Sunday, 9 March 2008

Snowed in like Many People in North America


In case you had not noticed, it snowed again! Most people don't like the snow, but as part Canadian, I would be strange if I did not like the snow. There is something very good about snow right now. It tells us that nature can give a helping hand in our concern about global warming and water shortages. This past year, the water has come back to the Great Lakes, and in some places, as in Northern England, there has been too much water. Later today, I will take a walk and photograph a sunset over the very large Lake Huron, which has iced over.
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Ruminating - A Verbal Art

Every get that feeling that you are being watched. Well cows like to watch you. They do very little but watch you. There is just a sense of acceptance that you are there and that you are something interesting to watch. After a while, if you do not move, they turn their head away and stop watching you. This, it is important that you keep moving, but not in a way that would alarm. There is something Britney Spears about this. If she keeps moving and doing crazy things, everyone like cows, stop what they are doing and watch her, read about her, just soak up everything they can about her. Its OK if we just watch. The problem arises if we do something.

The cow has little idea what you will do, but it seems to be happy with you there, and when it relaxes it will ruminate. Yes! We know the cow is not very relaxed when it is not ruminating. If you want to watch your stress level, try to observe whether you are ruminating, just chewing your cud very gently. If you are not, then you are probably a bit stressed, or, at least, not relaxed. The reality of it is, the we need to be more like cows. We need to practice the art of ruminating softly by ourselves, relaxed and unperturbed.
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Saturday, 8 March 2008

Cudding - A Verbal Art

Cudding is what cows do, namely chewing on something verbally. Chewing one's cud is a good way to relax. Just take your time and mull something over as you chew gently. Have you ever seen cows chewing. They take their time, just like you do on the beach. In fact, a very good place to chew one's cut is lying out in the sun on a soft sandy beach with nothing to do other than chew away quietly to yourself.

I live by a field and used to have 16 largish friends, cows. The thing that I enjoyed most about interacting with these cows was the very soft way they accepted me as something that was part of their very enjoyable world. The greatest saddness came when they vanished from the field, along with the badgers, the rabbits and the foxes. The crows remained as did the field mice, but many of the locals just vanished.
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Lugubriating - A verbal Art


Don't tell me that you have never heard of lugubriating. Perhaps, you have heard of lugubrious. It's a word that you would save for a politician, n'est-ce pas! I think I have used the term for the first time in history as a verb. Many people lugubriate and I am guilty of it myself. The thing is, life is too short to lugubriate, so be joyful and lift your spirits with music or somethink!
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Will Ye No Come Back Again - Books as Old Friends


Books for free - The Gutenberg project offers heaps of reading for young people at the relatively low cost of downloads and re-printing. Remember that it is definitely cheaper, more environmental friendly, and perhaps easier to buy the book off the shelf if you can find a publisher and bookstore with it. Check it out! Your printer uses chemicals and is expensive relative to a published book! Also, check out Google's Books and electronic devices that don't use paper. New ones are on the way that display in colour and eventually technology breakthroughs will give you the ultimate reading experience.

The world of artificial intelligence on choosing books or gnooks.

See Gnooks and the author literature map

The Gutenberg top 100 downloads

Context of some writers

AW Lake's favorite sea yarn authors. Many of their books Lake has on his bookshelves:



Herman Melville

Favorite Bookseller = McBooks Press:
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Daily Photos of BLOGGERS from Around the Globe

The earth is a wonderful and beautiful place. Some bloggers have decided that they would share this beauty with the world each day. You will find the images on these blogs interesting and very frequently amusing, as bloggers do have a sense of humour. This list is by no means complete. I found Ann's site for Montego Bay, Jamaica particularly interesting.Can you find the guineps photo? Do you know what guineps are?




