SPACESHIP EARTH

The earthquake and tsunami that occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004 was so powerful it shifted our spaceship earth on its axis so that our days have become shorter. Admittedly nano seconds shorter, but my point is the earth moved. The earthquake that has hit Japan was even more powerful and shifted the island of Japan 2 meters from where it was before. So what has been the effect on our axis?  New Zealand recently suffered an earthquake and is on the Pacific tectonic plate line which also runs through Japan. A couple of years ago Chile suffered an earthquake on the other side of the Pacific. It seems to me that the earthquakes here are going round the Pacific in a clockwise direction. So who is next? Let's hope no one. We have enough to do now to help Japan get over its catastrophe before the next problem. 

Wars between various factions of the crew of spaceship earth are a distraction from our main mission which must be to save our planet from harm and keep it sailing on through space. We are all in the same boat, though I sometimes wonder if some people fully appreciate this.

We must do all we can to repair and keep our spaceship on its course, for we do not have enough lifeboats for all of us, should the captain call to abandon ship! 

Fukushima Nuclear Power Station

The news coming out of Japan is not good and my heart goes out to the Japanese. I admire the Japanese for their discipline, their industriousness and their intelligence, but I am concerned about the reports now coming out of Japan. As I watched the reported hydrogen gas explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, I thought I was seeing a controlled HE explosion. I know the Japanese build their structures to be earthquake proof and that the steel girders they use are all bolted together and not welded. This may explain why the steel structure of the nuclear reactor building stayed intact, but how come the walls that remained looked as if they had been cleanly sawn off and not exploded?  Why was the steel skeleton of the building not deformed if the explosion was from the inside out? Why were there no black burn marks on the structure? Hydrogen burns and will ignite all flammable material, as well as melt steel. Hydrogen flames can hardly be seen with the naked eye, but they would ascend rapidly as hydrogen is lighter than air. Why then did the ash cloud not also rise rapidly into the air in the wake of the flames, assuming there were some? The cloud spread out and remained close to the ground rather than rising into the air. Compare the view of the building after the explosion with that of Chernobyl. I know that involved a melt down explosion which we have not had here (yet)! But that building was destroyed by an uncontrolled explosion from inside out. The Fukushima plant looks too clean and bears no resemblance to an exploded building I have ever seen. Why? These are all questions that I would like answers to.

I rather think that there was a build up of pressure in the building, that the core was heating up and that they deliberately blew away the walls and roof to release the pressure and help to cool the core. But then, what do I know about such things!

Tsunami

Bad weather in the Pacific

As we watch the  compelling and fascinating videos and pictures of the horrendous disaster striking Japan from the comfort of our armchairs, we can consider ourselves lucky that we are not involved. Yet again I witness how people who have no concept of this power place themselves in danger. The last time such an event happened  in 2004, many sightseers in India were swept into the ocean. Even the TV videos have an awesome fascination and one can hardly understand why one cannot out run the apparent slow moving mass of water. 

It is different in a storm. The wind noise alone is frightening and that is just the problem here, there is no howling wind. When a tsunami strikes there need not be high winds and rain. It was a bright sunny day when it struck the Indian Ocean in 2004 and now again in Japan.

I have been alone in a small boat in a storm at sea, the one that broke the Prestige oil tanker in November 2002 in the bay of Biscay. The noise alone is frightening. There is a build up to a storm, but a tsunami can strike miles away from the epicentre of the earthquake and so can arrive without warning on a bright sunny day. I am sure that when it arrives there is noise aplenty from the rushing water and the breaking up of houses and structures it just sweeps away. And when it has gone, in the wake of the devastation it leaves behind, there must be an awful silence. 

Carnival

If you do not live in an area that celebrates carnival the whole idea can be a bit daunting to go out dressed in some costume or other which makes one look like an absolute idiot, but then that is the whole idea. My partner Hanna comes from a carnival town and for the 22 years I have known her I have been infected with the carnival virus. The main event is always the procession which in the majority of German towns is on the Monday before Ash Wednesday. In my town, Mönchengladbach, the procession takes place on Shrove Tuesday. Today the sun shone and it encouraged everyone out on the streets. Some 350,000 were expected and since we only have a population of approx 250,000  a lot of visitors were expected. The theme of this years carnival was "Carnival keeps you fit". I don't think it explains the costumes at all, but then the object is to have fun before the serious business of fasting for Lent, something we Christians have given up on. Here then are a few photos of the idiots to be found on the streets of my town today. 

The razor scam!

To shave or not to shave that is the question that millions of us men ask ourselves each morning. I have no statistics to prove what I now say, but from my own observation the majority of us decide to shave. Some do grow beards and some have what they think looks like designer (film star) stubble, but in my view makes you look like a down and out, or wino! Call me old fashioned if you like. Take Kurt Beck for example. Were it not for the fact that most of the time he wears a suit and tie and is a leading German politician, you could imagine him as fitting the image of a wino. I certainly would not want to be represented abroad by the image this man creates of himself. But I digress.

So having made the decision to shave how are we to go about it. When I first started some 48 years ago I used what my father used and can imagine that most of us did. My mother, however, had other ideas, she did not want me to shave at all and insisted I use some cream which she gave me, to remove what at first can best be described as "bum fluff", once a week. Needless to say she never managed to keep me using it.

My first razor was the well know "safety razor" made by Gillette and patented by him in 1904. One could and I often did change blades and use Wilkinson Sword blades. As time went on, I used more Wilkinson Sword blades than Gillette until Gillette brought out a new razor with two blades. Now one could not use another manufacturer's blade as they did not fit. One was sucked into using their system and they charged us royally for the privilege. 

