Category: Culture

Consciousness, science or God?

More of Peter Russell’s insightful ideas.

It was back in March, the 8th to be precise, when I first wrote about Peter Russell.  Well just over a week ago, I came across another article by Russell from the Huffington Post.  It was then a moment’s work to find it on Peter Russell’s own website.  (This links to various essays on the topic.)

Here’s a ‘taste’ from the first essay.

The Anomaly of Consciousness

Excerpted from book From Science to God

Science has had remarkable success in explaining the structure and functioning of the material world, but when it comes to the inner world of the mind science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world. In a strange way, scientists would be much happier if there were no such thing as consciousness.

David Chalmers, professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona, calls this the “hard problem” of consciousness. The so-called “easy problems” are those concerned with brain function and its correlation with mental phenomena: how, for example, we discriminate, categorize, and react to stimuli; how incoming sensory data are integrated with past experience; how we focus our attention; and what distinguishes wakefulness from sleep.

It would be wrong to publish anything more so if you are interested in more, then go here and pick away or better still buy the book!

If you have a quiet 30 minutes, settle down and watch these videos

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Disconnected.

Travelling the 5,200 miles, give or take, between Payson (AZ) and London (UK)

Apologies for a slightly reduced service over the next 10 days but Monday 6th June finds me travelling from Phoenix to Dallas, and then Dallas to London Heathrow.  This as a result of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) granting me permanent residence (the Green Card) in April and thus me being able to travel back to England to see my new grandson for the first time.

So just a few thoughts, courtesy of Terry Hershey.  I subscribe to his weekly Sabbath Moment and they always contain some beautiful sayings and other gems.  Take these for example, from his Sabbath Moment of the 30th May.

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile. . .initially scared me to death.  Betty Bender

Betty Bender

Or what about this?

To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself. Soren Kierkegaard

A quick search reveals from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy that,

Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (b. 1813, d. 1855) was a profound and prolific writer in the Danish “golden age” of intellectual and artistic activity. His work crosses the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent mixture of discourses to bear as social critique and for the purpose of renewing Christian faith within Christendom. At the same time he made many original conceptual contributions to each of the disciplines he employed. He is known as the “father of existentialism”, but at least as important are his critiques of Hegel and of the German romantics, his contributions to the development of modernism, his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation of biblical figures to bring out their modern relevance, his invention of key concepts which have been explored and redeployed by thinkers ever since, his interventions in contemporary Danish church politics, and his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise Christian faith.

OK, dear readers, from somewhere over who knows where!

More poetic praise for dogs

A poem by George Crabbe.

I don’t recall who it was who passed this poem to me so apologies for that.

Also a trawl around the Internet can’t find the name of the poem although it is referred to several times as a quote from the late George Crabbe.

George Crabbe

Anyway, quote or poem, here it is:

With eye upraised his master’s look to scan,
The joy, the solace, and the aid of man:
The rich man’s guardian and the poor man’s friend,
The only creature faithful to the end.

George Crabbe

However my trawl for more details about the poem did lead to some interesting background information about this writer.

From the website, Our Civilisation

George Crabbe

(1754-1832)

George Crabbe combined three careers: doctor, minister, and writer. Born in Aldeburgh, a fishing village in Suffolk, he served his apprenticeship to an apothecary, and then set up as a surgeon-apothecary in 1775. He abandoned this career four years later and went to London to earn his living as a writer. In 1782 he was ordained priest and became chaplain to the Duke of Rutland. He held several livings thereafter, and finally in 1814 became rector of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, where he spent the rest of his life.

Crabbe’s long literary career divides into two parts: the poems, — notably ‘The Village‘ (1783), published during or shortly after his early stay in London; and the long series of works beginning with ‘Poems‘ (1807), which includes ‘The Parish Register‘ and ‘Sir Eustace Grey‘;’The Borough‘ (1810), ‘Tales in Verse‘ (1812), ‘Tales of the Hall‘ (1819), and the inferior ‘Posthumous Tales‘ (1834). This series shows Crabbe moving from static description and portrait toward narrative, until he achieves something which approaches a group of linked short stories in verse. His work, in its low-keyed, realistic, unsentimental picture of rural life, represents less the last gasp of eighteenth-century poetry than a reaction to it different in direction from Wordsworth’s. It is indicative of the kind of work Crabbe produced that Thomas Hardy admired and was influenced by him.

Also Wikipedia has an extensive entry for Crabbe that starts,

George Crabbe (24 December 1754 – 3 February 1832) was an English poet and naturalist.