American Fork (UT), USA by Annie,

Anderson (SC), USA by Lessie,

Arradon, France by Alice,

Ashton under Lyne, UK by Pennine,

Athens, Greece by Debbie,

Auckland, New Zealand by Lachezar,

Austin (TX), USA by LB,

Bandung, Indonesia by Guntur Purwanto,

Baziège, France by PaB,

Belgrade, Serbia by BgdPic,

Bellefonte (PA), USA by Barb-n-PA,

Bicheno, Australia by Greg,

Boston (MA), USA by Fenix,

Boston (MA), USA by Cluelessinboston,

Boston (MA), USA by Sarah, Whit, & Leyre,

Brighton, UK by Harvey,

Bucaramanga, Colombia by Fernando

Budapest, Hungary by Zannnie and Zsolt,

Budapest, Hungary by Isadora,

Buenos Aires, Argentina by Karine,

Canterbury, UK by Rose,

Cape Town, South Africa by Kerry-Anne,

Chandler (AZ), USA by Melindaduff,

Chateaubriant, France by Bergson,

Cheltenham, UK by Marley,

Chicago (IL), USA by U R us,

Chicago (IL), USA by b.c.,

Christchurch, New Zealand by Michelle,

Clearwater (FL), USA by Smaridge01,

Clearwater Beach (FL), USA by Smaridge01,

Cleveland (OH), USA by iBlowfish,

Cologne, Germany by April11,

Coral Gables (FL), USA by Jnstropic,

Detroit (MI), USA by Taittems,

Dunedin (FL), USA by Smaridge01,

Durban, South Africa by CrazyCow,

Evry, France by Olivier,

Forks (WA), USA by Corinne,

Glasgow, Scotland by Jackie,

Greenville (SC), USA by Denton,

Grenoble, France by Bleeding Orange,

Guelph, Canada by Pat,

Helsinki, Finland by Kaa,

Hobart, Australia by Greg,

Hyde, UK by Gerald,

Inverness (IL), USA by Neva,

Jackson (MS), USA by Halcyon,

Jefferson City (MO), USA by Chinamom2005,

Joplin (MO), USA by Victoria,

Juneau (AK), USA by Gwyn,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by Edwin,

