“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Galileo
Thus said Galileo Galilei.
Why do I start this Post in this fashion?
Simple! Discovering the truth is always the challenge.
But before I go any further, I want to say thanks to my son who drew my attention to the video that is linked to in the next paragraph. (As a professional pilot he clearly takes a more than casual interest in the weather).
Here’s a link to that video by Joe Bastadi about the big changes to the planet’s weather. The video is summarised thus, “Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, and the dirty little secret of the whole AGW debate is that total kinteic energy of the Earth over the longer term is not changing, but is cyclical.”
Joe is a professionally trained forecaster (Penn State University) but also a controversial figure. He is a member of the AccuWeather team.
Anyway, do watch that video – the link is here. Bottom line is that global weather patterns and longer-term trends are hugely driven by the earth’s natural rhythms and the influence of mankind is minimal in comparison.
Please click the video link above because that is much more current than an earlier interview of Joe Bastardi on YouTube that follows.
OK?
Now go here – ClimateProgress.org. It’s an important long article that concludes thus:
CONCLUSION: Unrestricted emissions of greenhouse gases threaten multiple catastrophes, any one of which justifies action. Together, they represent the gravest threat to humanity imaginable. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media ignored the overwhelming majority of these studies and devoted a large fraction of its climate ‘ink’ in the last 12 months to what was essentially a non-story is arguably the single greatest failing of the science media this year.
So, if you are like me and so many others in wanting to understand the truth about our planet’s climatic future – this Post is going to disappoint you!
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”Buddhist quote.
A number of thoughts and experiences came together to prompt the writing of this Post. It’s a much longer and more reflective post than usual but is offered in the loving hope that there can be no caring without sharing.
Firstly, good American friends, Gordon and Linda, whom Jean and I got to know in Mexico, recently sent us a Happy New Year
George Carlin
email, that included a slide presentation entitled Philosophy of Old Age. It was based on the writings and wisdom of George Carlin, one of the all-time great comedians of the world. But George Carlin (1937-2008) was much more than a great comedian. Much of his humour was a playful but very sharp form of social commentary on the ‘big world’. (P.S. George Carlin’s website is here, a rather strange experience in the sense of a virtual life after death.)
Anyway, back to the slide presentation from Gordon and Linda.
The slide presentation felt worthy of a post on Learning from Dogs but, thankfully, it was available in a better format for a WordPress Blog, a YouTube video. Here it is.
You can see that there are some very deep but simple messages about what, in the end, are the really important things in life. Top of the list is ‘love’. Especially unconditional love.
That takes me to second element of what motivated me to write this piece.
Just 14 days ago, I participated in a memorial service described as ‘A Memorial Service For the Lives of Loved Ones Lost‘ at our local St Paul’s Episcopal Church here in Payson. The idea came out of a comment from friend, mentor and fellow Blog author, Jon Lavin, who had noted that the language that I used when speaking of my father, now dead for well over 50 years, was the language of a child who hadn’t been ‘released’ from that event (I was just 12 at the time) rather than that of an adult who accepts that death is part of the natural order of the world.
Losing a loved one is tough, incredibly tough, and full of pain and anguish in a very deep-seated and personal manner. That’s the perspective from the loved ones left behind with more life ahead of them. But if one thinks of it in reverse, what is the one thing that we would want to leave behind when we die?
It is, without doubt, that our death does not leave in the hearts and souls of those left behind, whom we loved and who loved us, pain and anguish that isn’t embraced and dealt with healthily.
It was that collective unresolved pain and anguish that brought all of us together at that Service on the 20th. It was a wonderful release for all present. During the Service the Advent Wreath candles were lit. Here are selection of the thoughts that were voiced and released as the four candles were lit.
This first candle we light is to remember those whom we have loved and lost. We pause to remember their name, their face, their voice, the memory that binds them to us in this season.
This second candle we light is to redeem the pain of loss; the loss of relationships, the loss of jobs, the loss of health. We pause to gather up the pain of the past and offer it to God, asking that from God’s hands we receive the gift of peace.
This third candle we light is to remember ourselves this Christmas time. We pause and remember these past weeks and months and years; the disbelief, the anger, the down times, the poignancy of reminiscing, the hugs and handshakes of family and friends, all those who stood with us.
This fourth candle is lit to remember our faith and the gift of hope which the Christmas story offers us.
Light defeats darkness.
Go back and see those words that accompanied the lighting of the third candle. It included “to remember ourselves“. Once again, it’s loving ourselves, accepting that we spend our lives doing our best; in other words the answers to the unresolved issues that can haunt us is simple acceptance of who you are and being at peace with you!
Now I’m conscious that this is running on a bit but I pray that this is reaching out to others – we all need better clarity at times in our lives. So before I go on to the third and last element which has me in front of this keyboard, let me share what I wrote, privately, a few days before the Service on the 20th in trying to make sense of my own feelings about the loss of my father.