He was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the son of a tax collector, and developed his love of poetry as a child. In 1768, he was apprenticed to a local doctor, who taught him little, and in 1771 he changed masters and moved to Woodbridge. There he met his future wife, Sarah Elmy, who accepted his proposal and had the faith and patience not only to wait for Crabbe but to encourage his verse writing. His first major work, a poem entitled “Inebriety”, was self-published in 1775. By this time he had completed his medical training, and had decided to take up writing seriously. In 1780, he went to London, where he had little success, but eventually made an impression on Edmund Burke, who helped him have his poem, The Library, published in 1781. In the meantime, Crabbe’s religious nature had made itself felt, and he was ordained a clergyman and became chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire.

The two works for which Crabbe became best known were The Village (1783) and The Borough (1810), both lengthy poems dealing with the way of life he had experienced. In 1783, he also married Sarah. In 1814, he became Rector of Trowbridge in Wiltshire, where he remained. By the time of his death, he was well regarded and a friend of William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott and other major literary figures of the time.

Praise poetic for man’s best friend

Thanks to Neil K in Devon for drawing my attention to this poem.

Four-Feet by Rudyard Kipling

I have done mostly what most men do,
And pushed it out of my mind;
But I can’t forget, if I wanted to,
Four-Feet trotting behind.

Day after day, the whole day through —
Wherever my road inclined —
Four-feet said, “I am coming with you!”
And trotted along behind.

Now I must go by some other round, —
Which I shall never find —
Somewhere that does not carry the sound
Of Four-Feet trotting behind.

Rudyard Kipling

Practice makes perfect

A personal musing about the value of training.

A good friend here in Payson, himself a former ‘lamplighter’ forwarded me an email with a link to a video taken using the Head-Up-Display (HUD) camera which  also has a voice recorder.

F-16 fighter/attack aircraft

This is the email,

Here’s the F-16 dead stick into Elizabeth City, NC: A fairly short  RWY for jets, (about 6000 ft long), but qualifies for an  “Emergency landing field” in the grand scheme of US  aviation.

You’ll probably have to watch the video several times to appreciate  how intense the situation and how busy the pilot was all the way to  stopping on the runway.  Very apparently, the pilot was one-of-four  F-16s in a flight returning to their base, (most probably from  the Navy Dare bombing range south of Manteo), and the F-16  in question had already reported a “Ruff-Running Engine” to his flight  leader before the start of the video.
A few comments not readily apparent are:

  • The whole episode, from start-to-finish only takes about 3 1/2  minutes!
  • The video begins as the flight is being followed on radar.
The flight leader asks for the Elizabeth City tower UHF freq which  is repeated as 355.6 and the entire flight switches to that freq: Just  one-more-task for the pilot to execute in the cockpit as he reports that  his engine has QUIT.  He has to activate the Emergency Unit to  maintain electric and hydraulic power.  This unit is powered by  Hydrazine:  (the caustic fuel that Germany created in WW II to  power their V-2 Rockets and their ME-163 rocket fighters among  others.) Thus, the last call about requesting fire support after the  jet is safe on deck, and pilot breathing easy.

Meanwhile, back in the cockpit, the pilot is busily attempting to  “Re-light” his engine: (Unsuccessfully, of course) while tending to  everything else.  The video is taken using the Head-Up-Display (HUD) camera which  also has a voice recorder.

The HUD is a very busy instrument, but among things to notice  are the ‘circle’ in the middle which represents the nose of the aircraft  and where it is ‘pointed’: “The velocity Vector”.

The flight leader reports they are 7-miles out from the airport and  at 9000 ft altitude.  Since the weather is clear and the airport is  in sight, this allows for adequate “Gliding distance” to reach a  runway with the engine OFF.  Rest assured, jet fighters glide sorta like a rock.  They don’t enjoy the higher lift design of an airliner like that which allowed Sullenburger to land in the  NY river.

Coming down 9000 ft in only 7-miles requires a helluva rate of  descent, so the pilot’s nose remains well below the “Horizon” until just  prior to touching down on the runway.  The HUD horizon is a solid,  lateral bar, and below the horizon, the horizontal lines appear as dashes.  You’ll see a “10” on the second dashed line below the horizon which =  10-degrees nose low.

