Writer's Blog - Schreib-Bloggade

Birds of Two Feathers

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 10:11:00 +0000

Here we are, at the edge of our nest, both.

You: The free spirit. Flapping your wings with eager impatience.
Curious, expectant, full of anticipation towards the unknown ahead.
You'd rather fly today than tomorrow. In fact, you'd rather have stretched out your wings yesterday.
Not that you don't have your share of fear and doubts.
But you see more chance in venturing into the unknown than in circling old familiar paths.

Me: The altricial bird. Anxiously clawing to the nest, attempting to hold on to the familiar.
Craven, doubtful, worried about the unknown ahead.
I'd rather fly tomorrow than today. In fact, why leave this comfy nest at all?
Not that I don't see the limits of holding on, and the chance within change.
But that which is familiar comes with a - however treacherous - sense of security, something to hold on to.
And ...

You kick me off the nest's edge. I shriek and tumble.
Then, much to my own astonishment, I discover my wings and start to fly.
Wobbly at first, but still.
Then your time has come at last. You take off, soaring into the sky.
A leap in the dark. No more limits, no more boundaries.

Photography by magekin

Winter Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Milky light under a blue sky, partially covered by a smear of muddy clouds. The sun's light hits in a shallow angle, dazzling the eye which seems no longer adapted to this sort of brightness. Long shadows cast an erie premonition of long hours of darkness. You can almost see the cold. Short hours of sunshine before the clouds take over again, seamlessly merging into dusk and a night which seems to fall far too early. Coming in comes a lot easier than going out.

And yet ... Inhaling the cool, fresh air, heavy with a whiff of foreshadowed snowfall. Crisp, icy snow crunching under feet. Children laughing and clamouring as they happily skid down even the smallest slopes on sledges in carefree happiness. The warm light of a candle. The sound of Mozart's symphony no. 25. Cookies and a steaming pot of tea. Somehow, I am beginning to realize, there is light and warmth in every moment.

Coffeehouse

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 09:42:00 +0000

Just thinking of a coffeehouse immediately conjures up a whole array of senses: The smell of freshly ground coffee-beans. The sound of coffee being ground. The sound of milk being steamed. The sense of anticipation, intensified by the combination of alluring smells and sounds. The very antagonisms which create the coffeehouse's uniqueness: The sound of music, discreet, yet stimulating. The hustle-bustle behind the bar contrasting with the laid-back atmosphere at the tables, mirroring the black-white polarity of coffee and milk. An atmosphere of busy, almost hectic activity, which curiously and miraculously complements the effect of virtually meditative calm.

The unique combination awakens and stimulates all senses. Everyone becomes an artist of sorts. Students doing their homework, people talking, laughing, thinking, perhaps even writing or drawing.Guests, as barkeepers, are, in equal parts, spectators and actors, each thriving on and contributing to the coffeehouse's unique feel. Perhaps many of the best ideas were conceived, answers and solutions found, in a coffeehouse.

Here, No Matter Where

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:56:00 +0000

When I awoke
you had left
but you were still here.

I saw
your smiling face
and heard
your talk and laughter reverberating.

I felt
the warmth of your skin
and the tenderness
of your touch.

The taste of you
lingered vividly
as did the breeze
of your fragrance.

But most of all
there was the marvellous feeling
of your love
all around me.

I feel you!

Speechless

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 13:04:00 +0000

My head is spinning and it seems like there is too much going on to digest, let alone formulate something at least akin to a clear thought.

A couple of personal issues have been keeping my mind in check. Nothing bad, just a lot of petty things piling up seemingly at the same time, so I just was not in the right frame of mind to sit down and sort out my thoughts, not to mention writing anything down which was not completely senseless gobbledygook. Come to think of it, I probably wasn't even in the right mindset for senseless gobbledygook.

But what is going on in my own small world is nothing compared to what is unfolding on a larger scale.

The unfolding and development of events have also left me speechless.

As British and US forces are now drawn into the battle for Basra, the rising daily death count in Iraq is still being sold to the public as ample prove of how successful "the surge" is going. (If the amount of civilian deaths is the measure of success, well, yeah, you can probably subscribe to the Bush administration's claim.)