Kyoto, Japan by Tadamine,

Larchmont (NY), USA by Marie-Noyale,

Le Guilvinec, France by ds2944,

Lisbon, Portugal by Sailor Girl,

Lisbon, Portugal by Jsaltao,

Lodz, Poland by ritalounge,

London, UK by Ham,

London, UK by Mo,

Mainz, Germany by JB,

Maple Ridge, Canada by Susan,

Mazatlan, Mexico by Kate,

Melbourne, Australia by Mblamo,

Melbourne, Australia by John,

Memphis (TN), USA by SouthernHeart,

Menton, France by Jilly,

Mexico, Mexico by Poly,

Mexico City, Mexico by Carraol,

Minneapolis (MN), USA by Mitch,

Minneapolis (MN), USA by Greg,

Monte Carlo, Monaco by Jilly,

Montréal, Canada by Douber,

Moscow, Russia by Irina,

Mumbai, India by MumbaiIteanu,

Mumbai, India by Kunalbhatia,

Naples (FL), USA by Isabella,

Nashville (TN), USA by Chris,

Nelson, New Zealand by Meg and Ben,

New Orleans (LA), USA by steve buser,

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK by Cassie & Chris,

Niamey, Niger by Dinabee,

Norwich, UK by Goddess888,

Nottingham, UK by Gail's Man,

Ocean Township (NJ), USA by Josy,

Paris, France by Eric,

Pasadena (CA), USA by Can8ianben,

Pasadena (CA), USA by Petrea,

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia by Murphy_jay,

Pilisvörösvár, Hungary by Elise,

Port Angeles (WA), USA by Jelvistar,

Port Elizabeth, South Africa by Sam,

Port Vila, Vanuatu by Mblamo,

Prague, Czech Republic by Honza03,

Quincy (MA), USA by Cluelessinboston,

Radonvilliers, France by Deslilas,

Riga, Latvia by Prokur,

Rome, Italy by Giovanni,

Rotterdam, Netherlands by Ineke,

Saarbrücken, Germany by LadyDemeter,

Saint Louis (MO), USA by Strangetastes,

Saint Paul (MN), USA by Kate,

Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation by Lark,

San Antonio (TX), USA by Kramer,

San Diego (CA), USA by Felicia,

San Diego (CA), USA by Zentmrs,

Santa Fe (NM), USA by Randem,

Seattle (WA), USA by Kim,

Seattle (WA), USA by Chuck,

Seguin (TX), USA by Thien,

Selma (AL), USA by RamblingRound,

Sesimbra, Portugal by Aldeia,

Setúbal, Portugal by Maria Elisa,

Sharon (CT), USA by Jenny,

Silver Spring (MD), USA by John,

Singapore, Singapore by Keropok,

Sofia, Bulgaria by Antonia,

St Francis, South Africa by Sam,

Stavanger, Norway by Tanty,

Stayton (OR), USA by Celine,

Stockholm, Sweden by Stromsjo,

Subang Jaya, Malaysia by JC,

Sydney, Australia by Sally,

Székesfehérvár, Hungary by Teomo,

Terre Haute (IN), USA by Zann,

Terrell (TX), USA by Bstexas,

Terrell (TX), USA by Jim K,

The Hague, Netherlands by Lezard,

Tokyo, Japan by Tadamine,

Torun, Poland by Torun Observer,

Toulouse, France by Julia,

Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina by Jazzy,

Twin Cities (MN), USA by Slinger,

Vienna, Austria by G_mirage2,

Wailea (HI), USA by Kuanyin,

Wassenaar, Netherlands by Rich,

Wellington, New Zealand by Jeremyb,

West Paris (ME), USA by crittoria,

West Sacramento (CA), USA by Barbara,

Weston (FL), USA by WestonDailyPhoto,

Wrocław, Poland by Loompi,

Yardley (PA), USA by Mrlynn,










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Friday, 7 March 2008

Meandering - A Verbal Art

My image of meandering is that of a stream or really large river like the Grand River than meanders through South Eastern Ontario, or the Mississippi River that meanders down the middle of most of United States. Meanderings are winding statements that cover a lot of ground without moving in a straight line in the 'downhill' direction. They carry the weight of thought or the flow of a river and require a large space because they present such a large flow. "Stop meandering, and get to the point," we might say to someone who seems to be communicating aimlessly, although they may be heading in the only direction they can. People often meander because it is the route to an explanation sufficiently broad to carry the full weight of their conclusion. Without meandering, we might run away from a conclusion thinking it was trivial. Meandering is thus very important, but we are apt to disallow it because we want a short cut answer.

In Europe, the authorities straighten out many meandering rivers because of many reasons, but in the end the river ran to fast and the volumes of water became destructive when there was not sufficient space and time. Enormous flooding occurred.

We think governments should move quickly on certain policy changes, go directly to the solution. What we forget is that meandering to the solution may ensure the solution is attained without damaging the complete system. For example, the American wanted everyone to own their home, so the money supply was enlarged and interest rates lowered. This was done so rapidly that house price inflation resulted and a house price bubble occurred. Prices fell and people walked away from their homes. No deposit meant no commitment. Had the policy been more meandering and people asked to make deposits and to lock into commitments, the credit crisis would not have occurred and we might be looking at the re-election of a Republican president. If the democrats move to quickly they might just lose the election because people see such rapid ill thought out policy activity as the cause of their grief.
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Eruditing Philosophical - A Verbal Art


Research and study result in erudition, a state of being well versed in one's chosen fields. Once one has mastered an area of work, it becomes possible to philosophize based on what one knows.
We often hear of waxing philosophical. Most people can wax philosophical, and it is probably healthy behaviour. Not everyone can erudite philosophical, and it is probably likely to empty the room. The reason is that many people are afraid of the eruditeness. As one becomes more erudite, the population of equals deminishes, but the paradox is that the pool of hopefuls enlarges. Eventually, the erudite individual becomes lost in an enlarge field of erudite being crowding in on each other.
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Weevilling - A Verbal Art


Patrick O'brien in his book, Master and Commander, now a film, once asked, "What is the worst of three evils?" I take the liberty of referring to the verbal art of finding evil in everything as weevilling. I do it sometimes myself. The weevil is a tiny creature that loves sea biscuits and enjoyed the life at sea during much of the period when huge-tall masted sailing boats were the norm.

What is really evil is ignorance. The most common failure of modern society is unfortunately ignorance. It's not that we don't have enough information nor knowledge, its that we have now to process the information in meaningful ways to derive conclusions.

One of the mysteries of the modern age is how Hitler was able to write his book Mein Kampf with all its hate as a resident of the German state in jail. The moral of this story is not to put people in jail so that their hate ferments. As the TV series OZ so apply demonstrates, more jails and jail time are not the solution to the growth of violent crime. A real solution has yet to be found, but it is not jail time. In jails, criminals continue to commit crimes, take drugs, and do all the things they do out on the streets.

How does one fight real evil?

Fighting evil is what mythology is all about. Weevilling is when we create the mythology that we know how to deal with evil, we weevil. In some societies the knowledge gap about how to deal with evil is so great that they go bankrupt with mythological ideas of a solution that continues to fail. The building of jails is just such a weevilling. Hitlers are created in jails, not outside of them. Our struggle against terrorism is a story about weevilling. We put those thought to be terrorists with terrorists and create new terrorists. We weevil about the solution, the mythology that jailing people actually works. In the end we will have more than 10 percent of the population in jails! No jails are not the solution to evil, jails are just weevilling, a mythology designed to make us feel good. A mythology that backfires in our faces as serious crime continues to grow and jails are the schools of criminals teaching crime.
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Mythologizing - A Verbal Art


The challenge of our reality is that it is 99 percent mythology. Some people may be shocked by this, but I can assure you that it is true. What is real has no physical basis. Deepak Chopra the author and philosophy refers frequently to the quantum world that makes up our bodies, which changes almost every atom in a contiuous inflow outflow process.

