Tag: Reflections

Patrice Ayme and truth

Intelligence at the core of humanism

A while ago a comment on Baseline Scenario jumped off the screen at me.  I was intrigued because the author of this comment used words with power and insightfulness.  That author was Patrice Ayme.  It’s a nom de plume. [NB. Not it isn’t, see comments below] The sub-heading at the top of this Post is from his Blog.  Here’s an extract from the About section of that Blog.

This is a site that tries to find out what is really happening, and what is not, what is right and what is wrong, on many important questions, and in all sorts of ways. In other words thinking is applied relentlessly, the way evolution made it, as the ultimate instrument of domination of anything in sight (be it domination of oneself, of one’s own ideas and emotions, or domination of the universe). Thinking evolved to predict effectively and ambitiously, not to cower in a corner, modest and dazed. Prometheus’ punishment was a regrettable misunderstanding: we did not steal fire from someone, we created our mastery of fire, and fire made us what we are, as we wished. Mastering fire was not a sin, the Greco-Romans were wrong on that one. Fire was part of what we have evolved to be; masters of the universe, for better or worse.

Read more about Patrice

Just pause a while

Patrick’s landscapes are breath-taking.

Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. Reproduced with permission. Copyright (c) 2009 Patrick Smith, all rights reserved
Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. Reproduced with permission. Copyright (c) 2009 Patrick Smith, all rights reserved

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes

but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

By Paul Handover

The sharing spirit

This virtual world has so much to share.

The photography of Patrick Smith is breathtaking.  So much so, it seemed important to promote his talents to the widest possible audience.

He has been very generous in giving Learning from Dogs written permission to reproduce his pictures.  Thus from time to time, we will do just that.

Thank you, Patrick.

Portal of the Sun - Big Sur, California
Portal of the Sun – Big Sur, California

Published with the written permission of Patrick Smith Photography.

Copyright (c) 2009, all rights reserved.  Please do not use this picture without permission.

By Paul Handover

A little later than I would have wished!

Jon Lavin.

You will see from the Hello World post at the head of Learning from Dogs that the idea of integrity being a topic for wider discussion arose a while ago.  Busy lives (and a big misunderstanding about Blogging!) put off us doing something until Paul got the Blog under way in July, this year.

I still have, thank goodness, plenty of work demands on my time and a busy family life but, at last, will be finding time to explore the importance of integrity.

As I say in About this Blog, I had noticed that businesses that were operating largely with integrity, tended to be happier places, got better results and it was possible to develop levels of awareness within teams that enabled them to work together far more effectively. Levels of self-awareness are important because they allow people to develop closer business relationships with everyone internal and external and this leads to increased levels of trust.

By Jon Lavin

Muslim demographics – an update.

A calm and rational destruction of the Dangerous Demographics YouTube video

On the 20th August, a Post was published on Learning from Dogs called Doing nothing!  It was largely an emotional response to the video on YouTube that has been watched by over ten millions and claims that Europe and North America are close to becoming dominated by Muslims.  The unspoken implication being that this would be ‘dangerous’ for those present societies.  The YouTube film was clearly made with a racist agenda in mind.

The vision of this Blog is to support the notion that integrity is not only a noble inspiration but on a day-to-day basis truthdelivers better outcomes for you and me. Integrity is being true to one’s beliefs, or as defined in the free dictionary, “Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code“.  Morals and ethics rely on understanding the truth, as best we can, of the world around us.  Thus it is enormous pleasure to find the BBC presenting a statistical rebuttal to the YouTube video.

Please watch it.

The web address is ….. see below

UPDATE NOTE: For some reason the BBC have removed that video.  However, the material that debunks the YouTube video may be seen here, and here.

And when you have seen it, if you know of anyone who has emailed you the link to the YouTube video, please email them the link to the truth spoken by the BBC.

As the English philosopher Edmund Burke said,

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’

By Paul Handover

Senator Edward Kennedy, a big loss for all of us.

Veteran US Senator, Edward Kennedy, dies at the age of 77.