Radio chatter includes the flight leader calling the  tower and the tower stating runway 10 with wind 070 @ 5 mph with the altimeter setting of 30.13, yet  another step for the pilot to consider.
The flight leader calls for the pilot to jettison his external fuel  tanks and askes another pilot in the flight to “Mark” where they  dropped.  The tower later tells the pilot to land on any runway he  chooses.
Pilot reports “Three in the green” indicating all three gear  indicate down and locked which the flight leader acknowledges.
You will hear the computer voice of “Bitchin’-Betty” calling out  “Warnings”.  More confusing chatter when none is welcome or even  necessary.  (That’s “Hi-Tech” for ya.)

The pilot has only ONE CHANCE to get this right and must also slow  to an acceptable landing speed in order to stop on the short runway.   You’ll see Black rubber on the rwy where “The rubber meets the road” in  the touchdown area.  Note that during rollout, he gets all the way to the far end which you can see by all the black skid marks where planes have landed heading in the opposite direction.

OK: That’s more than ya probably wanted to know, but you have to  appreciate the fine job this guy did in calmly managing this emergency  situation.  He is a “USAF Reserve” pilot and those guys generally have plenty of experience.  That really pays off.

Please scroll down for the link  + Enjoy.

The pilot just saved  about $20+m at his own  risk…….Great job!  Note  the breathing rate on the hot mic and also the sink rate  (airspeed  tape on the left side of the heads up  display.)

Pretty  cool guy!!!

See  if you can keep all of the radio transmissions  straight.

Probably  the coolest sounding voice in the whole mix is the pilot of the  engine out aircraft.

Just  a reminder an F-16 has only one engine.  When  it goes, you are coming down. It  is just a matter of figuring out where the airplane will come to  rest on terra firma.

(Cut N Paste if a click doesn’t open this link )

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/SUPERGT/3384/

Note: For  those not familiar, the EPU (Electrical Power Unit) provides  hydraulic and electrical power in event of failure of the engine,  electrical or hydraulics.  The  EPU is powered by Hydrazine which decomposes into hot gasses as it  passes across a catalyst bed or engine bleed air (if  available).  The  hot air passes through a turbine which drives the emergency  hydraulic pump and generator through a gear  box.

The video is also on YouTube, as below,

Most people are aware of the value of training and experience that saved, in this case, the US taxpayer a large pile of money.

Now onto a much more tragic case, the loss of Air France Flight AF 447 that went down on 1 June 2009 after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm, four hours into a flight from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris.  AF 447 was an Airbus A330-203 aircraft registered F-GZCP.

Many will recall that earlier on in May the second of the ‘black boxes’ or flight recorders was found.  Here’s how Bloomberg reported that,

Air crash investigators retrieved the second of two black boxes from the Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic in 2009, which may help them unlock the mysteries of the crash after two years.

“They appear to be in a good state,” said Jean-Paul Troadec, head of the BEA, the French air crash investigator that has been probing the accident that killed all 228 people aboard a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. “The first thing is to dry them, prepare them, which needs about a day.” Once the boxes arrive in BEA’s offices, in about 10 days, “the reading of information would be pretty fast,” he said.

Full article is here.

Those who wish to read the report issued by the French Authorities may find it here.  The summary from the report concludes,

NEW FINDINGS

At this stage of the investigation, as an addition to the BEA interim reports of 2 July and 17 December 2009, the following new facts have been established:

  • ˆ The composition of the crew was in accordance with the operator’s procedures.
  • ˆ At the time of the event, the weight and balance of the airplane were within the operational limits.
  • ˆ At the time of the event, the two co-pilots were seated in the cockpit and the Captain was resting. The latter returned to the cockpit about 1 min 30 after the disengagement of the autopilot.
  • ˆ There was an inconsistency between the speeds displayed on the left side and the integrated standby instrument system (ISIS). This lasted for less than one minute.
  • ˆ After the autopilot disengagement:
    • „ the airplane climbed to 38,000 ft,
    • „ the stall warning was triggered and the airplane stalled,
    • „ the inputs made by the PF were mainly nose-up,
    • „ the descent lasted 3 min 30, during which the airplane remained stalled. The angle of
    • attack increased and remained above 35 degrees,
    • „ the engines were operating and always responded to crew commands.
  • ˆ The last recorded values were a pitch attitude of 16.2 degrees nose-up, a roll angle of 5.3 degrees left and a vertical speed of -10,912 ft/min.

If my maths is correct a descent speed of 10,912 feet per minute is the equivalent of 124 miles per hour!

