Little Ghost

The inspiration to this text came from another blogger (a prolific writer btw and so much more eloquent than me) who wrote about walking up a mountain together with her children and who described how the grandeur of nature unfolding in front of her eyes ignited essential thoughts about our existence and life's meaning.

My here described walk with the cat family in the adjacent forest was in contrast rather routine and the scenario was far less spectacular, but my brain was also busy with similar considerations and when we came home I decided to write down the ideas that were going around in my head as far as I could still remember them.

We started the walk at eight PM. It was very dark, because the sky was clouded and it was nearly new moon. Fortunately darkness is not really an impediment for me because I know the forest so well, that I would find my way even blindfolded.

It was eerily quiet as we walked the way to the big clearing in the center of the forest. The cats didn't make a sound, but I knew that they were there and every now and then I saw a faint shadow rushing past me.

Suddenly the wind was whispering. Normally the leaves would be echoing the wind, letting the whispering only slowly die down. But as it was winter, the leaves where all laying on the ground, and the whispering stopped as abrupt as it had started.  It was exactly at the point where Cindy always joined the walk and therefore I knew, that this was Cindy's ghost.

Cindy was my little cat friend who disappeared in October, most likely killed by hunters. I commemorated her in my blog post Something Personal and I unloaded much of my grief in this blog post, but she still is always in my mind when we make our daily walks.

Cindy spent most of her time (and in fact most of her life) in the forest, but she nearly always joined the walks. I only had to call her name two or three times, and she came, running with lightning speed towards me and rolling on her back right in front of me, waiting that I would kneel down beside her and softly caress her. She liked that so much and she would immediately start purring as loud as she could.

The cats and I continued the walk and when we reached the big clearing I heard the wind whisper again. I kew, that Cindy's ghost was still with me, wandering and jumping around and sniffing here and there just like her fellow cats.

Cindy's ghost often visits me in my dreams. She had the habit of coming home from the forest after midnight and scratching on my bedroom door till I went up and let her in. This was usually between two and four AM. After I had let her in, Cindy waited till I was in bed again and then she jumped onto the bed and laid down right beside me either on the blanket or on the pillow and she often pressed her little head against my cheek.

Cindy and Lizzy were the only cats who made this (Lizzy, the cat love of my life, died on the 1st of June 2010 at the age of 18). They where the two cats which I saved from certain death and they both were well aware of this fact and as close to me as individuals of a different species possibly can get.

I wrote about both cats excessively in preceding blog posts and don't want to repeat myself, yet for the purpose of this text I have to point out, that Lizzy hat a troubled life with much hardship and suffering. Her first ten years were terrible, the following eight years that she spent with us after she had lost her left paw in a mowing machine were better, but also marked by severe injuries and sicknesses.

Cindy was luckier, though her first year was also not easy because she had to overcome severe bacterial and parasitic infections. After that it went quite well and she lived a fulfilled and happy cat life in the forest and in our home. She was flourishing and we had a great time when she joined the cat walks or came home to sleep on my bed.

It is sad that her little life so suddenly ended after only three years and three month.

Cindy and Lizzy had both their individual and easily distinguishable pattern of scratching, and I knew alone from the sound and rhythm of the scratching which cat was waiting at the door. In addition to that my unconscious brain obviously paid special attention to this two patterns, because I always woke up instantly, when Cindy and Lizzy wanted to come in. Other cats had to scratch harder and longer to wake me up.

Back to my walk with the cats: We had now reached the other side of the big clearing and we would soon come to the log pile beside the way and turn left into a small path that only we and the deer knew and used. I had to stop for a moment and wait for the stragglers so that they could catch up.

While I was standing there in darkness and silence I recollected the various pictures and sounds and episodic memories about my two little friends and one question arose and persisted in my mind: Was it worth it? Was the short life of the two little animals worth the pain and hardship, was it worth the exhausting struggle to survive? And was it worth my efforts, my worry, my anxiousness and distress?

As the question mark grew bigger and brighter and metamorphosed into something completely indescribable with shapes and colors that I never had seen before, I started to ask myself: Is my own life worth the pain and strife, is it worth the toil and the blisters, the sweat, the tears?

The cats obviously had now gathered around me and while we walked on in darkness and silence -- only occasionally broken by a faint meow -- I came to the conclusion, that it was worth it, of course it was worth it!

One moment of complete harmony, feeling safe, dry, and warm, one moments of elation and utter bliss, one moment of happiness alone would make life worth living. My little friends experienced many such precious moments.

I too experienced many of this moments. Together with my little friends, together with my mate, even when I was alone.

Even when I was alone! This may sound a bit weird to one or the other reader, but it is easy to explain: When I am meditating and the brain chatter dies down completely and the sensation in my naval areal and along my spine and in my whole body becomes more and more intense I occasionally reach a state of serenity and invincibility that makes all my worrying and grieving look petty and immature. Such events for sure also count to the moments that make life worth living. 

(On a side note: Moments like this could be called spiritual or mystical experiences and I don't object to this classification as long as religion, mysticism, superstition are left out of the picture. Neuroscience is perfectly able to explain these special states of consciousness. I cannot go into details here but I will dedicate a forthcoming blog post to this issue.)

Every now and then I enjoy the mentioned spiritual moments also while I'm walking with the cats. Today I didn't have such an experience, I was composed and calm, but nevertheless far away from feeling serene and invincible. The preconditions were not right, the stars where not in the right constellation, it was just not the right time.

We made another turn to the left and entered an area with very old and big trees. This is a stripe along the north-west and south-west border of the forest, which is easy to pass and which ultimately leads back to our house. The cats were all there and Cindy's ghost was also still with us.