Over the years I have drifted back and forth between the Gillette and Wilkinson Sword systems. I understand that Gillette use New Zealand as their testing ground for new products, before conning the rest of the world that their new system is the best. My choices have been decided purely on the basis of cost. I object to paying their horrendous prices for the blades. 

The latest campaign by Gillette is another attempt to con us as they have only changed the colour of the razor and blades and not much else. How many more blades on a shaving head do we need really? Surely the first blade cuts the hair, so what do the rest do? Do they take it in turns? As the first blade gets blunt does the second take over and so on till they are all blunt and we are forced to change it?

Part of me sometimes gets so angry about this scam that I swear I'll grow a beard again. But Hanna, thinks I look like a Hamster with one; it certainly makes me look older, so I don't. 

The use of an electric shaver seems to be the cheapest method of staying clean shaven over the long term, but I don't like them. I do enjoy the ritual of wet shaving each morning. It makes me feel clean and wakes me up. Perhaps the best idea is to try and use the old fashioned cut throat razor, for this in the long term would also be more cost effective. 

zu Guttenberg Part II

I think it right that Guttenberg bit the bullet and resigned. I did not mention it when I voiced my opinions on the scandal of his plagiarism earlier, but should have done.

The majority of politicians fall because of the poor manner in which they deal with a crisis. Guttenberg is no exception here and should really have fallen on his sword the first time the story broke. I cannot believe he did not know what his thesis contained, unless of course he paid someone else to write it. There are any number of such offers to be found on the Internet. What we do not know is whether or not he (cut and pasted) stole other peoples work intentionally and with "malice aforethought" as they say. Or whether attributing all these "quotes" was just too much work for him. Either way he was a foolish young man.

How many of us have tried to cheat in an exam? Most of us will know of a class mate who has done so successfully. As a boy I watched many of my classmates do so, but I never had the courage to try, I rather quaked at the idea of being found out if I did, which is why I left it to others. That some manage to get away with it, does not make it right. At the back of any thesis submitted to a German university is a sworn statement to the effect that you testify that it is all your own work. On your own head be it if it is not.

What still annoys me is in this whole affair is the role the university and his tutor (Doctor-Vater) played. Surely a doctorate thesis is examined by a panel of experts, before being passed. How come they did not notice the blatant plagiarism? Had they done their job back in 2006 this whole affair need not have happened. Yet now the university and his tutor are accusing him of being a liar and a cheat. He may well be all these things, but for them now to wash their hands like Pilate and claim innocence is absurd. At the very least, since they awarded him "summa cum laude" for this work they must shoulder some blame for the fiasco?

The Lion exits stage right!

zu Guttenberg has now retired to the political wilderness to rethink his future. I predict that in a couple of years he will return to prominence having washed his image until it is squeaky clean.

The Arab Revolt 2011

The manner in which the many Arab nations are revolting against the tyranny and repression of their various regimes in, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya is as encouraging as it is frightening. I remarked in an earlier post (see Egypt) how I feared for friends in Cairo. Here I am pleased to report that they are all well, but it is their future which worries me.

No Arab nation has hitherto had a democratic form of government. In Iran for example where in 1979 the people overthrew a dictatorial monarch, they ended up with an even worse and more blood thirsty Islamic Revolution. In Algeria, some 20 odd years ago, when the Islamists won a democratic election pledging to abolish democracy, the army stepped in to stop it and plunged Algeria into a bloody conflict which lasted some 10 years.

More recently in Palestine in 2005 when Hamas won a decisive election and took control of Gaza, they got rid of all opposition and have not bothered to hold free elections since. So what form of governments can we expect to replace the current ones in Arabia? In most of these countries there are no effective opposition parties.The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is banned, and yet if they are permitted to take part in an election are likely to win it. A secular liberal government is unlikely to emerge if they do. Already the interim rulers in Egypt have established contact with Iran and allowed the Iranian Navy to transit the Suez Canal for the first time in 30 years!

To my mind only Jordan could emerge with a proper democratic and secular government, but then only if King Abdullah follows the example of King Juan Carlos of Spain, who in 1981 defeated an attempted military coup and gave Spain a true democratic government. King Abdullah will need to oversee and manage the process himself, or else he might find himself being deposed as well. 

The Umayyad Mosque Damascus

There is only one Muslim nation with a more or less secular government and that is Turkey. I would wish that the USA and the EU encourage Turkey to lead here and help these Arab nations in establishing political parties as well as free and fair elections, for they are more likely to listen to advice from another Muslim nation, than they are to the USA or the EU. It is important that these nations do something to help and not just sit on the side lines and watch developments. The Allies after the Second World War supervised the democratization of Germany and Japan. A success story. During the French and Russian Revolutions the world sat and watched both countries disintegrate into a blood bath. The former led also to the rise of Napoleon and War in Europe which lasted years, the latter was even more bloody and led to the formation of the Soviet Union and the Cold War which lasted over 60 years.

That the youth of Arabia through their access to the Internet and Facebook et al, are leading the way does not mean it will end well if we do nothing. Any revolution is a magnet to youth in the beginning, but they are susceptible to being used and abused by unscrupulous people hungry for power for themselves. Turkey and the rest of the world must do all they can to encourage and help good leadership to emerge and to supervise free and fair elections.

Any new birth is painful and what will emerge in these Arab states is unclear, but it is our duty to encourage and help the development of all new nations, just as we do our children.