The Good Old Days - you can keep 'em

Another one of those irritating “Remember the Good Old Days” emails arrived in my inbox this morning. Why do older people send these round? If you’re one of them, please let me know.  Is it that they remind you of your idyllic, carefree childhood? Is there a lovely rosy glow round all your memories? Aren’t you the lucky one? All they do for me is poke sticks into old wounds. This latest one was particularly obtrusive, hence this post. One of the “good old things” about the “good old days” was (and I quote):

They threatened to keep children back a year if they failed the school year. . .  And they did!
I was one of those failures. I started school a year earlier than I should have done – was that because I was “bright” or was it because I was the youngest of five children and my parents needed some peace? When I was six I developed a stammer, this made it difficult to communicate effectively with the teachers. The older I got, the more they punished me by verbal abuse, smacking and hitting with rulers and board dusters. My stammer must have irritated the hell out of them. In what should have been my final year at junior school I was plagued with stomach problems and undiagnosed depression so “they” in their wisdom, kept me back a year. All my friends went off to pastures new and I was left with thirty kids who I didn’t know, who teased me unceasingly about my stammer. By the way, being a failure, I went on to a secondary modern school where I flourished but didn’t have the opportunity to excel academically – we didn’t even have chemistry or physics teachers.

So let me say this to all those “oldies” who send these emails round. The Present is called the Present for good reason.

IT’S A GIFT. TREASURE IT; APPRECIATE IT; EMBRACE IT.

Yes there is more stress in the workplace. Yes people have the opportunity to indulge their greed, and yes there are many things that we could improve, but at least we now have the choice and the freedom to improve our lives and the lives of others. In the “good old days” power hungry people (assigned the role of petty tyrants) were free to exercise their power however they chose, often without discretion and often too without compassion; certainly without the common sense to understand the negative consequences of their “good old” rules.

So please, please, please, strike me off your “living in the past” distribution list. I prefer the here and now.  Even with all its warts and its carbuncles, it’s a whole lot better than yesterday.

2012 - and the world is changing

We’re all familiar by now with the Mayan Prophesy that the world will end on the 21^st December 2012 – coincidentally, the Winter Solstice and  my birthday. I so hope that no one is fearing an asteroid impact, a global war or global earthquakes covering our beautiful planet in fire and brimstone. Then again, any of those may be easier to weather than the birthing pains that may be in store for us. Though the prophecies are not fully understood, people with more understanding than most interpret this as the start of a new way of being in the world. A change of attitude. A change of politics. A change of perspective. Of course these things are rarely won by peaceful means. Currently we live with the threat of economic implosion. Governments make war on their own people. Increasing intervention by the media and the State infringe our lives and assault our psyches. Profit is more important than people or the environment. We’re constantly bombarded by companies promising to make us happy if we hand over our hard earned cash. Our children live for hours in virtual worlds of internet gaming and social networking. The people at the top seem only to be concerned about themselves and this ethos trickles through society like a weeping sore, infecting the populace with the idea that it’s OK to riot and loot. The raping and pillaging of our Mother Earth, and all her inhabitants, has got to stop. If it doesn’t, we’ll continue to fall into the abyss of selfishness and greed until there is nothing left worth saving.

But there is hope and that hope lies in a growing body of people throughout the world who believe there is a better way. Who believe that peaceful protection of the earth and all her inhabitants is the medicine that will turn this around. This eclectic mix of people may have different beliefs, different gods, different ways of living, but fundamentally they all travel the same path. The difference between these paths and the paths being currently trodden by the masses, is that these new paths are paths that follow the heart. They’re paths that lead through rich spiritual landscapes, paths that demand an open mind and an open heart. These people have let go of the belief that only Science can solve our problems, that Science is the rock on which we can rely; the foundation on which our future will stand or fall. They embrace a new philosophy, and they embrace each other despite their differences.

Here’s a very relevant and interesting quote from the latest edition of The Arlington Institute e-magazine, The Future Vol 14 Number 24

“If this really is a punctuation in the evolutionary process, then, by definition, the new territory that we're entering is not described by the current maps and operates in quite different ways. In this case the proposals for dealing with all of these hard problems are intrinsically soft - all about stuff like love and gratitude - which requires embracing a radically different concept of reality. It says that there is another way to operate in this human space that accesses physics and forces that are not yet described by the conventional, authoritative sources - but nevertheless work. It also means that if you don't embrace these new concepts, the world that you experience will become increasingly dysfunctional and fearful.”
So, if you want to enter into the new age with optimism, courage and hope; can I suggest that you answer the call of spirit. Believe me, it’s knocking whether you hear it or not.

Here’s a quote from Walt Whitman. Give it some thought:

Re-examine all you have been told

Dismiss what insults your soul.

Post Script: Follow this link http://www.seri-worldwide.org/id435.html for an article written by someone who has the authority to inform us What the Mayan Elders are Saying About 2012 by Carlos Barrios

Police State?

I flew into Atlanta Georgia airport in the summer of 2009, looking forward to a conference in Asheville NC followed by a leisurely tour of the Smokey Mountains. I hadn’t been in the USA since 2006 but my memories of Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles airports during that visit were all good; polite officials welcoming me and hoping that my stay in the USA was a good one. Not so in 2009. My experiences at Atlanta airport were traumatic. Bullied for fifteen minutes by a Passport Control official, accused of breaking federal law and threatened with arrest, and then being separated from my luggage with no explanation. My cabin bag was examined out of my sight – it contained all my valuables, including money and credit cards. I tell you this because I’ve just learned that the Department of Homeland Security has asked Congress to give the green light on funding for a massive expansion of TSA (Transport Security Administration) checkpoints. The federal agency are already responsible for over 9,000 such checkpoints.  Americans now fear that their homeland is turning into a police state following the passage of an ‘indefinite detention’ bill. The increase in funding is to create 12 more VIPR (Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams to add the federal agency’s 25 units that are already scattered across the country and responsible for manning checkpoints on highways, in bus and train terminals, at sports events and even high school prom nights.