I know of course that Cindy's ghost exists only in my head, but that is nearly as good as if she would still be alive. After all, every experience of the outside world exists only in my head and is nothing else than an interpretation of the incoming sensory signals. A vivid imagination and a fairly good memory is all what Cindy's little ghost needs to ride on. She will be with me till I die.

The cats were now very disciplined and we went all the way home without further pauses and delays.

Though we were fast approaching home it took nevertheless long enough to let me replay the memory of one of the spiritual moments that I was experiencing during another walk with the cats. It was five years ago and we lived in an old farmhouse surrounded by meadows, fields and hedges. I often went with the cats along a small path between the cornfields and meadows that after some time leads into a narrow passage which ultimately ends at a railroad crossing.

Usually we stopped before the passage and the cats would then explore the surrounding meadows and hedges. After some ten minutes I would call them and when they all had reappeared we would go back to the house. This time though the cats didn't disperse but set down in a circle. It was not a circle around me, it was a circle including me. The cats sat there quietly and motionless, so I kneeled down too -- there was not the slightest sound.

It was night but the sky was clear and inky blue. It was not dark, a million stars shone on us. We sat there for approximately twenty minutes and I went through a multitude of feelings and mental states. Just as I was starting to wonder if we would sit there still in the morning, one cat suddenly went up and all the others followed, stretching themselves and looking at me appreciative. I said: "Okay, my friends", while I went up and I regretted instantly that I had interrupted the sacred silence with my casual and dispensable words, but the cats didn't seem to mind and we walked quietly home.

Just as I finished my retrospection of this memorable cat walk five years ago we reached our house. Cindy's ghost whispered a last meow and disappeared back into the forest. Normally she would have come with us and eat with the other cats, but she doesn't need food anymore. "Goodbye my friend,"  I thought, "till next time." 

My cats don't ponder about the things and notions, which I tried to describe in this blog post, they are practical, emotional, but not overly reflective. They cherish the good times and muddle through the bad times -- as we all do. Are cats wise? Not int the sense that I understand wisdom. They accumulate life experience and react more appropriately to new situations and new challenges as they get older. But their horizon is limited, even more than ours is, and they cannot change and readjust their instinctive behaviors as extensively as we can (or some of us can -- or some of us could). Cats are fast and can jump high and far, but they cannot jump over their shadow.

Cats are great teachers though and they are the most charming ambassadors of nature. I deeply admire them!

Bad news (about Cristina Fernandez)

I wrote already twice about Argentinians president Cristina Fernandez.

http://mato48.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/928/

http://mato48.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/

This time I write about her because two days before Christmas she had a health check and was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid gland. The cancer -- a papillary thyroid carcinoma -- is said to have not metastasized or affected her lymph nodes. Cristina Fernandez will undergo surgery on January 4 to remove the tumor, Vice-President Amado Boudou will take her place until January 24.

Doctors say she has a high chance of recovery and probably will not need chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Papillary carcinoma is the most common type of thyroid cancer and normally affects people under the age of 40, especially women. According to WHO statistics there are 123,000 new cases of thyroid cancer a year.

The news did strike me for several reasons:

1. Fernandez is one of several Latin American leaders diagnosed with cancer. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez underwent chemotherapy in July, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer in August 2010. Current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was treated for early stage lymphatic cancer in 2009 and her predecessor Lula da Silva undergoes chemotherapy for throat cancer since November.

Non of these leaders is considered a friend of the USA or an easy partner for global corporations.

Lula smoked for 50 years, one can maybe hold Philip Morris, Lorriard, or Reynolds responsible for that but not the CIA. The other cases are not so clear and while I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories and for now don't share Hugo Chavez suspicions I keep my eyes open.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/28/bloomberg_articlesLWXDUT6KLVR7.DTL

2. Iodine-131, one of the most abundant substances released by the melted reactors in Fukushima, causes thyroid cancer. Health studies following the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 showed a significant increase in thyroid cancer in the affected areas. Argentina in the south of the globe though is for sure less effected than any northern countries.

3. I fear (and wrote about this in several blog posts) that the constantly increasing pollution of the ecosphere will result in a terrible cancer pandemic.

4. I'm a cancer surviver myself.

Christmas Edition

The little concert that my pupils and I were performing yesterday went very well and I came home from the music school with a feeling of accomplishment and relief. It seemed that everybody liked it and I liked it too.

I'm not against traditions, they are a stabilizing factor in society. I'm also not against coming together to rejoice and jubilate for whatever reason, may it be to remember a historic event (Independence Day) or honor an important person (ML King Birthday) or celebrate a community achievement (Thanksgiving).

Christmas is a curious mix of pagan rituals (Saturnalia, Yule), the nativity myth and consumerism. This fact alone doesn't necessarily discredit the Christmas festivities but unfortunately todays Christmas is celebrated in the shopping malls and supermarkets and it is so intertwined and meshed with consumer culture that it has become a main symbol of consumerism.

At Christmas, one has to give and receive presents, and these presents have to be produced, advertised, and bought. Presents should be a surprise and in practice that means one gets a lot of things that are not needed, not wanted, or outright useless.

I cannot remember that I ever got really useful Christmas gifts, but I remember well the many situations where I had to pretend joy and excitement while I was in fact thinking how I could get rid of the received junk as fast as possible. Unfortunately I don't discard things easily, and the basement as well as the attic are full of items where I still ponder about a possible practical use or at least a way to upcycle or recycle them.

I don't like to get presents, I told everybody to spare the money, presents are not appreciated. Financial donations though are always welcome, I wouldn't object to a neatly packed bundle of 100 Dollar banknotes (100 or 500 Euro banknotes would be even more appreciated). I also wouldn't reject a Solid State Drive with at least 120 GByte and 500 MByte/sec writing speed. I recently updated most computers by exchanging the platter based hard disks with Solid State Drives, but one machine still has the original hard disk, waiting to be exchanged.

