Category: Uncategorized

Kathryn Schulz, being right about being wrong!

“Life is not a success-only journey. Even the best-laid plans sometimes must be altered and changed. Be open to input and consider any potentially viable alternative. Be willing to be wrong and be willing to start over.” Dr. Phil.

Kathryn Schulz

I am indebted to Daniela Caride of The Daily Tail for passing me details of Kathryn Schulz someone, I must admit, that I had not heard of before.  But Kathryn is the author of the book, Being Wrong.  Here’s how she is described on the TED Talks website,

Kathryn Schulz is a journalist, author, and public speaker with a credible (if not necessarily enviable) claim to being the world’s leading wrongologist.  Her freelance writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, the Boston Globe, the “Freakonomics” blog of The New York Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times Book Review, among other publications. She is the former editor of the online environmental magazine Grist, and a former reporter and editor for The Santiago Times, of Santiago, Chile, where she covered environmental, labor, and human rights issues. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism (now the International Reporting Project), and has reported from throughout Central and South America, Japan, and, most recently, the Middle East. A graduate of Brown University and a former Ohioan, Oregonian and Brooklynite, she currently lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Her website is here and her Blogsite here.

Here’s a flavour of this woman.

A grandson is born!

Just had a call from my son-in-law to let Jean and me know the fabulous news.

That around 8.30pm London time, just about an hour ago, a son, my first grandchild, was born to my daughter and her husband.  Baby Morten is fine. Morten’s Mum is recovering from a fairly tough labour but also is well.

Happy Birthday Morten!

Well done, Mum and Dad!

Taking the day off.

We have had a bit of a sad situation over the week-end, which I will write about tomorrow.

So please forgive me, dear reader, for keeping my head down this day.

So near, so far!

Mixed emotions about those other worlds out there.

In recent times, Learning from Dogs has been reflecting on the magic, and fragility, of the planet we all live on.

There was the photograph of the Earthrise that attracted quite a few comments.  That was followed up by the amazing photograph of the Earth from Voyager 1 taken in 1990 from 3,762,136,324 miles away!  Then the lovely poem from Sue.

So it was interesting to note my mixed emotions to a piece on the BBC News website yesterday.  Here’s a flavour.

Worlds away

Astronomers have identified some 54 new planets where conditions may be suitable for life.

Five of the candidates are Earth-sized.

The announcement from the Kepler space telescope team brings the total number of exoplanet candidates they have identified to more than 1,200.

The data release also confirmed a unique sextet of planets around a single star and 170 further solar systems that include more than one planet circling far-flung stars.

Read the rest of the item here. (and there’s a fuller version on NetworkWorld)

So here are those mixed emotions.

  • Man has been, and still continues to be, wonderfully curious to the point of spending huge sums of money on projects that appear to do nothing more than satisfy that curiosity. (The (Kepler) mission‘s life-cycle cost is estimated at US$600 million, including funding for 3.5 years of operation, from here.)  That’s a beautiful trait, in my humble opinion.
  • Homo Sapiens is a wonderfully innovative and creative species, as so wonderfully presented by Alan Alda on a recent PBS Programme called The Human Spark.  (See the YouTube intro at the end of this Post.)
  • Look at all the inventions and incredible advances to our species that are all around us – including the PC I am using and the World Wide Web that is aiding this message!
  • For such an intelligent species as us, why is it that we are treating Planet Earth in such a suicidal manner through greed, pollution and over-consumption!
  • As was reported yesterday, we could be on the verge of total and utter chaos in terms of food.  Then also yesterday was a small item about food prices reaching a new global record.
  • It always struck me as absurd to conclude that this planet is the only habitable planet in the universe – ‘Astronomers estimate there are 1021 stars in the universe. With a conservative estimate of three planets per star (some could have many more, some would have none at all) this puts the estimated number of planets into millions of billions.‘ From here.
  • So the data coming in from Kepler is truly astounding and, personally, underlines this era as a great time to be alive.
  • But there simply is no choice in that for decades ahead, if not centuries ahead, Planet Earth is all there is for us.  So why do we do it so much harm!
  • Our civilisation is likely to go to the very limits of survivability before the message that the existing ‘model’ is broken is picked up by every major political party in the world.  That is very, very scary to contemplate.
  • So it looks as though, soon, mankind will face the ultimate decision of all time.  Give up and let the chaos overwhelm us all, or … or what?  In other words millions of us will have to live with the consequences of our greed.
  • The ‘or what?’ can only be a faith that it will be OK.
  • A faith that mankind will use the power of dreams, imagination and energy to create a new future that will, at long last, be a new dawn of democratic and just, integrous existence.
  • And maybe, just maybe, that could be the Second Coming and maybe, just maybe, the world’s Churches and religions will be our saving grace.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. Matthew 24:36

Fascinating times – a Chinese proverb, ‘It’s better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period.’

Finally, here’s that video of the series preview to The Human Spark.

Events, dear boy.

I think is was Harold Macmillian who once said, “Events, dear boy, events.”

Well this week-end threw some events my direction and there is no post for today – apart from this!!

Housekeeping.

Everything evolves in life!

Although how apt that thought is when applied to rather strange world of blogging is a little beyond me!

Anyway, this Blog is called Learning from Dogs because dogs are, in many ways, powerful examples of what we humans need reminding of, both literally and metaphorically.

However, the Home page, or Welcome page, of this Blog is in need of some revising so when you see it change over the next few days it’s because of that housekeeping.

Let me leave you with this thought.

“A dog is not ‘almost human,’ and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such.“

John Holmes

What’s in a song or two?

Trust all Learning from Dogs readers and their families had a wonderful Christmas Day.

