Some thoughts from the next generation ...

The Postulant responded to an email from the Monk with the following rather perceptive observations in her reply. In my opinion she makes some extremely valid points. Perhaps some politician - one of that class she mentions below - might take some time out of their busy schedule to answer her on some of these points ...
I won't hold my breath though. She begins by answering my question regarding a "national strike" I had heard a passing reference to ...

Yes to the strike - I have no idea what it's about. It could be solidarity with teachers etc, whose pensions are being rewritten to match the private sector. There was a documentary last night on BBC Four I think, which asked where all of the taxpayers' money has really gone over the last few decades - PFI featured heavily. Some of the banks that we've bailed out have also been sold off recently - and mysteriously the debt has stayed on the government's books, rather than been sold off with the banks in question. I saw a wry comment from a nurse friend on twitter last night - she asked what the world would be like if the banks' remuneration packages had been monitored as closely or discussed as openly as public sector workers' pay is.  

At the risk of sounding as grumpy as you often do on your blog :P ...basically every government we've had since the introduction of stock market trading has ensured that they're alright and to hell with everyone else - when the stock markets have done well, they've taken credit for it and when the stock markets go bad, they blame the previous government. The colour of their ties makes no difference. The stock markets are cyclical because most things involving humanity are cyclical. There's no great mystery to the way that bubbles boost stock prices and then burst - it's easy to see them building up, much like seismologists can see a potential volcanic eruption. Nobody looks because it's not in their best interest to do anything other than play along. At some point we might have to find another way of trading or creating value - what form it would take is anybody's guess, but I'm not in the camp that thinks we should return to bartering or living in caves! I just think we are on the cusp of another phase - yes, stock markets serve a useful purpose in capitalising new companies, but the artificial growth in value of shares, which then slump, has been a millstone around our collective necks since the South Sea Bubble. Now that computers can trade for us, faster than any human trader and with even less judgement, the problem is getting worse. All of our pensions rely on this model working - and it isn't working - and the booms and busts are getting closer together...  

When my brother and I wandered around IKEA in October, we wondered how much longer the consumer society that we've grown up with will last - it isn't sustainable for much longer. We saw items in there that were being sold for less than the cost of the fuel to manufacture and transport them across Europe to the store. And I totally agree with you about the Gegeners - they're totally clueless about the position we're in. Or if they do realise how unsustainable the population is, they probably think it's justifiable to cull other human beings, or dictate how who's allowed children and in what quantities. They have that sort of nasty mindset that comes with thinking you're right all the time. I will be interested to see where we end up - I don't think our retirement will look anything like previous generations' did!   

Er... I should stop there, shouldn't I? 

No, my dear, someone has to see through the charade and the lies that is the daily fare of the news media, the politics and the stock in trade of the self serving "civil" service.

A sad day for the Fire Services ...

I have received the following from the Friends of the London Fire Brigade Museum.

Friends of the London Fire Brigade Museum FLFBM.com
 The Committee along with several members of the Friends attended the Fire Authority meeting on Thursday 24^th November.  At this meeting the Authority finalised its proposed budget before submitting it to the Mayor for his approval.
 The budget once again included the closure of the present museum and this was agreed.  However we were heartened to hear that unanimously members from all parties were keen to both retain the collection intact and to explore ways of creating a long term solution that retains this vital piece of our heritage and we are keen to build on this.
 We will be taking up the deputy Commissioners offer of discussions to help in this process and look forward to having a role in the current, interim and medium term storage arrangements and in developing suitable a suitable governance model for a new museum.
 The requirements for closure will need to be in accordance to the requirements set down by the national bodies for accredited museums and this includes offering those who have donated items to reclaim them.  We intend to keep these individuals informed and to notify them when the new museum is safely secured.

This is a very bad decision by the politicians. It will save very little money, it loses them a great deal of goodwill and possibly worst of all, it breaks up one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of fire service history in the world. All to save what amounts, in the LFEPA budgets, to pennies. As someone who donated several items to the museum some years ago, I shall await developments.

One thing politicians of all stripes seem to be ignorant of, is the fact that once you destroy something like this, it is impossible to rebuild or replace it. The third verse of Kipling's magnificent, and precient, poem "Recessional,"  -

Far-called our navies melt away— 

On dune and headland sinks the fire— 

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday 

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!  

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, 

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Once something is gone, it is gone for good.

Available at last ...