=========

The program of the annual Christmas performances in the music school consists mainly of Christmas carols and I have two favorites which we perform nearly every year.

One has the title: "I saw three ships come sailing in". This is an old English song, the earliest known printed version is from the 17th century. The reference to three ships is thought to originate in the three ships that brought the assumed relics of the "Three Kings from the East" to the Cologne Cathedral in the 12th century.

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning
 

And what was in those ships all three
On Christmas day, on Christmas day?
And what was in those ships all three
On Christmas day in the morning?

Our savior, Christ, and his lady
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
Our savior, Christ, and his lady
On Christmas day in the morning

And all the bells on earth shall ring
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
And all the angels in heaven shall sing
On Christmas day in the morning

Nat King Cole, Glen Campbell, Sting (Gordon Sumner), The Carpenters, Hawk Nelson, The Chieftains and many others performed this tune but I'm not impressed by any of the recorded versions. Over the years I developed my own arrangement which interprets the song as a medium tempo Jazz tune with a strong swing feeling.

The main reason I like this song is, that the lyrics are quite an interesting rendition of the nativity story. The lyrics remind me in a strange way on a scene in Bertold Brechts "Threepenny Opera," where Polly Peachum sings "Pirate Jenny". The difference is that only one ship is coming in and that the lyrics of Pirate Jenny purport a significantly different sentiment:

You people can watch while I'm scrubbing these floors

And I'm scrubbin' the floors while you're gawking

Maybe once ya tip me and it makes ya feel swell

In this crummy Southern town

In this crummy old hotel

But you'll never guess to who you're talkin'.

No. You couldn't ever guess to who you're talkin'.

Then one night there's a scream in the night

And you'll wonder who could that have been

And you see me kinda grinnin' while I'm scrubbin'

And you say, "What's she got to grin?"

I'll tell you.

There's a ship

The Black Freighter

With a skull on it's masthead

Will be coming in

You gentlemen can say, "Hey gal, finish them floors!

Get upstairs! What's wrong with you! Earn your keep here!

You toss me your tips

And look out to the ships

But I'm counting your heads

As I'm making the beds

Cuz there's nobody gonna sleep here, tonight

Nobody's gonna sleep here

Nobody!

Nobody!

Then one night there's a scream in the night

And you say, "Who's that kicking up a row?"

And ya see me kinda starin' out the winda

And you say, "What's she got to stare at now?"

I'll tell ya.

There's a ship

The Black Freighter

Turns around in the harbor

Shootin' guns from her bow

Now

You gentlemen can wipe off that smile off your face

Cause every building in town is a flat one

This whole frickin' place will be down to the ground

Only this cheap hotel standing up safe and sound

And you yell, "Why do they spare that one?"

Yes. That's what you say.

"Why do they spare that one?"

All the night through, through the noise and to-do

You wonder who is that person that lives up there?

And you see me stepping out in the morning

Looking nice with a ribbon in my hair

And the ship

The Black Freighter

Runs a flag up it's masthead

And a cheer rings the air

By noontime the dock

Is a-swarmin' with men

Comin' out from the ghostly freighter

They move in the shadows

Where no one can see

And they're chainin' up people

And they're bringin' em to me

Askin' me,

"Kill them NOW, or LATER?"

Askin' ME!

"Kill them now, or later?"

Noon by the clock

And so still at the dock

You can hear a foghorn miles away

And in that quiet of death

I'll say, "Right now.

Right now!"

Then they pile up the bodies

And I'll say,

"That'll learn ya!"

And the ship

The Black Freighter

Disappears out to sea

And on it is me

As I read and compare the lyrics of the two songs I'm not so sure if there are not similarities beyond the image of a ship sailing into a port. In both cases the incoming ship means salvation and relief from an unfortunate situation.

There is much misery and suffering in the word and many, many oppressed and tormented people need a savior to come and bring freedom and relief from oppression. In todays world the savior of course does not sail in via ship but sends drones and bombs first to destroy the oppressors. This is much easier done than an invasion via ships and it is done all the times now, it has in fact become routine in the last years. All your oppressed and tyrannized people, be aware that help is as near as the next US embassy or CIA office (often identical) where you just have to denounce your oppressors and provide the necessary geographical information.

Be careful what you call for though, things could go out of hand with you becoming "collateral damage" and being relieved in eternity from the burden of this life.

=========

The second tune that  we perform nearly every year is called: "Some Children See Him". This song was composed by Alfred Burt in 1951, the lyrics were written by Wihla Hutson. Burt was a Jazz musician who also worked as a music teacher and composer. Unfortunately he died in 1954 just 33 years old from lung cancer (he was a heavy smoker). The song "Some Children See Him" is part of a collection of 15 Christmas carols which all became popular. "Caroling, Caroling", "Come, Dear Children", and "The Star Carol" are the most famous songs from this collection. Burt finished The Star Carol just one day before his death.

The lyricist Wihla Hutson was an organist and a close friend of the Burt family. Wihla never married and stayed with her mother  till her mother died.  She served for many years as well respected organist and choir director of the Episcopal Church in Southfield and died 2002 101 years old.

Wihla Hutson never had children but she loved children which is very much expressed in her lyrics:

Some children see Him lily white,
the baby Jesus born this night.
Some children see Him lily white,
with tresses soft and fair.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
The Lord of heav'n to earth come down.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
with dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
this Savior whom we kneel beside.
some children see Him almond-eyed,
with skin of yellow hue.
Some children see Him dark as they,
sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray.
Some children see him dark as they,
and, ah! they love Him, too! 

The children in each different place
will see the baby Jesus' face
like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
and filled with holy light.
O lay aside each earthly thing
and with thy heart as offering,
come worship now the infant King.
'Tis love that's born tonight!

