Year: 2010

Reflections on the Blog

To the many loyal readers of Learning from Dogs

This Blog has been running since July 15th 2009.  As of yesterday, there had been 777 posts – a nicely rounded number if nothing else.  It has been and continues to be a great way of communicating with the wider world.

However, both Jon and I are facing a number of challenges that make it very difficult to maintain a Post a day as it has been, more or less, since the start in 2009.

Jon is in the last few months of completing a Master’s degree with huge demands on his creative time.  I have volunteered to take a full US Pilot’s Licence and Instrument Rating with a great school down in Scottsdale, Phoenix, essentially building on my UK private flying experience that goes back to 1981.  This is going to keep me pretty well occupied until the end of February, 2011.  Both of us have private family lives that mustn’t be encroached upon (Jon does a much better job at this than me!).

On reflecting on this Blog, I have realised that the old salesman in me has tripped me up.  In the sense that we have developed a virtual relationship with many hundreds of readers that, I think, includes the expectation of a new Post every day.  But the reality is that any Blog that is written without a commercial angle, as with Learning from Dogs, should be more a reflection of what stimulates the Blog authors than trying to ‘serve’ a market – that’s the old salesman mistake!

So on the basis that this Blog is about integrity and why dogs set such a wonderful example of integrous behaviour, there is going to be a change of emphasis.

  • The Blog will continue to publish articles focussed close to the theme as expressed here.
  • We will continue to publish other pieces, including humorous items, if they are worth sharing (agreed a subjective measure).
  • We will continue to publish articles from Guest authors.
  • If pressures or circumstances conspire to mean that a Blog article isn’t published every single day, then that will be just the way it is – Jon and I are not going to beat ourselves up about it!

In the next few days, the Blog is going to pass the 100,000 readers mark since it started.  You have to realise how much that means to all the people who have written for Learning from Dogs.  Thank you!

Any ideas, comments or feedback to the above?  Please let us know.

Beauty of flight

There’s more to flying than many of us realise.

Thanks to Mike T who I have known for a few years now.  Mike is an air traffic controller as well as being a keen private pilot so if there is one person who can see through the telescope from both ends, it’s this man.

Anyway, GE Aviation are one of the big players in aviation.  Here’s a quote from the website that I am going to link you to in a moment.

GE Aviation designs engines, flightpaths, and advanced aircraft systems. And we wanted to share the intricate choreography of flying in all its glory.

 

Dancing in the air!

 

Here’s the video – just 1:48 long – it’s captivating.  This link takes you to the GE web page where there is much more of great interest other than the video.

If you only want to watch the video then, of course, there’s a copy on YouTube, as below.  Enjoy!

Thanks Mike.

By Paul Handover

More on silence, Concluding Part Three

From out of silence come all the answers we need.

To read the introduction to the first part, published yesterday, and watch video parts 1 to 4 go here.

To watch video parts 5 to 8 go here.

Part Nine

Part Ten

Part Eleven

Part Twelve

May you be in peace.

By Jon Lavin

 

 

More on silence, Part Two

From out of silence come all the answers we need.

To read the introduction to the first part, published yesterday, and watch video parts 1 to 4 go here.

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Parts nine to twelve tomorrow.

Enjoy.

By Jon Lavin

More on silence

From out of silence come all the answers we need.

On the 2nd November, I wrote an article speaking of the fabulous programme that had been aired on the BBC Two channel of BBC TV.  While it was available on the BBC’s iPlayer for viewers in the UK, this is not the perfect vehicle for all those who would have been interested in watching the three episodes.

Thus I am delighted to see that the full set of three programmes has been uploaded to YouTube.  They are broken down into twelve parts so to make the watching process more digestible, I propose to create three Posts with four segments in each Post.  The first four video segments are below.

But to recap what was written just over a month ago.

Like many others, I saw the first episode of the BBC2 television programme, The Big Silence. It clearly touched many people. (Useful links at the very end of this article.)

I wanted to throw a bit of light on this fascinating subject.  As the five people in the TV programme all readily admit, real silence is rather scary to them.

Why would something so wished for by so many – an hour doing absolutely nothing – be sufficiently scary that, in reality, the majority will do everything in their power to avoid silence?

We all have unhappy demons, OK some more than others.  We start to hear them when we gift our bodies and minds the grace of real silence.  I deliberately included the word ‘bodies’ even though silence is a ‘mind’ thing because resting our bodies with regular silence will also be very therapeutic for us.

What does coming to terms mean?  It means giving space to those inner thoughts so that one can clearly hear them.  You probably won’t make sense of them, indeed they may have a great unsettling effect, but they won’t hurt you.

