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?

Adelaide, Australia by Gordon,

Albuquerque (NM), USA by Helen,

Aliso Viejo (CA), USA by Rodney,

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,

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

Explaining the Wu of Wooh

As readers are undoubtedly aware, the author of this blog, AW Lake, is also the author of the very successful book "Wuh Lax and the Cosmic Lantern." The leading character of the book, which is the first of a series of books featuring a large cast of characters, is Wuh Lax, who is a mythological character. I say mythological, but the irony of it is that Wuh is an archetypal hero with a very great presence. As my stories unfold, the devoted readers of the series will become aware that Wuh, the mythological individual, really does exist on an ethereal plane. This is why the books are aimed at the ethereally challenged. But, I should explained a bit about what is meant by the ethereally challenged?

Most of us are ethereally challenged. Wu-wu is a pre-Taoist state in which there is absolutely nothing. Out of the state of wu-wu comes the Tao. The Cosmic Lantern is a story about the new physics. The ethereally challenged include all those reading in the area of the new physics. Scientists are on the threshold of discovering that the cosmic concept of the big bang has to be re-written through revelation coming from both science and inspiration. In reality the concept of the big bang is as much a mythology of science as it is of religion. In the beginning, God did not create our universe. There is very good reason.

The state of wu, of complete nothingness, is a myth, Similarly while Christian creationism spells the mythology of God creating the universe, the Taoists spell out their mythology which results in Ying and Yang. Both are inspired by man's quest to unveil the mysteries of the universe. I say this knowing that my father was a Christian minister, a missionary, and a devout believer in a personal relationship with Christ. His reality was based on an inner transformation that he very successfully documented in a series of daily writings and readings. He insisted that one could come to know God through inner transformation arising from what one saw and read.

It was the ethereal departure of my father, that brought me to create Wuh and to explore those regions of our existence that are rarely explored because our mythologies about truth get in the way. My father was also a devout student of human nature and knew the secret of dancing with God. This is what wu is all about, dancing with the truth. Our fate is that we will never know the truth of what has happened or what is going to happen. That does not stop us from creating our mythology of what the truth is all about and then believing our mythology, and indeed experiencing it as our reality.

God exists, but God exists in the wu, and is the all pervading essense of being, fullness or emptiness depending on whether your glass is half full or half empty. Wu is all about attitude, about dancing with God, about dancing with the unknowable truth. From where do I get my knowledge?

For many years at Cambridge University in England, I studied the nature of invention and knowledge, how it arose and what happened with it. My studies were focused on knowledge creation as it applied to the science of economics, but that did not stop me from understanding the bigger picture. While a student at Cambridge in the early 1970s , some of my fellow students had a little red book that they carried around with them all the time. They constantly spoke to me about Mao and his words, how important they made them feel. They had purpose and direction. To them Chairman Mao spoke the truth and they were not going to listen to anything that I said concerning that truth. Instead my response was to give them a book about the Tao, which I said contained more truth than Mao's little red book. Gary Zukav in his book, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, wrote that science and religion are only dances, and that those involved in these enterprises might claim to be seeking the truth but their reality is that they as dancers and love to dance.

I invented Wuh, but wu is a magician and a worker of miracles. My task was to let him perform those miracles in the minds of my readers. Aloha and Uweeeee!

America's Economic Prospects for the Longer Term

No one wants to hear the bad news. Everyone puts their head in the sands and waits for the stampede to pass. This time it won't be like that. The process of adjustment for America will be slow and arduous as it has been for countries in the Far East. We once called these countries the economic tigers of Asia. Suddenly, they became devalued and we saw goods appearing on our shelves some 25 to 50 percent lower in cost than before. America went crazy with imports and the goods from Asia flowed in like a dam burst of the ice age. Now, its America's turn. Few would recall that the Asian crisis was a result of firms in Asia locking on to the dollar and borrowing until the cows came home.