In 1995, the country of Palau issued a series of stamps commemorating “Some Children See Him” and its message of tolerance. I don't discuss the message of this song with my pupils, they are clever enough to find it out by themselves.

I live in a country ripe with racism and xenophobia. It is an affluent country and a preferred destination of economic migrants. My pupils are not bothered by this but the parents often are. I have to consider the misgivings of the parents, which are subsumed in the following two paragraphs:

While the economic migrants on one hand do the dirty work that the locals are not willing to do they on the other hand don't fit easily into the cultural and social fabric. Ethnic diversity could be beneficial and enrich cultural life but unfortunately many incoming economic refugees don't mingle with the local people, they settle down in separated communities which are like bridgeheads of a foreign culture from which the foreigners try to gain ground meter by meter.

These economic refugees are not able and not willing to reconcile and harmonize with the culture of their host country and they often are not even willing to adhere to local rules and regulations. The ensuing frictions are causing a rise of racism and a surge of right-wing political parties.

Rereading the last paragraphs I have to acknowledge that I share these views to some extend and I have to ask myself, how it comes that my progressive values and my ideals of tolerance, equality, and justice were so completely corrupted by the reality of immigration politics?

I still want to help, but despite my desire to help all people in need and to accommodate them I see now the practical limitations of this approach, the ensuing problems were demonstrated in many countries over a period of many decades. Taking in all economic migrants means to import the inherent systemic dilemmas of their societies and it generates cultural tensions that inevitably will radicalize both sites.

Why not just stop the still ongoing neocolonial exploitation of poor countries and pay our dues with a generous restoration fund? There will not be much sympathy for such a program, because our affluence is based on this neocolonial exploitation. After all this here is still a democracy and the voters will never approve anything what diminishes their income. A few responsible people try nevertheless with small initiatives in this direction (which should be supported and propagated).

Or we just leave them alone to sort out the problems by themselves? Maybe this is the best what one could hope fore and maybe in one or the other cases wise leaders will turn things around and guide their people into a brighter future, a future where all children can experience a comfortable and happy childhood.

I wish them well and I wish all children a comfortable and happy childhood. I cannot imagine yet how this could be achieved in countries where the average fertility rate is 5 and more children, where the pastures are overgrazed, the forests clearcut, and where everything what is left slowly turns into dessert because of a persisting drought caused by global warming.

Never mind, as I am still believing in the ingenuity of humans and and the ability of nature to heal I keep going on, Happy Christmas to all my friends!

Do you need a friend?

Christmas can be a hard time for people who live alone and don't have close friends. They cannot celebrate Christmas in the way it is suggested by Christmas carols, Christmas stories, and Christmas advertising. They cannot spend the Christmas Eve joyful and peaceful with family and friends. How should they, when there is no family and when there are no friends?

They can go to their local pub or some other place where they usually hang out and meet the regulars there. Most of the other visitors also don't have a family or friends. So they all stand or sit together drinking and talking rubbish. It is kind of a family, though a dysfunctional one. Maybe it should be rather called a brotherhood -- the brotherhood of the lonely hearts. The men are an allegorical brotherhood who is converging in an allegorical "Lonely Hearts Club", sometimes listening to an allegorical "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

It is a brotherhood, no women ever show up. There are lonely women too, but they stay home, looking TV, reading a book, writing their most heartfelt thoughts into a diary which maybe nobody ever will read. Alternatively they hang out on a social networking site or publish their most heartfelt thoughts as a blog post.

Men go out and drink, women stay home, so they never meet.

Why should the lonely women go out to a pub where a few dozen unhappy and to various degrees intoxicated men are standing or sitting around, looking at any females with a strange mixture of craving, anxiousness, insolence, and contempt?

Of course, there will be nice guys in the "Lonely Hearts Club" crowd, but quite a few will be loners, losers, sexists, misogynists, and otherwise deranged personalities. They will set the tone, and visiting such a place is a recipe  for trouble.

Suicide rates don't go up during Christmas, they actually decline, at least according to statistics. Why should suicides increase? Being alone is hard at any time of the year, not only at Christmas. The lonely and terribly sad guys will make it a few more month, as the hopelessness and pointlessness of their existence slowly sinks in. The terribly sad guys will spare their suicide till spring.

The lonely and terribly sad guys would not have to suffer, they would not have to indulge in their melancholy and they would not have to feel unloved, unwanted, useless. They would not have to let their pain accumulate to the point where they simply cannot take it any longer.

They would not even need to be alone at Christmas!

The sad and lonely souls of course have not chosen to be alone. They would like to have a family and close friends. They don't have a mate because they are either not attractive, poor, dumb, or have unrealistic expectations about a prospective partner. Many of them don't see themselves as ugly or dumb, and they reject persons as inadequate who in fact would be a good match and perfectly fit to them.

The ones who are aware of their unattractiveness and rightfully consider themselves as misfits will rather hide in their caves than look out for equally unattractive misfits.

In any case, we live in a superficial and shallow world and having a good looking partner is a status symbol. Many prefer to have no partner than to share their life with an ugly one that would maybe deflate their status.

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, how true, but today beauty is standardized (and commoditized) like everything else. If your face is not symmetric, if your nose is too big, your eyebrows are too bushy, and your skin is not fair and spotless, you are simply out of luck.

If you are born ugly and poor and daft, you will have a hard time. If you are only ugly and daft, you can at least try cosmetic surgery. If you are ugly and intelligent, you will acquire skills that will make you attractive over time. You will learn and develop your personality. Over the years you will increase your charisma and your face will more and more reflect your personality. You will be respected and admired.

But this is a long and winding road to go and there are only a few hours till Christmas Eve! How can the lonely souls make it through the upcoming holidays without being depressed, discouraged, dispirited, saddened, damaged, crushed?

Well, you will maybe not be able to find the love of your life in the few hours till Christmas. But you can find someone who needs you and will depend on you and maybe will even trust you and like you.