Never mind the fact that many Americans (although the numbers are steadily declining; yes, there is hope) still seem to believe the fairytale that this shameful war, which was based on bullshitting and lies to begin with and has been going on for five years now, is fought in the name of democracy and freedom, and is part of the global fight agains terrorism.

Hint: There were no WMDs, aka weapons of mass destruction (only the weapons of mass deception used by the honorable administrations in the US of A, and in the UK), and, no, Saddam Hussein had no connections to Al Quaida, and hence had nothing to do with 9/11 - even the Pentagon has recently been forced to acknowledge this.

Pssst! In his "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World", published in September 2007, Alan Greenspan, the former Fed-head, claimed that the Iraq war wasn't about freedom and democracy for the USA, or for Iraq for that matter, but it was really about ... oil! Not that Greenspan had any problem with this; he was mainly "saddened" about the fact that it is politically inconvenient to publicly acknowledge this fact.

Needless to say that the disclaimers are never touted with quite as much fanfare as the false claims. But then the latter are part and parcel of the marketing package to sell this entire mess to the public as a justified war, whereas the former would, perhaps, raise questions rather left unasked.

Closer to home, the subprime mess, aka credit crunch, aka credit crisis, seems to be reaching a new climax - or should I say nadir? - every week.

And it has lead to a - perhaps not entirely new, but nevertheless weird - kind of socialism, where profits are privatized, whereas losses are socialized. As in the Bailout of the Month, aka Operation Enduring Moneypress, or "Save the Bear" (Stearns, that is):

"The Fed spent the weekend [of March 15-16] putting together a plan to be announced Sunday evening, regardless of the outcome of Bear's negotiations, that would enable all Wall Street banks to borrow from the central bank. Mr. Bernanke called the Fed's five governors together for a vote Sunday afternoon. All five voted in favor, using for the second time since Friday the Fed's authority to lend to nonbanks.

The steps were announced at the same time the Fed agreed to lend $30 billion to J.P. Morgan to complete its acquisition of Bear Stearns. The loans will be secured solely by difficult-to-value assets inherited from Bear Stearns. If the assets decline in value, the Fed -- and therefore the U.S. taxpayer -- will bear the cost." (Wall Street Journal).

The initial JPMorgan Chase offer of 0.054-and-then-some shares in exchange for a share of Bear Stearns, which at that time amounted to about 2$ per Bear Stearns share (the closing price on March 14 had been 30$; one week earlier, Bear Stearns had traded for around 70$), was raised some days later, to amount to around 10$ a share. This was, perhaps, JPM's easter egg.

N.B.: On Tuesday, March 25, former Bear Stearns CEO Cayne "cashed out", selling his entire stake (5.6 million shares) for 10.84 apiece. This became known to the public on Thursday -- after market close. At which BSC shares took another plunge; but, as a small consolace for the possibly-soon-to-be-ex-Bear-Stearns employees who had their entire retirement money cut to around a tenth to what it was worth at the end of last year, BSC are still trading above 10$. For now. As of market close on March 28, 2008.

Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, federal banks are also rushing to the rescue of beleaguered financial institutions. Take, for instance, last year's attempt by the Bank of England to rescue Northern Rock.

It turns out that the rescue attempt failed due to the sheer scale of Northern Rock's troubles -- it had to borrow 25 billion pounds from the bank of England --, and the bank now has had to be nationalized. Which, in essence, amounts to the taxpayer picking up the bill.

By 2011, Northern Rock will throw out about 2000 employees -- excuse me: It will cut about a third of its jobs, "as part of a restructuring program aimed at eventually returning the bank to the private sector." Read: After the taxpayer has payed the bill (=socializing the costs), the bank will then, after returning to profitability with the aid of "We, the people", happily privatize the profits.

The German version of "Save Our Souls", er, banks, runs along a similar vein. Different stage, part of the same drama, similar outcome (i.e., "We, the people" are left to pay the bill). And it is not only the IKB, but all of Germany's Landesbanken, who find themselves deep in the sh--er, swamps. Heaven forbid that anyone discusses the political implications of state-owned banks running into trouble, whose bill has to be picked up by the -- you guessed it! -- taxpayer.

