Category: History

Afghanistan and truth!

“But better to be hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”

The quote is from the film, The Kite Runner, which was based on the book  of the same name written by Khaled Hosseini.

This Post is not about taking a position, at any level, about the West’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan – far too dangerous territory!  But it is a reflection on what truth means.

At first that proposition might appear bizarre, of course we know what truth means. My Thesaurus offers three meanings: Correspondence with fact or truth; Freedom from deceit or falseness; The quality of being actual or factual.  Clear?  H’mmm not really in this instance.

OK, to the motivation behind this article.

Last Sunday two outwardly disconnected actions came together, as often seems to happen, to cause me to ponder on how my opinions are formed.  The actions concerned Afghanistan.

The first was that a friend from the congregation gave me his copy of TIME Magazine for January 17th.  In it was an article about a Black Hawk Medevac unit in Afghanistan.  From the TIME website:

The Birds Of Hope: With A Black Hawk Medevac Unit In Afghanistan

By James Nachtwey Monday, Jan. 17, 2011

General William Tecumseh Sherman got it right. War is hell. But even within the cruelty of war, there exists mercy.

Across a dusty field, two U.S. Marines walk toward a helicopter, each carrying a bloodied and bandaged child. They hold the children as if they were their own. Although at this moment they appear as saviors, a few minutes earlier, they had called in air support in response to enemy fire. The shooter was among children, however (a fact that I have to believe was not known to the Marines), and two were seriously wounded by fragments from machine-gun rounds.

Innocent people are caught in the cross fire in all wars. That’s reality. The two Marines never signed up to hurt kids, and in the shock and confusion, their default reaction was to be protective of the children they indirectly had a hand in wounding. The kids were not left to die, as they might have been in another time and another place by other armies. Instead, a U.S. Army air-ambulance medevac crew was dispatched to fly them to the same medical facility that treats American casualties. If the shooter had survived, he too would have been helped.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2041191,00.html#ixzz1Byu1S0xj

The article in TIME Magazine contained some emotionally powerful pictures, such as the one below.

 

A Marine carries an Afghan child.

The full description of the photograph, taken by James Nachtwey for TIME , is Helping Hand
A Marine carries an Afghan child, one of two wounded by coalition aircraft during an air support mission.

My reaction on reading the gruelling story was confused and difficult to articulate clearly but certainly not complimentary! Something along the lines of big and powerful nations, such as the USA, Russia and the United Kingdom, playing out their global strategies with no real insight into the pain and suffering caused by their big ‘war games’.

The second action was that Jean had returned a rental film to the local Blockbuster store and returned with another one that had caught her eye for us to watch on Sunday evening.  That film was The Kite Runner based on the book of the same name by Khaled Hosseini.

There’s a good summary of the plot of the film at WikiPedia.  Here’s a flavour.

In Kabul, prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, well-to-do young boy Amir and his loyal young Hazara servant Hassan are best of friends. Amir enjoys writing and literature, reading stories to the eager but illiterate Hassan. Amir’s Baba (father), is contemptuous of Amir’s writing and privately regards him as a weakling for letting Hassan protect him from bullies. Baba’s friend Rahim Khan demonstrates interest and encouragement to Amir. Assef, a bully with rancor towards Hazaras, and two accomplices confront Hassan and Amir, but Hassan prevents the attack with a slingshot, a birthday gift from Amir. Assef swears revenge, ridiculing their relationship as mere master and servant. .

Soon the Soviets invade Afghanistan; forcing Baba, a known anti-communist, to flee the country leaving Rahim Khan as property caretaker. En route to Pakistan, Baba bravely risks his life defending a female refugee from a Soviet soldier who demands to rape her in return for safe passage for all. Baba and Amir eventually reach the United States as humble refugees in Fremont, California. Baba tends a gas station while Amir attends community college and vends at a weekly flea market. There, Amir meets Soraya Taheri; Soraya is interested in Amir’s writing although her father, the ex-General Taheri, a proud traditional Pashtun, is contemptuous. Baba is stricken mortally ill but manages to obtain General Taheri’s permission for Amir to marry Soraya. Although Soraya feels bound to confess her previous relationships, they are happily married despite an inability to conceive children. As foreshadowed in the movie’s first scene, Amir’s debut novel is published, dedicated to Rahim Khan who encouraged his writing.