Go to an animal shelter and adopt a cat!

The animal asylums are overcrowded and many cats have to be euthanized because nobody wants them. You can save the life of an innocent creature who like you is lonely and forsaken and desperately wants to have a home, a warm place, somebody to cuddle with. 

Please, go there and look, you will see old and young and pretty and ugly cats. Don't take the beautiful, take the ugly one, this is the cat that will not easily find a host. This is the cat that most likely will adore you and will be grateful and love you with every fibre of its little heart. This is the cat who will wait for you when you come home and be joyous and meow as loud as she or he can.

This is the cat who will sit on your lap softly purring and who will put its little head in your hand and who will sigh and stretch and relax and who will be happy just for being able to be near you.

Take your cat mate home and show her or him your place. Maybe you need to buy a litter box and some toys or a scratching post. If you are in a quiet area without much traffic you can let the cat out, but not until she or he got accustomed to the house. If you need to keep your cat friend indoors you have to play with and comfort the cat. One hour a day will be required to keep your companion entertained.

Maybe not everything will work out smoothly right away. Don't be discouraged when the cat pees on your precious persian carpet or throws down an expensive vase. Don't forget, this cat is a living creature, it will be your friend and companion, it will become more precious and important than any of your material possessions.

This Christmas you will not be alone, you will be petting, caressing, fondling your little friend. You will be feeding your cat and you will be playing with your cat and talking with your cat. You will maybe sit on the computer with the cat beside you, looking up all cat-help sites and gathering infos about how to keep a cat pleased and healthy.

Don't forget, this is a longtime (lifelong) commitment! You cannot divorce your cat, you simply cannot do that! From now on you have to share your life with your cat friend, no matter what happens. Don't worry, the cat will give you back all the love and it will give it back twice. If you are a caring person and you have love to give, everything will work out.

If you don't want to commit yourself and adopt a cat, you maybe will find solace listening to one of the most ingenious songs in pop history, Gilbert O'Sullivan's composition ALONE AGAIN.

When a little while from now,

If I'm not feeling any less sour,

I promise myself to treat myself

And visit a nearby tower.

When climbing to the top

Will throw myself off

In an effort to make it clear to who

Ever what it's like when you're shattered,

Left standing in the lurch

By a church with people saying

"My God, that's tough, she's stood him up.

No point in us remaining,

We may as well go home."

As I did on my own,

Alone again, naturally.

To think that only yesterday,

I was cheerful, bright and gay,

Looking forward to, well who wouldn't do

The role I was about to play;

But as if to knock me down,

Reality came around

And without so much, as a mere touch

Cut me into little pieces,

Leaving me to doubt,

Talk about God in his mercy,

Who, if He really does exist

Why did he desert me?

In my hour of need

I truly am indeed

Alone again, naturally.

It seems to me that there are more hearts

Broken in the world that can't be mended,

Left unattended;

What do we do?

What do we do?

{Break}

Now looking back over the years,

And whatever else that appears;

I remember I cried, when my father died,

Never wishing to hide the tears;

At sixty-five years old,

My mother, God rest her soul,

Couldn't understand why the only man

She had ever loved had been taken;

Leaving her to start

With a heart so badly broken,

Despite encouragement from me

No words were ever spoken.

And when she passed away

I cried and cried all day;

Alone again, naturally

Alone again, naturally

Commemorating "Operation Just Cause"

It has been 22 years since the invasion of Panama, codenamed "Operation Just Cause" took place. On December 20, 1989, 28,000 US troops and more than 300 aircraft (under then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney) invaded the small Central American country and overwhelmed the Panama Defense Force (PDF) and its 3,000 soldiers.

23 US soldiers lost their lives and about 300 Panamanian soldiers died. Estimates of civilian death vary between 2,000 and 6,000. About 20,000 people lost their homes, the El Chorrillo fire alone displaced 2,700 families.

The working class neighborhood El Chorrillo burnt to the ground in the invasion and was subsequently named "Little Hiroshima" by the population. San Miguelito, a working-class suburb of 200,000 people, was also devastated, pounded by AC-130 Spectre gunships, AH-64 Apache attack helicopter and Lockheed F-117A.

Many of the dead civilians were hastily dumped into mass graves. Witnesses reported that US troops used flame-throwers to incinerate the corpses and that many bodies were thrown into the sea. There was a mass burial on Christmas Day.

A report by former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark estimates over 4,000 deaths and concludes that "neither Panamanian nor US governments provided a careful accounting of non-lethal injuries" and that "relief efforts were inadequate to meet the basic needs of thousands of civilians made homeless by the invasion". 

A Human Rights Watch report in 1991 stated, that even with uncertainties about the true scale of civilian casualties, the figures were troublesome because "the ratios suggest that the rule of proportionality and the duty to minimize harm to civilians were not faithfully observed by the invading U.S. forces."

Why did the USA invade?

The USA had seized Panama from Colombia in 1903. They colonized the Canal Zone (an area of 8.1 km on each side of the canal) and packed it with military bases. The "Panama Canal Department" was for decades the military command center for gathering intelligence and suppressing insurgencies in Latin America until it was succeeded by USSOUTHCOM in the 60s.

General Noriega was an officer handpicked and trained by the USA. He became a CIA operative in 1967 and attended the notorious School of the Americas. When the Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos fell out of favor (and then fell out of the sky in a 1981 plane crash), Manuel Noriega was hoisted into power with US backing.

Under Noriega, US military operations expanded in Panama. Bush Senior personally met with Noriega in 1967 (when he was head of the CIA) and in 1983 (when he was vice president). In the early 80s, Noriega helped set up the CIAs "drugs-for-guns" trade that used cocaine trafficking to finance their secret Contra war against Nicaragua. During the Reagan administration, Noriega got personal CIA and Pentagon payments of nearly 200,000 US$ a year. When Noriega stole the 1984 Panamanian election, Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz praised him for "initiating the process of democracy."

