text:
Edge of Extinction: Endocene
I was interviewed for The Peoples Voice by Dylan Murphy. The article appeared yesterday, and can be read here: Capitalism threatens all life on the planet – Interview with Professor Guy McPherson. It was mirrored at Dissident Voice. The title is misleading, as I've come to expect from people who cannot distinguish the economic system of capitalism from civilization.
infanttyrone
Got links to any of the shitstorm ?
Tried both sites and neither one had a comments section that I could locate.
Où est la deluge de merde??
Get out the Innuendo (an Italian word for Preparation H).
Into Destiny
Jeff S Said:
"And it's curious how Curious, who buys all of Jean's crap at face value, gets to post not just over two posts, but an infinite number."
I noticed that. God fucking forbid Gerald post 3 times in a day or there is hell to pay, but "Curious" gets to go over 10 with not even a chastisement (posted 15 times total last article).
Gerald Spezio
Not from Wiki.
Endocene is the short epochal period following directly from the anthropocene.
During the Endocene, the species Homo sapiens caused its own extinction, as well as the total extinction of thousands of other innocent species & life forms.
The primary causal chain for this mass extinction was the human species' total obsession with growth.
Humans developed the ability to extract & consume enormous amounts of energy from the carbon based fuels buried in the bowels of their various planetary ecosystems, especially coal, oil, & natural gas.
Using their evolved large & creative brains, the human species developed very effective exosomatic tools both to extract & burn the increasingly sacred buried fossil fuels.
Only about twenty percent of the total human species, one & one half billion people, profligately consumed these sacred ancient fossil fuels in sophisticated, ingenious, & massive industrial plants & intricate machines.
The elitist controllers of the gleefully consuming humans in rich countries developed all manner of convoluted intellectual supports, justifications, & high sounding rationlizations for their obsessive & rapacious consumption & pollution.
The elitist engineered system of never ending growth was known as continually expanding free market economics.
The entire growth mania/economic system was completely based on borrowing money from banks at compound interest.
Compound interest, of course, was not well understood by the innocent & bamboozled borrowers.
Most bewildered borrowing pilgrims only knew it as qualifying for so-called credit.
Depending on the rate of interest, compound interest required that the borrower must repay the banker/creditor much more than he borrowed – usually around three plus times more than he borrowed.
As a handy rule, the compound interest system/religion can be summed up by the game of 72 – a very simple but monstrously perverse, deadly, & bloodsucking game.
If we divide the rate of interest, say 7 % into 72; we get slightly longer than 10 years.
Ten years is the length of time it takes for the original investment/debt to DOUBLE.
At 10 % compound interest any original investment doubles in about 7 short years.
It is a completely logical "system" & even considered "a science" by practicing well dressed priests, also known as economists.
The supply of physical money has to grow/expand to pay the bankers mathematical/mystically expanding interest.
Therefore, all development & expansion; including basic living & survival, requires continual consumption of finite resources, in order that the debtors repay their lawfully incurred contractual debts to their banker/creditors.
All consumption by the most indebted twenty percent in the "rich" countries was inevitably based on using & burning fossil fuels.
But, disaster & collapse was written into the mystical & "impossible" system of ever expanding resource extraction & consumption
The profligate burning of fossil fuels led to the equally profligate production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
The CO2 pollution was so readily & cavalierly exhausted into the atmospheric commons in such massive amounts that it caused the entire plane to abruptly heat.
The priestly economists called carbon greenhouse gas pollution an "externality."
It was NOT even considered part of the continually growing economic system.
The economic priests had esoteric equations as proof.
Nevertheless, the increased planetary heating from CO2 forced the release of other methane rich carbon stores in the Arctic Ocean Sea beds & Northern latitude permafrost.
In short order the perviously sleeping methane in the Arctic Sea beds & permafrost melted.
The escaping methane perfused into the atmospheric commons, where it abruptly increased the deadly heating – releasing even more deadly methane.
Evenually, planet Earth became too hot to sustain most froms of life, including all Mammalian life.
It was called the Sixth Great Extinction &/or the Endocene.
Some wise asses call it the ultimate bummer.
Don't mind, I know already that this is the wrong place for me. Please don't stop evoking Death, push it! Push it!
" Nicht lange durstest du noch
Nicht lange durstest du noch,
verbranntes Herz!
Verheissung ist in der Luft,
aus unbekannten Mündern bläst mich's an
– die grosse Kühle kommt …
Meine Sonne stand heiss über mir im Mittage:
seid mir gegrüsst, dass ihr kommt
ihr plötzlichen Winde
ihr kühlen Geister des Nachmittags!
Die Luft geht fremd und rein.
Schielt nicht mit schiefem
Verführerblick
die Nacht mich an? …
Bleib stark, mein tapfres Herz!
Frag nicht: warum? -"
The post above was for "Into destiny". May your destiny be fulfilled.
@ G. S. Says:
"Not from Wiki. …"
Well done, Mr. Spezio, it's unfortunate that there will be no [other] place to it in a temporally relevant way, let alone anyone able to learn anything from the lesson. C'est la vie, c'est l'mort.
Ooops, shoulda' been "…place to POST it…". My bad.
One more for your 'not Wiki' list, Gerald.
Self annihilation was frequently referred to by the insane creatures that lived in the Endocene as 'sustainable development'.
Still watching the Arctic catastrophe unfold. Sitting on two standard deviations from 'normal' and still on track for a record low this year.
milendia
floods in Texas (as an example for the loss of so many homes in the USA since 10 years). All of a sudden, you have nowhere to stay, no bed to lie on, no fridge to visit whenever you feel like eating and where you can find something to your taste and ready to eat, no bathroom to pee, shit and take a bath or a shower (hot, mind you), no clothes, no soap, shhampoo, and all other products we usually use, nowhere to go, nowhere to quietly open your computer, in privacy, and do your thing. All of a sudden, in the 4th largest city in the country (ppulation wise), life stops. And there will not be resources to reconstruct, you know it in your guts. All of a sudden, there is no future and you go into panic mode everytime it starts to rain. And you lost your car… Thousands upon thousands cars in the water.
All that water is contaminated by all the chemicals engulfed in the floods. And fracking wells. And everything.
Today, someone told me I sounded hysterical.
mike k
@Paul Chefurka – I like your agenda for Now That I Know. I will read it to the group I attend every week. I will also study it and try to make it part of my life. Thanks Paul, I needed to hear those things that you wrote from your heart.
Fukushima May Be At Risk Of Imminent "Hydrogen Explosion"
Containers holding contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant are at risk of hydrogen explosions, The Telegraph reports, with 10% of them found to be leaking. The discovery was reported to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which raised concerns surrounding the potential hazards of accumulated hydrogen building up in the containers warning that "a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explode." TEPCO officials reassuringly note that they "think the possibility of an occurrence of hydrogen explosion from these storage facilities is extremely low, since there is no fire origin, or anything that generates static electricity nearby," but this is the same company that a recent IAEA report blasted for "failing to implement adequate safeguards at Fukushima – despite being aware of the tsunami risk."
Leaking containers at Japan's embattled Fukushima nuclear power plant are at risk of possible hydrogen explosions, experts have claimed. As The Telegraph reports,
Almost 10 per cent of recently inspected containers holding contaminated water at the nuclear plant in northeast Japan were found to be leaking radioactive water.
The leakages, discovered during inspections by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operators of the plant, were thought to be caused by a build-up of hydrogen and other gases due to radiation contamination.
The discovery was reported to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which raised concerns surrounding the potential hazards of accumulated hydrogen building up in the containers.
"If the concentration level is high, a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explode," one NRA official told the Asahi Shimbun.
Tepco officials made the discovery while inspecting 278 of the plant's 1,307 containers and found that 26 – close to ten per cent – had a leakage or overspill from their lids.
It is believed that gases had accumulated in the sediment at the base of the containers, prompting the volume of the liquid to expand and resulting in the overflow.
However, officials at Tepco stated that the risk of an explosion was believed to be minimal, with a series of measures being undertaken as a matter of urgency to resolve the faulty storage containers.
The operators also emphasised that there was no sign of radioactive water escaping beyond the confines of the concrete structures that encase the leaking containers.
"We think the possibility of an occurrence of hydrogen explosion from these storage facilities is extremely low, since there is no fire origin, or anything that generates static electricity nearby," Mayumi Yoshida, a spokeswoman for Tepco, told the Telegraph.
Outlining measures to fix the problem, she added: "For temporary measures, we have been removing the leaked water, installing absorption materials, monitoring by patrol, keeping water level inside those facilities lower than set and keeping equipment which may generate fire away.
"In the long term, we're going to lower the water level of current facilities so as to prevent further leakages."
But this reassurance rings a little hollow given the recent report finding TEPCO at fault (as RT reports)…
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report that TEPCO failed to implement adequate safeguards at Fukushima – despite being aware of the tsunami risk. The document was obtained by Kyodo news agency on Monday.
According to the 240-page report, several analyses carried out between 2007 and 2009 predicted the possibility of an 8.3-magnitude earthquake on the coast of Fukushima, which could result in the plant being hit by a tsunami of around 15 meters.
However, TEPCO and Japanese authorities delayed responding to the predictions, feeling that "further studies and investigations were needed."
"TEPCO did not take interim compensatory measures in response to these increased estimates of tsunami height, nor did NISA require TEPCO to act promptly on these results," reads the text.
The report, prepared by 180 experts from 42 countries, will be presented at the annual IAEA meeting in September, if approved by its board of directors in June.
Robin Datta
The latest Radio Ecoshock Show
Listen to Paul Beckwith's grim prognostications
Kirk Hamilton
Does that mean Curimouse ain't commin' back no more? Whoopieee!
Our Mania for Hope Is a Curse
By Chris Hedges
Demonstrators protesting the influence of big corporations march on Wall Street amid heavy police presence in 2011. (AP / John Minchillo)
The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion. It cripples our capacity for radical action and lulls us into a false sense of security. Those who cling to the myth of human progress, who believe that the world inevitably moves toward a higher material and moral state, are held captive by power. Only those who accept the very real possibility of dystopia, of the rise of a ruthless corporate totalitarianism, buttressed by the most terrifying security and surveillance apparatus in human history, are likely to carry out the self-sacrifice necessary for revolt.
The yearning for positivism that pervades our corporate culture ignores human nature and human history. But to challenge it, to state the obvious fact that things are getting worse, and may soon get much worse, is to be tossed out of the circle of magical thinking that defines American and much of Western culture. The left is as infected with this mania for hope as the right. It is a mania that obscures reality even as global capitalism disintegrates and the ecosystem unravels, potentially dooming us all.
The 19th century theorist Louis-Auguste Blanqui, unlike nearly all of his contemporaries, dismissed the belief, central to Karl Marx, that human history is a linear progression toward equality and greater morality. He warned that this absurd positivism is the lie perpetrated by oppressors: "All atrocities of the victor, the long series of his attacks are coldly transformed into constant, inevitable evolution, like that of nature. … But the sequence of human things is not inevitable like that of the universe. It can be changed at any moment." He foresaw that scientific and technological advancement, rather than being a harbinger of progress, could be "a terrible weapon in the hands of Capital against Work and Thought." And in a day when few others did so, he decried the despoiling of the natural world. "The axe fells, nobody replants. There is no concern for the future's ill health."
"Humanity," Blanqui wrote, "is never stationary. It advances or goes backwards. Its progressive march leads it to equality. Its regressive march goes back through every stage of privilege to human slavery, the final word of the right to property." Further, he wrote, "I am not amongst those who claim that progress can be taken for granted, that humanity cannot go backwards."
Blanqui understood that history has long periods of cultural barrenness and brutal repression. The fall of the Roman Empire, for example, led to misery throughout Europe during the Dark Ages, roughly from the sixth through the 13th centuries. There was a loss of technical knowledge (one prominent example being how to build and maintain aqueducts), and a cultural and intellectual impoverishment led to a vast historical amnesia that blotted out the greatest thinkers and artists of the classical world. None of this loss was regained until the 14th century when Europe saw the beginning of the Renaissance, a development made possible largely by the cultural flourishing of Islam, which through translating Aristotle into Arabic and other intellectual accomplishments kept alive the knowledge and wisdom of the past. The Dark Ages were marked by arbitrary rule, incessant wars, insecurity, anarchy and terror. And I see nothing to prevent the rise of a new Dark Age if we do not abolish the corporate state. Indeed, the longer the corporate state holds power the more likely a new Dark Age becomes. To trust in some mythical force called progress to save us is to become passive before corporate power. The people alone can defy these forces. And fate and history do not ensure our victory.
Blanqui tasted history's tragic reverses. He took part in a series of French revolts, including an attempted armed insurrection in May 1839, the 1848 uprising and the Paris Commune—a socialist uprising that controlled France's capital from March 18 until May 28 in 1871. Workers in cities such as Marseilles and Lyon attempted but failed to organize similar communes before the Paris Commune was militarily crushed.
The blundering history of the human race is always given coherence by power elites and their courtiers in the press and academia who endow it with a meaning and coherence it lacks. They need to manufacture national myths to hide the greed, violence and stupidity that characterize the march of most human societies. For the United States, refusal to confront the crisis of climate change and our endless and costly wars in the Middle East are but two examples of the follies that propel us toward catastrophe.
Wisdom is not knowledge. Knowledge deals with the particular and the actual. Knowledge is the domain of science and technology. Wisdom is about transcendence. Wisdom allows us to see and accept reality, no matter how bleak that reality may be. It is only through wisdom that we are able to cope with the messiness and absurdity of life. Wisdom is about detachment. Once wisdom is achieved, the idea of moral progress is obliterated. Wisdom throughout the ages is a constant. Did Shakespeare supersede Sophocles? Is Homer inferior to Dante? Does the Book of Ecclesiastes not have the same deep powers of observation about life that Samuel Beckett offers? Systems of power fear and seek to silence those who achieve wisdom, which is what the war by corporate forces against the humanities and art is about. Wisdom, because it sees through the facade, is a threat to power. It exposes the lies and ideologies that power uses to maintain its privilege and its warped ideology of progress.
Knowledge does not lead to wisdom. Knowledge is more often a tool for repression. Knowledge, through the careful selection and manipulation of facts, gives a false unity to reality. It creates a fictitious collective memory and narrative. It manufactures abstract concepts of honor, glory, heroism, duty and destiny that buttress the power of the state, feed the disease of nationalism and call for blind obedience in the name of patriotism. It allows human beings to explain the advances and reverses in human achievement and morality, as well as the process of birth and decay in the natural world, as parts of a vast movement forward in time. The collective enthusiasm for manufactured national and personal narratives, which is a form of self-exaltation, blots out reality. The myths we create that foster a fictitious hope and false sense of superiority are celebrations of ourselves. They mock wisdom. And they keep us passive.
Wisdom connects us with forces that cannot be measured empirically and that are outside the confines of the rational world. To be wise is to pay homage to beauty, truth, grief, the brevity of life, our own mortality, love and the absurdity and mystery of existence. It is, in short, to honor the sacred. Those who remain trapped in the dogmas perpetuated by technology and knowledge, who believe in the inevitability of human progress, are idiot savants.
"Self-awareness is as much a disability as a power," the philosopher John Gray writes. "The most accomplished pianist is not the one who is most aware of her movements when she plays. The best craftsman may not know how he works. Very often we are at our most skillful when we are least self-aware. That may be why many cultures have sought to disrupt or diminish self-conscious awareness. In Japan, archers are taught that they will hit the target only when they no longer think of it—or themselves."
Artists and philosophers, who expose the mercurial undercurrents of the subconscious, allow us to face an unvarnished truth. Works of art and philosophy informed by the intuitive, unarticulated meanderings of the human psyche transcend those constructed by the plodding conscious mind. The freeing potency of visceral memories does not arrive through the intellect. These memories are impervious to rational control. And they alone lead to wisdom.
Those with power have always manipulated reality and created ideologies defined as progress to justify systems of exploitation. Monarchs and religious authorities did this in the Middle Ages. Today this is done by the high priests of modernity—the technocrats, scholars, scientists, politicians, journalists and economists. They deform reality. They foster the myth of preordained inevitability and pure rationality. But such knowledge—which dominates our universities—is anti-thought. It precludes all alternatives. It is used to end discussion. It is designed to give to the forces of science or the free market or globalization a veneer of rational discourse, to persuade us to place our faith in these forces and trust our fate to them. These forces, the experts assure us, are as unalterable as nature. They will lead us forward. To question them is heresy.
The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, in his 1942 novella "Chess Story," chronicles the arcane specializations that have created technocrats unable to question the systems they serve, as well as a society that foolishly reveres them. Mirko Czentovic, the world chess champion, represents the technocrat. His mental energy is invested solely in the 64 squares of the chessboard. Apart from the game, he is a dolt, a monomaniac like all monomaniacs, who "burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world." When Czentovic "senses an educated person he crawls into his shell. That way no one will ever be able to boast of having heard him say something stupid or of having plumbed the depths of his seemingly boundless ignorance."
An Austrian lawyer known as Dr. B, whom the Gestapo had held for many months in solitary confinement, challenges Czentovic to a game of chess. During his confinement, the lawyer's only reading material was a chess manual, which he memorized. He reconstructed games in his head. Forced by his captivity to replicate the single-minded obsession of the technocrat Czentovic, Dr. B too became trapped inside a specialized world, and, unlike Czentovic, he became insane temporarily as he focused on a tiny, specialized piece of human activity. When he challenges the chess champion, his insanity returns.
Zweig, who mourned for the broad liberal culture of educated Europe swallowed up by fascism and modern bureaucracy, warns of the absurdity and danger of a planet run by technocrats. For him, the rise of the Industrial Age and the industrial man and woman is a terrifying metamorphosis in the relationship of human beings to the world. As specialists and bureaucrats, human beings become tools, able to make systems of exploitation and even terror function efficiently without the slightest sense of personal responsibility or understanding. They retreat into the arcane language of all specialists, to mask what they are doing and give to their work a sanitized, clinical veneer.
This is Hannah Arendt's central point in "Eichmann in Jerusalem." Technocratic human beings are spiritually dead. They are capable of anything, no matter how heinous, because they do not reflect upon or question the ultimate goal. "The longer one listened to him," Arendt writes of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann on trial, "the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him, not because he lied but because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and presence of others, and hence against reality as such."
Zweig, horrified by a world run by technocrats, committed suicide with his wife in 1942. He knew that from then on, the Czentovics would be exalted in the service of state and corporate monstrosities.
Resistance, as Alexander Berkman points out, is first about learning to speak differently and abandoning the vocabulary of the "rational" technocrats who rule. Once we discover new words and ideas through which to perceive and explain reality, we free ourselves from neoliberal capitalism, which functions, as Walter Benjamin knew, like a state religion. Resistance will take place outside the boundaries of popular culture and academia, where the deadening weight of the dominant ideology curtails creativity and independent thought.
As global capitalism disintegrates, the heresy our corporate masters fear is gaining currency. But that heresy will not be effective until it is divorced from the mania for hope that is an essential part of corporate indoctrination. The ridiculous positivism, the belief that we are headed toward some glorious future, defies reality. Hope, in this sense, is a form of disempowerment.
