Category: People

Insulting us?

Is this, in the end, how our Governments are treating us?

Yves Smith runs the incredibly successful Blog, Naked Capitalism. Frankly, I have no idea where she finds the time to put together her Posts, many of which are constructed on the back of in-depth research.

On Friday, 16th October there was a Post which has huge implications. It is all about Access Journalism. It needs to be read. Here’s an extract.

Let us start with the cheerleading in the media over Wall Street, and in particular, Goldman earnings. Matt Taibbi, in “Good News on Wall Street Means… What Exactly?,” tells us why this is so distorted:

It’s literally amazing to me that our press corps hasn’t yet managed to draw a distinction between good news on Wall Street for companies like Goldman, and good news in reality.

I watched carefully the reporting of the Dow breaking 10,000 the other day and not anywhere did I see a major news organization include a paragraph of the “On the other hand, so fucking what?” sort, one that might point out that unemployment is still at a staggering high, foreclosures are racing along at a terrifying clip, and real people are struggling more than ever. In fact the dichotomy between the economic health of ordinary people and the traditional “market indicators” is not merely a non-story, it is a sort of taboo — unmentionable in major news coverage.

The press has been on a downslope for at least a decade, as a result of strained budgets and vastly more effective government and business spin control (and it was already pretty good at that, see the BBC series, The Century of the Self, via Google video, for a real eye-opener). I met a reporter who had been overseas for six years, opening an important foreign office for the Wall Street Journal. He was stunned when he came back in 1999 to see how much reporting had changed in his absence. He said it was impossible to get to the bottom of most stories in a normal news cycle because companies had become very sophisticated in controlling their message and access.

As I said, please read the Post in full. Oh, and I see Baseline Scenario picked up on this as well.

By Paul Handover

The loss of a dear friend?

More than a grain of truth in a ’round robin’.

The Internet has produced many changes to the way we all behave. One of them is the ease by which all sorts of material may be circulated rapidly. Much of it is tittle-tattle but a recent one caught my eye. I was in two minds to publish it but having seen ahead of time Paul’s forthcoming Post about Access Journalism (visible from the 19th onwards) convinced me I should. Make of it what you will.

Climate warming?

What’s the truth about climate warming, e’rr change?

I will put my hand up to subscribing to the notion of humans having such an effect on Earth’s atmosphere that climate warming was likely, inevitable and could be the destruction of life, as we know it. It seemed to fit the idea of mankind being disconnected from the planet and completely out of touch with the reality that our Earth is a fragile place, our atmosphere a (relatively) very thin ‘skin’ around our planet and few of us spare a second thought for protecting the environment for the generations to come.

earth-moon

But gradually the faint sounds of opposition to the ‘simple’ argument that man is screwing up the Planet have become clearer. The latest is a very clear cry.

Dolphins – will you help them?

One man’s mission to stop the killing and capture of dolphins.

A dolphin is one of the most beautiful creatures on this planet.

dolphin

I was going to write a very long Post setting out the reasons why everyone who cares for these creatures needs to get involved. But, in the end, a few links and extracts achieve that much more effectively than several hundred words from me.

Integrity vs Entertainment

It’s a funny old world …

Recently I was asked to run a detail lasting 4 hours in an Airbus simulator, for a film crew coming from Australia.

I was told by the training office that this was just operating the instructor panel on the simulator to help them get the information they needed regarding certain situations that would be explained in a television documentary to be aired on a Sunday evening weekly program.

Apparently the various people involved had visited Airbus, and were due to return to Australia for interviews with some of the major airlines operating Airbus aircraft.

I soon gathered that the likely scenario was to be the loss of instrumentation and automation as experienced by an A380 crew recently, and what might have been the case with the A330 lost over the Atlantic.

Integrity of explorers

Achievements and integrity

What do the achievements of explorers like Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Ann Daniels have to do with “integrity”? It certainly is about directing a huge effort towards something larger than oneself, while exposing oneself to considerable risk. It is also about taking single steps and trusting that they add up to something. However, there is perhaps another aspect.

It is my understanding, without being a psychologist, that it is all in the mind; and one can detect this in their interviews. For example, Ann Daniels clearly loves being “on the ice”, especially floating ice that is moving, sometimes in the wrong direction! Her references to phoning her children very occasionally while away also indicate that she is not concerned about being away from them.

Take your own baggage

It is also my understanding that there is one aspect that psychologists have discovered is required for this kind of activity. It is a characteristic that they have found in people who are remarkably successful at it. Perhaps it was spotted in Ann Daniels by the people who selected her for her first expedition.

It is not easy to describe, but it is the characteristic that, psychologically, these people “take themselves with them” when they travel. When they are in all sorts of very demanding situations, they are not wishing that were back at home in a cosy environment. They are completely “present”, as others have described it (including on this blog). They have all their feelings, psychological baggage and all, “with them”.

Perhaps there is something that we can all learn from this.

The love of a dog

Dog love

The following is a guest post from Daniela Caride. Daniela is the publisher of The Daily Tail, a Blog about her life with animals. To use her own words, “life with three dogs, three cats, her husband and the countless other animals she meets.”

Dogs inhabit my very first memories. I grew up with dogs as part of my family. They, too, got goodnight kisses from Mom.

In my early years I realized dogs had their own traits, just like humans. While our old boxer China quietly roamed around the house looking for love, Colita, our crazy Dachshund, tried to pee on everyone’s legs. If unsuccessful, the green rug under the dining table was an agreeable option. I don’t blame him. It looked just like a big square of grass.

Remarkable people: Guy Watson

Down to earth integrity!

GUY-WATSON Brought up on a farm, working as a management consultant and returning to farming, Guy Watson brought something from outside and applied it to a “field” in which he had a passion.

After starting an organic farming business from nothing, and after many trials and tribulations, he latched onto distribution by delivering food boxes directly to customers. The business grew until he was personally delivering boxes weekly to 800 customers; nowadays the business serves 40,000 customers weekly through a network of co-operating growers and franchised distributors and has revenues over £30 million ($45m) per year.

Somebody forgot to tell the dogs!

A reminder about how dogs, just like their human masters, love an ordered life.

We live in a rural country village with some 500 people scattered around, and have the New Forest on our door step, so our two dogs, Millie and Summer, get lots of walks. They are nearly six now, and arrived here as puppies.

Like most dog owners, we are known because of the dogs. The dogs sit near the five-bar gate during the day waiting to see if anybody will pass by and talk to them. The normal routine when I am home is to go out shortly after 6am for a morning walk, then they get another walk later during the day.

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.

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