ABOUT HISTORY

There seems to be a Russian proverb that runs like this:

"Ignore the past and you will loose an eye. Dwell on the past and you will loose both of them".

Well, I like that one. I have been fascinated by history all my life, even as a little boy. In school, we had a history book for each year and I have been reading it all through in the very first months.

Regarding history, there is another proverb I highly appreciate: "The nations and its people who ignore their own history are condemned to repeat it again and again".

As to the present, those gruesome and stupid wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan might have been avoided by simply looking at precedents, similar cases that happened in the past and its outcome. This has not been done and now we have opened Pandora's box and it will take dozens of years to get it closed again.

Doctors dabble in mass murder

Painting from Mathias Grünewald: Hell


Up to now, I always had one firm belief: those people who kill civilians wholesale at random by explosions of all kind are lame-brain cut-throat fanatics. It seemed to me that personal fate had deprived them of a good education leaving thus room for religious narrow-mindedness. As the scientist Thomas Aquinas said about 800 years ago “timeo hominem unius libri - I fear the man who knows only one book”.

The botched attempt at mass murder by those mid-eastern doctors changed all that and I am quite convinced not to be the only one.

For the time being I am searching the internet in order to find a description of the mindset of such people, because, honestly, I don’t understand.

For once, every physician has to give the oath of Hippocrates at the end of his studies and before embarking on his profession. He has to swear never to do anything detrimental to life. Could it be that this is not required when studying in the Middle East?

But the main point is elsewhere: how can a doctor who saves lives during day-time prepare mass murder after his work hours? Explosives, gasoline, nails, everything, to increase the number of dead and maimed people who happen to pass by.

Maybe time has come to say good-bye to the idea that education is a wall against religious fanaticism.

Last not least, I wonder what will happen to these people. They botched it, nobody outside their gang was hurt. They will be condemned to years of prison giving them a possibility to embark on a new career of living martyrs at the expense of the British tax payer. If I had a say in all this I would send them back to their home lands, and good riddance. Down there, exploding people has become a national pastime and skilled doctors to stitch the survivors together are not aplenty. They could even do both in the same day thus becoming respectable members of their Frankenstein community. Happy end.

DEMOCRACY WORLDWIDE?

These last years the efforts to preach and spread democracy worldwide has remarkably increased. I cannot help thinking this to be as futile as my vain attempts to make our cat stand up and walk on two legs.

Nowadays, elections are being held in Iraq, in Afghanistan as well as in some other cutthroat countries in Africa, sponsored by the US and the European Union. Wherever these elections are being carried out we are being told here by our faithful media that a great step has been made towards peace and prosperity for everybody.

Ten deaths or less during procedures are considered splendid, kind of collateral damage, not to be fussed about. Same for some little vote rigging here or there or some trouble with the counting.

However, afterwards, business as usual: real changes are being made with the help of the knife, explosives, kidnapping. Anything is possible, but certainly not the idea that by presenting the last voting bulletin you can convince the present head of state or little warlord plus his family, clan or tribe to resign from his lucrative job.

Here in the West, we have had democracy in its primitive form for hundreds of years. The English Magna Carta goes back to the 13th Century and in Germany and the Netherlands the bigger towns - kind of citizen states - had an elected town council who governed.

And furthermore, in all these cities and regions as well as even in many absolute monarchies in Europe there was something like the rule of law. Not perfect, far from it, but there was a written law and it evolved slowly according to the needs.

Maybe not everybody knows this famous story of Frederic II from Prussia - an absolute monarch - who wanted to extend his castle ground by purchasing a nearby mill. Well, he never succeeded, the miller stubbornly didn't want to sell. Finally, after years of judiciary actions Frederic gave in.

All this means that countries like Afghanistan, Iraq or The Congo have no use for western democracy, they simply don't have the background. This non-violent way of government must come by the people there and certainly not from outside. Thus it may well need centuries or might never happen, God knows.

Meanwhile, let's better leave those countries alone to their own devices. At best, those who have the power outside, should sponsor a benevolent homegrown dictator who busies himself with building schools and roads and an efficient health system. That's the very best we all can hope for.

GLORIOUS SUMMER

RELIGION AND TOLERANCE

The painting is from Francisco Goya: Saturn devours his children



His name was Ali, he was living somewhere in Baghdad. One day, not so long ago, he was found dead, throat slit, hands bound with wire behind his back. He had the bad idea to live as a Shia Muslim in a Sunni Muslim Area.