There is nothing inevitable about human existence except birth and death. There are no forces, whether divine or technical, that will guarantee us a better future. When we give up false hopes, when we see human nature and history for what they are, when we accept that progress is not preordained, then we can act with an urgency and passion that comprehends the grim possibilities ahead.
Paul Chefurka
@mike k
Thank you. I'm still working to create a more harmonious balance of head and heart. That bit of writing burst out this morning in a flash of wu wei. It just felt right.
Jean Turcot
Curious,
If you have indeed decided to part ways with NBL, I for one will be sorry to see you go. There are a few doomers and gloomers on this blog who easily fulfill the well-known adage that: "Misery loves Company".
If you should decide to spend your time in friendlier environs, just remember that your positive outlook and sound spirit were not wasted, even here. I don't know what you wrote in German??, but if I get the gist of what you said, maybe it was something like our old prime minister was thought to have uttered under his breath to a few unfriendly gargoyles who happened to be within earshot… but when he was asked to repeat what he said, the words "Fuddle Duddle" suddenly came to his lips, creating a dilemma that has lasted to this day. I wouldn't be surprised to discover that a few here may also wonder on what that could possibly imply.
"Fuddle Duddle!" MMMMmmmmm????
I'm sure our prime minister meant well….
Rather than just live and try to enjoy what we had, people have tried to fucking label everything in existence that we know about. So, what do we name the era that's going to roll around after the Endocene? After all, a huge bunch of shit is still going to exist after where gone, isn't it? Or does stuff not really exist unless somebody is around to classify it?
Personally, I think all the crap 'out there' will still be here when we're gone. Stars will be there, they just won't shine. No eyes to see them. How sad, too bad…
Now, seeing that we've labeled everything else, shouldn't we label what will most likely be the longest era of all time?
How about the Failocene? It kind of implies how our universe returned to lifelesness. How about calling it just the Nocene, seeing that there is no more shit to hit the fan? Here's my favorite, The Obocene, because if all life gets wiped out that would mean that the entire universe may be nothing more than a gigantic clusterfuck! What could be more obscene than that?
@Kirk Hamilton: How about the Failocene? It kind of implies how our universe returned to lifelesness. How about calling it just the Nocene, seeing that there is no more shit to hit the fan? Here's my favorite, The Obocene, because if all life gets wiped out that would mean that the entire universe may be nothing more than a gigantic clusterfuck! What could be more obscene than that?
Maybe you didn't get the memo on this one, but the sun doesn't revolve around the earth.
Furthermore, the earth isn't the center of the known universe – never mind the parts we don't know.
Furthermore, even assuming Guy's direst predictions are true (and I more or less agree with them, minus his obsession with dating everything which makes him and others look foolish time and time again) – NTE or NTHE does not equate to lifelessness on our biosphere.
No doubt there are going to be plenty of species that survive. Cockroaches will probably do fine. Jellyfish will probably thrive. All those mysterious creatures at the bottom of the ocean will probably continue on.
The sun, the moon and the stars will shine…on them, if not on us. And after enough time has elapsed, conditions supportive of other, more complex life forms will return – as they have after every other major extinction event.
And apart from all that, there is a statistical near certainty that we are not the only planet with sentient life forms in this vast universe – never mind the potential of other possible parallel universes that a lot of physicists talk about these days.
So…mourn your losses as much as you need or want to. But don't be delusional enough to think that when we're gone, everything (or even everyone) is gone.
We're a small, small part of a much bigger story than you or I or anyone can possibly know with our limited human perspectives, whatever they might be.
@Paul Chefurka: Thank you. I'm still working to create a more harmonious balance of head and heart. That bit of writing burst out this morning in a flash of wu wei. It just felt right.
Yeah, but if I can't hate anybody, what the fuck is the point?
This site says it all. Arctic ice is in massive melt.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
cuntagious
@ Kirk Hamilton "What could be more obscene than that?" Uh.. humans colonizing other planets as Stephen Hawkins and other techno optimists propose. It won't happen. But just the idea of us finding other planets to conquer when we destroyed the one we had is patently offensive. I say no second chances for homo callidus. We made our bed and now we get to die in it.
@ Gerald Spezio – you nailed it with your missive. Well done! If I could, I'd broadcast it into outer space so other life forms, should they be listening, can learn from our stupendous stupidity.
Life at the end of empire….
'Texas has halted plans to secede from America to ask for federal disaster relief.'
Jeff S.
So, Jean Turcot, you are back, in order to defend this which you wrote.
"As far as how to feed everyone without taxing the planet too much, there are too many ways to do just that to go into it at length, and it would be too taxing to name the ways. Modern technology, combined with alternate and renewable energy sources are plentiful and awaiting our smarts to go after them in spades.
If you still want to dispute that premise, be my guest. It's all yours."
Modern technology will dave us? Alternative and renewable energy sources are plentiful and just waiting for us to use them? Can you defend these statements with facts? Or do you think that people here buy the crap being sold by Disney's Tomorrowland and all the other hopium retail outlets as if there is a microgram of truth in their content? Or is this just the latest in your series of unsupported assertions which you think you don't need to back up, since there are no facts, only opinions?!
"I don't know what you wrote in German??"
That's why the Good Lord created Larry Page and Sergei Brin (and Eric Schmidt – et al.!): they begat Google, and Google begat Google translate, and the Good Lord saw that it was adequate…
Not long will you thirst,
Scorched heart!
Promise is in the air,
from unknown mouths blows me's at
– The great coolness comes …
My sun stood hot over me at noon:
Greetings to me that you come
her sudden winds
her cool spirits of the afternoon!
The air is strange and pure.
Not switched with oblique
Seducer view
the night to me? …
Stay strong, valiant heart!
Do not ask: why? – "
"It kind of implies how our universe returned to lifelesness."
Hubbout lookin' at the big picture?
Fer exampull…
Toward an Interstellar Archaeology
Mother Nature talks about the Endocene.
Thanks, ed and cuntagious! It seems that no matter how obscene I get, It's never enough to keep up!
WoodWose
To Paul Chefurka – Now That I Know – thank you so much for that great big serving of wisdom and compassion. That will be treasured for a long time.
Julia Roberts / Mother Nature
Given the ironic perversity of our times, I was half-expecting the clip to end with a Toyota 4×4 clawing its way to the summit.
It occurs to me to ask, "Why aren't things worse?" As stupid, error prone, and downright evil as many among us are – especially those in power – why are we still here? By all rights shouldn't we have exterminated humanity by now? What's the hold-up, what's in the way? Is there some necessary level of stupidity and malice that we still need to achieve to get this job done? Do we need better organization, more funding, more creative ideas and technologies to deliver the lethal means to extinguish ourselves? Is DARPA not living up to its sinister mission?
Or is it that some die hard peaceniks and do-gooders stand in the way? Surely we can find a way to eliminate their unwelcome influence, and proceed to the real business of life – that is to end it!
@WoodWose,
You're most welcome! I'm glad to have something positive to contribute to the discussion.
Filed Under "ONLY LOVE REMAINS"
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2.8-Million-Year-Old Cycle Of Human Cruelty Continues Unabated On Elementary School Playground
In a continuation of the savage impulses that gave rise to tribal warfare, the Norman conquest, and the Srebrenica massacre, fourth-graders Toby Parente and Liam Walker tussle over who gets a turn on the tire swing.
HAMILTON, OH—Following in the same patterns of viciousness and savagery that have persisted since the dawn of mankind, the 2.8-million-year-old cycle of human cruelty reportedly continued unabated Tuesday on the playground of Hamilton Elementary School.
As the students of Hamilton Elementary attacked and tormented one another on the school's four-square courts and atop the jungle gym, sources confirmed they exhibited the same aggressive, spiteful, and often ruthlessly violent behavior inherent in humans since the earliest bands of Homo habilis began to fight among themselves ages ago.
"I hate you, Aaron!" said third-grader Joshua Stevens during the 30-minute recess period, displaying the hostility and senseless brutality that are a fundamental part of his genetic makeup and shared by billions of his ancestors, who even in prehistoric times mercilessly set upon their fellow hominids at the slightest provocation. "You're stupid and I hate you."
As corroborated by playground sources, the elementary school students went on to demonstrate the same tendencies toward tribalism and violent exclusion adopted en route to the formation of modern human civilization, bullying past anyone in their way as they sought out coveted seats on the swing set or one of a limited number of inflatable rubber balls made available for their use.
"Look, Aaron's crying!" continued Stevens, who appeared to relish the pain and suffering of another in the same manner as his Paleolithic forebears. "He's running away! Let's get him!"
According to observers, the widespread tradition of mindless barbarism was also furthered by several children who, when brought to anger while climbing on the monkey bars, playing tag, or digging in the sandbox, lashed out with the same blind, destructive fury that has inflicted abject misery upon countless individuals around the world for millions of years.
Just as throughout its time on earth humanity has been cursed with an implacable rage that leads one person to slaughter another without reason or empathy, reports indicated that Hamilton Elementary students became caught up in a chaotic ordeal of violence and recrimination that led one member of Mrs. McNally's second-grade class to scratch at and administer Indian burns to an adversary, only to become the victim of a separate attack himself moments later.
"Hey, give me that!" said 7-year-old Jeremy Croespe, following in the footsteps of so many before him who—perhaps consumed with jealous anger upon noticing someone holding a slab of antelope meat, a gleaming shard of obsidian, or a purse containing gold coins—have set upon a member of their own species with fists and teeth. "No, I was playing with it before. It's mine."
"He pushed me! Did you see? He just pushed me!" the frenzied, hate-filled human continued.
As corroborated by playground sources, the elementary school students went on to demonstrate the same tendencies toward tribalism and violent exclusion adopted en route to the formation of modern human civilization, bullying past anyone in their way as they sought out coveted seats on the swing set or one of a limited number of inflatable rubber balls made available for their use. Even as they lined up to return to class, many reportedly employed the inhumane tactics of the Mongol Empire, the kingdom of Assyria, and ancient Sparta by singling out and assaulting the vulnerable, the weak, and the fearful among them.
"Kara has a My Little Pony lunchbox—that's so lame," said fourth-grader Amanda Romero, joining with her peers to prey on those whose differences confuse them and make them want to destroy all that which they do not understand. "I bet she can't even fit enough food in there to stuff in her fat face."
Following continued discord punctuated by a shoving match between Trevor Martinez and Mason Keller near the basketball hoop, sources confirmed Hamilton Elementary's after-lunch play period continued its descent into the ceaseless rhythm of callous savageness that has persisted since primates first tentatively balanced themselves on their hind legs, a cycle of restless violence that can be traced from the tetherball pole to the sacking of Rome to the Spanish Inquisition to the imperialist enslavers to the construction of the first atomic bomb, as humankind in its restive hatred realizes its most lethal impulses and spills the blood of billions upon billions.
At press time, schoolyard sources confirmed that one child could be seen picking up a rock in order to wield it as a weapon.
http://goo.gl/2BERWU
@mike_k asked, "Do we need better organization, more funding, more creative ideas and technologies to deliver the lethal means to extinguish ourselves?"
Yes. We're still around because we haven't yet reached our maximum exploitive/destructive power. There's still sugar left in the vat. [I appreciate your apparent recognition, though, that our technological creativity in breaking down energy gradients has also been on an expanding trajectory.]
But fear not. On a different social forum, I ran across a lady whose husband enters eating contests, the kind where you stuff 100 hot dogs into your face in a minute-and-a-half, or some such. I thought these things were one-off carnival bizarrities, but no.. there's a whole circuit established for this "hobby":
It's contest season for Bill, so yesterday, we were in West Virginia for pepperoni rolls. The park at which the contest was held was beautiful. Bill came in 8th /10 competitors, but did his personal best at this contest. In 2 weeks, we're going to Pocono Raceway for a Nathan's qualifier. Then NYC to Citi Field, the Meadowlands, Tioga Downs, and Rochester, NH. We'll end the season in Buffalo for wing fest. … He's been involved for 10 years as of this weekend. Pocono, Citi Field and NH are Nathan's qualifiers. Tioga Downs is spiedies, and at the Meadowlands is pork roll.
Rather than horrified opprobrium, this engenders support: Dave and I think that's about the coolest thing ever. Dave was just asking about Bill the other day when I was checking his interest in going to a cheese fest..
Meanwhile, two posts down, the same ladies complain about a neighbor's idling truck because it is "so bad for the environment" (!!)
See how they have unconsciously developed a technological strategy, though, for burning through as much fossil energy as humanly possible? It's not enough to eat, but one must overeat; and it's not enough to overeat, but one must overeat at an elaborate contest; and it's not enough to go to one local contest a year, but one must drive to a dozen different contests covering hundreds of miles of driving and other excess consumption (hotels and other meals away). Then to top it all off, you get to use the power of the Internet to write about it, and distribute photos, and this all gets backed up not just in one place but dozens of places (Gmail, for instance, now saves about 30 intermediate copies on average of every mail I compose). But it's Still. Not. Enough… Must. Consume. More. Faster. Urgh!
I made similar observations about how text used to suffice, and then pictures were needed to comment, and now many people comment using videos. Our own host does this. We just can't help ourselves, apparently, is what I take away from this observation.
mike k,
"By all rights shouldn't we have exterminated humanity by now?" Good question. I think Lady Luck has a lot to do with it. But with Russians, Chinese, Americans, Arabs and Africans running around the planet sowing their seeds of destruction, with Muslims seeking a few hundred wives, Christians suggesting that there is no God but God, Hindus holding cows in high esteem and the Chinese rejecting all of them, the Lady may eventually tire of her ordeal.
All the original signatories of the NPT treaty agreed to rid themselves of their nuclear arsenals asap, and as far back as 1969. Last I heard they were all revamping their nuclear stocks, and with Putins and McCains running our shows, the chances that we will not use these weapons sooner than later will probably make NTHE as the result of climate change a moot point.
shep
Come on Mr Onion.
meant to say: mr. ed the onion
@ed – What you shared hits it on the head – the entire history of humanity boils down to the domination by bullies of the less aggressive members of the species. To understand this is to have the key to how we got in the sorry mess we find ourselves in today, and the necessary means to get out of it.
Plato understood that our central problem was to find a way for the wise among us be in the positions of leadership. It was obvious to him that this happy state of affairs was not existing in the nations of his time, and indeed that is not the case now.
We in America live in perhaps the cruelest and most vicious bullydom that has ever existed. But the skill of those in charge of this sadistic monstrosity of abuse have become so adept at propagandizing the populace, that the vast majority of the people think of our nation as some sort of paragon of all virtues. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to creating a new basis for society is the deep conditioning existing in the populace that resists any efforts to awaken them to the true state of affairs. In addition, the entire population is profoundly addicted to the "goodies" that serve to control them. Distracted and confused our fellow Americans are poor material for any kind of awakening or revolution.
Another way to look at all this is to see it as older levels of evolutionary adaptation seeking to suppress and dominate later levels neurological development. Crude levels of thinking/feeling and behavior resisting more subtle and intelligent ways of being.
At any rate it boils down to whether we can overthrow the older dynamics of force and domination with a new way of cooperation for the greatest good of all. This evolutionary challenge comes to all emerging intelligent species; passing through this initiatory gate
would open incredible possibilities. Failure would mean tragic decline and extinction.
BTW ed – Filing your bit about bullying under "Only Love Remains" was quite accurate. The basic plot line of the World and the Universe is Love against Hate. Bullying after all is a form of hate. The bastards almost drove me to suicide as a youngster….
The motto of the Open Door Community, Atlanta, Ga is:
"We're gonna do the best we can until we can't." Willie D Wimberly
This place is extraordinary.
http://opendoorcommunity.org/
Robert Callaghan
Why Naomi Klein & Bill McFibben Are Kiddin'
Do the math.
1 Acre < ½ Hectare
In order for us to stay below 2°C, the IPCC says we need 500 million hectares (1 billion acres) of Farmland by 2100 so that we will be able to extract carbon directly from the air using Bio Energy Carbon Capture & Storage. A fancy way of saying we promise to bury charcoal made from burning plant fibers for energy. The acronym for this is BECCS. The real acronym for this is BS. 500 million hectares of farmland is about the size of India. That's a lot of Farmland. Yet, we are losing soil at twice the rate we need to grow it just to be able to eat.
Scientific American says humanity only has 60 years of human agriculture left to us because of the rates of soil degradation, depletion and outright loss.
Also, because we add 1 million new people to earth every 4½ days, we will have to grow more food over the next 50 years than we ever grew in all of the last 10,000 years, combined.
To do this, we will need 6 million hectares of new farmland every year for the next 30 years. But, we are actually losing 12 million hectares of farmland every year. That's twice the rate it needs to grow.
On top of all this, in just 10 years from now, 66% of humanity, or roughly 4-5 billion people, will be short of fresh water, with nearly 2 billion people being severely short of fresh water. Try growing food without water and soil and see how far you get.
Get your Collapse Data Cheat Sheet here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/311m7d/collapse_data_cheat_sheet/
The Greenland Ice Stream accelerates in order to bring the Endocene to the ports of the Eastern Seabord (The Question Is: How Much Acceleration Is Involved In SLR – 5?</a?).
There are some whose emotional (heart/reptilian brain) attitude of the earth a being the center of their universe comes strutting trrough in thier pontifications about how the world will be a better place with the end of Homo … whatever. Actually it is not likely to make a noticeable difference either way for the universe. One can approach this intellectually/by the primate brain, but it ain't likely to do jack squat at the level of the "heart"/reptilian brain.
"attitude of the earth being the center of their universe comes strutting through in their pontifications"
Indeed. Commonly referred to as 'Delusions of Grandeur'.
It is worth remembering that, even without the melting of any ice on land masses, an increase in the average temperature of the oceans/seas causes an increase in volume, and therefore an increase in depth (the exceptions being seas in the 0oC to 4oC range, where warming can cause contraction in the short term).
And where is most of the heat trapped by the excessively high concentration of atmospheric CO2 going?
Everything I read indicates economic collapse and/or major war will eclipse concerns about sea level rise in the short term.
September draws closer.
"Hindus holding cows in high esteem"
I, for one, do. The best steaks were in Texas. Most delicious. But then I was in the Army, young, dumb and full of 'you know what'.
"Crude levels of thinking/feeling and behavior resisting more subtle and intelligent ways of being."
Intelligent ways of being are the skills of the chauffeur, the verbal, rational primate/mammalian brain. It takes its orders from the non-verbal, non-rational, seat of emotions and values, the "heart"/reptilian brain. Where the limousine goes depends on the gent in the back seat more than on the person in the driver's seat.
"The basic plot line of the World and the Universe is Love against Hate."
Love and hate arise from and generate attachments; they are more easily diluted and fatigued than compassion.
Franklin & Marshall College
Common Hour
Jeremy Jackson: Ocean Apocalypse
"When the West Antartic Ice Sheet breaks, sea levels will rise by four metres in a couple of years".
Overcommett as NBL switched the address to the video on the last comment:
Guy, Thanks for sharing your FB hate mail on your podcast. A perfect reminder for me as to why I dumped my FB page, arguing with people on FB is a waste. Do yourself a favor and spend your time taking care of what is important. As in, ignore those people.
@shep: Come on Mr Onion.
C'mon yourself, bruddah Shep.
I remember reading what seems like dozens of posts in which the dear departed schoolyard bully Fugly kicked your ass up one side of the NBL playground and down the other, just for fun.
And not just you, of course – but it was a picture perfect example of exactly what the Onion piece points out.
So smile, and say CHEESE.
But only love remains, bruddah – only love remains.
I always love it when You show up in others work and get peoples attention.http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-extinction-survey.html
Katie Goodman (of I didn't f*ck it up fame)…
It's All Gonna Be Okay
I've posted a new essay, courtesy of Bud Nye. Catch it, and a link to this week's radio show, here.
GOT ME!
CHEESE!!
ogardener
Ewe fuk't it up.


