’s a flavour:

By James Kwak

“Housing Fades as a Means to Build Wealth, Analysts Say.” That’s the title of a New York Times article by David Streitfeld. Here’s most of the lead:

“Many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg.

“The wealth generated by housing in those decades, particularly on the coasts, did more than assure the owners a comfortable retirement. It powered the economy, paying for the education of children and grandchildren, keeping the cruise ships and golf courses full and the restaurants humming.

“More than likely, that era is gone for good.”

I’ve been telling my friends for a decade that housing is a bad investment. These are real housing prices over the past century, based on data collected by Robert Shiller:

Robert Schiller is, of course, the well-known Yale University professor who wrote the book, Irrational Exuberance.   From Wikipedia:

Irrational Exuberance is a March 2000 book written by Yale University professor Robert Shiller, named after Alan Greenspan‘s “irrational exuberance” quote. Published at the height of the dot-com boom, it put forth several arguments demonstrating how the stock markets were overvalued at the time. Shiller was soon proven right when the Nasdaq peaked on the very month of the book’s publication, and the stock markets collapsed right after.

The second edition of Irrational Exuberance published in 2005 is updated to cover the housing bubble, especially in the United States. Shiller writes that the real estate bubble may soon burst, and he supports his claim by showing that median home prices are now six to nine times greater than median income in some areas of the country. He also shows that home prices, when adjusted for inflation, have produced very modest returns of less than 1%/year.

Shiller proved right again as witnessed by the fall of the housing bubble which was in part responsible for the Worldwide recession of 2008-2009.

Anyway, do read the full article from James on Baseline Scenario as it has plenty of messages that are still critically important for those trying to work out where it’s all still heading, economically.

For my money, I still think that slowly but steadily we are reverting to the old mean of home prices being about 2 to 2.5 times average annual salaries. With the added proviso that I think that it is more than likely that average salaries will slowly decline on both sides of the Atlantic over the next few years.  Tough times indeed!

By Paul Handover

Even today, still an amazing film

Jean and I watched this film the other evening.  I have seen it a number of times but Jean just once before when it first was released in 1968!  Yes, over 40 years ago!

What struck me watching it today was how beautifully slow the film was.  I mean in the sense of camera and scene changes.  I had forgotten just how beautiful the film was from a technical perspective.  It held the eye and brain in a way that seemed so foreign to the way that films have been made in the last so many years.

WikiPedia has a very good summary of the film.

And there are more summaries on the INDB website, here’s an example:

“2001″ is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon’s surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.

The sign!

What is just as interesting is remembering the feelings that I had when I first saw the film, probably in 1968 or 1969, when I was living out in Australia, aged mid-twenties!

I was incredibly fascinated by the US expeditions out to the moon with the actual landing in July 1969.  Indeed, I rented a TV and took a complete week’s holiday from work just to watch every minute of this historical event.

So the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, seemed to capture, for me anyway, the feelings and mood of a brave new world reaching out beyond Planet Earth.  The year 2001 felt like aeons away.  It was obvious that when we eventually got to the 21st century, mankind would be unbelievably advanced in many exciting and positive ways.

Ah, the dreams of the naive young!

Now here we are heading towards the year 2011 and the world, I mean mankind, seems to be going where?  Here’s Jon Lavin’s rather sombre view:

Have been musing about the part failure of the Russian grain harvest and the resultant speculation, that has forced the grain price up astronomically, the impact on bread/food/beer etc., evidence of the same mentality that kicked the banks/investments recession off.

Also, the fact that Lloyds TSB are 43% owned by the British people and are charging interest on non-approved loans of 165% and have a bonus fund of half billion pounds that certainly they have not asked my permission about.

This continuing lack of integrity, in the face of food shortages, untold hardship for millions of people, just goes to show that until an absolute calamity strikes to stop the whole of mankind in our tracks, it’s business as usual for the financially-led people and get-rich-on-the-back-of-anything-and-anybody crowd.

Are we still at consciousness level 204 or have we crossed back below the threshold, back below integrity 200, where falsehood rules?

The answer is to retain faith in the future, faith in the power of love and compassion, and faith in the fact that being the best that we can be today, now, in the present, just as dogs are so wonderful at doing, will bring us the better tomorrows we all dreamed about in 1968.  Here’s a reminder:

By Paul Handover

P.S. Serendipity at work.  Saw this from the BBC less than 5 minutes after completing this Post!