Anyway, I am advised by someone who is a very experienced Airbus captain that the odds of a stall in the cruise for a commercial airliner are extremely low, sufficiently so that it is not something that is regular covered during crew recurrent training sessions.

Here’s a short news video from ABC News.

The ballad of a burnt biscuit

Striving to be better is a key lesson of life!

I’m normally pretty cautious about promoting the sorts of emails that circulate around the virtual globe carrying universal lessons for all and sundry but this one is an exception.  It was sent to me last Monday by my dear friend, Dan G. from Southern California, with whom I have had the great honour and pleasure to be close friends for forty years.  Here it is.

Burned Biscuits-author unknown

When I was a kid, my Mom liked to make breakfast food for dinner every now and then. And I remember one night in particular when she had made breakfast after a long, hard day at work. On that evening so long ago, my Mom placed a plate of eggs, sausage and extremely burned  biscuits in front of my dad. I remember waiting to see if  anyone noticed! Yet all
my dad did  was reach for his biscuit, smile at my Mom and ask me how my day was at school. I don’t remember what I told him that night, but I do remember watching him smear butter and jelly on that  biscuit and eat every bite!

When I got up from the table that evening, I remember hearing my Mom apologize to my dad for burning the biscuits. And I’ll never forget what he said: “Honey, I love burned biscuits.” Later that night, I went to kiss Daddy good night and I asked him if he really liked his biscuits burned. He wrapped me in his arms and said, “Your Momma put in a hard day at work today and she’s real tired. And besides – a  little burned biscuit never hurt anyone!”

Life is full of imperfect things and imperfect people. I’m not the best at hardly anything, and I forget birthdays and anniversaries just like everyone else. But what I’ve learned over the years is that learning to accept each others faults – and choosing to celebrate each others differences – is one  of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing, and lasting relationship.

And that’s my prayer for you today. That you will learn to take the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God.  Because in the end, He’s the only One who will be able to give you a relationship where a burnt biscuit isn’t a deal-breaker!

We could extend this to any relationship. In fact, understanding is the base of any relationship, be it a husband-wife or parent-child or friendship!

“Don’t put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket – keep it in your own.”

So, please pass me a biscuit, and yes, the burned one will do just fine. Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Thanks Dan for sharing that.

Believe nothing but …

Just a snippet for this Sunday.
Nipper - the listening dog.

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. From the sayings of the Buddha.

You all have a great week ahead.

More on Bill McKibben’s book, eaarth.

Some very telling points.

I first mentioned this book on the 13th May when I was about a third of the way in.  Because I thought there might be material useful to the course that has been running here in Payson, I did skip around the book looking for ‘attention-grabbing’ points.  It wasn’t difficult to find numerous extracts.

Try this on page 214 from the Chapter Afterword.

As it turns out, however, the BP spill was not the most dangerous thing that happened in the months after this book was first published.  In fact, in the spring and summer of 2101, the list of startling events in the natural world included:

  • Nineteen nations setting new all-time high temperature records, which in itself is a record.  Some of those records were for entire regions – [then some of the details]
  • Scientists reported that the earth had just come through the warmest six months, the warmest year, and the warmest decade for which we have records; it appears 2010 will be the warmest calendar year on record.
  • The most protracted and extreme heat wave in a thousand years of Russian history (it had never before topped 100 degrees in Moscow) led to a siege of peat fires that shrouded the capital in ghostly, deadly smoke.  [Then goes on to mention the effect of this heat on global grain prices.]
  • Since warm air holds more water vapour that cold air, scientists were not surprised to see steady increases in flooding.  Still, the spring and summer of 2010 were off the charts.  We saw “thousand-year storms” across the globe [goes into details]
  • Meanwhile, in the far north, the Petermann Glacier on Greenland calved an iceberg four times the size of Manhattan.
  • And the most ominous news of all might have come from the pages of the eminent scientific journal Nature, which published an enormous study of the productivity of the earth’s seas. [More details follow – not good news!]
That last point can be read in more detail from Nature‘s website.  It’s here.
The book closes thus (referring to how the BP oil spill was, ultimately, an accident),
But the greatest danger we face, climate change, is no accident.  It’s what happens when everything goes the way it’s supposed to go.  It’s not a function of bad technology, it’s a function of a bad business model: of the fact that Exxon Mobil and BP and Peabody Coal are allowed to use the atmosphere, free of charge, as an open sewer for the inevitable waste from their products.  They’ll fight to the end to defend that business model, for it produces greater profits that any industry has ever known.  We won’t match them dollar for dollar: To fight back, we need a different currency, our bodies and our spirit and our creativity.  That’s what a movement looks like; let’s hope we can rally one in time to make a difference.
Powerful stuff from a powerful book.
Fired up?  Then go and join:  350.org

Racing in the Rain

A dog story for a man.