But at this time he USA had already decided to change control over the Panama Canal Zone from direct US military occupation to control through a Panamanian puppet government and Noriega looked less and less to be the right man for this job. Just ten days before much of the administration of the canal was scheduled to go over to Panama (on January 1, 1990) the USA invaded Panama to get rid of Noriega.

The invasion represented a tightening of the grip on Panama and all of Latin America.  The collapse of the Soviet Union had left America as the worlds only superpower and the invasion in Panama was one of the first unrestrained moves to push the global imperialistic agenda.

======================

Thank you to Rosemarie Jackowski for posting this on Common Dreams and reminding us about this significant event in Americas history:

REMEMBERING OPERATION JUST CAUSE

Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men...American Style

It was a quiet and gentle night
Filled with joy and childhood’s delight
Some families recited a solemn prayer
While seasonal music filled the night air
Anticipation filled every girl and boy
Who eagerly awaited a holiday toy
It was a time for celebrating Peace on Earth
A time to honor every child’s birth

Meanwhile, in Washington plans were underway
For a holocaust on that very day
The year was 1989, the twentieth of December
A day of infamy, that the world will always remember

Suddenly the silent night air was pierced with a strange vibration
But still the children played with eager anticipation
The strange vibration grew louder, just like approaching thunder
Could it be an airplane, one could only listen and wonder
Suddenly explosions were everywhere
It looked as if bombs were bursting in air
To the sleepy village that was preparing for Santa Claus
The President had sent Operation Just Cause

All hope and joy gave way to fright
Fear and horror filled this historic night
A demonic order from the Commander-in-chief
Brought death and destruction and endless grief
Planes dropping death right out of the sky
Left a stunned world to question, “WHY?”
Dante’s inferno replaced the tiny village
Destruction was everywhere, nothing left to pillage

The village was wiped right off the map
While our national conscience took a long winter’s nap
The president’s planes had accomplished their mission well
They transformed the peaceful village into an instant Hell

When the massacre ended thousands lie mangled and dead
Unarmed civilians and babies snuggled in their bed
Then soldiers came, like robotic slaves
They bulldozed the bodies into mass graves
Hoping that the world wouldn’t see enough to remember
The holocaust that happened on the twentieth of December

The surreal experience of supermarket shopping

I started this text in April but shelved it because it didn't fit to the other blog posts which focused on Libya. At present there is a lull in bombing campaigns and only the usual drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen (did I forget an operations area?) are going on. The text now seems right for publishing and it will hopefully resonate with readers.

Christmas shopping season is in full swing and keeps the upper class and the (dwindling) middle class in Western countries as well as the parvenus and nouveau riche in the so-called "developing countries" busy. Banks are short on cash as people take their savings out and government bonds don't sell well (one could call it a financial paralysis) but consumers nevertheless seem to be undeterred and the great Christmas tradition of shopping is held alive.

Many consumers are heavily addicted to shopping and deeply regret that because of stringent austerity measures shopping is not the same as it once was. So it is very welcome that in the weeks before Christmas conspicuous consumption is still deemed as legitimate, as innocent and justifiable as it was before the financial reckoning.

April is not a typical shopping season but I was nevertheless forced back then to buy some necessities in a supermarket. Normally I avoid wasting my time with shopping and I leave this task to my wife, but she had injured her ankle and could only walk with crutches.

The shopping list was short and included toilet paper and kitchen tissue, tooth brushes and tooth paste, soap and shower gel, laundry detergent, bananas, yoghurt for my wife, rolled oats, whole grain rice, cheese. All items which are not available from the farmers market and also don't grow in our garden.

I always buy organic food and/or "fair trade", if available, though I consider the organic sections in supermarkets as a scam. Even if the food is grown with less pesticide use, it is still shipped over long distances and lavishly packaged. "Organic" simply is the new "premium", meaning: A bit less polluted and less rotten.

I walked through the aisles as fast as possible looking for the items on my shopping list but the variety of colors and shapes made my head spin. Fortunately this particular shop is rather frugal (no frills) compared with competitors, it offers only about 400 - 600 products instead of 10,000 or more, which may be on display in other shops.

The store belongs to Aldi, a German based company which operates thousands of middle sized supermarkets all around the world. Aldi is not Wal-Mart, but the company has nearly 10.000 outlets in 19 countries and a turnover of 51 billion Euros. Theo Albrecht, one of the two brothers who founded the company, died last year. He was the richest German, worth some 20 billion US$.

That is not bad even compared to Wal-Mart. The six heirs of Bud Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, were estimated to possess about 70 billion US$ in 2007 (this is by the way the equivalent of wealth that is owned by the bottom 30 percent of US Americans.)

Back to my shopping experience. The shop is one of the bigger Aldi branches, the sales area is about 1,400 square meter. Aldi shops normally have between 800 and 1,200 square meter sales area. Around the supermarket building is a large parking space, the whole complex covers approximately 10,000 square meters. The shop is open eleven hours a day on six days a week.

I looked at the ceiling and discovered, that the lighting, which is on all the time regardless of the time of day is a combination of halogen lamps and fluorescent light bars. The halogen lamps are probably used to achieve a more pleasant and warm light. I stopped for a moment and counted 16 halogenic lamps in 10 rows. Just by accident I know that one lamp consumes 50 watts, that makes 8,000 watts for the whole hall. The linear fluorescent light bars were covering nearly the whole ceiling, this technology is far more energy efficient than the halogen lamps but the fluorescent lamps were of the 1200 by 300 mm T-bar kind which usually consume 2 times 36 watts. I estimated that the light bars would need about 9,000 watt and the total electrical power consumption for lighting would be therefore 17,000 watts.