Children like 11-year-old Awa Sila of Guinea-Bissau grow up under difficult circumstances. A third of under-5's in her country suffer from moderate to severe stunting and 19 % are under-weight. More than 1 in 10 die before reaching the age of 5.
But Awa and her classmates at the Dandum School, in a remote corner of southeast Guinea-Bissau, are part of a new experiment to reduce malnutrition and child mortality. Through an MDG-F-financed programme, thousands of children in the most vulnerable parts of the country are getting hands-on lessons in good nutrition: they are being taught how to cultivate school gardens, and reaping the rewards of their labour.
"All the children from my village are eating the different vegetables we plant," says Awa, whose school is one of 150 where gardens have been planted and children are being taught about the importance of varied and healthy diets.
Motivated by what she had learned, Awa decided to bring her knowledge home and persuaded her mother, Siraboi Camara, to start a household garden.
"Everything I've learned in our school garden has been used in our family garden," says Awa. Siraboi started teaching other relatives, and the produce from the household garden is now supporting both the family and their neighbours.
The school gardens are part of a joint United Nations programme aimed at reducing child malnutrition and mortality in Guinea-Bissau by improving the country's capacity to monitor and treat malnutrition, and by promoting better nutrition and food practices through the school gardens initiative, school meals and the distribution of educational materials.
The joint programme is providing schools like Dandum School with seeds, gardening tools and agricultural training for teachers, parents and the school community. Teachers, school cooks and parents also receive training in school garden management and on basic nutrition issues.
The programme is also training local health professionals to identify and treat malnutrition, and assisting journalists in producing nutrition-related radio messages to disseminate directly to the villages. Besides the technical training, the joint programme provides journalists with radio equipment and motorcycles to help them access remote locations such as Awa Sila's village in Boé Sector.
Awa's school director, Bacar Baldé, says the participation of the community, especially the families of his students, has been crucial to the success of the school garden. In 2011, Dandum school produced more than 100 kilos of tomatoes, as well as lettuce, onions, peppers, okra and other vegetables. Most importantly, says Baldé, the garden is changing habits and behaviour around nutrition.
Meanwhile, Awa Sila's experience was so successful that is has been reproduced in the form of a colorful poster in English and Portugese and distributed to schools serving 25,000 children. The programme also created a food pyramid, which is printed in Portugese on a multiplication table postcard, as a handy reference to teach school children about good nutrition.
The MDG-Fund-financed Joint Programme "Promotion of a multi-level approach to child malnutrition" is a collaboration between the government of Guinea-Bissau, the NGO Caritas and four UN agencies (WFP, WHO, UNICEF and FAO). Its goal is to strengthen the country's capacity in reducing child malnutrition and mortality, focusing on three of the most vulnerable regions in terms of child malnutrition and child mortality rates.
The programme is part of the MDG-F's effort to help countries like Guinea-Bissau to reach the Millennium Development Goals, including reducing poverty and improving child and maternal health, with a particular focus on reaching the most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.
At the end of the 3-year joint programme, at least 25,000 school children will have been reached in 150 communities through school garden activities, and 30,000 families will have learned good nutrition and feeding practices to prevent malnutrition.