It was a fabulous film, one of the more thought-provoking films seen in many years.  If you haven’t seen it, do so.

So to the point of this article.

The film demonstrated to me that my rather black-and-white opinion of the West’s involvement in Afghanistan was based much more on my instincts that ‘war is bad’ and that the USA tends to throw its military weight around, than having a clue as to the enormous complexities, both at the level of a family and of the nation, that these conflicts entail.

The film showed a much more compassionate aspect to the activities of the USA, specifically in getting involved in Afghanistan and, more generally, in a policy of offering a new home and new hope to those from afar.

And for me, the realisation that while it may be said, ‘There is only one truth’, knowing what that truth is is something very much more challenging!

“The first casualty when war comes is truth“. (Hiram W Johnson, senator for California, 1917)

What is the dog?

Time to attempt an answer to this fundamental, well for this Blog, question!

 

Like wolves, the Dingo is smarter than pet dogs.

(The above photograph comes from an article on ImpactLab – see foot of Post for more details.)

When putting together the Blog ahead of the publication of the very first Post on July 15th, 2009, some 820 Posts ago, I prepared some additional material that set out to justify the Raison d’être for the venture.  Included was a piece regarding Dogs and integrity.  There I wrote:

Dogs are part of the Canidae, a family including wolves, coyotes and foxes, thought to have evolved 60 million years ago.  There is no hard evidence about when dogs and man came together but dogs were certainly around when man developed speech and set out from Africa, about 50,000 years ago.  See an interesting article by Dr. George Johnson.

Anyway, I revisited the article written by Dr Johnson and thought it worthy of being published in full, as a separate article in Learning from Dogs.  I requested permission to reproduce the article in full and Dr. George Johnson was very gracious in quickly coming back to me giving his agreement.  Thank you.  The original article can be read here, the ONSCIENCE home page is here and Dr. Johnson’s details are here.

Evolution of the family dog

I first suspected that Boswell would have a short life when he bit my wife on our nuptial bed.

Boswell was my dog, a feisty Toto-like terrier who shared my bachelor bed and resented the intrusion of a woman where he felt a dog — Boswell — ought to be. As it turns out, my suspicion was correct, and he did not live out the year, which was 1982. Staying with others while I and my bride were overseas, Boswell resented being denied chicken bones, ate them anyway, and died of the consequences. To this day I miss him.

This week I found myself wondering about Boswell’s origins. From what creature did the domestic dog arise? Darwin suggested that wolves, coyotes, and jackals — all of which can interbreed and produce fertile offspring– may all have played a role, producing a complex dog ancestry that would be impossible to unravel. In the 1950s, Nobel Prize-winning behaviorist Konrad Lorenz suggested some dog breeds derive from jackals, others from wolves.

Based on anatomy, most biologists have put their money on the wolf, but until recently there was little hard evidence, and, as you might expect if you know scientists, lots of opinions.

The issue was finally settled in 1997 by an international team of scientists led by Robert Wayne of the University of California, Los Angeles. To sort out the evolutionary origin of the family dog, Wayne and his colleagues used the techniques of molecular biology to compare the genes of dogs with those of wolves, coyotes and jackals.

Wayne’s team collected blood, tissue, or hair from 140 dogs of sixty-seven breeds, and 162 wolves from North America, Europe, Asia, and Arabia. From each sample they extracted DNA from the tiny organelles within cells called mitochondria.

While the chromosome DNA of an animal cell derives from both parents, the mitochondrial DNA comes entirely from the mother. Biologists love to study mitochondrial DNA because of this simple line of descent, female-to-female-to-female. As changes called mutations occur due to copying mistakes or DNA damage, the mitochondrial DNA of two diverging lines becomes more and more different. Ancestors can be clearly identified when you are studying mitochondrial DNA, because clusters of mutations are not shuffled into new combinations like the genes on chromosomes are. They remain together as a particular sequence, a signature of that line of descent.

When Wayne looked at his canine mitochondrial DNA samples, he found that wolves and coyotes differ by about 6% in their mitochondrial DNA, while wolves and dogs differ by only 1%. Already it smelled like the wolf was the ancestor.