We are only partially aware that our breath is what gives us some of the the particles that once made up Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Bhuddha, Hitler. We are them and at the same time, we are not them. Our mythologies are the way we come to define our independence while at the same time understand our dependence. Both science and religion, faith and evidence are mythological at their core. Lord Raglan writes in The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama: "there are no valid grounds for believing in the historicity of tradition," and he goes on to show how the heroes of our traditions, particularly our religious traditions are mythological. Our heros are not real. Our heros are mythological. All of what we call history is mythology. Where does this leave us?

Our independence is our most purvasive mythology. We think that we are independent, but we are what we are, and that is very different from what we think we are. Our thought is partially a result of chemistry, but it is not chemistry without form, and it is not random chemistry. So what is it? We explain it by use of a mythology. Later on we will need to revise that mythology because we will find out that it is not correct, does not perform in the way we need it to, does not have a true ring about it. Our chemistry means that we can have little constancy of thought as long as the world we think we inhabit is only the now. We rely on the past to anchor the now in some meaningful way, and we need the past to project the future as we fiddle around in the present. Our mythology is that we have a now that we can fiddle around with. We observe things happening, but we think that we are interacting with things, events, and spaces rather than observing what is happening between things in spaces. Our reality is that we observe. Our mythology is that we act.
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Wiseacreing - A Verbal Art


The world of the internet is mindboggling. Wiseacreing is what we do when we make use of stuff that we really don't understand, nor have any strong basis of understanding. The past is one of these regions of uncertainty, as is the future. When we discuss these regions we enter the world of wiseacreing because we have to speculate.

One of my passions is travelling through time by means of recorded history. Think what it will mean in the future to have so much recorded history of what is going on in our time. The time when we are alive is when it is all happening, but we can share the worlds of those that preceded us, if we take the time to read and research history. Obviously, much of it is unpleasant, downright horrible, but we can filter out the 'messy bits' to learn more about how to live in the now.

Part of our history is what happened to members of the Bloomsbury Group, the forerunners of the publishing company that brought us Rowling's Harry Potter. Members of the Bloomsbury group of the 1920's travelled to Fontainbleu Castle in France where they studied under a man called G. It was G who used the term wiseacreing with reference to much of what he heard coming from so-called experts or thinkers. Do you know who G was?

Often I do not link the reader to the best of links. Some load slowly. Others present downright disgusting material. And, still others seem off the mark. I apologize. One of my main aims is to bring the reader to realize that there are many points of view. It is not just that we benefit from reading things that we can disagree with, but we are shocked by what we read. This shocking of our sensibilities is a Gurdieffian method that helps us wake up out of our complacency. Without shocks we fall asleep and never really feel awake to the now.
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Mugwumping - A Verbal Art

When I first heard this expression, I laughed. I was sitting in my office in Wimbledon as an employee of Ronald Brech Inc a company of economic advisers. My boss was Ronald Brech, a former editor of the Economist during the time of the Great Second War when they rationed paper, used it on me during a serious corporate discussion. He said, "Arthur! Don't be such a mugwump. I want to know what you really think. Explain yourself." I was highly amused. "What on earth does mugwumping mean," I wondered. I knew what a mug was, or thought I did. My thoughts were about the look on one's face, a look of someone silly, mistaken, or full of himself. I thought, "Well! I can't really argue with that. He has a point." But, I was wrong.

Ronald Brech was a wonderful professional economist to work for. I had got my job arriving three hours late for my appointment wearing a trilby. Marjory, his secretary, burst out laughing, the minute I poked my head in the door. It was quite off putting, but I survived a three hour interview and meal at a local pub. Ronald's brother, Edward, is and was an eminent business management consultant and Ronald himself, an economist, had a history of business problem solving behind him. Ronald worked with Patrick Rivett an expert in Operations Research. Together, Ronald, Edward and Patrick were a formidable team of experts in their fields. Ronald was considered the best in the business of providing economic and business advice to companies in the real world. He kept up his contacts in the economist and publishing world and had regular jaunts to the Reform Club in London, an exclusive men's club, where men talked about important issues if you remember Filias Fogg and Around the World in Eighty Days.

Ronald had a list of exclusive clients in a range of vastly different industrial sectors. His world and speciality was the real economy, the workplace of ordinary people, where the real work was being done to pay for Britain's imbalance of payments. It was not the comfortable world of banking that I would join years later with armchair advice and peekaboo analysis.