Thanks to Steve D. from the congregation here in Payson for mentioning this book.  Certainly one for my next Amazon order.

There’s a trailer on YouTube concerning the book, which is summarised as follows,

A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.

So who is Garth Stein?  Well, of course, he has his own website, from which may be read,

Garth Stein is the author of the New York Times best selling literary novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain (Harper, 2008). Now published in 23 languages, The Art of Racing in the Rainwas the #1 BookSense selection for June, 2008, the Starbucks spring/summer 2008 book selection, and has been on the IndieBound™ bestseller list since its publication. Stein’s previous novel, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets (Soho Press, 2005) won a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and was a BookSense Pick in both hardcover and paperback. Raven Stole the Moon (Harper, 2010) was Stein’s first novel. He has also written a full-length play, Brother Jones, and produced a number of award-winning documentaries.

With an M.F.A. in film from Columbia University (1990), Garth worked as a documentary film maker for several years, and directed, produced, or co-produced several award winning films.

Born in Los Angeles and raised in Seattle, Garth’s ancestry is diverse: his mother, a native of Alaska, is of Tlingit Indian and Irish descent; his father, a Brooklyn native, is the child of Jewish emigrants from Austria. After spending his childhood in Seattle and then living in New York City for 18 years, Garth returned to Seattle, where he currently lives with his wife, three sons, and their dog, Comet.

There is also an adaptation for young persons,

Have you ever wondered what your dog is thinking?

Meet one funny dog—-Enzo, the lovable mutt who tells this story. Enzo knows he is different from other dogs. Every dog loves to chase cars, but Enzo longs to race them. He learns by watching TV and by listening to his best friend, Denny, an up-and-coming race-car driver, and his daughter, Zoe, his constant companion. Enzo finds that life just like being on the racetrack. For he sees that life, like racing, isn’t simply about going fast. And, by learning the tricks of racing against all odds, he takes on his family’s challenges and emerges a hero. Enzo holds in his heart the dream that Denny will go on to be a racing champion with his daughter right by his side. For theirs is an extraordinary friendship—one that reminds us all to celebrate the triumph of the human (and canine) spirit.

“The race is long. It is better to drive within oneself and finish the race behind the other than it is to drive too hard and crash.”

That’s the wisdom of Enzo, a dog with a lot to say about cars and life. When THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN — Garth Stein’s novel about Enzo and his owners — was published in 2008, readers immediately fell in love with Enzo, and the book has been a New York Times bestseller ever since. That’s because, once people finish reading the novel, they want to tell everybody about it.

Here’s a video of about 3 minutes where Garth Stein explains how he came to write the book.

Plus if you want a longer version, then the following is an  interview of Garth with Stacey Cochran on “The Artist’s Craft” on Raleigh Television Network Channel 10.

Greece, or grease?

The agony of watching a country (and a planet) slip.

Readers will be aware that I very rarely stroll through the tangled pastures of international politics and finance.  The only reason that I do so today is on the back of a very impressive letter published in the German newspaper  Handelsblatt.  That was brought to my attention by my subscription to Mike Shedlock’s (Mish) Blog Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis.  You will see that I muse at two levels about where we are today.

Earlier, I had read in last Saturday’s, The Economist a leader on Greece’s debt crisis, entitled Trichet the intransigent.   That started thus,

The European Central Bank’s refusal to consider a restructuring of Greek debt could wreck the euro zone
May 12th 2011 | from the print edition

IF THE stakes were not so high, Europeans’ incompetence in the euro-zone debt crisis would be comic.

and concluded thus,

It is time for the Germans and the IMF to call the ECB’s bluff. Together they should demand, and instigate, a restructuring of Greek debt. Germany should push other European governments to cough up money to support Greek banks and, if necessary, to make whole the ECB. The fund, which knows how to restructure debt, must ensure the process is run in a competent manner. The ECB will then be faced with a choice: go along with an orderly restructuring, or trigger a much greater mess by in effect forcing Greece out of the euro zone. Surely Mr Trichet does not want that to be his legacy.

So with that as background, the letter to Georgios Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece written by Gabor Steingart is powerful and hard hitting.  Here it is in full.