Wayne’s team then focused their attention on one small portion of the mitochondrial DNA called the control region, because it was known to vary a lot among mammals. Among the sixty seven breeds of dogs, Wayne’s team found a total of 26 different sequences in the control region, each differing from the others at one or a few sites. No one breed had a characteristic sequence — rather, the breeds of dogs share a common pool of genetic diversity.Wolves had 27 different sequences in the control region, none of them exactly the same as any dog sequence, but all very similar to the dog sequences, differing from them at most at 12 sites along the DNA, and usually fewer.

Coyote and jackal were a lot more different from dogs than wolves were. Every coyote and jackal sequence differed from any dog sequence by at least 20 sites, and many by far more.

That settled it. Dogs are domesticated wolves.

Using statistical methods to compare the relative similarity of the sequences, Wayne found that all the dog sequences fell into four distinct groups. The largest, containing 19 of the 26 sequences and representing 3/4 of modern dogs, resulted from a single female wolf lineage. The three smaller groups seem to represent later events when other wolves mated with the now-domesticated dogs. Domestication, it seems, didn’t happen very often, and perhaps only once.

The large number of different dog sequences, and the fact that no wolf sequences are found among them, suggests that dogs must have been separated from wolves for a long time. The oldest clear fossil evidence for dogs is 12,000 – 14,000 years ago, about when farming arose. But that’s not enough time to accumulate such a large amount of mitochondrial DNA difference. Perhaps dogs before then just didn’t look much different from wolves, and so didn’t leave dog-like fossils. Our species first developed speech and left Africa about 50,000 years ago. I bet that’s when dogs came aboard, when our hunter-gatherer ancestors first encountered them. They would have been great hunting companions.

I think Boswell would be happy to know his ancestor was a wolf. I doubt, however, I will ever be able to get my wife to overlook the biting as “wolf genetic baggage” inherited from nobel ancestors. In my house, science only stretches so far. © Txtwriter Inc

As so often happens, for reasons quite beyond me, when I am pursuing an article idea something else crops up that is highly relevant to my musings.  This was no exception.

A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor describes finding a fragment of dog bone in North America dating back some 9,400 years.  Here’s a flavour of that article.

By Associated Press / January 19, 2011

PORTLAND, MaineNearly 10,000 years ago, man’s best friend provided protection and companionship — and an occasional meal.

That’s what researchers are saying after finding a bone fragment from what they are calling the earliest confirmed domesticated dog in the Americas.

University of Maine graduate student Samuel Belknap III came across the fragment while analyzing a dried-out sample of human waste unearthed in southwest Texas in the 1970s. A carbon-dating test put the age of the bone at 9,400 years, and a DNA analysis confirmed it came from a dog — not a wolf, coyote or fox, Belknap said.

Because it was found deep inside a pile of human excrement and was the characteristic orange-brown color that bone turns when it has passed through the digestive tract, the fragment provides the earliest direct evidence that dogs — besides being used for company, security and hunting — were eaten by humans and may even have been bred as a food source, he said.

Belknap wasn’t researching dogs when he found the bone. Rather, he was looking into the diet and nutrition of the people who lived in the Lower Pecos region of Texas between 1,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The article then, a little later, goes on to say:

Dogs have played an important role in human culture for thousands of years.

There are archaeological records of dogs going back 31,000 years from a site in Belgium, 26,000 years in the Czech Republic and 15,000 years in Siberia, said Robert Wayne, a professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA and a dog evolution expert. But canine records in the New World aren’t as detailed or go back nearly as far.

Darcy Morey, a faculty member at Radford University who has studied dog evolution for decades, said a study from the 1980s dated a dog found at Danger Cave, Utah, at between 9,000 and 10,000 years old. Those dates were based not on carbon-dating or DNA tests, but on an analysis of the surrounding rock layers.

“So 9,400 years old may be the oldest, but maybe not,” Morey said in an e-mail.

Morey, whose 2010 book, “Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond,” traces the evolution of dogs, said he is skeptical about DNA testing on a single bone fragment because dogs and wolves are so similar genetically.

