Maybe, just maybe, this is going to be real change!
I’m writing this at 9.30 pm US Mountain Time on the 6th, the equivalent of 5.30am British Summer Time on the 7th May. I’ve been watching the excellent live election broadcast online from the BBC.
There is no clear leading party at this time but the Conservatives appear to heading possibly to lead a minority Government.
It’s been the most puzzling set of results in my lifetime but maybe it’s showing that the British public have voted against one-party politics and voted for consensus.
Because the sorts of problems that are ahead for Britain (and so many other countries) require a new form of Government, a Government that truly puts the country first and not the Party!
Fascinating times. Let’s see what the next few days, weeks and months will bring.
Freedom as something one must endeavor to gain and maintain!
The power of a cup of tea!
There is a quiet self-contradiction developing in the Tea Party movement that needs addressing, for it is a contradiction that, if left uncorrected, could turn a force with truly revolutionary potential into one more element of an oligarchic political stasis.
This movement, which as a culture attempts in many ways to be an imitation of the founders, is steering away from its origins and failing to take hold of perhaps the single most important insight of the entire American Revolution – that national change is the result of local change, not its cause.
It was not homesickness that led Thomas Jefferson to return to his home state of Virginia and decline a re-election to
Thomas Jeffersen
Congress after penning the Declaration of Independence. At the forefront in Jefferson’s mind on July 5, 1776, was not the welfare of the new nation as a whole, but rather the welfare of his home state of Virginia.
For Jefferson, Virginia was not simply one part of the ultimate goal of the United States, but in fact an ultimate goal in itself. It was at the local level that Jefferson knew provisions for the future freedom of his fellow Virginians had to be made.
Voltairine de Cleyre, an anarchist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, greatly admired the founding generation and Jefferson in particular.
In her essay “Anarchism and American Traditions,” she wrote that one of the greatest traits of the American revolutionaries was their recognition “that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former.”
“Anarchism” today is often employed as a pejorative term rather than as a description of the political and economic philosophy taken seriously by such great minds as J.R.R. Tolkien, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Jefferson and William Lloyd Garrison. In fact, de Cleyre’s political philosophy had many similarities with modern libertarianism and traditional conservatism.
Due to my work I am one of the lucky people who has the opportunity to stay for short periods in various cities around the globe, and mostly the Hotels we stay in are the best around, and depending where we are, the flavour is often special.
I remember a stay in the Hilton Amsterdam where John Lennon had stayed, and had a week in bed to “Give Peace a Chance”, but a recent stay in the Marriott Eastside Hotel, New York caught my eye.
Georgia O'Keefe, 1918 photograph by Alfred Stieglitz
Georgia O`Keeffe lived here for 10 years!
I remember, she was the lady who painted the large scale flowers, and in particular “The Petunia”, and when she painted that particular piece, she was living in a suite on the 32nd floor of the very hotel I was staying in.
Georgia O`Keeffe was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied art in Chicago, and New York, and became an Art Teacher at Columbia College, South Carolina.
One of her friends had shown some of her works to Alfred Stieglitz the photographer. She came to New York, and there the two eventually married, and moved later into the Shelton Hotel, Lexington Avenue, which is now called the Marriott Hotel, Eastside.
The Petunia picture was painted in 1924, and was one of a large number of her works that were exhibited in 1925.
Her husband Alfred Steiglitz died in 1946, after which she moved to an isolated ranch in New Mexico, but she continued to produce great works. Paintings of Desert Cliffs, Animal Bones, and Flowers are among the worlds most admired works of art, and she continued to draw, paint and sculpt until her death in 1986, aged 98.
Petunia - 1925
I rather liked a comment she made at the age of 90.
“Success takes more than talent. It takes a kind of nerve.”
Author Update – the Learning from Dogs author team are delighted to welcome Elliot to their ranks.
On April 1st I set the scene for the essays that I wanted to write for Learning from Dogs as follows:
I often ask myself just how effective the modern US schooling system is as a tool of education, and whether or not its costs outweigh its benefits. I hope to have at least a rough answer to this question in the final post of this series.
I intend to examine three topics:
– In what ways does the modern schooling system function as a positive tool for education?
– What costs involved in modern schooling hinder its ability as an educative tool, and even make it a negative influence on students?
– Considering the analyses put forth in the first two posts, do the costs or benefits or this system outweigh the other? On the whole, are school and education complements or antagonists?
The author
On April 15th, I looked at the positive aspects of the American educational system. Now I look at the other side of the coin, so to speak.
Intellectual failure
While in my last post I attempted to put a positive spin on the United States education system, I must here admit that I personally tend to view it in a much more negative light. There are several reasons for this, three of which I will try to elaborate on here.
My first major concern about education in the United States is its lack of critical thinking skills, which produces students who do not know how to question the “system” for what is truly is, but rather constantly take the context of things presented as fact (the two-party political system is a perfect example of this.)
I am not necessarily arguing that the specific curriculum is being chosen to suit this purpose, though I think this argument could be made (it would, however, require quite a bit of research.)