A dog retrieves another dog hit on a busy Chilean highway.

This video has been widely circulated to many television stations around the world.  Some commentators say that the rescued dog lived.

Most who watch it think that the rescuer is risking its own life to save or retrieve the wounded dog.

Most who watch it also think that it is an amazing example of the love of a dog for another dog.

But the truth is probably less romantic.  Feral dogs do eat their brethren when the opportunity arises.  Having watched feral dogs in Mexico, it beggars belief as to the lengths that they will go to in order to survive.

Most likely this was the poor dog’s next meal being dragged off the highway.

By Paul Handover

It will take at least four months to rescue 33 miners trapped underground in Chile, the head of the rescue operation has said.

From the BBC.

Ouch, ouch and ouch!

So if you are having a bad day, stop and think about these 33 souls buried some 4.5 miles (7km) inside a Chilean mine some 2,300 feet (700m) down .

The announcement that they were still alive was made on Sunday by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

Surrounded by relatives of the miners who have gathered outside the mine, he held up a note from the miners saying: “All 33 of us are fine in the shelter.”

“It will take months to get them out,” Mr Pinera said. “They’ll come out thin and dirty, but whole and strong.”

Amen to that!

Todd Russell and Brant Webb endured 14 days in a Tasmanian mine in 2006.  This is what Todd told the BBC World Service:

Todd Russell, an Australian miner who was trapped 3,000ft underground in Tasmania after an earthquake in 2006, said he and a second miner who survived the collapse relied on each other for support.

“It’s amazing what your body can do,” he told the BBC World Service. “We survived on hope and courage, and each other, [and] we were lucky enough to have a bit of underground mine water.”

“They’re lucky that they’ve got 33 guys there with them that they can rely on each other,” Mr Russell said.

Here’s some footage of their rescue:

Let’s all pray that these 33 Chilean miners end up arm-in-arm back on the surface as Todd and Brant did.

Brant Webb and Todd Russell

By Paul Handover

Living it day-by-day, 70 years ago.

Just a quick follow-on from the Post yesterday to say that the BBC have published an excellent graphic that allows one to review the events of the Battle of Britain day-by-day.

The link is here – well worth looking at.  If only because it shows that the week of the 23rd August 1940 was one of the more bloody weeks in the whole battle.  From that BBC web page:

The defence of Britain by RAF Fighter Command against extensive air raids by the German Luftwaffe in 1940 ensured Britain’s survival and blocked the possibility of invasion. Roll over the graphic to see the daily toll inflicted on men and machine in the Battle of Britain and read James Holland’s commentary on why Germany lost.

Very sombering.

By Paul Handover

Seventy years on – many still remember.

Many of the English readers of Learning from Dogs will comfortably skip this Post as already much of the news has been reporting the fact that we are 70 years after the Battle of Britain in 1940.

But for those that are from other places, where the BoB is not in the psyche of their national bloodstream, these links may be of interest.

The BBC has been doing well in presenting material.

Here’s a good piece setting the scene:

While memories of the Battle of Britain remain fresh in the minds of The Few who flew, and the staff who supported them, veterans fear its significance could soon be forgotten by others.

The Luftwaffe lost 1,733 aircraft and the RAF 915 in the Battle of Britain

Seventy years ago the RAF was locked in a life and death struggle with the Luftwaffe in the skies over England.

The three weeks between mid-August and early September in 1940 were decisive for the Battle of Britain.

The bravery of the RAF pilots was captured in Winston Churchill’s speech on 20 August when he said “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.

Those left of The Few, as those pilots became known, are now in their 90s. Some of them fear they will soon not be around to remind people of the events that summer.

And if you want a flavour of what it was like to fly a Spitfire, then click here – excellent piece from Evan Davis of the BBC.

Seventy years on from the Battle of Britain, can the current generation comprehend what it is like to fly a Spitfire?

To find out, BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter Evan Davis took a flight with The Aircraft Restoration Company’s chief engineer and test pilot John Romain.

See more on the Today website.

Well done, lads. And thank you!

And a thank-you to my Uncle who, despite being rather ill, is still alive.  He was in the RAF and stationed at Biggin Hill during those demanding months in 1940.

By Paul Handover