Mr. Prime Minister,

Dear Mr. Papandreou,

With the greatest respect, the Western world is monitoring your efforts to master your country’s debt crisis. No other democratic country has ever managed anything like that in peacetime. You are shrinking the state apparatus; you are fighting corruption; you are teaching your fellow countrymen how to become honest tax-payers.

You are a modern hero. You are attempting the impossible. As the son of a persecuted and ostracized politician who was chased by the military junta you grew up close to danger. When the officers were looking for your father who was hiding in the attic, they threatened you by putting an unlocked pistol to your forehead and challenged you to betray your father. You denied your father’s presence until he, worried about his son’s life, left his hiding place.Later you fled with him to America where you spent your adolescence. You are alarger-than-life-character.

Preceding governments almost ruined your country. Debts amounting to 340 billion Euros are burdening the Greek state,equaling 155 times the profit of the 60 largest companies of your country and 1.5 times the amount of debts the Maastricht Treaty allows. A year ago, this newspaper, Germany’s biggest Business Daily, appealed to the public to buy Greek government bonds in order to give to the country what Greece needs just as urgently as money: confidence. We also wanted to assist in breaking through the negative spiral of growing doubt and increasing interest rates. Everyone who granted you guarantees and loans wanted it, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the heads of state and government.

But since then, the spiral has picked up in speed instead of slowing down. In May 2010 the interest rate at which your country was given money on a ten year basis was at eight per cent. Today, it is at 16 per cent. And in all probability, it will be going up further. The bitter truth to which you and all parties who wanted to help Greece have to admit is that the help doesn’t help. Your country is getting deeper and deeper into the mess. Debts are growing, the gross national product will decrease by at least three per cent in 2011. But it would have to grow by three per cent instead if you were to lower your debt to the allowedlimit until 2040. This is becoming more and more unrealistic. You can’t starve and build up your muscles at the same time.

The truth that Greece has to cut back and save has turned into an untruth. The right thing has turned into the wrong thing. You already cut pensions, lowered the salaries of civil servants by 30 per cent and raised the prices of gas by almost 50 per cent. You can’t restore the health of your country by saving. And the European Union can’t restore your country’s health by again and again injecting new loans.

Soon, the day will come when the tortured body will surrender. The Greek construction industry already shrank by 70 per cent. Sales of car dealers sank by half. A daily export volume of 50 million Euros Greece is achieving  far too little.  Soon the day will come which investors fear in their nightmares. Then the word “insolvency” will be on everyone’s lips.

But it is also the day when a new truth will be born: Don’t save but invest, they will tell you – so that the Greek economy will grow again. Do not service debt with debt, you then will be recommended, but spread out the debt service, cut it and maybe even completely suspend it for a while. It will be a day of impositions, especially for those who lendmoney to you and your people. Financial markets will grind to a halt in horror – and then they will turn to embrace the future. Because Argentina in 2001, Mexico at the beginning of the eighties and Germany after World War II taught us that there is a life after death – at least, in the case of highly indebted states.

Mr. Papandreou, so far, you attempted the impossible. Now you should do the possible. Just as you deceived the officers as a boy and denied to know where your father was hiding you now must repudiate the pride of the Greeks – in order to save your country. Come to meet the new uncomfortable truth before it knocks at your door. It’s already on its way.

Respectfully yours,

Gabor Steingart

The author is an award winning Journalist, the former White House Correspondent of “Der Spiegel” and now Handelsblatt’s  Editor-in-Chief.  His book “The war for wealth. The true story of globalization or while the flat world is broken” was  published in the US, GB, China and several other countries by McGraw Hill, New York, in 2008.

You may contact him at

steingart@handelsblatt.com


Powerful, as I said.

In a sense, in a very real sense, this illustration of the end game of our love affair with debt is symptomatic of the end game in terms of mankind’s love affair with, well with mankind.  The following was written by an inmate of Oklahoma Prison in 1998.

At the root of my humanity lies a potentially insatiable self-centredness.  Given its way, it can become unquenchable. Nothing, not even the richest of imagination, will put out its fire.

This ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset is at the root of all my problems and is where my fears live.  From those fears come anger, greed, intolerance, and a host of other shortcomings.

It is no accident that all religions point to the forgetting of self, because all religions know salvation lies in self-forgetting.

As we head relentlessly towards a level of 400 parts per million (PPM) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 50 PPM above the highest safe limit determined by climate scientists, the time for mankind to move on from the debt-laden, over-leveraged, disconnected life from Planet Earth, is now.

That’s now!