Indeed, it’s when we try and stop those inner demons that they manifest themselves in many other ways: fidgeting, funny little unexplained aches, itchy skin, short-tempers, constant feeding of the ego, and on and on and on.

A good indication of what’s going on ‘under the bonnet’, so to speak, is to see if you can sit still in a relaxed manner for just 15 minutes.

Want more from that earlier Post?  Here’s the link.

Now to the first set of four YouTube videos:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Parts five to eight tomorrow.

Enjoy.

By Jon Lavin

A wise old bird.

Another wonderful guest post from Chris Snuggs on the back of his popular piece last Friday.

An elderly man in Florida had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back. It was properly shaped for swimming, so he fixed it up nice with picnic tables, some orange and lime trees.

One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn’t been there for a while, to look it over. He grabbed a five-gallon bucket to bring back some fruit. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee.

Coming closer, he saw it was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end.

One of the women shouted to him, ‘We’re not coming out until you leave!‘

The old man frowned, ‘I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.. ‘

Holding the bucket up he said, ‘I’m here to feed the alligator.‘

What a laugh!


 

Day off!

Apologies to all the many readers of Learning from Dogs but events over the last couple of days have conspired to keep me away from the PC and there just wasn’t time to publish something for today.

Nature can be very cruel

This is a guest Post from Chris Snuggs, a good friend of Learning from Dogs.

Dog Pack Attacks Alligator In Florida

At times nature can be cruel, but there is also a raw beauty, and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty. The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators, normally considered the “apex predator”, can still fall victim to implemented ‘team work’ strategy, made possible due to the tight knit social structure and “survival of the pack mentality” bred into the canines.

See the remarkable photograph below courtesy of Nature Magazine.

Note that the Alpha dog has a muzzle hold on the gator preventing it from breathing, while another dog has a hold on the tail to keep it from thrashing.  The third dog attacks the soft underbelly of the gator.


This is pretty gruesome, so I have made a link to it instead
of showing it at once in case you would prefer not to see it.

More about Chris here.

But really the Irish are no fools!

Ever wondered how the Irish bailout really works?

I posted a rather tongue-in-cheek item on the Irish situation yesterday.  Anyway, a good friend, Peter M, sent the in following to illustrate both the complexity and, in the end, the delightful simplicity of the Irish bailout.  Read on.

It is a slow day in a damp little Irish town. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.

On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the town, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.

The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer.

The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers’ Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the pub. The publican slips the money along to the local prostitute drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him “services” on credit.

The hooker then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town!

No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.

"Money in circulation!"

Thanks Peter – a wonderful tale!

By Paul Handover

A little bit of old Irish!

Sorry, dear readers, a bit squeezed for time today so apologies for republishing a few bits and pieces that have caught my eye about the Irish situation.

First, who would want to be Irish Prime Minister?

The Irish Republic‘s prime minister (taoiseach) is facing parliament for the first time since agreeing to borrow 85bn euros ($113bn; £72bn).

Brian Cowen is answering questions in the Dail as the opposition Labour Party argues that the EU/IMF rescue will ruin the country.

Ireland faces four years of austerity to reduce its deficit from a record 32% of GDP to the eurozone limit of 3%.

Who else thinks that it would make so much more impact on folk if ‘bn’ was replaced with zeros.  If that was the case then the first sentence would read,

The Irish Republic’s prime minister (taoiseach) is facing parliament for the first time since agreeing to borrow 85,000,000,000 euros ($113,000,000,000; £72,000,000,000).

Ouch!

In 2009 the World Bank  estimated the Irish population to be 4,450,000.  So this little borrowing for their country is the equivalent of 19,101 euros for every man, woman and child.

Is there an alternative?  Yes, according to a suggestion from a reader of Yves Smith’s fabulous Blog, Naked Capitalism.

This suggestion on the Irish mess from an irreverent Commonwealth reader:

The UK conquest of Ireland began in 1169.

It’s time to finish the job.

All they have to do is offer the following:

Ireland converts all its public debt to sterling.

The UK Treasury takes over the responsibility for all of Ireland’s existing public debt.

(Ireland gets a clean start with no Irish govt. debt and not interest payments)

Ireland taxes and spends in sterling only and has a balanced budget requirement.

Ireland can borrow only for capital expenditures.

The UK Treasury guarantees all existing insured euro bank deposits in Irish banks.

Only sterling deposits are insured for new deposits.

Ireland runs a mirror tax code to the UK and keeps all of its tax revenues.

The UK agrees to fund Ireland’s with a pro rata/per capita share of any UK deficit spending.

St. Patrick’s Day is declared a UK national holiday and everyone over 21 gets a beer voucher.

No comment from me required!

By Paul Handover