Senator Kennedy had been battling a brain tumour for a long time; his death makes this a very sad day.

The BBC has a good tribute to him.

James Kwak of Baseline Scenario makes his tribute personal, and all the better for it.

I have nothing new or insightful to add, but it feels wrong to go back to blogging without paying respects to Ted Kennedy. When I was younger and perhaps more idealistic, I used to carry around a copy of his speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. He was a man who cared about the poor, the unemployed, and the sick, even as their cause became less and less fashionable over the past four decades. He believed that justice went beyond formalistic legal rights and extended to economic and social conditions as well. The Senate needs another person like him, but sadly will not find one.

Senator Edward Kennedy.
Senator Edward Kennedy.

By Paul Handover

“You campaign in poetry but govern in prose.”

Edward Luce in the Financial Times reflects on Obama’s miserable August

Obama healthcareWho would ever be a leading politician?  It must be a hell of a job.

Edward Luce has a fascinating and, well, touching, commentary in yesterday’s (21st) Financial Times.

Whatever one’s political leanings it’s difficult not to get a feeling for the toughness of the job of leading the Nation.

The quote?  Attributed to Mario Cuomo, the former Governor of New York.  And Edward Luce is the Washington Bureau chief of the Financial Times.  A graduate of Oxford University (politics, philosophy and economics) he is no stranger to the world of politics as his father was the British conservative politician Richard Luce, a noble Lord no less.

By Paul Handover

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Doing nothing!

Freedom and justice needs active participation.

Let me start with an extract from the Henrik Hudson School District Library Media Centre:

Perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, victims: we can be clear about three of these categories. The bystander, however, is the fulcrum. If there are enough notable exceptions, then protest reaches a critical mass. We don’t usually think of history as being shaped by silence, but, as English philosopher Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’ (My source for this is here.)

So what has prompted this Post?

Continue reading “Doing nothing!” →

10:27 August 14th 2009

A glimpse into the soul of a Nation

My view is that this Blog should be (much) less about the lives of the Blog authors and more about the world we live in within the self-imposed theme of the Blog; integrity.

However, what happened at 405 West Congress in Tucson, Arizona, last Friday morning is an exception to the rule.

The entrance to the Courthouse in Tucson
The entrance to the Courthouse in Tucson

405 West Congress is the address of the Courthouse in Tucson.

Future citizens, families and friends
Future citizens, families and friends

So what brings 50 people, family and friends to a court house in Tucson on a Friday morning in August?

The swearing-in of a group of people to be US Citizens or more properly described as the Order of Admission to Citizenship; the actual process of becoming a US Citizen, other than having been born in the Nation.

It gave me an amazing insight into the generosity of the United States of America and, indeed, of all other free countries in the world that welcome incomers.

Let me explain.

Read more of this Post

Storytelling

Something almost as old as mankind itself

We have returned from being in Tucson for a few days and while there we spent many hours one day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.  But this is no dusty place with fossilised remains behind glass cabinets.  No, the Desert

A Bobcat at the Desert Museum
A Bobcat at the Desert Museum

Museum is an honest attempt to give visitors an insight into the complex and beautiful world of a desert. As the Musuem’s web site puts it,

The mission of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the Sonoran Desert.

That particular evening the programme mentioned an hour’s storytelling by the Native American Gerard Tsonakwa.

Tsonakwa is a member of the Abenaki tribe who live in the Algonquin area of Ontario, Canada.   Originally an active participant in Native American politics and a published author as well, Tsonakwa showed that evening the power and mystery of storytelling.

It’s only in recent times, relatively speaking, that books have been widely available (the book as we know it today dates from the fifteenth century) and in the last hundred years the art of passing information to others through storytelling has practically disappeared.

But listening to Gerard Tsonakwa speak to a packed auditorium in the Warden Oasis Theatre at the Desert Museum was compelling, to say the least.  Compelling because sitting in a group listening to an ‘elder’ tell the secrets of life and the universe seemed to resonate with very deep memories of long time ago.

By Paul Handover