Ronald's world was an in depth world and he understood it better than any other person alive. An he still does! I was so lucky to join this world working for him, despite my wugmump attitude. We referred to the client companies by code and used their code names in discussions, never their real names. It gave the work a sense of mystery and importance, which of course, it was. I just never really understood how important it was being with a true master of forecasting and analysis. Me, a very wet young 22 with a green masters degree at the baby age of 21. Supposedly, I was a sophisticated statistician, or econometrician, to be more exact. Reality was that I was raw and full of chaotic unpolished ideas. My world was a world of numbers, facts, and mathematical statistics. I would attend evening classes at Birkbeck College and study under the biometrician Cox, who regarded economic statistics with contempt. It was excellent training. Ronald, himself was the Chairman of the Institute of Statisticians, in London, England. He nurtured me through the maze of economic and statistical analysis techniques that even today are state-of-the-art. I could work as an economic consultant, but I am aware of mugwumping, of fence sitting. What Ronald taught me was that it is important to take a view, to get off the fence, to let others have something to measure against even if you know you are wrong or dealing with uncertainty.

I have taught econometrics to some of the best economists in the world. but they were no good until they stopped mugwumping. I would use a technique of Ronald Brech which he referred to as figure less accounting, 'figgaless,' which meant that you had to decide whether some economic variable was going to be more +, less -, or unchanged =. From there you went on to learn how to arrive at an actual percentage change that was credible. I went on to use forecasting techniques learned at Ronald Brech that made future employers many millions.
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Yarning - A Verbal Art


Yarning
Telling a sea yarn is an ancient skill and pasttime. We have many of the stories that were told by the many boys and men sailing seas during the four hundred years leading up to the twentieth century. Mariners continue to spin yarns as the while away hours and days.

Spending many months on the waves of vast oceans with many hours confined to vessel with a group of sailors provided an environment in which the imagination grabbed hold. The many hours of sailing would pass into days, the days into weeks, the weeks into months, and occasionally the months into years before a sailor was reunited with his family.

Often, the best yarns were about actual events on board boat. A vessel at sea was a dangerous unpredictable place. In the West end of English Channel storms coming off the Atlantic would regularly blow up suddenly bringing waves over twenty feet.

Inevitably, there would be monster storms with wave over thirty feet, and occasionally during and after the hurricane season, there would be waves within waves within waves within waves within waves, coming from a multitude of directions. In a hurricane there would be a depression, there would be waves coming from one direction for a period and there would be waves coming from another direction for a period all caused by the devastating force of unbelievably strong winds that set currents in motion all across the Atlantic to die down, no one knows where.

The job of the Captain was to use his complete authority in order to have all stations of his command operating smoothly and as a concerted team. In rough weather, the slap of the large waves against the sides of the vessel often tipped it violently forward and back, and from one side to another.

The larger the vessel the greater could be the opposite motion as a wave left a clift edge over which the ship would tumble, not always straight down, but frequently at an angle.

A sailor would develop sea legs that would adjust his balance automatically to the motion of the boat, however, his body could not know the complex patterns of the sea waves slamming the ship up and down, over and about.

My Own Yarn

I once sailed the Atlantic in the proud vessel, the Empress of England. This cruise liner had sailed from Montreal many a time and was used to the waters of the Eastern seaboard. My voyage in 1968 was from the St. Lawrence seaway port of Montreal to the mighty port of Liverpool, England.

It was November 1968, and a hurricane was dying out in the Atlantic. On shore, no-one could guess what was happening hundreds off miles out to sea. The hurricane had not touched land and people breathed a long sigh of relief. A similar event hit the Atlantic in 2000. Another, in 1991. People use the analogy of the monster or perfect storm to describe events in their work.

My experience was that of monster waves as tall as skyscrapers hitting the vessel at half hour intervals. Easily as tall as the vessel itself, the waves made one feel that one was in a rowing boat instead of a huge ship. Our captain wisely allowed the waves to hit the vessel from the side and not head on, as the USS France was doing to its regret. In any event, he probably had no choice because of the difficult of shifting direction of such a large vessel, even with half an hour intervals. Every half hour for about three days, the ship would tip on its side about 30 or more degrees.

On impact of the wave, everyone sitting in chairs on one side of the lounges which were the width of the ship would slide the ships width to the other side. The vessel would then right itself by tipping in the opposite direction, and people would slide backwards to the opposite side. For each wave there were about five such reversals of direction until the ship regained level balance.

I was fortunate that I did not suffer from sea sickness. Nor did I fear the storm because I trusted the Captain and the ship. I was able to run around and help passengers get to their rooms, or pick them up off the floor.