What they did not expect then was a sudden uplift in the US dollar that would raise the cost of their borrowing repayment stream. Does anyone think that the low interest charges of the present approach to the credit crisis in America will not lead to further misery down the road. Oh please think again because you have not thought it through. Ask yourself what will happen when the interest rates go up and what will happen when the US dollar appreciates. Then act wisely and cautiously in this mad world of floating exchange rates. Act so that you will not be burned yet again by a failed strategy.

America's Failed Economic and Political Policies

Economic policies of the United States over the years of the Bush administration threaten to push the world economy into severe recession and damage prospects for solution to many of the world's energy problems. Why be optimistic about the prospects for solving the world environmental crises when the United States, which should be leading the world forward, has made such a wonderous mess of things? Most disasterous of all is the way the unfair distribution of incomes has hit intelligent and willing people who are in need of resources to participate more effectively in the modern economic age.

There was a time when the Euro was weaker than the US dollar. The fact that the exchange value of the Euro has reached 1.5 should set off alarm bells that America's economic policies come from the scrap heap of economic thought. The current policies threaten stability in the world economy with a return to the beggar thy neighbour approach to macro economics of the depression era. What we are really talking about is the prospect that American economic policies are pushing the world economy towards a major depression. This is not depression by default, but an engineered depression by design. If one examines the record of the Bush administration with its focus on oil economics and politics that have thrown many progressive countries of the Middle East into an economic wasteland, one has to wonder whether the President and his men read at all. Its no excuse that other economic forces overtook the administrations policies. Its more accurate to say that the policies were deeply flawed from the get go. Lets be honest. The economic record of the past half decade has not been anything like it could have been. Bush's people have failed on science, religion, energy policy, Middle-East politics, housing, disaster recovery, interest rates and genuine home ownership instead of speculative rental ownership, inflation, genetic engineering, the search for alternative energy sources. How can anyone support such a failure of application of policy?

What is American doing now other than implementing beggar thy neighbour economics at the expense of Europe? Have these people lost their senses? Or, have they lost their sense of direction? Is policy now just a mishmash of old ideas from failed individuals, but rich ones working for their own selfish interests. Where are the genuine American statesmen?

Breathing, Longer Life and Better Stomach and Small Intestine Health

As the body ages many of the underlying processes of good health that we taken for granted weaken and even fail. It is important to understand that you can take a proactive stance to slow down your own aging process. Of greatest importance is your ability to breath deeply. Without strong breathing, you weaken for first line of defense against depleted health. Whenever you can, no matter what age, practice breathing. Without oxygen in your lungs to feed your heart, you will find that the body cannot do all the other things it needs to do. Oxygen to the heart keeps you alive, so breath to get the air deeply into your lungs below your diaphragm and into your back area.

It is extremely important to keep your stomach in good health. You need to be under constant vigilance to know whether you have any food allergies. Sometimes you stomach may have ulcers, which are often the result of the helicobacter pylori bacterium. Zinc carnosine is a supplement that is used in Canada and USA to help bring about a balance of the mucosal lining cells of the stomach and small intestine. It is used in Japan, where treatment of stomach ulcers by stronger doses of zinc and carnosine has been very successful. Cranberry juice and licorice are also ways to fight deterioration of the stomach.

Who or What is God? Life and Laws!

You may be asked, "Do you believe in God?"

If someone asks you the question its because they are not sure themselves because if they were sure then the question would be irrelevant, like asking someone if they believed in wind. The existence of wind would be obvious as would the existence of God.

The fact that many people ask the question whether God exists may mean that they are unsure whether they themselves exist.

Is God Dead?

The "God is Dead" discussion in the 1970s was about whether a particular definition of God was acceptable to people because many could not see evidence of God according to that definition. The fear was that the established church would lose adherents if people attending church could not experience a meaningful God, or God did not exist for them.

If we examine the question of whether God exists from what we now know of the scientific process, the religious process, the spiritual process, and the mythological process, we have to say that opinions differ greatly. The fact that people do frequently ask the question and people are nervous about how others will interpret their response means that we have a long way to go as a community of minds.

Did God Create Life?