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text:
13,000 struggling families need your help
Two Republicans broke party ranks and voted in the Senate to allow movement on a bill that might help the little guy for a change. The procedural vote cleared the way for the creation of a 30 billion fund to help small banks in lending to credit starved small businesses. Sen. George LeMieux of Florida and Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio, voted with 57 Democrats and two independents to advance the bill.
Sen. Voinovich of Ohio is retiring and has decided to do the right thing for once. He's been quoted as saying, "I hate banks. If I could strangle [the big] banks, I would."
Sen. LeMieux is not running for the seat that he was appointed to by Gov. Charlie Crist who is running for the same Senate seat as an independent. Apparently LeMieux is sticking his thumb in the eye of the Republicans and will join his old boss Crist in taking a more populist stand.
The NYSE was up early on modestly improved retail sales numbers but fell in late trading to finish up only slightly. The Tokyo market fell as the Yen continues to rise against the USD hurting Japan's exports. Gold set a new record high and US Treasuries were also up as investors look for some place safe to park their money.
The Senate Republicans have said they won't allow the tax cuts for the rich expire at all costs. You can hardly blame them with all the suffering the rich go through to keep body and soul together. The latest numbers for the very put upon 1/10th of one percent at the top show that they only take home 11% of all household income in the United States. That's 13,000 struggling families out of 115 million households that must make do with just 11% of all the income leaving the 99.9% to hog 79% for themselves.
Wealth distribution is even more skewed toward the masses with only 43% of financial wealth being held by the top 1% and 50% of wealth held by the next 19% and the bottom 80% is hogging 7% of the wealth. These are 2007 numbers and don't reflect the boom the middle class has been enjoying over the last three years.
Don't worry rich people, even with the defection of John the Boner of Orange who says he really isn't in bed with all those lobbyists and won't fight for your tax cut, the Senate Republicans have pledged to hold the line against the greedy masses. www.prairie2.com
How big is your paper stack?
Two scoops of ice cream and an extra fuzzy puppy
A multi-family housing unit down by the river
The next new normal
wǒ è le