ON THE RUN has been released. Currently available from the publisher, Abbott Press it will shortly also be on the Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book seller listsings. It is in Hard Cover, Paperback and eBook formats. This one has had a long gestation, I completed it a little over a year ago and have done several revisions, then the publisher wanted some more tweeks ...

I hope readers will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating the story.

Looks may be deceptive ...

From Forbes Magazine ...

Gingham Dress And Threadbare suit 
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston, and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office. 

The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country  hicks had no business at Harvard & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
"We'd like to see the president," the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped   "We'll wait," the lady replied. 

For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted. 

"Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him!
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office.  

The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."
The president wasn't touched. He was shocked.  

"Madam," he said, gruffly, "we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.""Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."  

The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."  

For a moment the lady was silent.  

The President was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now.  

The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?"  

Her husband nodded. 

The President's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment. 

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.  

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.  

A TRUE STORY By Malcolm Forbes, publisher of Forbes MagazineNote : Stanford made his fortune in railways 

"People will forget what you said, People will forget what you did.But people will never forget how you made them FEEL".

"Gegeners ..."

In German, the word means to be "against" something, and it covers a range of "protest" activities from anti-atomic power through the full spectrum of "anti-anything" campaigning. I find it a very interesting mindset in a rather frustrated manner, since those who lead these campaigns show a similar tendency toward being able to see only their own campaign, rights, facts, arguments and points of view as being valid. I have previously noted this approach among other groups, both the extreme religious types and the atheist/secularist converts who seem to spend an inordinate amount of time recycling their own often very selective arguments for their particular position.

This thought was prompted recently by the reports on the latest bout of campaigning against the Stuttgart 21 Project, a scheme intended to improve the railway access and connections to the city of Stuttgart. It is a huge project and as with all major projects, it has both its merits and its demerits and not a few highly technical problems to overcome. Stuttgart is the capital of Baden-Wurtemburg and it is also the home of the Mercedes Benz manufacturing empire. Its railway connection was conceived and built in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and rebuilt to the same plan after WW2. So why does it need redesigning?

Put simply, the initial design made the city a terminus. Trains can enter and leave, but there is no "through" service. Anything going into Stuttgart must first back out again and then join the mainline to everywhere else. The Stuttgart 21 Project is intended to fix that, increase rail traffic to the city and improve the whole scheme by putting most of the new work below ground. It will cost an enormous amount to do it, but it is seen by Deutchebahn and both the Federal Government and the State Government as an investment which will ensure the city continues to be attractive for commerce and for tourism. So, what's not to like?

The "S21 Gegeners" maintain the whole project is too big, to costly and too disruptive. They seem to fall into two main camps, those who don't want anything to change at all and those who will accept a smaller and less ambitious project. The latter seem to be in a minority from what I read. The Rail company, the designers, the politicians and even the technical experts have held consultations, briefings, enquiries and even been hauled through the courts. Concessions have been made, some of the "Gegeners" biggest objections have been taken on board and changes made to the scheme - but still they keep hammering away, now complaining about the cost of the project which is escalating with each delay they are causing ...

It is evident that for the hardcore "Gegener" the campaign has become a case of no compromise. They accept nothing anybody from the pro side says, everything is immediately called into question or brushed aside as "inadequate" or "irrelevant" or even simply flatly denied. There is, for these folk, no "middle ground" no matter how detailed the report or the technical assessments, they always know someone who can refute, challenge or raise more questions. I watched in amazement this morning as the spokesperson for this campaign to stop S 21 blithely argued that the costs were "running out of control" but then denied that his campaign and the delays they were causing had anything to do with it.

What fascinates me - and frustrates me - with this mindset is that it is evident in a whole bunch of "campaigning" activities. Greenpeace, Fiends of the Earth, "Stop the Cuts," secularisation - they all know all the faults with the "other" side, they can chant their own sides demands and they know their arguments for their standpoint the way someone of deep religious conviction knows their credo - but there is a blanket refusal to consider the impact of their demands or the costs and consequences.

My question, I guess, is what causes it? Is it that people are unable, despite their much vaunted and often vigorously asserted, "rationalisation"of major events and ideas to actually consider things from an objective point of view and not from a predetermined standpoint? Or is it that they are afraid to? That they just don't like change and are determined to hold it back at all cost no matter the consequences? Is it that, having taken a particular position on something they are afraid to change their thinking when presented with new and perhaps more reliable information? Could it be that, for some at least, "the campaign" becomes their sole raison detre for existing? There are certainly many of that ilk among the "Green" campaigners I have encountered. Likewise among those who campaign over safety, rights, freedom and a host of other matters. One gets a distinct impression that the mindset is governed by the tenet, "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up."