Everyone believes that life exists and that the basis of their life is really something that should be preserved at all costs. There is within normal healthy people the desire to live and an empathy for life in general. This is to be expected because it is pretty obvious. Even though almost all people believe in life, there are many who would rather skip the notion that life in general is a good thing. Such people take a very narrow view of life and act as though only their selection of life matters.

Almost everyone knows that laws exist. Even though laws exist many people behave as if they don't. Observing other people's behaviour may not be a good way to judge whether they believe in something. Many people will behave as though all the laws do not exist. They will be selective about which laws they will obey because they know that for those laws, there is little escape from punishment if the laws are broken. So the question is whether God is a Law or, a Set of Laws that should not be broken?

Are there Laws About Life that We Cannot Break?

Many people behave as if God is nothing to do with Laws or a Set of Laws. Does this matter?
What we do know is that there exists a set of laws that we cannot break. These are physical laws. Is God the set of physical laws that we cannot break?

Another set of laws has to do with living entities, such as human beings and the laws of life that seem to govern our planet. We as a world community are pretty ignorant, even stupid, when it comes to understanding the laws of life that govern our planet. It is pretty obvious that we have failed miserably in understanding life laws. Most life laws are invisible to us. Could it be that we don't see God even though God may exist and may have some influence on the laws governing life. Are we that stupid?

Probably yes!

Pathways to Revelation or Invention

Revelation or invention are processes whereby a sentient being acquires useful information that is extremely difficult to obtain in normal circumstances. The process is so rare that a community regards such events with extreme respect whether it occurs within religious or scientific community. We often speak of revelation in the context of prophets and prophesy when they state that they have received a message or understood a message from an esoteric or exoteric source. Invention we think of as a secular event, but the process of revelation and invention are almost one in the same.

In the case of invention, the inventor or recipient of the revelation is regarded as the active participant in the revelation process, whereas in the case of revelation, the recipient is a channel through which an exoteric or esoteric entity is the active participant. Revelation is not confined to the religious or spiritually focused community, but is part and parcel of scientific discovery and invention. One might use the term discovery instead of revelation in cases where the person from or to whom a revelation occurs accepts a minor role.

The reality is that it does not require a prophet for the process of revelation to occur. Its not so much the participants in revelation that matters as much as the process and meaning of the revelation to the wider community. Its also quite natural when an amazing revelation occurs to regard this as a supernatural event whether it is supernatural or not.

In any event, the person receiving the revelation, or making a deiscovery, becomes a hero to the community. The fact that a reward is obtained as a result of the revelation process means that many might be tempted to claim a revelation even though the process has not occured.

In ancient communities, the stability of the community often depended on revelations being monopolized by a group of individuals or a single individual who claimed to be responsible for the process of revelation. With the printing press and the age of discovery, the fact that many more people and people outside the monopoly group to which revelations were accepted to occur could claim inventions and revelations. These were feared by the status quo which thought that new ideas or discoveries would destabilize the existing structure of authorities, especially if they ranked highly within these structures.

The monopolization of revelation by a specific group of individuals within a community gave them enormous power to keep authority structures as they were and rather than sharing revelations they would guard them and keep them for themselves. In a very real sense, revelations being new knowledge were power. Inventions were power. Prophesy was power. Those in authority grabbed power by monopolizing the process of revelation.

We now know that revelation is a process that can occur to the least individual in a community, and does not necessarily require an enormous education. Communities that realize this progress far more rapidly in knowledge creation and dissemination thatn communities that don't. In turn, communities that innovate from invention and revelation progress far more rapidly in power than those which don't. Knowledge and invention when applied to innovation grant enormous potential and capacity to communities.

By opening up pathways for revelation, the internet and information spreading technologies can produce genuine democratization of power within communities and this can lead to more even distributions of wealth and authority by means of pluralist politics. The greater sharing of authority is a good thing because it means everyone in the community and the community as a whole can progress and make better decisions. With pluralism everyone potentially is a winner. In game theory it has been shown that cooperating is a much better strategy for a community than outright competition. A mix of competition with cooperation is the way for communities to build pathways to rapid revelation, invention and progress through innovation or creative destruction that moves a community forward and assists in adaptations to complex world environments necessary for the survival of life and living entities.

