Category: History

Are we as clever as we think?

This has been circulating on the Internet, but you may not have seen it …..

Indian Chief ‘Two Eagles’ was asked by a white U.S. government official, ‘You have observed the white man for 90 years. You’ve seen his wars and his technological advances. You’ve seen his progress, and the damage he’s done.’ The Chief nodded in agreement.

The official continued, ‘Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?’

The Chief stared at the government official for over a minute and then calmly replied, ‘When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; all night having sex. Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.’

(acknowledgements to David Holmes)

Aerial photography

Some chilling reminders of the reality of war!

Britain has a National Collection of Aerial Photography. It is held within the offices of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland – perfectly logical!

A summary of the different collections is listed here, many of them wartime photographs that bring a multitude of emotions to the surface: incredible bravery of the pilots; photographic standards of 70 years ago, man’s inhumanity to man; and so on.

I pondered a bit about writing this Post because, well ….. well…, see what you make of it!

Being born in England in the early part of November, 1944, World War 2 still resonates within me.

Early home in an industrial part of West London meant that my mother and father had a ring-side view of the German V1 and V2 rockets that were being visited on London at that time.

My mother, 90, still recounts her enormous sense of relief when VE Day was announced (May 8th, 1945) because she then thought that her son’s future life was more or less assured.

So back to these aerial photographs held in those collections.

Here’s a picture of the visitation of war on the beautiful French town of Caen.

Linger a while and look at the damage, mostly to private homes. The photograph was taken just slightly more than a month before I was born.

So where’s this Post leading to….?

Beams of light in the darkness

These are very strange times: thank goodness for Blogs.

Learning from Dogs is a relatively young Blog (first Post was July 15th, 2009) but already it has opened the eyes of all the authors to the power of plain speaking. All of us involved in bringing you a dozen Posts a week find inspiration for our creative juices from the corners, far and wide, of the virtual world of digital communications, the World Wide Web.

Because we are in the midst of huge turmoil it’s very difficult to see the underlying trends of change at work. But see them we must if we are to be smart and work out, for the best, what needs to be done at the scale of the individual and the family.

So with that theme in mind, go to the Blog called Jesse’s Café Américain and read a recent Post about the behaviour of the price of gold. But also read beyond the subject of gold and reflect on the deeper message.

Here’s an extract from that Post:

Read the rest of this Post

Black holes, colliders and paradoxes

This is a very strange world that we live in.

It would be fair to say that my knowledge about what I am writing in this Post is minimal to the point of total ignorance. So why open my mouth and prove it! Because the conquest of fundamental questions about our world is not only an example of mankind at its greatest but also something of broad appeal.

That is proved by the continuing popularity of the BBC Television Series – Horizon. In that series there have recently been two fascinating programmes: Who’s afraid of a big Black Hole? and How long is a piece of string? (Readers outside the UK will not be able to view these programmes.)

Here are the programme summaries:

Black holes are one of the most destructive forces in the universe, capable of tearing a planet apart and swallowing an entire star. Yet scientists now believe they could hold the key to answering the ultimate question – what was there before the Big Bang?

The trouble is that researching them is next to impossible. Black holes are by definition invisible and there’s no scientific theory able to explain them. Despite these obvious obstacles, Horizon meets the astronomers attempting to image a black hole for the very first time and the theoretical physicists getting ever closer to unlocking their mysteries. It’s a story that takes us into the heart of a black hole and to the very edge of what we think we know about the universe.

and

Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems.

An encounter with leading mathematician Marcus du Sautoy reveals that Alan’s short length of string may in fact be infinitely long. When Alan attempts to measure his string at the atomic scale, events take an even stranger turn. Not only do objects appear in many places at once, but reality itself seems to be an illusion.

Ultimately, Alan finds that measuring his piece of string could – in theory at least – create a black hole, bringing about the end of the world.

Straight Talking and Realpolitik

“To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.” Quote by Will Durant.

During his China visit Obama said that “the US accepted that Tibet was part of China, but went on to push for the early resumption of talks between China and the Dalai Lama.”

This is the usual fatuous “appeal” issued by Western worthies to the Chinese Communist Dictatorship to act honourably towards people it dislikes. As ever, it is a waste of breath, but a diplomatic ritual that has to be endured.

Obama knows it is pointless, the Chinese pretend to listen but also know it is pointless as nothing will change. We all know – or should – that it is pointless. Why then do they do it? You can’t call it self-delusion since nobody is deluded. Frankly, I am not sure what to call it.

Of course, the Chinese claim to Tibet varies from ludicrous through spurious to extremely questionable at best …..

… and Taiwan is a free and independent state, and more to the point democratic. It is a disgrace that free, democratic countries have never recognized it.

The truth (that’s what we want, isn’t it?) is that the CCP is a murderous and illegitimate dictatorship, never having submitted itself to a vote. This may of course be very wise on their part, but it isn’t honest, is it?