My last extract is as follows:

Darcy Morey, a faculty member at Radford University who has studied dog evolution for decades, said a study from the 1980s dated a dog found at Danger Cave, Utah, at between 9,000 and 10,000 years old. Those dates were based not on carbon-dating or DNA tests, but on an analysis of the surrounding rock layers.

“So 9,400 years old may be the oldest, but maybe not,” Morey said in an e-mail.

Morey, whose 2010 book, “Dogs: Domestication and the Development of a Social Bond,” traces the evolution of dogs, said he is skeptical about DNA testing on a single bone fragment because dogs and wolves are so similar genetically.

Fascinating.

Finally, going back to the photograph at the top of the page, this came from an article here in ImpactLab.  It’s well worth a read.

Just pause and …

think about dogs, whether you have one, or not, whether you like them or not; think what we learn!

Much of it best described in the words and poetry of others.

Take this, for example:

If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,
Then, my friend, you are almost as good as your dog.

Unknown Author

Then there’s Bobby, better known as Greyfriars Bobby.

 

Bobby - Auld Jock's dog

 

On 15th February 1858, in the city of Edinburgh, a man named John Gray died of tuberculosis.Gray was better known as Auld Jock, and on his death he was buried in old Greyfriars Churchyard.

Bobby, a wee Skye Terrier, belonged to John, who had worked for the Edinburgh City Police as a night watchman, and the two were virtually inseparable for approximately two years.

Bobby led his master’s funeral procession to the grave at Greyfriars Cemetery, and later, when he tried to stay at the graveside, he was sent away by the caretaker.

But the little dog returned and refused to leave, whatever the weatherconditions. Despite the efforts of the keeper of the kirkyard, John’s familyand the local people, Bobby refused to be enticed away from the grave for any length of time, and he touched the hearts of the local residents.

Although dogs were not allowed in the graveyard, the people rallied round and built a shelter for Bobby and there he stayed, guarding Auld Jock.

For fourteen years Bobby lay on the grave, leaving only for food.

Read the rest of this moving tribute here.

Here’s another well-known saying from an unknown author.

“He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.”

I could go on and on but let me close with this eulogy for the dog, delivered at the Old Courthouse in Warrensburg by Attorney, George C Vest sometime around 1870:

The best friend man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son, or daughter, that he has reared with loving care, may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and good name may become traitors to their faith. The money a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our head.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only to be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.

When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wing, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives his master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when that last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there, by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true, even in death.

Senator George Graham Vest, speaking to a jury about Old Drum, shot in 1869

There’s the full history of this sad event here.

 

Old Drum on the grounds of the Johnson County Courthouse in Warrensburg, Missouri.

We have so much to learn from dogs!

 

Essence Of The Civilizational Crisis.

A guest Post from Patrice Ayme.

(Well I say ‘guest’ in the sense that Patrice has very kindly allowed me to publish a post he recently published on his own Blog. It’s very much appreciated. I should add that the minor changes that I have made, in my editorial role, are gently to improve the clarity of this fine piece of work, not in any way to amend meaning. Ed.)

THE PRIVATIZATION OF MONEY CREATION IS THE ENGINE OF PLUTOCRACY.

To understand the present financial and economic crisis, we need the clarity of deep philosophy.

The situation is actually simple, in its grossest outline. To create public money, the money everybody uses (be it cash, electronic transfers, swaps, whatever) we use a private system, with proprietary money creating devices inside (say subprime, or derivatives). Civilization has never worked this way before, as the state previously was careful to stay the one and only money creator.

Now society, worldwide, uses a privately-managed public-money ‘system’ creating what is known as a fractional reserve system. [Wikipedia explanation of fractional reserve system, Ed]

That puts huge power in the hands of underground private individuals we don’t even know the names of. Those cloaked powers in turn corrupt the visible political socio-economy, from below. The whole metastasis is not even described, because intellectuals would have to do so, but most are paid by institutions subservient to the present global corruption.

We saw a similar situation in the Roman empire, when the intellectual class was at its richest, but its critical ability had been corrupted.

The modern banking system is a Faustian bargain (as in a deal with the Devil) with the bankers; in exchange for the immense powers the private bankers were given with money creation, they were supposed to loan it back to society for its development.