It follows that free education and liberal education is a very powerful instrument in development. It has been shown that countries that provide low cost education right up to university entrance and beyond progress more rapidly that communities that allow groups to monoplize education processes. This is why people in some countries like the UK and USA are failing economically as their education systerms are inadequate and high cost to the vast majority. It is why people from other countries with better education systems and more liberal attitudes to education will overtake them very rapidly in the new internet age.

Daydreaming Our Way to Better Health

One often dreams while asleep. Dreams very frequently occur just before one wakes up and sunlight is gently caressing the windowsill. We value our dreams because they transport us away from fully integrated awareness.

In dreams, we are only partially integrated. This lack of integration gives dreams a freedom that we do not have in a fully awake state. Some people, however, are lucky enough to be able to create awareness states that are only partially integrated simply by closing their eyes.

I am able to do this. Even better it is possible to lose integrated awareness even when I have my eyes wide upon. We say that people dream walk. Well, some people dream walk through life. They have their eyes wide open. You talk to them and they appear to hear everything you say, but you know that they perpetually live in a dream world in which their brains are not fully integrated. I often ask myself whether this is also the case with myself, and then I am disappointed.

Unfortunately, there are people that are only unintegrated infrequently. Such people are sober. They are rarely intoxicated and they tend to be very serious about everything they say. Sometimes they are so serious and intent that people forget they are serious and when they say or write something that seems strange, the reaction is that of thinking that what was written was written in gest or in a period of insincerity. Nothing could be further from the truth.

People such as myself may write simple, strange, and frequently stupid things with all sincerity. We are actually surprised when we find that people ignore us or think that we are light headed. I have struggled to understand why my brain is like it is and have come to realize that it is because of imperfect memory and logic. In reality, the world frequently throws up information that is contradictory. It tells us two things at once, such as the fact that Australia is below us. We know that this is not the case. Australia is at a similar sea level to what we are. If I ever said that China was beneath me, it is because I was being entirely logical even though my logic to another person does not make any sense whatsoever.

Everyone knows that the English language is a difficult language and much about it is not logical. It follows very definite rules, but these rules are frequently broken and it is difficult to know when they are broken. I understand that this result arose from the 1600 hundreds when the language was being written down and all the nuanaces explored in depth by an increasingly sophisticated, yet divided, community, much of the time drinking gin.

That brings me to another point, which is the sense of humour one has when one is really day dreaming. I sometimes am sitting in a comfortable chair doing nothing in particular but daydreaming. All of a sudden I burst out into laughter. Other people, if they overhear me, think that this is extremely rude. They immediately assume that I am laughing at them, which is rarely true. My mind finds most things amusing and it is only while day dreaming that I lose my inhibitions enough to burst out laughing at the slightest thought. This is why, I feel so good after a good day dream. It's also why I feel so good after a real dream. My dreams are most often really funny because the world is so funny. The world is entirely contradictory in so many ways that it is enough to make one laugh all the time. Good thing I have so much will power and have such a serious nature.

What Can I do to Release Less CO2?

What Can I do?
To release less CO2!

What can I say?
To make global warming go away!