One passenger at night in an outer edge cabin, was tossed out of his bed by a sideward hitting wave that caused the ship to turn on its side. He was thrown onto a cubbard door at the foot of his bed. As the ship turned on its opposite side, he was tossed back into bed. Immediately, the ship adjusted again its balance by tipping in the opposite direction on its side and the passenger was thrown out of his bed onto the cubboard door once again. The ship corrected itself and the passenger was thrown back into bed, but this time the cubboard door flung open and all its contents flew onto the bed with the passenger. As the ship again righted itself, the passenger was thrown back towards the cubboard door, but this time it was open and the passenger ended up inside the cubboard. The door of the cubboard closed behind him and he was knocked unconscious as it slammed his head. The following morning, he was found locked inside the cubboard sleeping soundly.
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Thursday, 6 March 2008

We Remember Some English Authors and Illustrators


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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.
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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?
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Wednesday, 5 March 2008

Overcoming Architectural Limitations With New Technology


The February issue of Technology Review has an interesting note by William J. Mitchell on architecture, entitled "Build from Scratch." Innovation in architecture is really possible! What we presently live in and with are building and environmental designs that with resemble hideous ideological concoctions of the worse art forms.

As Mitchell correctly writes architecture is not determined by technology, but the architect can use technology to reflect received ideology. Do we want an archtectural nightmare going on about us. Who chooses the designs for buildings, their location and their fitness for a location? Do the builders even think about anything other than making a short term profit?

I have strong preferences for how we could be creating community environments. This is not to say that I do not like the architecture that I see going up around me, but I really wonder how much time is spent in design and in consideration of wider comfort issues. What I think we need is design that helps us live longer and healthier. I am disappointed with design that adds stress and shocks the system.

We have all heard of cultural shock. Many of us get used to a specific architectural and environmental design and find it difficult to live with anything new. In my ideal world, the edges would be softer and kinder to the eyes. My world would be like a cinetographers ideal world in which I would be transported in my mind to peaceful things. Perhaps the reason that we have so much violence in our world is because we do not love it as it is.

We hate the architecture that we see around us and we want to destroy it and everything that reminds us of it. Had we the love for our world and could we change it into something closer to our dreams, we would perhaps be less likely to want to destroy it. An example would be the presence of flowing water, comfortable banks alongside streams that can be waded in, where pets can wander and places where children can play safely. Can we not design technology for our urban areas that helps us achieve such environments, or are they unrealizable dreams?
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Modelling the Diffusion of Technology by TNCs


It has been some time since I even thought about work on technology diffusion and competitive responses of firms moving plant and research from the US to the UK that I undertook in the early 1970s.

Some of this has been published and republished and is available for download on the internet.

One of my articles is available as part of a Google book published through the UN Center for the study of activities of transnational corporations, see diffusion of technology or technology. My articles on inward investment to the UK by US companies in the semiconductor and in the pharmaceutical industries is available on the National Bureau of Economic Research NBER site.

I think this type of research is still state-of-the-art encorporating as it does a way to examine competition using a non-linear model of diffusion. The model combines two types of simple averages, those of position and rate of change, with data on number of expected entrants, their size, previous innovational/copy cat history and other characteristics.
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Tuesday, 4 March 2008

Renovation or Innovation


The February "Technology Review" a magazine published by MIT since 1899 has an editorial by Jason Pontin, who some will remember for his writing in the "Red Herring." Jason's editorial focuses on the geography of innovation and he correctly points to locations of culture and methodology and innovative hubs where there has been difficulty with the innovative process. He mentions the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development as a think tank on innovation. As a former consultant to that think tank and a researcher of knowledge creation and innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, Jason's ideas caught my attention.

There is possibly no better way to understand the innovative process than by reading the many writings of Joseph Schumpeter, the famous Harvard economist of the 1930's. Schumpeter's ideas caught the imagination of economists and propelled innovation in the field of economics itself. What Schumpeter emphasized was the role of new men in the process of innovation, men without the habits of earlier technologies. What Schumpeter was looking for was a cluster of innovations occurring together that would produce an economic upswing and a reversal of the decline in the profit rate.

Schumpeter was claiming that Karl Marx had got the dynamics of the economy all wrong and that innovation produced economic cycles. Marx's notion that it was the issue of capital accumulation which led to immiserization growth was extremely limited, if only because the economic mix of labour and capital was not governed by a linear mathematics, but a non-linear mathematics, one much more difficult to predict and one which could lead to higher profit rates rather than gradually declining profit rates. The key to a new profit stream was new products and new processes.

Innovation in the modern economy usually involves a new division within an existing company. There may be 'new' men or women involved. but they have a different vision of the product or process they are using in order to make a profit.