This worked reasonably well in the Nineteenth Century. But in the Twentieth Century, bankers observed they could support fascism regimes, and get away with it (only Dr. Schacht, one of the “Lords of Finance”, sat in Nuremberg tribunal, and he was exonerated). Now bankers think they can engineer a depression, and get even richer from it: just keep the profits, and make taxpayers pay for the losses.

By Patrice Ayme

Note 1: Paul Krugman observes, with many others, that the crisis of the West needs “intellectual clarity” to be resolved, and, meanwhile we are “overmatched“. I made preceding comment in answer to Krugman’s cogent remarks. (The New York Times had the kindness to publish what I wrote within two minutes! )

Note 2: HOW THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IS TURNING CIVILIZATIONAL:

China just established another train speed record for “unmodified’ train sets (481 km/h). OK, some will claim China stole a lot of Japanese and European technology. And some French engineers have sneered that the very high speed system in China is not as high performing as it looks (France has much higher average speeds, the highest in the world). However, this is not the point. The point is that China is trying very hard to progress and improve. Meanwhile some of the colossal technological edge of the West is eroding away quickly. The result will be world war, or global plutocratic peace (as plutocracy furthers its deal with China).

How does China improve so much and so fast? Because Chinese banks, the largest in the world, operate according to the fiduciary duty, the Faustian bargain, that the fractional reserve system ought to impose, and used to impose in the West.

Top Chinese bankers know all too well that if they cheated, they may end up with a bullet in their skull. China is led by scientists and engineers who turned to politics, but know that they cannot make mistakes in their calculations. Mao made many mistakes, and dozens of millions died.

The history of China, in the 26 centuries before that, was spoiled by a well meaning, but meek philosophy, which left too small a place to deliver progress of the material, and intellectual kinds.

Civilization is not about “leaving it at that”, the way Confucius mostly had it. Civilization is also about the dream, and implementing it. Indeed, civilization cannot stand still, anymore than a biker can stand still, because resources run out always (as Rome and the Mayas found out). Thus moving on is the price of sustainability. Progress is the price of sustainability.

Note 3: It may seem a curious thing that Karl Marx did not make a strident version of the preceding critique (instead he modestly accused tangentially bankers of “monopoly” powers).

But this Marxist discretion proves the point I alluded to above, namely that bankers were better behaved in the 19C. So Marx talked about other things.

Ironically, early American presidents had perfectly well seen the danger bankers posed, and worried more about them than Marx himself! And let no one call Andrew Jackson a communist: that would be serious mistake…

In the 21st Century, by capturing the states (USA, EU), and various institutions above them (IMF, World Bank, BIS), the bankers have established a monopoly of power early American presidents rightly feared (and Jackson, wounded at 13 by an English sword, later a proud carrier of several bullets, and a general in the field, feared very little). The wise know what to fear. The mentally simple just smile, thinking only about themselves, as they can’t think much further than that.

*********************************

From the Ed.

Dear Readers, I really hope that you read Patrice’s post in full and in a quiet place where you could reflect on the meaning and underlying implications of what Patrice is saying.  Those in the UK may have been able to watch a typically fabulous BBC Television series, Ancient Worlds.  It’s still available on BBC iPlayer.

What comes out from the message of mankind over the centuries is that wonderful French expression plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – the more that changes, the more it stays the same thing.  But where we are as we approach the New Year of 2011 A.D. is possibly at a cross-roads – and I intend to write a little more on this idea over the coming days.

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

 

 

 

Spices

A fascinating insight and a reminder, courtesy of Alistair Cooke

Jeannie recently gave me the book Alistair Cooke’s America.  The book was published in 1973 and was born out of the scripts that Cooke wrote for the television series America: A Personal History of the United States shown in both countries in 1972.  I can’t recall when I first started listening to the BBC Radio programme Letter from America, broadcast by Cooke, but it was a long time ago considering that the 15-minute programme started to be broadcast on the BBC in March 1946, just 18 months after I was born!

 

Alistair Cooke Nov 1908 - Mar 2004

 

Anyway, the motivation to start into the book was born out of a desire to know a lot more about this new country of mine.  But quickly there was a fascinating detour.