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
HomeLatestAmbassador Jacobson and USAID Mission Director Sean Jones visited Dire Dawa and Harar
Ambassador Jacobson and USAID Mission Director Sean Jones visited Dire Dawa and Harar
Ambassador Jacobson, Chargé d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, met with Dire Dawa City Mayor Kedir Juhar in Dire Dawa on August 25, 2022. (Courtesy of US Embassy )
US Embassy Addis Ababa
Dire Dawa and Harar – Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, Chargé d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, and USAID/Ethiopia Mission Director Sean Jones travelled to Dire Dawa and Harar to meet with government officials and visit U.S. government-funded projects last week.
While in Dire Dawa, Ambassador Jacobson met with Kedir Juhar, the mayor of Dire Dawa, and discussed strengthening people-to-people relations and deepening economic and cultural ties. They also discussed efforts to promote peace and stability in the region. In Harar, the Ambassador and Mr. Jonesmet with President Ordin Bedri, Harari People's National Regional State President and discussed ways the United States and the local community can partner to advance peace and build even stronger ties. They participated in a tour of the ancient walled city of Harar, hosted by representatives of the regional president's office.
In both meetings with regional leaders, Ambassador Jacobson reiterated the need for: durable solutions to end hostilities in northern Ethiopia, sustained humanitarian assistance for all Ethiopians in need, and accountability for human rights abuses. She also reiterated USG calls for armed actors throughout the country to end violations, abuses, and hostilities to enable space for a peaceful resolution. During the visit to Dire Dawa, Ambassador Jacobson participated in thelaunch of the United States President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) Mosquito Control Campaign to combat the Anopheles stephensi mosquito, an invasive, largely insecticide-resistant, malaria-carrying mosquito, which was identified in Ethiopia in 2016. She stressed the U.S. government's commitment to support Ethiopia on the road to malaria elimination. Towards this end, the United States has provided over $500 million in anti-malaria efforts since 2008.
Ambassador and Mr. Jonesalso met with Dire Dawa youth leaders and discussed the important roles youth play as peace actors and as Ethiopia's next generation of leaders. The Chargé and director had the opportunity to meet with the USAID-supported Dire Dawa Circus and watched a performance by the youth group.
In Harar, the delegation visited Harar Hiwot Fana Teaching Hospital, where the American people invested more than $3.6 million in direct funding for the initial construction.
Join the conversation. Follow us on twitter @zborkenato get the latest Ethiopian News updates regularly. Like borkena on Facebook as well. To share information or for submission, send e-mail to info@borkena.com
Ittu Aba Farda August 30, 2022 At 12:17 am
Again Good Ole USA at its best. When disease hits that country USA is there first. When famine threatens and kills people USA is there with its enormous generous hands. When those two bullies in Moscow and Beijing send AK47's and RPG's so those niggers can kill each other like wild carnivores USA sends millions of boxes of highly nutritious crackers for the starving and the displaced. This life saving project hits home with me. I know how lethal malaria can be to humans it infected. I remember one of my close relatives during my childhood years and how he violently shook when he was sick with it. He used to suffer with the ailment every year for months. It finally took his life. It is not like seasonal cold that comes and goes in a few days. It can stay with you for weeks or even years. This is a noble cause.