In the way of dictatorships, it is quite prepared to massacre its own citizens to protect its power, as happened in the seemingly long-forgotten Tiananmen Square. It is a pity that the free world seems compelled to overlook all this in grovelling to China. We have to deal with them, but issuing fatuous appeals, come on ….

I wonder what the parents of those killed by the CCP thought as doves of freedom were released over Beijing during the last Olympic Games?

By Chris Snuggs

[Footnote from the Editor. This is a hard-hitting Post about the reality of relations between the USA and China. It is a reminder of the truth about such relationships. Readers may want to view this to understand also the reality of trade with China. Some of the images are deeply disturbing.]

Neuschwanstein, Crown Jewel of Bavaria

A King’s folly?

We are lucky enough to live near Füssen in the Allgäu, Bavaria. This is where King Ludwig built Schloss Neuschwanstein as his retirement home. Sadly, he never lived to inhabit it, dying in somewhat mysterious circumstances before it was completed.

His death may have had something to do with the astronomical amount he spent on it, yet ironically, it was a magnificent long-term marketing coup, for today it is one of Europe’s most popular tourist attractions. Millions visit it each year, and for the Japanese tourist on his one and only lifetime visit to Europe it is top of the list of sights.

So, was it a humongous folly and waste of money or a shrewd investment that has given pleasure to countless millions since 1886?

Sometimes in life, it is difficult to be categorical about certain things ….. and one can’t help wondering, will Britain’s Millenium Dome one day rival the Schloss?

Here’s another picture of the Castle and one of the Dome – just to help you answer that last question …

Neuschwanstein millennium_dome

New Dawn For Russia?

Red-letter weekend?

Dimitry Medvedev, President of Russia, hitherto regarded as something of a stooge for “Czar” Vladimir Putin, recently made an extraordinary attack on those trying to rehabilitate Josef Stalin, who has strong claim to be the greatest mass-murderer and originator of human misery in history.

On the face of it, it seems extraordinary that anyone in their right mind could possibly seek to rehabilitate such a monster, but for many Russians he represents “the good old days”, when Russia was “great”, and in particular the dark days of WWII, when he is supposed to have “saved” Russia from the Nazis.

This last of course ignores the small detail that those who saved Russia were mostly young boys in Red Army uniforms who faced down the Wehrmacht in Stalingrad and elsewhere in unimaginably-terrible conditions.

However, despite being an “international communist”, Stalin “saved” Russia by appealing to nationalist sentiments. As this great country is once more going through tough times, the Russian conservatives, headed by Putin (“the loss of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy of my life”) have been seeking to play upon nationalistic sentiment by rehabilitating Stalin.

Now, nationalism is the most destructive of forces (apart perhaps from those inspired by “God”), and so we have a lot to fear from the extreme Russian version. But Medvedev has pricked the bubble in an act of considerable courage, for many enemies of the Kremlin have died for less – witness Alexander Litvinenko in London …

So, hats off to Medvedev.

Is he deliberately distancing himself from Putin? We should follow these events closely. We need Russia as a friendly partner on the world stage, and not just because of her resources.

By Chris Snuggs

The Polanski Affair

France, Polanski and respect for the Law.

I have always associated France with surrealism after, at a fairly young age, seeing those amazing photos of early 1920s surrealist art by Duchamp, Ernst and others. In recent days this surrealist experience has returned with a vengeance in the bizarre case of Roman Polanski, with a reported 62% of French people believing that the arrest of Polanski in Switzerland was an unjustified affront to a long-standing resident “artist” and citizen of France.

The strongest condemnation of this arrest was initially by the French Minister of Culture, Mr Frédéric Mitterand, who said the affair “had no sense” and who expressed his “profound emotion” at the arrest of this “film director of international repute.”

Harvest Festival and “The Midnight Truce”.

An old Saxon church and echoes of world wars

Recently, the children from our small school in Breamore started their day with a Harvest Festival service in the old Saxon village church which is over 1,000 years old.

Rural life has not changed much for generations.

The Breamore Estate, set in beautiful Hampshire countryside has some 300 inhabitants, many of them living in old thatched cottages. The main Breamore House is where General Patton stayed in the run up to the D-Day landings.

Fate is the Hunter, part two

The introduction to this Post was published yesterday. The rest of this Post is Lex’s words and published with his written permission.

Fri – January 9, 2004 (post date)

The worst day ever

I don’t tell this story very often. Although the events inside it happened almost 12 years ago, the memory is still fresh, and still painful.

Over the years I’ve told it to two ready rooms, both by way of instruction – a kind of “been there, seen that,” in order to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. But it’s not one of those sea stories you tell over a beer, among friends. It’s a sad story. Maybe I post this one. Maybe I don’t.

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