If we don’t embrace who we are and why we are who we are, i.e. real self awareness, we are condemned to being emotionally dysfunctional to a greater or lesser degree for a long time. If we understand and love ourselves, avoiding the ‘easy’ route of constantly reminding ourselves what is ‘wrong’ with us, not being a victim to guilt, and on and on, then we see a better, softer, more loving world though our eyes. Then the world reflecting back what we think about most rewards us with a better, softer, more loving world.
Loving ourselves, letting go, opening our arms to peace and joy is the true gift that we have really been given by the ‘loss’ of the loved one.
What I am embracing is that the emotional consequences of my father’s death, all those many, many years ago, created degrees of emotional dysfunction that went on for far too long. Being free to walk clear of those emotional ‘hooks’ is not only so much better for me and those who love me, it is exactly what my father would have wanted!
Being clear of deep emotional burdens allows us to love ourselves and from that comes the greatest personal gift of all – unconditional love for others. There’s that love word again!
OK, now to the third and final element! Wake up at the back there!
The year 2010 was for me and Jean the epitome of a joyous journey that started, coincidentally, on a December 20th, this one in 2007. On that evening in a bar/nightclub in San Carlos, Mexico, six days after I had arrived to stay with friends who had known Jean for many years, that I asked Jean for a dance, put my arm around her waist, and experienced something mystical – I knew she was the woman I would love to my last breath.
Thirty-five months later, on November 20th 2010, Jean and I were married in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Payson, Arizona. We had been living together in Mexico since September 2008 and in Payson since February, 2010. In Payson we have found a wonderfully interesting, generous and supportive community and our 13 dogs just love our rural home tucked into the forest; it is a very beautiful existence.
Frankly, I find it almost impossible to get my head around in any rational way as to how life can be so randomly alluring – we really have so little control over it all! Save for how we accept and love ourselves. Thus my own haltering and challenging steps to better self-awareness have given me more than I could ever have dreamed of. This realisation has left me feeling pretty emotional over the Christmas period.
From those emotions has come, for the first time in my life, the awareness of mortality. Not in some sort of intellectual homage to the notion that it doesn’t go on forever. No, this is a real, hard-edged, realisation that I am going to die! It’s a clear vision, as clear as those beautiful stars shining out from the brittle cold, night sky over Payson very early on New Year’s Day. My mortal life is going to end.
And that, my dear readers is that. Go back and watch that video from George Carlin, think about those past loved ones in your life and what they gifted you and, above all, feel your own love for you, savour it, and share it around.
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”Buddhist quote.
Just wanted to add my best wishes to all Learning from Dog readers to those of Paul from yesterday.
Plus I did want to expand, just a touch, on what Paul wrote yesterday, more or less reflecting on an article by Leo Babauta. In that post, Paul quoted Leo writing:
The thing I’ve learned, and it’s not some new truth but an old one that took me much too long to learn, is that if you learn to be content with who you are and where you are in life, it changes everything.
In a very real sense what Leo is saying is that if you don’t love yourself you can’t possibly ‘love’ the world around you. Now this is incredibly easy to consider, too easy in fact, because the truth of loving oneself first is, for the vast majority of people, a complex, confusing and unclear journey, as in ‘self-journey’. Read that quote from Leo again and see how he writes, ‘an old one [as in truth] that took me much too long to learn‘.
I’m sure when Leo writes ‘too long to learn‘ he is, in effect, acknowledging the very individual circumstances that lead to a person developing the awareness that is expressed in that quote ‘if you learn to be content with who you are and where you are in life, it changes everything‘.
So if 2011 is going to be a challenging year then hang on to the only rock in your life – yourself! Embrace the reality that you, like all of us, do your best. Be good and kind to you.
And this scribe wishes you all a very Happy New Year.
As was famously quoted by Yogi Berra, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
So I will just leave it at that but crave your indulgence by including a recent photograph of Mrs H and some of the dogs enjoying the recent heavy snowfall that fell on Payson and Northern Arizona on the 30th.
New Year greetings from a snowy day in Payson, AZ.
I came across John Maudlin’s web site some time ago and ended up subscribing to one of his Blogs, Outside the Box. To be frank, much of what John writes is a little bit too technical for me but this item did catch my eye to the extent that I read the item in full and was intrigued by it.