text:
Q: Nearest neighbour analysis with higher elevation using QGIS How do I calculate the flow that goes through the rainfall drainage points under a railway?
I have two layers:
DT: Point layer with drainage information:  DT_id and elevation.
ACA: Point layer with de flowrate information: ACA_id, flowrate and elevation.
I need the flowrate that is upstream of each drainage point. Therefore I want to get the nearest ACA point to each DT point. But I need to add the condition that the nearest neibour has to be more elevated than the related DT point, in order to be sure that we selected the point that is upstream and not the one that is downstream.
I have tried using the "distance matrix" but I can't find how to impose this condition.

A: You can use ProcessX Plug-In and run the algorithm Join attributes by nearest with condition from processing toolbox. Set it up the following:

Disclaimer: I am the author of this Plug-In.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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text:
Philosophy Weekend: Three Quotes
Levi Asher • February 22nd, 2012
Classics Existential Nature Transcendentalism
Three quotes I like, not necessarily related in any particular way:
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed,- and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun, and spake thus unto it:
Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
For ten years hast thou climbed hither unto my cave: thou wouldst have wearied of thy light and of the journey, had it not been for me, mine eagle, and my serpent.
But we awaited thee every morning, took from thee thine overflow, and blessed thee for it.
Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it.
I would fain bestow and distribute, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.
Therefore must I descend into the deep: as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest behind the sea, and givest light also to the nether-world, thou exuberant star!
Like thee must I go down, as men say, to whom I shall descend.
Bless me, then, thou tranquil eye, that canst behold even the greatest happiness without envy!
Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss!
Lo! This cup is again going to empty itself, and Zarathustra is again going to be a man.
Thus began Zarathustra's down-going.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathusra
Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of my house, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told them that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering to lend them a dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from the annual visitation which occurs, methinks, about the first of April, when everybody is on the move; and I had my share of good luck, though there were some curious specimens among my visitors. Half-witted men from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but I endeavored to make them exercise all the wit they had, and make their confessions to me; in such cases making wit the theme of our conversation; and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them to be wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned. With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference between the half and the whole.
One day, in particular, an inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often seen used as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields to keep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and expressed a wish to live as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and truth, quite superior, or rather inferior, to anything that is called humility, that he was "deficient in intellect." These were his words. The Lord had made him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared as much for him as for another. "I have always been so," said he, "from my childhood; I never had much mind; I was not like other children; I am weak in the head. It was the Lord's will, I suppose." And there he was to prove the truth of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a fellowman on such promising ground — it was so simple and sincere and so true all that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared to humble himself was he exalted. I did not know at first but it was the result of a wise policy. It seemed that from such a basis of truth and frankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our intercourse might go forward to something better than the intercourse of sages.
-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden
"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh, Anger
(Photo by me, taken at Neabsco Creek, Virginia)
This article is part of the series Philosophy Weekend. The next post in the series is Philosophy Weekend: Nietzsche in America. The previous post in the series is Philosophy Weekend: Groupthink, Group Mind.
7 Responses to "Philosophy Weekend: Three Quotes"
by w.j.wiippa on Saturday, February 25, 2012 10:34 am
Nice foto!
I could never get into Zarathustra but The Gay Science rocks.
This is the best Thich Nhat Hanh quote I ever read.
by TKG on Saturday, February 25, 2012 01:03 pm
Sign of the times.
When I read this:
"Lo! I am weary of my wisdom..."
I first read it as LOL.
CYBI
Laughing out loud I weary of wisdom.
I enjoyed, appreciated and related most to the Thoreau passage.
The Nietzsche passage was poetic but IDK WTH he's talking about.
The third shortest one, while true enough and nicely concise, I see as pablum (click the link, it's worth it).
by Frank Dixon on Sunday, February 26, 2012 08:36 am
Think of Thoreau as Zarathustra's Sun. See where that leads you. Think of Thich Nhat Hanh's "another person" as the sun. See where that leads.
by Bill_Ectric on Monday, February 27, 2012 09:38 am
The last quote is the one that really speaks to me his morning. It's a good reminder to me, so I can react appropriately to certain people who have been trying my patience.
Levi, it occurs to me that your writing on Thoreau would make another great LitKicks books. I remember one piece in particular - I think you wrote it upon declaring Walden your favorite book. Good choice, by the way.
by mike on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:44 pm
"Blessed are the sleepy for they shall soon drop off" Nietzsche
"How did the mad appear in Shakespeare's' plays? The fools, the mad. Well they appear as the people who bring the most important wisdom into the plays. They have… the mad in Greek society were considered as touched by the gods; their words were looked at almost as the words of oracles. "
"...existentialism has certainly been good for me, I think. It's been a healthy thing for me. It cut short therapy, I went to a therapist once, I went three times, and on the third visit I went "Oh by the way I have a question. Why are we born to suffer and die?" and she went [unintelligible mumble], and that was the end of therapy for me. I figured that if she couldn't help me with my fundamental problem, she wasn't going to do much good on the trivial problems."
rick roderick
by Bill_Ectric on Thursday, March 1, 2012 09:09 am
"the mad in Greek society were considered as touched by the gods" - I love it.
Philosophy Weekend: Kant on Beauty
by Tim Hawken Thursday, January 31, 2013 08:11 pm
Tim Hawken investigates Immanuel Kant's notions of beauty.
The Greatest American Book: Walden by Henry David Thoreau
by Levi Asher Thursday, July 5, 2007 07:43 pm
Levi Asher explains why he considers Walden by Henry David Thoreau the greatest of all American books.
Philosophy Weekend: Heidegger on Art
by Tim Hawken Wednesday, March 27, 2013 11:03 pm
"So, what Heidegger is saying is that the 'thingly' element of objects, like rocks, either 'disintegrates' when we try to explain it philosophically, or returns to us in an unrecognizable form ..."
Philosophy Weekend: John Calhoun and Confederate Ethics
by Levi Asher Sunday, June 30, 2013 08:30 pm
The words of John Calhoun, a brilliant politician and orator from South Carolina who defended human slavery in lofty terms, provide a great opportunity for us to challenge our own confidence in our own moral principles today.
Philosophy Weekend: Buddha-Nature
by Levi Asher Saturday, November 30, 2013 10:01 am
New evidence of Siddhartha Guatama's birthplace in modern-day Lumbini, Nepal has just been discovered.
Philosophy Weekend: The Cure For Our Condition
by Levi Asher Saturday, May 24, 2014 09:13 am
"The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophy Weekend: Occam's Razor
by Levi Asher Sunday, August 17, 2014 08:44 am
A medieval theologian named William of Ockham gave us a philosophical principle that can help explain the violent conflicts that puzzle and terrify us today.
Philosophy Weekend: The Biggest Climate March In History
by Levi Asher Sunday, September 21, 2014 06:56 pm
Nothing I can write today will be as relevant as an event that took place in New York City and various other places around the world today: the biggest climate march in history, attended by over 300,000 people.
From the Tao Te Ching
by Levi Asher Monday, February 2, 2015 09:25 pm
Five verses from the Tao Te Ching, apropos of a hard day at work.
First There Is A Mountain
by Levi Asher Sunday, April 19, 2015 10:18 pm
A literary visit to Old Rag in the Shenandoah Mountains.
Keeping Henry Thoreau Around
by Levi Asher Friday, October 16, 2015 07:45 am
A poorly considered article in the New Yorker paints a portrait of Henry David Thoreau as something between Jonathan Franzen and Bill Cosby.
A Taxonomy for Pacifism
by Levi Asher Sunday, November 8, 2015 07:45 am
A visual diagram shows the depth and complexity of the important philosophy or practice known as "pacifism".