I do not know if "Love your neighbor" is especially requested and required in Islam. But the contrary is certainly not.

But such gruesome killings happen elsewhere, too. In Northern Ireland, the Catholics and the Protestants have killed each other for centuries.

When the 30 Years' War - Protestants against Catholics on the menu - ended in 1648 in Germany, two thirds of the entire population were dead.

The list of mass killings, wars, violence based on religion is endless. One might even say that religious differences are one of its the main reasons .

On the other hand, when you talk person to person to active Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs over here, they all seem to be decent, tolerant people. Full of understanding, no violence, no fanaticism, no Sir.

So what?

If I look at all those appalling events: killings and violence of all kind that go on and on, now and in the past, carried out in the name of religion, I cannot help thinking that this has two main reasons: pretension to exclusivity and lust for power.

With exclusivity I mean the fact that today's big religions have only one God who asks for exclusivity. "I am a jealous God" says Jehovah, the God of the Jews and the Christians in the Bible. And Allah, as the same God is called by the Muslims, does not compel the faithful to be tolerant, either. And thus, all other Gods of other people are considered wrong and should thus disappear, weeded out, and pronto!

Now add to this idea of exclusivity a big army and a good array of weapons and the next calamity is being programmed. You just need some enterprising politician (or a little warlord, or a king or any head of state) who sees the huge potential to do his bidding in the name of God.

Has anyone on the World Wide Web an idea how to get out of this situation? To make our little blue planet a little bit more comfortable and less risky.

GLOBAL DIMMING VS. GLOBAL WARMING

Among those scientists dabbling in the global warming field, at least one was interested in the heating effect of those vapor trails made by airplanes high up. The big problem was that those trails were there every day, thus it was impossible to make a comparison between a sky with them and a sky without them.

Then happened September 11, 2001. During three days all commercial air traffic was shut down as the consequence of Al Qaida's attack on the Twin Towers in New York.

Three days without those contrails in the sky and our scientist went busy checking the daily temperature all over the USA and comparing them with normal days.

The result was truly appalling. No vapor trails for three days and the average diurnal temp went up 1°C. For a meteorologist that is a huge difference.

As always in science and elsewhere: you find something new and all those other ones who "know" told him that he had a bee in his bonnet. But the finding was made and confirmed by observations measuring the sun light hitting the earth's surface. Yes, there was a clear drop between the sixties and now.

A new word was coined: global dimming.

The meaning of all this is only too clear. Global warming due to pollution would be much higher down here if we hadn't had the good idea to increase at the same time, by other pollutants, the clouds sailing overhead. In other words: clear skies, less global dimming, and whamm, our temp down here goes up.

If we don't do something radical, and do it fast, to decrease global warming, our good old planet might be doomed. Not for the insects and for the deep sea fish, but most certainly for us. We have to decrease first the warming effect and then, a little later, the global dimming. Otherwise, it appears, we might reach temperatures here on earth we did not have for some billion years.

Let's hope our dear leaders do something about it NOW and not only when the first refugees from the flooded coastal areas stream inland to find a dry spot.

Interesting times ahead.

UNDER ATTACK

Yesterday, heavy sunshine and a moderate north-easterly wind. The ideal conditions to go for a little flight in Monceaux, just above the river Dordogne.

Those of you who never had a flight in a paraglider do ignore one of the greatest pleasures live can give you. And so I was gliding at moderate speed just three or four meters above the treetops. Seen from above, those treetops look sometimes like broccoli. Then comes a sudden gust of wind and up you go. It's like stepping into a high speed lift but stout hearts hearts are needed here. Because you step into that lift without any forewarning. So up you go, the launching pad you left just five minutes ago becomes small and smaller, same for the broccoli trees under your feet.

To my left, I see a hanglider, that is Bernard, an experienced pilot. He knows what he is doing, anytime. But a little bit under him I see another paraglider circling around to go up in the warm air. I have to keep an eye on him, all the time. Because the idea is to hid the same thermal without being too near.

Meanwhile, we are five pilots in the air. Going up and down, circling up, gliding down. A kind of air ballet dance, in complete silence, only the slight whine of the kevlar ropes linking the canopy to the glider seat.