Stop farting.
Eat less.
Don't circle around, but go straight to the point.
Keep calmer.
Sleep longer.
Die or slow down my breathing.
Plant seeds of plants and trees.
Recycle paper or store it away permanently.
Do less.
Travel less.
Don't use chemicals that produce CO2 directly or indirectly.
Stop sheep from farting.
Belch less often and under water.
Grow more hair and keep it permanently longer.
Don't shave.
Buy more books and book shelves and give them to the nation as a permanent endowment.
Yawn less often.
Replace incandescent bulbs with florescent bulbs.
Replace florescent bulbs with LED bulbs.
Buy more efficient batteries.
Replace car tyres.
Pray for rain.
Block up volcanoes.
Put out fires.
Store wood, coal, petrol, oil, and all chemicals that might release CO2.
Create shady areas and grow moss.
Create a canopy garden, plants and flowers, bushes, short trees, bigger trees and very tall trees, and huge humongous trees.
Stop mailing letters and use email.
Use no fertilizer.
Mulch.
Use light driven devices.
Travel in groups and share rides.
Use public transport.
Buy a more energy efficient car.
Insulate house better.
Stop eating wheat and wheat products.
Encourage long living animals and birds to breath less.
No firing of firearms.
Ban bullets.
Use electricity from power plants heat wastage to grow plants living in warm water.
Recycle offal.
Recycle urine.
Recycle glass, paper products, wood products, metal products, plastic products.
Use plastics more.
Spray water everywhere.
Eat less meat.
Exercise less.
Think more often and longer.
Waste time.
Relax.
Use no fertilizer or growth accelerator.
Stick gum under desks.
Clean less often.
Grow weeds.
No smoking and advocate ban on smoking.
Spend less.
... to be continued.

Speculative Understandings About Joy and Mythology

Our paradox is that joy, human joy, is based on a myth. A myth is a vision and feeling that we hold of a reality that is not yet real. Our joy, and almost all joy, is an expectation of something that is not now, but that we experience in the now which says something about the future, which has all the makings of a myth.

A myth is something that does not exist, and since the future does not yet exist, it is a myth. Joy is when we are most harmonious with our myths of what is yet to be. Our experience of the present in a joyful moment is that of complete harmony with what we want to be.

Mythology is a need that we have to be joyful. We are happiest in our mythology because our myths gives us harmony with our wants and desires. Creating myths helps us to be joyful and to move towards harmony with our world.

I created the mythological character of Wuh because I realized the joy that a harmonious character of a highly destructive history could bring.

In the ancient world, there was a tremendous clash of cultures as the Romans' vision and philosophy broke into the harmony of peoples innocent to the coming reality of Roman rule. It is often said that the Romans went about civilizing the communities they conquered. My understanding is very different.

The Roman story as told by the Romans is a form of escapism and a sort of mythology. Caesar was made into a hero by a destructive mythology. Similar mythologies are created by those building empires. They are frequently used when awful people justify their conquest and wide spread damage and once they have destroyed joyful communities. Examples are the Britons, the communities of Gaul, the peoples of Africa, the native communities of North and South America. The so-called conquering heros may not have made our world better, but like those that kill animals in the name of the hunt, perpetuate myths that excuse them from their evil acts and free them from conscience about the massive pain they have caused.

My anti-hero is Julius Caesar himself, a monster. We all know he was a monster because Shakespeare put him as the lead character in one of his most famous plays. The problem is that Shakespeare gave Julius a form that we have grown to love. While everyone around Caesar hated him, the modern reader has fallen in love with Caesar. Caesar is the hero of the modern age. Caesar, who destroyed so much that was harmonious and full of joy, is to be seen because of Shakespeare as a modern hero, and a good guy.

He was nothing of the sort. Caesar was a dispicable individual in debt, a lothsome man with a sickness. Caesar was a truly evil individual, who would stop at nothing for his joyful vision of civilized harmony. Our problem is that we identify Caesar with harmony and joy rather than what he actually represented and the massive pain and subjugation that he caused. The myth of the wicked Gaulite is in and the myth of the conquering hero continues. There were heros is Caesar's time, but he was not one of them. That is why I tell the story of Wuh, the mythological hero that gets the history closer to a joyful harmony.

Genocide would be a kind word for what Caesar did. He was guilty of creating the staging post for multiple genocides. More people died than in all our subsequent history books. Caesar ended the futures of billions of people who might have lived on earth, had he not existed. He is not to be worshipped. He was not a god. He was awful scum, a blight on human life, a sore of human history. The reality of Julius Caesar is that he was probably the darkest most wicked personality in history, yet has become the most loved. Yes! The modern myth of hero worship is complete. Caesar is the hero that kid's worship to their own disgrace. He, nevertheless, was a vile murdering bastard.