Rather, consider the required courses – very rarely do you see courses on economics or logic. While some schools offer these as electives, they are almost never required. This is quite sad, as a sound ability to question the established authorities and the nature of the world as a whole requires a strong background in these two fields in particular.
The history of economics is a history of government policies that have failed because of their disregard for this very topic.
The economist Ludwig von Mises wrote that “the unpopularity of economics is the result of its analysis of the effects of privileges. It is impossible to invalidate the economists’ demonstration that all privileges hurt the interests of the rest of the nation or at least a great part of it.”
A second negative aspect of the American education system is what it does to the human mind. It essentially takes the mind and makes it into a factory that is able to take in information and then spit it back out. I think there is a direct relationship between the formerly mentioned lack of classes on logic and economics and this production of human beings who are essentially taught to be cogs in a machine.
Economically, the schooling system can, in this light, be seen as a massive subsidy to corporations, who are handed people already trained in how to listen then do and repeat.
Finally, I must admit that I am skeptical as to the true purpose of compulsory education. I have rarely in history seen it as a tool for true learning, as it seems to tend to rather be a system of control. I see no reason why our school system would be any different.
J T Gatto's book
John Taylor Gatto, a former school teacher and avid critic of mandatory schooling, has written that the purpose of modern schooling is a combination of six different functions:
The adaptive function – Establish a fixed reaction to authority.
The integrating function – People taught to conform are predictable, and are easier to use in a large labor force.
The directive function – School determines each student’s social role.The differentiating function – Children are trained as far as they need to go according to their prescribed social role
The selective function – Tag the unfit with poor grades and disciplinary actions clearly enough that their peers will see them as unsuitable for reproduction, helping along natural selection.
The propaedeutic function – A small fraction is quietly taught how to manage the rest.
I am not sure if I completely agree with Gatto, but he makes some interesting points. In my final article, I’ll attempt to weight the costs against the benefits, and see which comes out on top.
…. is how Gavin Hewitt recently headed up a post on his BBC Europe blog. The headline caught my eye and then when I read the full article it seemed as yet another piece of western civilisation was sliding into chaos. Maybe it’s my age!
Gavin Hewitt
Gavin Hewitt is the BBC’s Europe Editor and as you can see from his bio, Gavin is a very experienced reporter. Here’s how this Eurozone article starts:
Friday [April 23rd, Ed] will be remembered as the day the euro needed rescuing. Sure it is Greece that has asked to be bailed out but it was still a day that the architects of the single currency had never envisaged. For when it came to it, there were no plans to save a euro member in trouble.
You see what I mean about grabbing one’s attention!
In fact the article is so powerful that I am going to run the risk of incurring the wrath of the BBC’s legal department by republishing it in full.
A week or so ago, the BBC under their Beautiful Minds series, screened a programme about James Ephraim Lovelock, more popularly known as Professor Jim Lovelock.
Prof. James Lovelock
(Picture taken from this article – in itself well worth reading.)
The programme demonstrated that Lovelock’s mind is more than beautiful, it is still capable, at 90 years of age, of thinking in ways that are very rare in today’s societies where conformity is such a powerful force.
As always, WikiPedia has an excellent reference on Prof. Lovelock and I encourage you to read it plus Lovelock’s own website which makes up in content what it may lack for presentation!
Luckily there is an extract from the BBC programme on YouTube – please watch this and reflect on exactly what Lovelock is saying.
And if you are up for more, then settle down for thirteen minutes and watch this next video.
James Lovelock is the Darwin of our times.
Now to put this into some context (this is me speaking as a layman!).
It seems that there has been nothing else on the news following the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull
in Iceland, which was of particular interest to me because on the 10th April I was flying from New York across the southern area of Iceland on my way to Rome, since which time I have passed through the UAE and Singapore on my way to Japan.
My work replacement was due to arrive on the 18th April after a holiday in the Mediterranean, but the flight which he was on was diverted into Paris because UK airspace was suddenly closed. He managed to continue his journey by train, ferry, car, taxi and bus but was then stuck in England. My duty had to continue but there seemed little point in propping up a hotel bar with other crews, so I decided to turn the situation into something positive.
After an exploratory trip into Tokyo, it was Paul, our Editor in Chief who put me in contact with his sister and her husband in the city, and another friend who suggested I should jump on a train and go to Hiroshima to see his son, who I know, so my travels started.
The transport system in Japan is extremely well organised with instructions and information well displayed in English along side Japanese. Everything is clean and modern, and runs to the second! At short notice I decided to make the journey to Hiroshima in this once in a life time opportunity, and there was the famous bullet train a monster of modern technology, which runs on banked rails at steady speeds of 400 kph.
Mount Fuji - Japan
We sped along through ever changing countryside. Initially the skyline was of mainly high rise buildings which changed to two story properties once we were out of town. The new leaves of spring and the famous blossom of the plum and cherry trees, and the quick glimpse of a Japanese water garden. Industry is mixed with small allotments, and tiny houses, roads and rail lines raised from ground level to make everything fit, and above that cables and wires, because of the threat of earthquakes, and past the stunning Mount Fuji, white with snow against a blue sky.