An interesting challenge I suspect for some psychological researcher at some point. There is probably some very good explanation for this refusal to weigh and consider both sides of an argument, but I confess it eludes me ...

Oh dear ....    

Headlines

Currently three topics are dominating the German headlines - the exposure and capture of a neo-Nazi terror gang; the €uro crisis; and the ongoing protests over the Stuttgart Bahnhof restructuring and the atomic waste storage facility in Gorleben.

The arrest of members of the neo-Nazi group (two committed suicide when trapped after robbing a bank) has started a tremendous debate over the issue of "right-extremists" and there is a great deal of soul searching being done over this group which has, it transpires, been active for over 10 years. The Secret Service (Ferfassungsdienst) in several of the Federal States apparently knew of their activities and were monitoring them, but failed to share this with the relevant State Police forces. Justifiably there is anger over this in all quarters and now there are calls for the parent political party, the NPD (National Socialist Party) to be banned outright. As ever, the Left are the most vocal in demanding a ban, conveniently ignoring the fact that Germany also has a problem with "Links extremismus"groups, the most notorious of which was the Red Army Faction (Bader-Meinhof Gang), but there are still others at large, though not as active and there is also the threat of Al Qaeda groups and members. Bans usually mean driving groups like these deeper underground and making it even more difficult to track, monitor and deal with them. This seems to have been realised here, though the debate continues.

The €uro crisis concerns everyone, probably the Germans more than anyone else. Older people here remember their parents talking about the collapse of the Mark in the Weimar Republic and the consequences. They also remember clearly the struggle in the post-war years as the country and the economy was slowly rebuilt. They entered the €uro cautiously and their economic rectitude has been worthwhile. Their banks, on the whole, survived the scandal of 2008 very nicely, the majority without any bailouts. Currently, the Chancellor is fighting her corner with the usual Keynesian economists who got us into this mess in the first place and who now want to sell €urobonds and print more money. Germany knows all to well what happens to a currency once the presses start printing more banknotes than the economy can sustain in value. Currently, Germany has a 1.8% interest on borrowing rate on the world exchange as opposed to something akin to 34% for Greece. The €urobond idea would see Germany paying a higher rate for their loans so that France, Spain, Greece et al pay the same as Germany - and Mrs Merkel knows the German people won't be happy bunnies if that happens!

The third item is worthy of a post on its own as anyone watching these protest groups soon comes to realise that for many it is almost a religious dogma. "We are against (insert activity of choice)" and no amount of debate, exchange of information, even inspection of facilities will change that stance. We are against it and it doesn't matter what you say, we will not change or position. This seems to be a human condition, one that is visible in many different things and in many different societies. For those of this mindset there is no "middle ground" and no compromise. For them it is their way or nothing.

On which note I will stop for the moment. Perhaps tomorrow will provide the inspiration to ponder that a little more.

Investing in the Future

My old school is Selborne College, East London, South Africa. It was and is, one of the top public schools (as opposed to a fee paying "Private" school which is what Eton, Harrow or any of the "Public" Schools in the UK would be called in SA) in the country, and I'm not just saying that because I went there. I will also confess that I was never one of their star pupils or sportsmen. I sort of muddled all the way through - to the frustration of most of the Masters I think - and finally wandered off with some "education" and no idea what to do with it. Years later one of my favourite Masters (he taught me history and drama and his wife taught English) told me that I was one of his most frustrating pupils. In his words, he and the other teachers could "see an intelligence lurking in there, but couldn't seem to get it to switch on" - and yet I always somehow scrapeda passing grade despite their being convinced I wouldn't...

Sort of explained all those reports that said "can do better, if he applied himself to the studies." OK, so they did actually manage to at least teach me to listen, observe and think, all of which have stood me in very good stead through my subsequent career.

So why am I rambling on about all this? The school has launched an appeal. It needs to raise ZAR25 million to secure its future. The money is needed to upgrade facilities, extend some buildings to provide new facilities and buy new equipment such as computers. The Old "Boys" Association has kick-started the Appeal with a donation of ZAR500,000 and will, no doubt, be contributing more over the next three years. Under the title of "Selborne Legacy Project" the money will be managed by Trustees as it is collected and I would like to add my own appeal to anyone reading this. Please support them if you can. Follow the link on their website to the donations page and make a donation.

It doesn't matter how small, every Rand, Pound, Dollar or whatever counts!