The article was called, “Apple, Google, NewsCorp and the Future of Content” You can read it directly here. But just to whet your appetite, here’s a small extract of what is primarily an interview with Michael Whalen:
In this issue of The Institutional Risk Analyst, we speak to Michael Whalen, [Emmy] award winning composer and new media observer about the outlook for the business of creating and delivering content. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music, Michael has taught a business for music class that has saved thousands of young artists from making terrible mistakes with content and other contractual rights. Think Frank Zappa and Warner Brothers. And yes, Michael is IRA co-founder Chris Whalen’s younger brother.
and later …
Whalen: Frankly, I think we’re going back to the 19th century in terms of the “status” of artists. They’ll be figureheads. Imagine: like Paris or Vienna of the 1900s, we’ll have wealthy patrons and small clutches of people who support the art of “real” artists. In this environment, the work we will try to sell is simply a loss leader and an inducement for us to perform or create a “custom” song, TV show or film… Yup, it’s all here now… What will be really interesting is what happens next… I am not pretending to be the “Grim Reaper” but I think the record business, the film studio system and the television networks are over as we think we know them. I think there is a new business emerging in gathering creative investment, content and creative marketing…. It will be in a structure that’s more akin to a stock market than the traditional structure we’ve seen for artistic and creative content and the platform for it will be the digital ocean we have already discussed. Based on the “buzz”, there will be a “futures” market and the idea is commoditized and funded in days – not months or years. For decades, most record companies and networks have been little more than funding sources for artists – now the truly visionary artist won’t even need these ancient businesses – the market itself will generate everything it needs to create content efficiently. It’s a little overwhelming the change that is here now vs. five years ago and that will be coming in torrents in the next few years. Amazing.
Read the full interview here – I promise you won’t regret it.
Almost a year ago, Learning from Dogs published an article about the ‘Lion Whisperer‘; Kevin Richardson. Here’s a small extract from that blog Post which has remained the most popular piece on this blog ever since it was first published.
His name is Kevin Richardson and there is an interesting account of how he works and some of his ‘experiences’ in Revolution Magazine, luckily with online content. That article is here. It starts thus:
To do this he does not use the common methods of breaking the animal’s spirit with sticks and chains, instead he uses love, understanding and trust. With this unusual method of training he has developed some exceptionally personal bonds with his students. He sleeps with lions, cuddles newborn hyenas, swims with lionesses. Kevin can confidently look into their eyes, crouch to the their level and even lie down with them – all taboos in the normal world of wild animal handling – yet he doesn’t get mauled or attacked.
The article goes on to say that Kevin often works with the animals when they are very young. Thus he is demonstrating very powerfully that how we behave, especially with our children when they are young, creates the environment for building trust out of consistency of deed and thought.
Just beautiful!
Anyway, I thought to look in on Kevin’s website, http://www.lionwhisperer.co.za/ once again and to view some of the videos posted on that website. Here’s an example – enjoy!
Bernie Madoff was able to con thousands of extra investors by using a British bank which “looked the other way” and ignored repeated warnings that he was engaged in a sophisticated fraud, according to the man charged with recovering their losses.
HSBC and its staff were accused of receiving “kickbacks for looking the otherway while legitimising BLMIS (Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities) through their name and brand, making it attractive to investors”.
SNIP
“Had HSBC and the defendants reacted appropriately to such warnings and other obvious badges of fraud … the Madoff Ponzi scheme would have collapsed years, billions of dollars, and countless victims sooner,” said Mr Picard. “The defendants were wilfully and deliberately blind to the fraud, even after learning about numerous red flags surrounding Madoff.”
Mr Picard wants to recover the $9bn from HSBC and a network of international funds that acted as “feeders”, enticing investors to place money with Madoff’s investment company. It makes the bank the biggest defendant so far, eclipsing lawsuits already filed against the Swiss bank UBS and America’s JP Morgan. Other defendants named in the HSBC suit include the Italian bank UniCredit and Austria’s Bank Medici.
The accusations levelled against HSBC will come as a huge embarrassment to a company which has become increasingly controversial, having threatened to quit London for Hong Kong should the Government seek to impose too heavy a levy against banks or attempt to break it up after the Independent Commission on Banking, set up by the Chancellor, reports next year.
However, suits against more European banks are likely to follow. The lawsuit, filed in the US Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, is the latest move by Mr Picard who has filed more than 100 lawsuits over the last few days in a bid to recover funds from those institutions which he claims enabled the fraud or those who received “false profits” by getting their money out of the scheme before it collapsed. Mr Picard faces a deadline of Friday – the two-year anniversary of Madoff’s arrest – to file everything.
Questions have been raised about police handling of tuition fee protests after a car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall was attacked.
A window was smashed and paint thrown at the vehicle as the royal couple made their way to a central London theatre.
Violent demonstrations spread after MPs voted to increase university tuition fees in England.
SNIP
The National Union of Students (NUS), meanwhile, said the violence had overshadowed the story it wanted to see in the newspapers.
Shane Chowen, vice-president of further education, said: “Not the headlines I wanted. I wanted to see the fact that the coalition government have just trebled tuition fees, sentencing a generation of students to record student debt.”
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.