Bloodline 1979 - 117 min. - Color Genre: Thriller Rated R Country: Japan LaserDisc Movie Storyline: Hepburn finds her life endangered after inheriting a pharmaceutical company. Based on Sidney Sheldon's novel. LaserDisc Movie Review: Bloodline, a thriller based on a mystery novel by Sidney Sheldon and directed by Terence Young, is the story of Elizabeth Roffe (Audrey Hepburn), who inherits a huge pharmaceutical company and then discovers that some of her family members may be plotting her death in order to gain control of the company. Despite an all-star cast including the usually excellent James Mason, Irene Papas, Ben Gazzara, the lovely Romy Schneider and Omar Sharif and wonderful locations, this thriller just doesn't generate much suspense despite numerous likely suspects and plot twists. Director Young gets only an average performance from Audrey Hepburn and manages to do little with his distinguished cast. The film while not particularly suspenseful is aided by the lovely color photography of Freddie Young and a lively, original score by Ennio Morricone. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi Thanks for Visiting DaDon's Rare LaserDiscs ! Reviews, Articles, Newsletter and Information for Movies on LaserDisc LD Laser Disc, LazerDisc.


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Home»Editor's picks » [Business Spotlight] Greensboro Ballet
[Business Spotlight] Greensboro Ballet
Katie Murawski
Editor's picks, News, The Arts
Greensboro Ballet started in 1963 as the Civic Ballet Theatre, which was a small community performance company. In 1995, the name was changed to Greensboro Ballet and professional dancers were hired. Today, Greensboro Ballet is a nonprofit organization consisting of a performing company and a school of dance.
Coming up this holiday season, is the annual performance of "The Nutcracker" at The Carolina Theatre on Dec. 9 and 10 at 3 p.m., Dec. 16 at 2 p.m. and Dec. 17 at 3 p.m. and the "Gala Nutcracker" performance on Dec. 16 at 7:30 p.m. and the event following the performance at 9:30 p.m. Jennifer Gentry, Greensboro Ballet's marketing director wrote in an email that "The Nutcracker" has been a holiday tradition in the Triad for over 35 years.
She wrote that attending the Gala Nutcracker is a chance to see world-class professional ballet dancers from New York City Ballet. The guest Sugar Plum Fairy for that performance is a former Greensboro Ballet student, Megan LeCrone
"Megan began her training at age 4 at GB, going on to UNCSA at age 14 and then to the School of American Ballet (most prestigious dance school in America)," Gentry wrote in an email. "Megan has also recently joined Greensboro Ballet as a board member and as an advisor. We are thrilled to have Megan back to perform in the Triad where she grew up and her mother still resides!"
Gentry said this year's "Nutcracker" is significant because this is the first year Greensboro Ballet will have Lauren Dorn, an African American dancer, performing as the Sugar Plum Fairy for the Dec. 9 and 10 performances.
"Dancers of all ethnicities have performed as Cavalier, the main character Clara and other lead roles including the Snow King and Queen," Gentry wrote in the email. "But it just happens that this year we have an extremely talented and beautiful young dancer, also a student at UNCG, performing as our Sugar Plum Fairy."
"Greensboro Ballet's is very much community oriented," Gentry wrote in an email. "Meaning that our performers are from the Greater Greensboro area and we often have guest performers from the community."
This has included former Greensboro Ballet student Emily Bryd (from Fox8), Tanya Rivera (from WFMY-News 2), former mayor Keith Holliday and his wife, who perform as guests during the party scene.
"Our production also usually has quite a bit of humor in it," Gentry wrote. "We take classical ballet training very seriously, but we don't take ourselves very seriously at all."
Tickets are available to purchase at the Carolina Theatre box office. For more information visit Greensboro Ballet's website, http://www.greensboroballet.org/the-school-of-greensboro-ballet.
Tags : Ballet, Carolina Theatre, Carolina Theatre of Greensboro, Cavalier, Christmas, Civic ballet Theatre, Clara, dance, December, Emily Bryd, Fox 8, Gala Nutcracker, Greensboro Balllet, Keith Holliday, New York City Ballet, Nutcracker, Rat King, Snow King, Snow Queen, Sugar Plum Fairy, Tanya Rivera, The Nutcracker, UNCG, UNCSA, WFMY News, WFMY News 2
CITY HOSTS #DEMODAY PARTY TO CELEBRATE MULTI-USE STADIUM GROUNDBREAKING
The Public GSO in Greensboro – 11.16.17
Music, The Arts	January 17, 2020
Kaleideum's Peppercorn Theatre Presents World
Editor's picks, Music	January 15, 2020
Marching band meets EDM with
Editor's picks, Film	January 15, 2020
Double feature: Mark Burger reviews
Editor's picks, News	January 15, 2020
Big fun at the 2020
GSO, no hope rock 'n'
UNCSA alumnus Brett Gelman scores
Pingback: Eight Great Things to do in the Triad: Dec. 8-10 - YES! Weekly
Pingback: Eight Great Things to Do in the Triad: Dec. 8-10 – Greensboro 101


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Why Don't Former Staff Talk?
by Jonathan Bernstein
Alec MacGillis is looking at the Cain/Perry charges and countercharges, and has a great question:
The flurry of charges and demands for apologies between the two camps leaves me with one question: why doesn' t this sort of thing happen more often? Political consultants are famously mercenary, jumping from one team to another with the constancy of a left-handeded reliever or utility infielder. Why don't we hear of more instances of consultants picking up damaging information about a candidate they're working for one year and then using it, years later, when they happen to be working in the camp of a candidate in opposition to the former employer? Do they do so often but manage to be discreet about it? Or is there in fact an honor among thieves that generally constrains such behavior?
I've done some work on career paths of campaign professionals that's marginally relevant here, so I'll take a crack at it. I can think of three reasons:
1. I suspect the issue comes up less often than you would think. While some of these folks (media experts, pollsters) work for many candidates, a lot of consultants and campaign professionals work for one candidate per cycle, so they're not really walking around with inside information about all that many candidates — and they're not all that likely to flip and oppose their old boss all that often. Remember, it takes a contested primary in the first place — a contested primary with at least two candidates who are well enough funded to hire staff and consultants, with at least one of them a candidate who has hired such people in at least one previous campaign. Then you also need in that contested primary a situation in which for some reason a consultant and her old boss don't want to keep working together, and then the same consultant signing on with a different candidate. I don't know how often that whole thing comes together, but it must not be all that often. The most likely place to find it, I'd guess, would be US Senate and gubernatorial primaries, but even those are not all that frequent, at least not contested ones.
2. MacGillis speculates about "honor among thieves", but I'd put it a bit different. It's certainly the case that reputation, including reputation for long-term loyalty, is a major selling point for campaign professionals. Would you hire a consultant who was blabbing the deepest secrets of his old boss? What's that consultant likely to do to you in the future?
3. And anyway: it's also really easy to exaggerate the number of skeletons that politicians have in their closets, at least the ones that their staff know about. Very few pols, I'm sure, have a backstory that includes multiple sexual harassment settlements! Now, presumably quite a few pols have slept with people they shouldn't have slept with, or wouldn't survive a very close examination of their old company's books and taxes…but they aren't telling their campaign staff about it.
So add that all up, and I'd guess that it explains most of why a former staffer or consultant harming her old boss that way is rare.
[Cross-posted at A plain blog about politics]
Jonathan Bernstein
Jonathan Bernstein is a political scientist who writes about American politics, especially the presidency, Congress, parties, and elections.


Spring is finally settling in here after some great days and not so great days. I'm done with the rain already! For that in between weather this outfit is perfect. It has light pastel colors for that spring feeling but because of the long pant, it can be worn right at the beginning of this season.
Pictures were shot in near neighborhood in Rotterdam, Delfshaven. This part of Rotterdam was lucky enough to be spared during WWII and has that old historical feeling to it. I actually think it looks a little like Leiden, but I love this neighborhood as it's the total opposite as the rest of the city, which is all modern.
Shirt from Zara, pant from Mango and heels from Buffalo.


Our client, an environmental solutions company is looking to recruit an experienced Class 1 driver (ADR) to join their team in Rochester.
Hours of work will be 12 hour night shifts – Monday to Friday starting around 4.00/5.00pm each evening.
Demonstrate appropriate Health and Safety commitment to ensure that the corporate PROUD ethos is visible and promoted throughout all activities carried out.
To attend team briefings/drivers meetings etc.
Experience in handling waste (Healthcare & Hazardous waste desirable).
Knowledge of the UK road network.
Knowledge of the waste industry (Healthcare & Hazardous waste desirable).
Possession of ADR Class 6.2 (minimum), is preferable however training will be provided if necessary.


