We Remember Some English Authors and Illustrators

Tom Adams
John Agard
Allan Ahlberg
Quentin Blake
Enid Blyton
Raymond Briggs
Dick Bruna
Johnny Bull
Graham Clarke
Beryl Cook
Anne Fine
Michael Foreman
Tudor Humphries
Dick King-Smith
A.W. Lake - Wuh Lax
Flora McLachlan
Colin McNaughton
A.A. Milne - Winnie the Pooh
Terry Pratchett
Philippa Pearce
Gervase Phinn
Beatrix Potter - Peter Rabbit
Philip Pullman
Ronald Searle - St. Trinians
Earnest H. Shepherd - Pooh
Michael Rosen
J.K.Rowling - Harry Potter
Nick Sharrat
Mary Tourtel - Rupert Bear
Jacqueline Wilson
Benjamin Zephaniah

The Al Gore Phenomenon

What a turn of events! Al Gore would have made a better president than George Bush. I think many of us can agree on that. American history is littered with lost opportunities, events that defy logic and end up in tragedy. While my mind is on the process of how wars come to dominate political thinking, I can't help but think of the idiocy of the American involvement in the civil war of Viet Nam, which President John F. Kennedy, had he lived, would probably have understood much better than Lyndon B. Johnson.

Similarly, it does not take two heads knocked together to realize that Al Gore would probably have understood what was going on in the minds of those involved in the events in New York and Washington. These events were on US soil, and they did have American involvement. Britain came into the present war on terrorism as a partner in that war, but as a more experienced partner having endured for many decades the activities of conflicting groups in Northern Ireland fostered in part by American money coming from New York.

This blog is not to praise Al Gore, but to speculate on the issues of peace, technology and religion, now that it has become clearer that America has assumed a new direction, a much more positive direction. Positive because both the Republicans and Democrats making up America realize that the directions the country has taken under George Bush in war, science, social issues, and religion, were neither enlightened, nor particularly recommendable. Bush's Christian faith must be likened to that of many leaders who did bad things while saying God was on their side. Obviously, God was on Bush's side because he is a richer man, but I don't think Jesus Christ would have been. No, I think Jesus would have been more on the side of Al Gore, but I don't want to put too much of a fine point on that.

The Seeds of War

What is the Pattern of the Planting of War?

It used to be a joke in Montreal that the cement companies, who were controlled by certain Italian interests that had migrated from Chicago required a good project every five or so years. The price of cement was pushed up to $15 from a cost of $5, and a cement tower is added to cream more profit. Thus, we had the St. Lawrence Seaway project, EXPO 67, the Jacques Cartier bridge repair, Mirabelle Airport, Man and His World, the highways to Ottawa and Ontario, the great Hydro projects of northern Quebec, the Liberation of Quebec from Canada, the Unifying of Quebec with Canada.

Canada today is a rather peaceful place and there are those that have recognized the seeds of war and have struggled to exterminate them, put an end to the cycle of destruction. It is possible for strong nations to live together without killing each other without planting the seeds of war in the minds of young people. There will always be those who try, who bribe to have guns, who create the atmosphere of terror and the feelings of hopelessness that are the fields where the seeds of war are planted.

One knew that there was something going on behind the scenes and that our surroundings were being engineered by people who you might have met on the street who never gave you space to pass and whose mothers had hit you with an umbrella. You see them climb aboard the Rue St. Laurent bus without paying for their ticket, entering in by the back door. You know how to avoid them by sitting well away from the doors and leaving seats that you know will be filled by the criminals who go nameless, but who cast large shadows wherever they occupy space, even in darkness. The are the shadows of the dark, the killers of the peace and there are many like them that go nameless and who benefit from killing people.

In the same way, you know that wars do not come by accident, but that they are sown and that they are sown deliberately or unconsciously, but nevertheless, sown like weeds the seeds of war are sown and the bear fruit with the killing and destruction of the children whose parents have planted those seeds, the neighbour kids, or the many unknown friends of other high schools, rivals in sport competitions. The really big wars are those that take a generation cycle of about 15 to 20 years, or about the length of time between the first and second World Wars beginning 1914 and 1939.

The UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were created to dampen the growth of the seeds of war. Excessive monetary growth, debt, inflation, unemployment, unresolved homeland issues, territorial disputes between religions, environmental deprivation, fence and wall building, intolerance of differences provide the fuel for the seeds of war and the fields on which the children of war fight. The parents sacrifice their children in the process of feeding the needs of the seeds of war.

Without the war fields, wars could not exist, and that is why there are those who nurture the seeds and the killing fields of war, who hide away from the sources of the devastation they are in the process of feeding. They do nothing to stop inflation and debt creation or they call it something else. They lower interest rates while encouraging people and nations to undertake more debt. While the IMF in surveillance of the world economy tries to dampen the seeds of war, some of the Members Countries of the organization are quietly building the machinery for the next conflict, or they say nothing about stopping the processes that lead to war.

You are possibly chuckling to yourself quietly at your computer. Nervously perhaps, your brain is trying to put together a pattern that you know in your heart, in your feeling centres is very relevant to life and survival. You cannot but be conscious of the seeds of war and the way they grow to become full fledged killing fields. Once the seeds are planted, it may take up to 20 years before the children are ready to be slaughtered on the battlefield, or the innocents be gunned down or bombed out of existence. You know that some of the so called peace makers have sown the seeds and have big investments in the machinery of war, and that they call these investments defensive postures or military protection or home land security. Yes! It takes about twenty years for the seeds to grow into destructive monsters that have their own momentum and cannot be stopped.

I call this process the S-curve of war. The lower part of the S may be flat and long, but it soon rises very rapidly as the competition to prepare for war begins, the plant has germinated and beneath the surface all the machinery of war is being prepared in labs and on personal computers. The pattern of the growth of the war process is lognormal, which means that there is competition that pushes the participants forward in time to create a crescendo of hardware and software (people) capability. Like a huge wave the process of war rises rapidly higher and higher faster and faster then crashes down around us.

What makes the scale of war?

The seeds of war are planted, but the scale of the conflict depends on the size of the killing fields that have been prepared for the children to die on. Young people are nurtured into the process of war by being fed stories and information concerning the food that the war cycle needs if it is to grow. Inflation's are the food of war. People lose their value systems quickly and are drawn into thinking that the only way to end inflation is to have an almighty war, kill inflation while killing the innocents and the children. Yes! That might kill inflation because there are less mouths to feed and hearts to satisfy. Such is the logic of the S-curve of war. The scale of war depends on the amount of fuel fed to those that might participate and the growth of a new generation to be killed. A big war requires lots of dead bodies, and these are the youth who fight the war, or the innocent children in hallways, living rooms, or streets that are killed when the war machinery is put into motion.

Transparency of Peace

In contrast to war, peace arises when the fuels of war are absent; inflation is low, debt is low, shortages do not occur, there is no secret police, public or private army stock piling the machinery of war, the press is like the Christian Science Monitor focusing on the positive, governments shelve military spending and build mass transport systems instead, money retains its value, speculation in fuels cease.

The Outlook for Peace is not Good

The present outlook for peace is not good. The seeds of the next war have already been planted and the processes towards a major international conflict has begun in earnest. Children are growing up and new ones are born to be killed in the killing field of S-curve of war in the period 2020-2025. Inflation and debt, depreciating value of currency, lack of monetary leadership and controls, armaments creation, fear mongering, shortages of basic commodities, alterations in the makeup of war economies, rising unemployment, inability to finance health care and pensions, dismantling of the UN, World Bank and IMF organizations and redirection of focus was from the seeds and fuels of war, religious competition, and territorial competition, lack of hope, and reduction in the braking forces that would slow down the s-curve to war.

Yes! A big war is on its way, make no mistake, many children will be killed, unless!

I leave it to you to help unravel the s-curve to the next great war. You want the children of this generation to live, don't you?