Early in Chapter One, The New-found Land, Cooke writes of the consequences of the Turks capturing Constantinople:

In 1453, there was a decisive turn in the centuries of warfare between the Christians of Europe and the Moslems of Asia.  Their common market, bridge, and gateway was Constantinople, our Istanbul.  In 1453, the Turks conquered it, and in so doing shut off the commerce between East and West, the exchange of cloth, leather wines and sword blades of Europe for the silks, jewels, chessmen, and spices of Asia.  All things considered, the stoppage was much harder on the court treasuries of Europe that those of Asia and, in one vital item, harder on all Europeans.  That item was spice.

Cooke then writes about historic change often being caused by the denial of a simple human need.  Shortage of water, total absence of timber for the Egyptians since the time of Solomon, for example.

What I hadn’t realised that for Europeans, spices were regarded as “fundamental to human survival”.  That was simply because in the 15th century spices made food edible.  Cooke writes,

Even in rich houses, the meals came putrid to the table. (Dysentery, by the way, seems to have been considered through most of the last five centuries a hazard as normal as wind and rain.)

Think about that the next time you reach for the pepper!

That led me to think about the enormous benefit that electricity and therefore domestic refrigeration has had on the health and life expectancies of mankind.  It is almost inconceivable to imagine the consequences of a widespread loss of electricity for, say a week, let alone a few months.

Patrice Ayme wrote a guest post for Learning from Dogs that was published on the 26th.  In it he wrote,

But then, after an auspicious start, Mars lost most of most of its atmosphere (probably within a billion years or so). Why? Mars is a bit small, its gravitational attraction is weaker than Earth (it’s only 40%). But, mostly, Mars has not enough a magnetic field. During Coronal Mass Ejections, CMEs, the Sun can throw out billions of tons of material at speeds up to and above 3200 kilometers per seconds. It’s mostly electrons and protons, but helium, oxygen and even iron can be in the mix.

The worst CME known happened during the Nineteenth Century, before the rise of the electromagnetic civilization we presently enjoy. Should one such ejection reoccur now, the electromagnetic aspect of our civilization would be wiped out.It goes without saying that we are totally unprepared, and would be very surprised. Among other things, all transformers would blow up, and they take months to rebuild. we would be left with old books in paper, the old fashion way. A CME can rush to Earth in just one day. (Fortunately the Sun seems to be quieting down presently, a bit as it did during the Little Ice Age.)

So let’s just hope and pray that our continued interest in spices remains a flavouring desire and doesn’t return as a critical need for human survival.

By Paul Handover

Welcome to America

A meaningful Thanksgiving at so many levels.

In September 1620, a small ship, the Mayflower, left Plymouth, England carrying a 102 passengers.  After a difficult crossing lasting 66 days, the Mayflower anchored near the tip of Cape Cod. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at a new Plymouth.

In November 1621, having produced a successful corn harvest, the settlers organised a celebratory feast.

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth" By Jennie A. Brownscombe.

In December 2007 a Virgin flight pushed back from the stand at Gatwick Airport in England en route to Los Angeles airport.  On board was yours truly. Two days later, a Aeromexico flight, again with me on board, pushed back from the stand at LAX for the short flight down to Hermosillo Airport in the State of Sonora, Mexico.

That same afternoon, around 2pm, I was met by Sue at Hermosillo airport ready for the relatively short drive down to San Carlos.  I was there for a Christmas holiday courtesy of Sue and Don, her husband.

With Sue to meet me at the airport was Jean, a good friend of many years standing.  Jean was originally a Londoner, having been born just a few miles from where I was born.  Now she was settled in San Carlos after her American husband died in 2005.

Sue and Jean

We all headed off in Sue’s car for the journey to San Carlos.

Little did I know that just a few days later at a local dinner and dance spot in San Carlos when I got up and asked Jean for a dance something magical would happen when I put my arm around Jean’s waist.  That evening was a 20th.

Fast forward 35 months, not only to the day but practically to the hour and that magic in our lives is still there in abundance.

For Jean and I were married in St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Payson, Arizona on the 20th November in front of the Reverend Dan Tantimonaco.