I never met such polite people, and on the train the guards and girls who pass through the carriage with drinks and food bow when they enter and leave. They are so well dressed and smart. No graffiti here!
Familiar Japanese trading names on local buildings, and strangely a huge Union Jack flag. I wonder how there can be so many buildings and parking areas full of cars ,but seemingly no people in view, but many large span bridges arching across hill sides to join places together.
Through Kyoto where there seemed to be a lot of energy being used, for purposes that were not immediately clear. College students in smart suits with white shirts and blue ties, passed quietly through the train. I noticed each time they had left the train at a station they took their rubbish with them, and put the seat back in the upright position!
The A-Bomb Dome
At last after four hours we arrived at Hiroshima, which today it is a lovely modern city of which to be proud. There is just one damaged building standing in a stark fashion at the waters edge which is all that it takes to remind us of such devastation and the Garden of Peace, there to allow some quiet reflection.
I took a 45 minute boat ride to Mijajima, now a World Heritage site. This beautiful island is probably 15 miles from Hiroshima, and there amongst the beauty of the trees and a 500 year old shrine wander the deer, quite happy to sit as people pass by.
My thought as I came away from Hiroshima was that all leaders of any country with any connection to Nuclear weapons or power should be made to attend the A-Bomb Dome and reflect. As all the plaques say this must never be allowed to happen again.
Better navigational accuracy in the air may be approaching its limits.
For passengers travelling with scheduled airlines, times have changed, sadly, and no longer can you visit the flight deck, and see from there the views that pilots get.
New meaning to the term 'on track'.
It was not so long ago, that aircraft navigation was carried out using beacons on the ground, either on VHF, or Medium wavebands.
For longer trips with no ground aids a Navigator would plot your route using Astro (sun or the stars) navigation, until companies like Decca produced other radio systems to give you a position, but these from my memory had their problems.
Today in the modern aircraft we have Inertial Navigation Systems using laser gyros together with radio VHF back up, taking cross cuts from beacons, coupled with Distance measuring equipment to pinpoint your position, and now the magic Global Positioning System (GPS) with it`s startling accuracy.
Often with only 1000 feet between, you can see aircraft either above, or below you, often on the same track. This picture of an Emirates airline Airbus A380 was taken northbound over Turkey. The trails left behind are ice crystals which are left by the water vapour that passes through the engine, and freezes immediately at temperatures of some minus 60 degrees C.
The vortex from the wings causes the rotating trail from each engine to be disturbed, and if you pass through such disturbed air following the wake of another aircraft you often get a bump as your aircraft will be travelling at 500 MPH, some 7 miles per minute, a closing speed of 1000MPH if heading towards each other.
As the accuracy is so good these days, airlines have taken to introducing an offset of one or two miles to the left or right of track, just in case there is an error of timing, or in severe turbulence an aircraft could lose or gain the amount of separation which is between machines.
I think we get the best seats in the house!
By Bob Derham
[Bob is a Captain on a privately operated Airbus A319. Ed.]
America and England are two Nations divided by a common language
The other day I was in Payson’s local Home Depot looking for what I call a torch. As usual, if one has an air of not knowing where to look, it is only a matter of moments before a sales assistant asks if he or she may help.
The Home Depot - Payson, Az
Me: Excuse me but do you sell rechargeable torches?
Sales Assistant: I don’t think so, Sir, you would be best advised to ask at the Information Desk.
A few moments later, at said Information Desk … Do you stock rechargeable torches?
The young girl types on a keyboard, looks up at the screen and replies … I’m sorry Sir, we don’t stock those.
Surprised, I get on looking for the other items that I need.
About 10 minutes later, halfway down an aisle I notice – guess what – a decent selection of rechargeable torches! Pleased, I make my selection and on the way out to the tills pass by the original sales assistant who came to help me.
Me: You see you do sell rechargeable torches!
Sales Assistant: Ah, we call them flashlights!
The point of this rather mundane story is to point out that the differences in language between American English and UK English are much more involved than the famous ones such as rubber and condom!
In fact there are so many different terms in the D-I-Y arena that I have stopped asking for items in what, to me, is the
Ace Hardware
obvious name and now tend to describe the problem that I am trying to fix.
Thank goodness, most of the assistants in Home Depot, and the equally efficient Ace Hardware, now see me coming and know that I’m still learning to speak American!
Is there a deeper element to this language difference?
I believe so. Because the assumption is that you are going to be understood straight off. If one was in a country where the natural language was other than English then, without doubt, you would know that verbal communication was going to be strained, to say the least.
In America we just take the language for granted. In practice, I suspect that verbal communications are much less effective than one assumes.
Finally, it’s interesting to note that Jean, who was married to an American for 30 years, effortlessly switches to both an American accent and vocabulary as soon as she is talking to the locals. Will I, too, make the switch over time?
Learning from Dogs 