It was a rather cold day but the shopping hall was warm, which reminded me of the fact, that all these supermarkets have an electric heating and air conditioning. The Aldi corporation prouds itself as being environmental friendly, Aldi USA for instance commissioned Eagle Mountain’s Center for Green Technology to design and install a geothermal heating and cooling system for the store in Farmington, NY. The East Syracuse store uses LED lighting and an energy management system which is turning off lights in areas where there’s no traffic and makes sure lights aren’t inadvertently left on by employees when the store is closed.

An Aldi store in Austria is mentioned and lauded by the GreenBuilding initiative of the European Commission. The store uses a heating pump which is combined with the cooling to recycle the warmth that is generated by the cooling. Other stores use a CO2 based refrigeration system (microox ® CO2 gas cooler) and new developed heat exchangers. New stores use massive thermal isolation and low-emissivity glass plus double or triple glazed windows.

All these measures combined are said to reduce the primary energy demand of stores, which is normally 80,000 kWh per square meter and year by half. I'm just checking the numbers:

40 kWh per square meter and year should be the energy demand of a "Green Building". This store has 1,400 square meter which would mean a yearly consumption of 56,000 kWh. The store is open 52 weeks x 6 days - 14 holidays = 298 days x 11 hours = 3,278 hours. 56,000 kWh divided by 3,278 are 17,084 watts average energy use.

That is what I estimated to be the energy consumption of the lighting alone. My estimation could have various flaws, maybe the halogenic lamps are only 30 watt and the fluorescent light bars use only 2 x 24 watts, a recalculation shows that the energy consumption of the lighting would then be only 11,000 watts. This is still too much, and the use of halogen lamps alone makes this particular store fail the "Green Building" standards.

The energy efficiency in lumen per watt is for

incandescent lightbulbs 10 - 16

halogen lamps 12 - 20

compact fluorescent 60 - 70

fluorescent bars 30 - 110

LEDs 60 - 110

Back to my supermarket shopping adventure. As I walked through the aisles and passed the cereals section, I was astonished how many varieties of corn flakes are sold even in a no frills shop with a comparatively small range of goods. Especially the "Honey Smacks" and "Golden Crips" packages caught my eyes and reminded me of a report published a few days ago that cereal products aimed at children contain more and more sugar. Food companies spent fortunes on advertising cereals as the best breakfast for kids and the investment pays off now with sugar-cereals being the most profitable products for the companies.

The wide acceptance of these sugar-cereal combinations is good news for the industry and bad news for children and parents. 60 years of nutrition research has confirmed again and again that sugar is the single most health-destructive component of the standard Western diet. Children who eat breakfasts with high sugar content have more problems at school. They become more frustrated and have a harder time working independently than kids who eat low-sugar breakfasts. By lunchtime they have less energy, are hungrier, show attention deficits and make more mistakes.

I have only a comparison chart from USA but European products are probably not much different.

Worst Children’s Cereals based on percent sugar by weight
1.) Kellogg’s Honey Smacks	55.6%
2.) Post Golden Crisp	51.9%
3.) Kellogg’s Froot Loops Marshmallow	48.3%
4.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch’s OOPS! All Berries	46.9%
5.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch Original	44.4%
6.) Quaker Oats Oh!s	44.4%
7.) Kellogg’s Smorz	43.3%
8.) Kellogg’s Apple Jacks	42.9%
9.) Quaker Oats Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries	42.3%
10.) Kellogg’s Froot Loops Original	41.4%

Household goods like toothbrushes and toilet paper and most of the other things on my shopping list were at the very end of the hall as far away from the entrance and the checkout as possible. This is an age old trick forcing the customers to pass all the goods that are not essential but could be appealing and trigger an impulse purchase.

After the cereals I passed the other packaged foods and was impressed but not tempted by the various chocolates, cakes, biscuits, candies, and snacks. A whole aisle with food that has practically no nutritional value and contains mainly sugar, fat, white flour or starch, salt, and additives like antioxidants, preservatives, thickening and glazing agents, artificial flavoring and coloring, oleochemicals, silicones, waxes and a whole lot more from the chemical laboratories of the food industry.

I saw only a few cans, canned food is not popular anymore, people have already consumed enough bisphenol A. This is an gigantic field experiment with billions of guinea pigs, I thought, and just following my free flowing associations while I walked through this consumer wonderland it came to my mind, that children with ADHD improved significantly when food with special artificial coloring (sunset yellow FCF (E110), quinoline yellow (E104), carmoisine (E122), allura red (E129), tartrazine (E102) and ponceau 4R (E124)) and the preservative sodium benzoate was eliminated from their diet.

The Romans had lead (used for water pipes, pots and drinking cups), we have chemical food additives, bisphenol A, and all kind of other environmental pollutants (POPs, heavy metals), that inevitably enter the food chain. In addition to that meat is laced with antibiotics and hormones, especially the ones which mimic estrogen and make men infertile.

The last mentioned fact could become an unexpected solution of the environmental problems that human overpopulation causes and also lead to unexpected alliances. Where are the conspiracy theorists, fuming about Nazi inspired eugenics and population control? Where are the machos, anxious about their reproductive capacity? Finally they all have a chance to team up with the environmental movement and start growing their own vegetables and fruits!

I fetched yoghurt and cheese from the refrigerated section, hoping that the labels which suggest no sugar and GE-free are truthful. Regulations are controlled and strictly enforced here, so there is a chance that labeling is correct. The refrigerated section in this store covers nearly the whole length of the hall. Even if the extracted warmth from the cooling area is used to supply the heating on cold days, the power consumption and the resulting carbon footprint must be considerable (1000 - 3000 watts).

After collecting everything on my shopping list, I went back to wait in line at the checkout.