Mr and Mrs Handover

That marriage gives me the right to apply to the US Government for Resident status and so, today, Thanksgiving Day 2010, Jean and I will also have our first celebratory feast in gratitude to starting our married lives as new Americans.

By Paul Handover

And more on silence

Trying silence out.

Jon’s post yesterday about how silence in more general terms is so important for good mental health got me musing about this.

The first thing that struck me was how good dogs are at doing nothing.  They are naturals at being in the present, especially when being in the present means nothing more than just laying around.

Just doing - nothing!

OK, one could come up with an intellectual rebuff of that.  Dogs aren’t humans, don’t have to go to work, don’t have to struggle to make one’s way in the world, etc., etc. No argument in that, is there.  Or is there?

Let’s take monks. Clearly being a monk is a spiritual vocation that appeals to a very small number of people. But they prove that the ‘work, rush around, struggle with life’ scene is NOT hard-wired into mankind, ultimately it is a choice.

Just read this about a day in the life of a monk at Downside Abbey. Don’t react to what you read, just go through the text and notice how frequently words of silence, faith, reflection and prayer come up.

Now I am not suggesting that we all give up our present daily lives and become monks, but I am underlining the importance of balance, and for the sake of our private and public worlds that probably means spending more time doing nothing!

Let’s take North American Indians, in this case the Navajo.  They too understood the huge importance of meditation and prayer.  This video is just 3:40 long – see if you have the stillness in your mind to watch and listen to this for these few, short minutes.

How did you do?

Now let’s go back to 1966, the year when Simon & Garfunkel released the song, words written by Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence, that later became a huge, global hit.  Here are the lyrics – read them slowly and reflect on the meaning in those words.

The Sound Of Silence (3:08)
P. Simon, 1964

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence

For your sake, and therefore for the sake of all those around you – find your silence.

Faith in a (new) future.

“Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things – with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope.” Corazon Aquino.

Yes, I cheated.  I looked for a quotation to suit the mood of this post and came across the above.  Corazon Aquino was the woman who led the revolution which toppled the authoritarian regime of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy in the Philippines.

Anyway, to the theme of this Post.

Those that are regular readers of Learning from Dogs know that at one level I am not optimistic about the future over the coming years.  A quick trawl through this Blog will find quite a few articles showing that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

One of the forecasters who has consistently been on the money, so to speak, is Gerald Celente.  He runs an organisation known as Trends Research Institute.

Here’s 14 minutes from a recent interview on the Alex Jones Show.  Do watch it to the end.

Despite being US focussed this interview still has massive implications for the rest of the world.

This Post is about faith.  Around minute 10:30 in the above video, Celente talks of those people that have the faith in themselves to bring about change.  Celente talks that from all great disasters comes change.  He talks of the Black Death that in the three years from 1348 wiped out up to 50% of Europe’s population.

From the Eye Witness to History website:

Coming out of the East, the Black Death reached the shores of Italy in the spring of 1348 unleashing a rampage of death across Europe unprecedented in recorded history. By the time the epidemic played itself out three years later, anywhere between 25% and 50% of Europe’s population had fallen victim to the pestilence.

 

Plague's progress

 

So here’s the point.  In the Celente interview, he predicts that 20% of Americans will reject the way that they see their society going. Fascinating!  That 20% figure.

Dr David Hawkins in his seminal book Power vs Force writes on page 77:

… 85% of the [world] race is below the critical level of 200, while the overall average level of human consciousness is approximately 204.  The power of the relatively few individuals near the top counterbalance the weakness of the masses towards the bottom to achieve the overall balance.

Hawkins is saying that 15% of the world’s population has the integrity required to bring up the level of consciousness of all the rest.

I have the faith that we are on the verge of another renaissance for mankind, one based on integrity and truthfulness, honesty and love.  In my faith, I see this next renaissance being born in America, still the land of the free.

 

"Sacred and Profane Love" by Tiziano Vecellio, otherwise known as Titian

 

Titian was born in 1488 just 100 years after Europe was ravaged by the Plague.

Keep the faith – there is a wonderful new world just around the corner.

By Paul Handover

Commodity trading

Something really disquieting about this.