I’m back in the States next June. This time I’ll go with trepidation. Whilst I've no objection at all to carefully monitored security checks, there is no reason to conduct those checks in a bullying, authoritarian manner. If people are treated with disrespect and made to feel like criminals, the people will rebel eventually. Being polite and respectful costs nothing and achieves much more. We may be told the current strategy is part of the War on Terror but from where I’m standing it’s a War against Peace and this doesn’t feel like a good road to be travelling down.

STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH

In mid-November I flew out to Dubai to meet up with an ex-lover in the last chance saloon. Yes he lied and cheated on me before, but sometimes people change. Yes they do – honest. Sadly though, not him. He put me in a dangerous situation and then abandoned me. On my return home some people said they hoped I’d learned my lesson. What lesson is that then?

“You can’t trust people, you can’t afford to be naive, you shouldn’t travel alone, you should have checked things out more thoroughly, you should have…. should have…… should have…….”

Hey, hold on just a second there, what are you saying? That I shouldn’t take any risks? Is that how you live? Let me ask you something, when you’re on your death bed will you be glad you always played it safe?

It reminded of what Steve Jobs (founder of APPLE) said in 2005 when he addressed a group of University students, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. He took risks in business and love. He made mistakes but also tasted amazing success. Living sometimes in the bottom of dark valleys, but at other times soaring over the mountain tops. Here’s an extract from his speech that day:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.”

Steve Jobs died of cancer at age 56 after living a full and rewarding life, despite all the obstacles he had to surmount. And we should remember that Death stalks all of us, all of the time. Every hour, every minute, every second. You can ignore this or accept it. If you accept it, you can make Death your ally – this will ensure you try and live each day as though it’s your last.

It’s your life, only you can decide what to do with it. No one has the right to pass judgement on you because you don’t live like they do. I choose to stay hungry; it keeps me enthusiastic about life. I choose to be foolish; my foolishness keeps me open to opportunity and adventure. Rock on!#

Economic Collapse Inevitable?

Corporate greed has been unchecked for too long. Many economists are now warning of a total meltdown in the global economy. Perhaps we should have listened to Thomas Jefferson long ago when he talked about the potentially negative role that the financial institutions would play in the future of America if they were allowed to control the issuing of currency.

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around (these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent of their fathers conquered. The issuing power (of currency) should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belong.”  Thomas Jefferson 3^rd President of the United States. 

Extracted from FUTUREdition Volume 14, Number 18

The Future [TheFuture@FUTUREdition.org]

Am I worried?  You bet! It won’t be the big Corporations or the Bankers that suffer, probably not the Politicians either, it will be you and me, our friends and family, our neighbours and our communities. Brace yourselves.

#

Phone call to tell me my computer is infected

I’ve just spent fifteen minutes on the phone to a girl (Chinese? Indian? Martian?) who was trying to convince me my computer was badly infected with a programme that can be used by hackers to access all my personal information. She said her company is affiliated to Microsoft and they want to clean up my computer and keep me safe. You know the sort of call – we’ve nearly all had them. Do people still fall for this bullshit????? I thought I’d have a bit of fun. I kept asking her to repeat everything she said (three times) as, “I’m a bit deaf dear. Can you speak louder and more slowly? No, still too fast. Slower. Slower. Louder. Slow down. Can you repeat that dear? No sorry, still can’t hear you.” She was very obliging and slowed down almost to a stop  – it was hilarious. Then she asked me if I was at my computer now. I said yes. She asked if it was a desktop or a laptop. I said I didn’t know, what was the difference?  Now she thought I was stupid as well as deaf. As she scrabbled round trying to find the right words, I got bored and put on my confident, authoritative voice, zapping her with the legal stuff. She panicked and put me through to the “Technical Manager”, who sounded exactly like her. I was told they needed to ask all these personal questions for verification purposes. I explained that the RLS (rate limiting step) was me verifying them, not the other way round. I went on and on and on, without pause, about how they were committing fraud, how I’d recorded this conversation and how they were acting criminally. She told me to “Get Lost”. Which caused me to discharge shrieking laughter into the mouth piece. Hopefully it hurt her ear. There followed a panicked conversation in a foreign language at the other end of the phone and then a voice, in pigeon English, pleaded, “Dr. Harthan. Dr. Harthan, are you still there?” Then the phone was put down. Morons. But morons who somehow have got hold of my name and my landline number, despite my having been registered with TPS for years. What a strange world we’ve made for ourselves!

#

How to get rid of worms

Mr. Rouyer is a French farmer living in the village of Gripperie-Saint-Symphorien. He was burgled a couple of months ago. I don’t know what was stolen but it was obviously enough to warrant him calling the police. As well as cows and sheep, Mr. Rouyer keeps organic ducks, which are in excellent health without the use of duck medicine. They never suffer from worms, which Mr. Rouyer maintains are very common parasites of ducks. If you keep ducks, I expect you’ll want to know his secret. Well, the good news is that his secret is not a secret anymore. One of the eagle-eyed Gendarmes spotted 12 cannabis plants at Mr. Rouyer’s farm, and a further search turned up 5kg of the drug.  (Wouldn’t you think he’d have hidden it all before calling the Police!) In his defence, Mr. Rouyer told the police that he grows the weed to feed to his ducks because it’s an excellent de-wormer. He was also heard to say, “That’s correct Officer, I don’t have worms either.”

Sadly Duck a la Marijuana is now off the menu!