The girl on the counter was below 20 and according to her badge, an apprentice. She had black dyed hair with violet and green streaks, nose and eyebrow piercings, black nail polish. Some of the pupils in the music school look exactly like that and so I know that this outfit indicates a preference for heavy metal music. Heavy metal music is an influential part of our popular culture and comes in distinct varieties that suit a wide range of tastes, hearing impairments and mental disorders. At offer are death metal, trash metal, extreme metal, gothic, sludge, doom -- I know it all, (courtesy of my students).

The girl wore the company uniform, a long sleeve, navy blue blouse and trousers, so I couldn't see if she wore tattoos. It would have been very unusual though if she wouldn't have been tattooed, because tattooing has become an initiation rite. Boys and girls flock to the tattoo shops/studios/parlors to have their skin decorated with various more or less meaningful and more or less explicit graphics in every possible place. Lacking tattoos is painfully uncool and shows a nearly criminal carelessness about fashions and trends. 

I wondered, what would happen if this girl and I would be trapped on a lonely island. Would we both flee to the most opposite corners of the island and try to avoid any contact or would over time some strange relation be established or even a faint sexual attraction arise? I think, despite the enormous differences, that this girl and I still belong to the same species (aren't Chihuahuas, Collies, Golden Retrievers, and German Shepherds all considered to be dogs?)

I will probably never be able to completely overcome and eradicate the intolerance and the cynicism, that are part of my character and that I manifested in the last paragraphs. I am working since decades to alleviate this flaws but ever now and then a feeling of contempt and aversion overtakes completely and I view a particular person not as fellow human being but as an annoyance and burden.

Why shouldn't the kids show their allegiance to popular culture? Body paint and piercing are part of human civilization since millennia. The hair dye and formaldehyde plus other solvents of the nail polish maybe unhealthy, but it is their health and their choice.

Unfortunately the production of chemicals and gadgets which are a necessary part of modern youth culture and consumer culture and the lifestyle, that is promoted, celebrated, and propagated by this culture effect my health too. The kids are entitled to create their own rituals and their own aestheticism but they don't, they are brainwashed by advertising, distracted and sedated and led like cattle to the temples of consumerism.

Their culture was designed in the corporate laboratories to maximize the profits of companies.

I took the wallet out of my pocket while I was slowly advancing in the line. The wallet is of blue leather and I have it now for about 20 years. As I don't like to go shopping and also conduct most financial transaction online it is not used much, but it nevertheless is nearing the end of its life expectancy.

I try to keep my belongings in good order and treat them carefully and I try to use everything as long as possible. I didn't buy cloth in the last ten years. My wife bought me a pair of blue jeans and leather sandals and I got two shirts from my stepson because he didn't like them, but that was also years ago. I am in and out of fashion cycles and I'm definitely out of consummation trends. In the mid-1990s, the average US citizen bought 28 items of clothing a year, today she or he buys 59 items.

My cloth all goes through three phases of use, which are: 1. outdoors, 2. indoors (including garden and forest), 3. cleaning rag. The cloth that I wore at this shopping trip was all phase one (at least in my opinion), it was a turtleneck, a jean, sneakers, and a leather jacket. Today I wouldn't buy a leather jacket anymore because of my admiration and affection for my animal friends. I don't even try to justify my apparent misdeeds, I only want to add that the leather jackets in my possession are ages old and hail from a time where my consumption patterns admittedly didn't match my environmental beliefs. Now that I have the jackets I will not throw them away, they are useful and practical and last forever -- they will for sure outlast me.

I had put my goods onto the conveyer belt while considering all the mentioned aspects of my consumer existence and suddenly it was my turn and the cashier had scanned the goods and had shoved them back into the cart. She didn't ask me, if I wanted to pay with credit card or cash, she probably assumed that a person like me would not have a credit card (thats right, I don't have a credit card).

She seemed surprised, when I pulled out a banknote from my worn out wallet, she probably had rather expected me to run with my shopping cart to the exit without paying. I took the change and while I turned to the exit I heard her say: "Have a nice day". This was probably one of a dozen phrases she was trained to say to the customers and it sounded, as if she would have pressed the button of a jingle machine in a broadcast studio.

I dragged the cart to my car and filled up the boot. It was nearly 30 kg, the supply of roughly 4 month. 30 kg, 4 kg of which is packing material, in a car that weighs 1,100 kg plus 30 kg fuel in the tank, driven by me weighing 66 kg. 1,100 + 30 + 66 + 4 = 1,200 kg.

I would now drive home 11 km and after parking the car into the garage the spent fuel would have moved 1,200 kg of metal, plastic, fuel, packaging, and me just to transport 26 kg of goods! This is insane, this is unsustainable, this is criminal negligence, I thought. And I felt guilty as I always do….

There are alternatives:

A delivery system from stores to customers for instance would reduce the transport costs by 80 to 90 percent. Such a system could be installed immediately, the necessary technology and infrastructure exists already in form of internet shopping sites and postal services. Yet the full potential of home delivery could only be reached with a unified service because the rivalry between competing companies and parcel services would cause unnecessary and unwanted duplicity.

I dare to dream, and in my vision of an ideal society and an ideal economy businesses would not compete but cooperate, would have to deliver necessary services to fair prices, would be owned by the employees, and would be accountable to both the employees and the customers.

I dare to dream, and in my vision of an ideal society and an ideal economy there would be no need for shopping and the time that is wasted now by the affluent people in the Western world to stroll around in supermarkets and shopping malls would be used more productively and purposefully for:

learning and teaching,

fixing things and inventing novel and clever solutions for all the small and big problems that arise, as we go on in our lives,

growing food (garden work),

art (writing, painting, music),

social interaction and meditation,

walking in the forest, watching nature, listening to the birds, being lazy and doing absolutely nothing

Doing nothing, thats my plan when I have finally updated, polished, and published this text!