However, all good things have an end. Here it is the wind dying out and a big cloud masking the sun thus stopping the hot air going up. So I go down, prepare for landing on the other side of the Dordogne. Circling over the river, I see two canoes. I yell at them and they answer joyfully by giving a sign with their hands.

Near the landing pad is a big oak tree and there I see leaving that damned buzzard, my personal enemy. He is already gaining height yelling or screeching while approaching from above. Now he is above my canopy, I still hear him but cannot see the bird anymore. I imagine him diving on the paraglider, yelling, claws ready. Or is it his beak? What can I do? I yell, too, as loud as I can, making little moves with the glider.

Stupid buzzard leaves me and I imagine he returns to his nest in the oak tree. There he tells his wife and birdies how he is protecting them against those predating colored plastic birds.

Back on the ground I inspect the works of Mr. Buzzard. Three holes this time. Knowing him, I have some patches ready. Last time he made fives holes. And my previous glider had fifteen at all. Mister B suffers certainly from slight attacks of paranoia, especially at spring time. A visit to Doctor Freud should do him a world of good.

Forgotten

Have a look at this photo. It shows the winged goddess of victory, Nike of Samothrace. The original stands in the Louvre museum in Paris. This splendid stature of 2 1/2 meter high was created to celebrate a naval victory in the Mediterranean, about 2200 years ago.

There is however something amiss. Today, nobody knows for sure who was fighting whom and for what reason.

Imagine a time when the Waterloo battle of 1815 that ended Napoleon's rule in Europe is more or less forgotten. Or the battle of Stalingrad 1942/43 that marked the turning point of the Second World War. Could this be? Could this happen?

Those old civilizations two thousand years ago had the good idea to carve some messages on stone. But we, what do we do? Our contemporary paper and print is of so low quality that it disappears in about hundred years. The first movies, turned about a century ago, are chemically so instable that they rot away, or just burn. Let's not talk about the magnetic tapes: even today, we cannot read them if they are older than 15 years. And those DVD's, CD-ROM's, their life is estimated at 50 years but in reality, nobody knows for sure how long they are able to keep the data.

Quite possible that in 2000 years from now, our big, loud civilization is utterly forgotten. Maybe, the archaeologists will go through our junk heaps - armed with a tooth brush of old - and unearth some broken coca-cola-bottle or a frying pen made of stainless steel. I wonder what that will tell them about us. Certainly nothing about Waterloo or the Abba-Group of Sweden.

Interesting times ahead.

Look who has come to live with us

Yesterday we came back from a short paragliding holiday at the Atlantic coast (Dune du Pyla) and today, what do I see? A turteldove right in front of our terrace, sitting on a branch of the Japanese Sherry tree in full bloom. And then I see Ms. Turteldove busy working on a nest. And all that not three meters from where I am standing!

Behind the house is a giant Atlantic cedar and I always thought our couple of turtledoves would dwell there, high up somewhere at a top branch. Could be, however, that this couple is a new one. I know those birds for years though they come and go without clear pattern. They disappear in Summer for some weeks, I think.

For those who are interested in photography: I simply took my binoculars, put them on a chair and held the numerical camera - zoom out - against it. In order to obtain some sharpness, I turned the middle wheel of the binoculars.

Our two cats are prowling around, on the ground. But they are lazy, don't climb trees, both have have specialized on mice. Let's hope the birds know what they are doing. Once my wife saw our lady cat jump more than one meter in the air in order to catch a bat whizzing by.

The village - our village

This is our village, right in the center of France. Small place, nowadays, about 200 people live there and some more during the summer months. Last year, I read in a tourist guide printed
150 years ago that the village had 1200 people living in it!

Old people told me that after the war and up to the sixties (last century) Rouffiac had about 600 inhabitants and could boast one grocer, two butchers, two bakers and one wine merchant who sold coal at the same time.

Now, these businesses are all gone and even the post office has closed. However, we still have

a café/restaurant that sells some foodstuffs and takes your mail. Especially the café is of the highest importance. Sure you can have an espresso there, but they sell all kinds of alcoholics, too. We have some steadfast swillers over here. As the saying goes "to be drunk every day, means also to lead a regular life".

Rouffiac is a real farmers' village. They run the place and they work hard. I do not know if they are rich but they are certainly affluent, judging by the huge tractors they drive. The Auvergne people are the Scots of France, tight fisted, "un sou est un sou", one cent is one cent and the coin is being turned around several times before it is spent.

More next time.