Occasionally, innovation may require only a new application of an existing product with a minor modification of specifications, such as dosage for pharmaceuticals.

Innovation as Jason correctly states requires a liberal attitude of management because there will be many strikes before home runs.

These figured dominantly in capitalist economic growth but at that time few had researched the process now best called economic development. Innovation and development go hand in hand. What really brought about the end to Communist economics was the fact that innovation occurs in products as well as processes, and that capitalism is driven by a creative destruction of existing productive capacity for both products and processes.

Schumpeter's definition of innovation was that it brought about a fundamental restructuring of the producing or processing base of an economy, and nearly always resulted in higher profits. Innovation was commercial activity that took place after invention and involved a significantly new technology.

What follows innovation is imitation activity or renovation of an existing technology for a product or process. Obviously, there is going to be questions asked whether innovation has occurred or renovation. The best way to tell is to look at the underlying processes that make up the earlier technology and the direction that the technology is applied. Much innovation is accomplished without obvious profit though an examination of value added might be helpful. What you will find is that even innovation involves building on previous technology structures, e.g. tiny transistors superseded large electronic valves; LED's may supersede fluorescent bulbs, and so on.

Much insight into the role of multinational firms and innovation has come from the work of Professor John Dunning who was the former chairman of the EIBA.
at

The Great Sleep

The political leaders of North America from rich oil producing regions sleep away on design and implementation of environment, health, and science and technology programs. Look at the cut backs and lack of interest in adequately funding and developing the new fusion technologies. Oil interests rule so completely that speculators, including the oil people themselves, know which commodities to speculate with using US dollars that don't know where else to go. We are witnessing another round of speculation as Bush seeks to grab as much as he can before leaving office. This means that the rest of the world will have to assume a bigger role. Watch British Petroleum try to grab Iraq's oil as the country is trying to stand on its feet. Watch Exxon grab its share and enhance its billions of profits that could be used for non-polluting energy sources and healthier environments for all creatures. Why should beef and petroleum oil win every time when they are so uncool.

China is obviously well placed to become the world's largest economy and its currency may ultimately join the US dollar in a basket of preferred currencies of use as people scramble for security in storing economic value. China will join countries that invest overseas and its influence will spread now more rapidly as America hangs leaderless.

Russia is once again in an economic leadership opportunity and should use its oil resources wisely. America's tactic would be to provoke Russia into another arms race which would mean a squandering of Russia's opportunity to gain the major world leadership spot. Putin is probably the only leading politician worldwide, who can claim to be on the right track despite his stance of refusing to share power, probably wise in view of Russia's history of internal conflict and inability to self govern democratically. Its not that the Russian people are not democratic. They are probably too democratic. Its that they don't now how to organize a parliament that balances forward and backward forces adequately.

Wise use of the revenues of Russian oil, unlike the crazy use by Britain, USA, and Canada of their oil revenues, will give Russia the longed for opportunity to join the big six as world economic powers. What will determine the outcome is whether Putin can engineer or encourage a society of level headed individuals who can see through the American corporate game plans for acquiring dominance in world energy.

Its a question of oil and guns. Will the world buy more guns? Will the world continue in its addiction to oil as its energy source. There are alternatives, but the leaders of the world are not pointing in those directions at all. Just watch and listen to what they say and decide for yourself.
at

Monday, 3 March 2008

Removing Fences to Give Wild Animals A Chance


We don't usually think about fences as being a sea change in the fight for survival of wild animals. Often it is the barriers that humans use to protect themselves and their domesticated livestock whether animal or foul, which makes older ways of life impossible, especially living with animals that need to roam. I am not a vegetarian, but I do think that if we were too become plant eaters of quality plants rather than genetic rubbish, we could add to the richness and variety of our natural environments, those that are close to home.

More specifically, I remember as a child that in the town where I grew up there were few fences and lots of places for kids to roam and pick fruit of the neighbourhood, but going back there as an adult there were loads of fences and very little in the way of fruit. What have we done to our neighbourhood environments? Have we made them more like fortresses than homes. Do our kids walk out the back door into nature or are they penned up like zoo creatures? Have our cities become human zoos?

I think they have!
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Sunday, 2 March 2008

LED Lightbulbs with an Almost Infinite Life


They are here in Canada in Walmart stores and you can buy them for about $13 a bulb that runs cold and lasts almost for ever (100,000 hours is an understatement). It is an amazing technological story that has the promise that it can save the earth if we all act now and replace our existing light bulbs with LEDs as they come on stream. The fluorescent replacements to incadescent are a big improvement, but the LEDs are the 'major' leap forward.