I don’t know about you but I’m picking up more and more ‘vibes’ from all over the place that strongly suggest an increasing awareness of the need for real change in society.  Anyway, more of this another time.

My article today is base on an editorial in the Mole Valley Farmers Newsletter

 

MVF logo

 

for October 2010 (no. 557).  First some background to this organisation.

Mole Valley Farmers is described on their web site thus:

Mole Valley Farmers was started in 1960 by a small group of farmers around South Molton* who were concerned by the discriminatory practices and the large margins being taken by many of their input suppliers. From the outset it was decided to treat all members equally, subject only to quantity allowance and that the Company would operate on the minimum margin to allow continuity and growth. Today it remains one of a few true co-operatives in the supply industry.

Mole Valley Farmers consists of:

  • Nine branches in the south west supplying a vast range of goods to farmers and the public alike. These range from farm requirements to clothing, footwear, garden supplies, pet food and accessories, domestic goods and power tools
  • Our own feed mills for all animal feeds
  • Fertiliser blending plants
  • A specialist mineral plant
  • A quality farm building division

Of special importance are our farmer customers who purchase animal feed, fertilisers and minerals, all manufactured to a high specification by Mole Valley Farmers and delivered direct from point of manufacture to farm or to branches for collection in small lots.

* South Molton is in Devon, England about half-way between Barnstaple and Tiverton and the history of this interesting firm may be found here.

I have to declare a certain interest in that when I lived in Harberton, Devon for a number of years, we were non-farmer Members of Mole Valley Farmers for feed for our chickens and ducks and later on for Pharaoh.  So when I arrived to stay recently for a week with friends in Brixham, Devon,  my eye quickly picked up the familiar look of the MVF Newsletter lying on the table.

This is the editorial, reproduced in full with the kind permission of the Newsletter editor, from the pen of David Burke, Chairman of MVF.

Commodity trading

Until relatively recently, the price of food was set by the forces of supply and demand for the food itself, which worked reasonably well in developed countries able to purchase in times of shortage.  For the last century farmers have been able to reduce some of the market risk by forward selling crops to a trader in that market, at a price that fair to both parties.

This type of trading was tightly regulated and only those who were directly involved could participate and it worked well.  At some time in the mid-90s, Goldman Sachs, with other financial institutions, successfully lobbied for the regulations to be abolished.

Forward contracts became derivatives, which could be bought and sold repeatedly by traders, which enabled the financial institutions to become involved.  This type of investment really took off when the American and European pension market collapsed, together with that for normally traded derivatives like metals, prior to the recession, although actual food supply and demand remained relatively in balance.  Last year Goldman Sachs reportedly made £3.2bn profit from derivatives trading.

In spite of Russia’s grain export ban and some other weather affected harvests, both the EU commission and the International Grains Council report more than adequate reserves of grain to meet demand and that the carry-over stocks are likely to be the second highest for years.  The rumoured (but non-existent) wheat shortage that is driving up all feed prices, is entirely due to actions of the world’s principle investment bankers and their investors, which have serious implications throughout the globe.  Whilst few in the developed world mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, will go hungry, it is a growing tragedy for the poorer countries in the Southern Hemisphere where three-quarters of the world’s population live.  According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, one third of the population lack food security and 792m people there are undernourished to varying degrees of starvation.  But most damning of all, some 12m children die annually of malnourishment.  Derivative speculation, which pushes up the cost of grains and in particular wheat, is responsible for food inflation that is proportionally greater for the impoverished nations.

Re-regulation of the basic food market to prevent a recurrence of the spikes of 2007 and 2010 would go some way to stabilising global food costs and help with developing nations, though without a great deal of pressure from compassionate people, this will be difficult, given the influence that the world’s richest investors have over governments.  Alternatively, primary food producers worldwide are paid a high enough price for their produce to enable them to invest in research and best practice, as well as in efficient equipment.  This concept received the approval of the European Parliament on 9th September and although they are considering legislation to ensure farmers receive a fairer share of the consumer price, it may be difficult to implement other than through a properly funded and regulated CAP.

Well said, Mr Burke.

NB.  The web links in Mr Burke’s article have been inserted by me, they were not in the original article.

By Paul Handover