Here’s a little distraction, with a serious under-message, courtesy of CASSE.

Top 10 Songs for the Steady State

by Rob Dietz

I have a friend who sees the end of the world coming soon.  When he ponders the limits to economic growth, climate destabilization, and other ecological and economic problems, he tends to fall into a state of malaise.  I understand to some degree where he’s coming from – I’m not one to hide my head in the sand and ignore or deny the profound problems we face.  But given the amount of time that I spend contemplating the limits to growth, I can’t afford to get mired in the swamps of doom and gloom.  The main way I keep a positive perspective is by working to change the root cause (i.e., pursuit of growth everlasting) of our ecological overshoot.  A steady state economy that can meet people’s needs and exist within healthy environmental systems is a truly inspiring idea.

I also do some other things to keep a positive perspective.  For example, I like to play and listen to music regularly.  Music speaks to most of us in a way that no other art form can – we all have special songs that touch our souls.  Before I go any further with this line of thought, I need to provide a brief disclaimer about my musical taste.  I grew up in the 1980s on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 radio program.

Besides indoctrinating me on some suspect styles, songs and sounds, American Top 40 taught me a lesson.  It demonstrated how fun and addictive countdowns can be.  In the spirit of keeping things light-hearted, I thought it would be interesting to compose a top-ten list of songs with a steady state theme.  In descending order below, I’ve listed the title of the song, the performer, the album on which the song appears, and some choice lyrics.  I’m sure that I’ve missed some good ones, so please feel free to comment on your favorites.  I have also made a YouTube playlist in case you find yourself in a steady state mood.  And now, on with the countdown…

10. The Finest Worksong
R.E.M.
Document (1987)

Take your instinct by the reins
Your better best to rearrange
What we want and what we need
Has been confused, been confused

9. Can’t Buy Me Love
by The Beatles
(1964)

Say you don’t need no diamond ring and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can’t buy
I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love

8. Excuse Me Mr.
by Ben Harper
Fight for Your Mind (1995)

Excuse me Mr.
But isn’t that your oil in the sea
And the pollution in the air Mr.
Whose could that be
So excuse me Mr.
But I’m a mister too
And you’re givin’ Mr. a bad name
Mr. like you

7. All U Can Eat
by Ben Folds
Sunny 16 (2003)

Son, look at all the people in this restaurant
What do you think they weigh
And out the window to the parking lot
At their SUV’s taking all the space
They give no @#%!
They talk as loud as they want
They give @#%!
Just as long as there’s enough for them

6. Nothing but Flowers
by The Talking Heads
Naked (1988)

I miss the honky tonks
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
You got it, you got it
And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
You got it, you got it

5. Paradise
by John Prine
John Prine (1971)

Then the coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man

4. Fake Plastic Trees
by Radiohead
The Bends (1995)

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

3.  Big Yellow Taxi
by Joni Mitchell
Ladies of the Canyon (1970)

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

2. Society
by Eddie Vedder and Jerry Hannan
Into the Wild motion picture soundtrack (2007)

It’s a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
And you think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won’t be free

1. Imagine
by John Lennon
Imagine (1971)

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

Bonus Track:  Corporation Day
by Dan O’Neill, CASSE Director of European Operations

 

Day off!

Apologies to all the many readers of Learning from Dogs but events over the last couple of days have conspired to keep me away from the PC and there just wasn’t time to publish something for today.

Pathi Harn aka Mr Shuffles

(I’ve been shuffling through some old draft posts that didn’t make it live on to the Blog.  Found this one and thought that it would appeal to many Learning from Dog readers, hence the fact that this is rather old news, so to speak.)

A baby elephant is back from the dead, big time!

Mr Shuffles as he was known then was born on the 10th March this year.  The magical aspect of that was the fact that, well let the journalist from the Sydney Morning Herald take up the story.

WRITTEN off for dead just five days ago, Taronga Zoo‘s teak-tough elephant calf has emerged from intensive care to perform his first routine on the public stage.

Sticking close to the protective belly of his mother Porntip, the calf, dubbed Mr Shuffles, gingerly explored the confines of one of the world’s more unlikely elephant breeding grounds on the harbour’s rocky edge on the fringe of Mosman.

Venturing close to the waters of his yard’s little pond, his trunk danced like a conductor’s baton as he sampled smells and textures of his world, tasting the palm trunk that was his mother’s breakfast. He sniffed sawdust and almost teetered over as he struggled up a tiny mound of earth, a first lesson on just how high an elephant’s centre of gravity really is.

But the young elephant did survive and now has been renamed to something more appropriate for an Tibetan elephant – Pathi Harn, meaning miracle in Tibetan.

Here’s a video of the young lad.

Back to the Sydney Morning Herald story:

Apart from his bloodshot eyes, which are a normal feature of birth, he appears remarkably healthy. Although, the zoo’s experts are still struggling to comprehend how quickly the 116-kilogram infant has recovered from a week-long labour, including three motionless days in a coma with no hint of a heartbeat.

”As far as we were concerned, he’d been dead for three days,” said Gary Miller, the zoo’s elephant supervisor. Since the calf proved the experts wrong on Wednesday morning, Mr Miller has hardly left his side, struggling to get him through those early days. ”He needed help. His left legs were not working real well … his left side was not really functional.”

He and his staff spent days massaging him, encouraging blood into his right side, getting him up, walking him around and moving his joints to get them functioning.

Wonderful.

Magic moment … Taronga Zoo's baby Asian elephant, nicknamed Mr Shuffles, has made his first teetering steps in public, never straying far from his mother's side. Photo: Kate Geraghty

By Paul Handover