The fun thing about LEDs is that they can be programmed with artificial intelligence to assume almost any colour of light imaginable and you don't risk the burning your house down. For pennies a year, you can light your home. Can you imagine how this technology will transform our world!
Those interested in promoting LEDs and LED technology can subscribe to a free magazine.
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Thursday, 28 February 2008

The Grand Assise

I was once a junior civil servant given the task of doing whatever I was told. It seems strange now to look back on it, but the issue of world debt has been an issue with me for much of my career in government and private industry.

Significantly, I remember an assignment that has a familiar ring about it in the age of American debt. My task was to help the former Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Lester B Pearson with a project that he had undertaken to reduce world debt.

My task was to send messages to world leaders inviting them to what Lester referred to as 'The Grand Assise.' This was to be a meeting at which the world experts and leaders on debt was discuss ways to solve the global debt issue. The Pearson Commission and its efforts as it became known was Canada's way of assisting in the process of trying to address the issue of debt.

I remember in particular, that in this period of cold war, the Russians were unwilling to sit at the table.

The pledges made by industrially advanced countries to channel assistance to developing countries has had mixed success. Africa remained debt ridden because industrial nations would not trade with Africa fairly fearful of trade unions and lass of jobs. What we have now is an Africa that is struggling despite the discovery of mineral riches. The industrial nations have not understood the nature of African communities and have in competition between themselves caused more problems for Africa.

While it was possible for many new medicines to be developed for African people, this has not been done because the shareholders of the big pharmaceutical companies do not want lower profit rates even though this would help the dying communities of Africa. Such lack of foresight as to the role of the medicine and medical industries has made Africa the carrier of debt unable to meet its role in a balanced way within the world economy. The Pearson vision of an Africa able to stand positively on its own feet was not realized. Africa has been plundered for profits and its environments and peoples depleted. It is time that the world did something to really end poverty in Africa and it must come though health and educational programs that address the real issues of African politics and way of life. Help!
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Debt as a Cause of Wars


Over the past year, I have been engaged in taking the first steps towards making a film of the Wuh Lax stories and "The Cosmic Lantern." This is an enormous challenge and theoretically beyond the budget of the most determined independent film producers.

I suppose the mistake of a film producer would be to underestimate the vision that The Cosmic Lantern contains. This is not just a story but a series of stories with enormous potential. It hits at the heart of western civilization with its emphasis on performance above all else. It challenges the audience with the economics of debt which provide an explanation of why otherwise peaceful communities are drawn into war.

Examine what is happening in United States right now and you will see the destruction of a society from within because of debt. Debt management is the forgotten science that will become our futures and will protect us as we deal with a global environmental crisis. Make no mistake about it, debt is potentially the greatest source of misery historically, and it the bane of our modern society. Debt creation brought about the first and second great wars. It brought about the invasion of Britain in Roman times.

Debt creation and the slave system attached to debt is what will destroy the fragile but false harmony of the post war period. When one examines the causes of the second world war, one sees at the heart of it the demands by France for a repayment of war debts. In the case of the first world war, the countries of Britain and Germany got themselves into so much debt building huge ships to destroy each other in gun boat diplomacy that they lost the delicate balance of peace in a mad rush to eliminate national debts by means of conquest. Yes! Debt is the remarkable destructive engine of war and misery.

So! What does this have to do with "The Cosmic Lantern" and a story that focuses on the period of 50 AD. Well, the story about Wuh and his family is a story about how those driven by debt destroy a happy balanced community forever. It is a story of triumph over a horrible period of genocide and enslavement that has remained hidden outside of history for two thousand years. In the filming thus of "The Cosmic Lantern," there is a desire to make people aware of the forces in the modern world and the potential negative political consequences of debt, which are to destroy all that is valuable and lovable in society.

Debt kills. Debt is a monster process that leads to war, to conquest, to greed, and to ultimate destruction of beauty and peace. Debt is the Anti-Christ, the Armageddon, that threatens to destroy our civilization. If we want to leave in freedom, we must educate our children about the consequences of debt and what it does to societies destroying them from within and destroying everything around them that is wholesome and positive. Being lazy in our attitude about debt will only lead to our own destruction and that of the future of our children and of the earth itself.
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Sketches from scratches is a provocative blogspot that has grown out of the Wuh Lax experience. It is eclectic, which means that it might consider just about anything from the simple to the extremely difficult. A scratch can be something that is troubling me or a short line on paper. From a scratch comes a verbal sketch or image sketch of the issue or subject. Other sites have other stuff that should really be of interest to the broad reader. I try to develop themes, but variety often comes before depth. ... more!