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Delta Okawango – największa w świecie delta śródlądowa rzeki, utworzona przez rzekę Okawango. Rzeka uchodziła niegdyś do znajdującego się w północnej części obecnej Botswany jeziora Makgadikgadi, które wyschło około 10 tysięcy lat temu. Na jego miejscu znajduje się kotlina Kalahari, której ok.  km² nawadniane jest z delty Okawango. W końcowym odcinku rzeka stopniowo zwalnia bieg, tworząc rozlewiska i podmokłe wyspy zarośnięte trawą i trzciną. W dalszej części bagniska stają się coraz mniej grząskie, aż przechodzą w stepowo-pustynny obszar Kalahari. Część wód z delty Okawango zasila jezioro Ngami.

W delcie Okawango żyją niezliczone ilości ptactwa i liczne inne zwierzęta korzystające z obfitych zasobów wody i – co za tym idzie – bujnej roślinności. Niemniej jednak zdarzające się w tym regionie okresy suchsze i wilgotniejsze powodują, że obszar korzystny dla wegetacji nie jest stały, czasami znacznie się zmniejsza, a czasami nawiedzają go powodzie. Rząd Namibii, przez której terytorium przepływa Okawango, planuje budowę zapory na tej rzece w rejonie Caprivi w celu uregulowania jej przepływu. Plany te mogą doprowadzić do bezpowrotnego zniszczenia bogatej flory i fauny delty.

Na południowo-wschodnim brzegu obszaru delty Okawango, na terytorium Botswany, znajduje się miasto Maun (ok. 50 tys. mieszkańców) z niewielkim lotniskiem.

W 2014 roku delta Okawango została wpisana na listę światowego dziedzictwa UNESCO.

Okawango
Geografia Botswany
Obiekty z listy dziedzictwa UNESCO w Botswanie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Properties for Sale in the town and district of Mistelbach, Lower-Austria.
Some 45 km north of Vienna.
Distance: 64.1 km from Vienna Central.
Distance: 57.8 km from Vienna Central.
Mistelbach is located in the north east of Lower Austria's Wine Quarter (Weinviertel), approximately 25 to 30 km from the borders of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It lies just off the main road connecting Brno (Czech Republic) to Vienna (Road B7).
From the end of WWII till the fall of the Soviet satellites in 1989, Mistelbach experienced difficulties caused by its geographical proximity to the Iron Curtain. Nevertheless the town developed into a regional center of the eastern Winequarter (Weinviertel).
Mistelbach is a town with more than 11,000 residents with close ties with the agricultural heritage and wine production and an important administrative hub for the region. It is well-connected to Vienna by both road and rail.
In addition to cultural and sporting features and its town center, Mistelbach offers many interesting buildings and elements: The Gothic Hallenkirche on the Kirchenberg, it's Town Hall, the Holy Trinity Column, a Michael Jackson memorial, a Baroque Schlössl, the Monastery of the Fraternity of the Barnabiten with valuable ceiling paintings and much more.
Every October around 10,000 people visit Austria's largest puppet and figure festival in Mistelbach. The puppet theater and figure festival is intended for children, youth and adults alike.
We have building plots for sale in this area.
We also have business premises to rent.
We also have apartments for long term rental.


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Trojan Trilogy
When David Stuttard undertook to reconstruct the lost plays in Euripides' Trojan Trilogy, he wanted to use the surviving fragments to produce something which adhered to the structural rules and the spirit of Greek tragedy, while allowing himself enough freedom to create new works which would stand up as powerful dramas in their own right.
At the same time, he wanted to create a unified trilogy which would set the surviving Trojan Women, and especially his own existing adaptation of that play, in context, revealing it as part of a wider story, rather than an independent and isolated episode.
193 lines of Alexandros survive in one form or another. This represents perhaps a sixth of the entire play. But apart from one 10 line fragment, in which the chorus reflects on the nature of nobility, there are only two or three other fragments which are series of complete lines (and none are more than 4 lines long). The rest range from relatively lengthy passages where only part of each line survives to one- or two-word fragments. In addition, we have 43 lines of a Latin adaptation by Ennius (3rd-2nd Century BC) in fragments ranging from one to 11 lines long, and a Greek "hypothesis", or summary of Euripides' play.
Of Palamedes, less than 40 lines (perhaps a thirtieth of the play) survive, over half of which come from the trial scene. What else we know about the play comes from supposed allusions to it in other authors, for example Euripides' contemporary, the comic poet Aristophanes, and entries in ancient dictionaries.
The distribution of the fragments is entirely random. They have survived purely by chance, most because they were quoted by later writers to illustrate philosophical or linguistic points rather than for what they revealed about the dramas from which they came.
Thus they reveal little in themselves about the structure of either play. In keeping with ancient practice, none of the fragments is attributed to a specific character.
For this reason, while using the fragments as an essential starting point, Stuttard wanted to give himself the freedom to mould, adapt or even omit such lines as survived in order to enhance the overall integrity of the story. In the case of Palamedes, this policy led to the exclusion of an entire scene, which even Euripides' first audience seems to have found implausible.
Much of the reconstruction is necessarily imaginative: there is no evidence which character spoke the prologues in either of the plays; nor how the murder plot was foiled in Alexandros; nor for the content of the choruses in Palamedes; nor for most the dialogue, including the images which weave through the trilogy to bind it together.
If the complete plays are ever rediscovered, as they may be in the Library at Herculaneum, they will undoubtedly differ considerably from this reconstruction. But that is not the point. Rather Stuttard's reconstruction aims to create a fusion between old and new, a piece of modern drama with its own integrity, addressing situations and responses as unsettling for our own age as they were for that of Euripides.
For a fuller discussion of the process of reconstructing the Trilogy, please go to the Open University's website at http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/Practitioners/issue1/stuttard.pdf
Reconstructed
Palamedes
Trojan Women
Fragments Reconstructed
to David's Main Website


If you want to improve the look and feel of your Maple Springs-area home with an upgrade in flooring, come in to your local Carpet One. Maple Springs-area Carpet One stores can be counted on to supply your New York home with the best flooring selection, expertise, installation, and protection in the industry. We have everything from quality ceramic tile to laminate flooring and beyond.
Working with Carpet One in the Maple Springs area will redefine the way you shop for flooring. At your Carpet One near Maple Springs, we proudly provide you with flooring for all lifestyles and all budgets. Rely on the expertise of our sales professionals to guide you through the flooring selection process with additional guidance from our SelectAFloor™ system, which aids you in choosing the best floor for your home at the best price. Whether you need a hardwood floor that will look great in any room or versatile vinyl that will resist wear and tear while still looking beautiful, your local Maple Springs-area Carpet One delivers with great flooring at a great price for everyone. In addition, we have several SelectAFloor ™ warranty options available to protect the life of your floor long after it is installed.
Affordable, quality flooring has never been easier to come by than at your Maple Springs-area Carpet One. You can count on Carpet One near Maple Springs to bring your interior design ideas to life with our expertise and superior selection. Come in to your Carpet One near Maple Springs and let us help you start your flooring redesign journey today!


Once again, the sun shines over the South Wales valleys but this also means that deliberate grass fires start throughout the South Wales valleys.
Since the start of April 2015, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service have attended over 800 deliberate grass fires in the valleys and surrounding areas. Figures shown by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, indicates that fires started with intent have risen from 309 to 874 compared to April 2014 – which is an increase of 183%.
Between the time of April 1st 2015 – 28th April, 2015, the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf was the area which was most hit by the deliberate grass fires with over 320 fires being tackled by South Wales Fire and Rescue Service.
Overall, 874 deliberate grass fires were set in South Wales in April 2015.
South Wales Fire and Rescue service will be working closely with local policing units and South Wales Police over the summer and hot weather periods to cut down, and put a stop to deliberate grass fires.
Remember, you can face imprisonment and up to a ?5,000 fine if caught or seen lighting deliberate grass fires.
Also, don't forget that deliberate grass fires can risk lives, not just of the wildlife, but nearby houses and even other members of the public who may need the help of the fire service for a house fire or road traffic collisions.
If you see anyone or know anyone who's lighting fires, then don't be frightened to report them to your local police station or you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or the non-emergency number 101. Making that phone call can saves lives of the local wildlife and the general public.


The French daily Le Figaro reported this week that Hein Verbruggen played a key role in pressuring a former French sports minister to not apply France's new anti-doping rules in a bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games.
Testifying before the French senate on the effectiveness of the fight against doping, former sports minister Marie-George Buffet said Verbruggen and other International Olympic Committee members pressured her to ease up on anti-doping enforcement if Paris wanted to host the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Buffet, who made headlines as the sports minister during the Festina Affaire that rocked the 1998 Tour de France, testified before a senate inquiry that members of the IOC pressured her to not apply all aspects a new French anti-doping law that was created in the early 2000s if Paris were awarded the 2008 Games.
Beijing later won the bid to host the 2008 Summer Games and Verbruggen served as the IOC's top man in the Chinese capital.
Buffet also testified that she was pressured to back off ahead of the FIFA World Cup in 1998. She got in hot water after ordering surprise doping controls on the French soccer team weeks ahead of the event, which France hosted and won.