And in a new twist in the story of Compassionate Capitalism (no state intervention, please! Unless, of course, things are starting to go awry -- for corporations), Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann had the incredible chuzpe -- again something to leave me speechless -- to go screaming "State! Please! Help!", when he suddenly realized that "the natural market behavior wouldn't be enough to correct the unfolding global crisis."

A week and a half after this touching cry for help, Deutsche Bank revealed that it might not meet its profit goal, due to challenging market conditions which might/could/will "adversely affect our ability to chieve our pretax profitability objective."

Looks like Ackermann's earlier statement was a kind of pre-warning to the profitwarning. (Darn! Had I only interpreted the signs correctly and bought put-options on Deutsche Bank! Then again, on March 17th, DB had just hit a new multi-year low, and has since been rising steadily, so perhaps going short at that point was not such a great idea, after all.)

But lo and behold, before you are shedding too many tears for Mr. Ackermann: Despite the challenging conditions, he was able to collect 13.98 million Euros in compensation for 2007. Unless he spent it all at once (or invested all of it in one of those troubled SIVs, which I am pretty sure he didn't), he should be able to make ends meet for a while. After all, this amount represented a rise of 5.8 percent from his 2006 compensation of 13.2 million Euros.

"Why," my sweetheart asked after summing up our discussion, "isn't everyone up on the barricades, storming the bastilles?"

His question, of course, was of merely rhetorical character.

Top graphic: speechless, by maximatic

Moody Blues

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Picture (adapted) from DeviantArt Laetyboy

SHE:

DON´T touch me, I´m feeling touchy!

HE:

Ok ...

(A little later)

SHE:

Hey! Why Don´t you touch me? Don´t You love me anymore???

Uhm ... yes, this, more or less, sums up these very female emotional swings.

These fits of moodiness that women have the questionable pleasure to experience are a total bitch, honestly!

Not that they happen that often, but once in a while is enough to be a real mood-killer for my most precious surroundings. And myself.

Out of the blue, my mind is darkened by horrible clouds of I´m-not-even-sure-what, and I start to be irritable, to say the very least. As I am watching myself bitching at my sweetheart (of course, it´s gotta be the beloved one who is invariably the victim of these fits), I know exactly that I am being unfair at that particular point, and I know that it´s not a discussion which promises a fruitful outcome.

So why on earth can´t I just stop? Or, more to the point, why do I have to start quibbling to begin with?

This weekend was a perfect example. It started so promising: The weather and feeling were almost spring-like: sunshine, twittering birds, a good cuddle (a VERY good one!) with my sweetheart to begin the day, an extended breakfast, and no tidbit stuff to do. In short, it started in a great, almost euphoric mood, and everything could have worked out perfect.

Could. If it hadn´t been for one of those ... fits.

So all of this changed as we set out for our long-expected walk. For no apparent reason, I started snapping and bitching at my love and managed to ruin the mood in no time.

OK, I was slightly hung-over from the night before (I had been out drinking with a friend who just passed his test to obtain his driver´s license), but the worst symptoms (i.e., a major headache) had long since receded. My head was not entirely clear (but when is it ever?), but there was really no particular reason to be moody, let alone leash out at someone who I care for.

I may also have been experiencing a slight hint of PMS. Not that that should be any excuse, because I think that as civilized beings with a couple of years of evolution behind us (not to mention the age of enlightenment and psychoanalysis), we cannot blame everything on animalic instincts. For a reasonable being (yes, I consider myself as such, despite being a woman), these primal traits should be controllable.

They are not. Come to think of it, I am not quite sure that these sudden mood swings are something limited to women. However, from what my male friends are telling me, I certainly do get that impression. And what they are telling me reassures me that I am not alone with these inexplicable emotional roller-coaster rides, and that, therefore, I am not a total psycho. (Phew! At least there´s some relief in that!)

Most of the men I know (and that includes my swetheart - never mind that we have been together for almost two decades) are just baffled and left wondering at these abrupt mood changes. I mean, all can be fluffy-flurry sunshine one moment, only to turn into tears the next, and back again to smiles and laughter, as if nothing had happened.

It might not be much of a consolace, but be assured, my male friends, we are just as confused as you are when we´re back to normal.

Which leaves me to conclude that as long as we XX-s don´t get a grip on what´s going on inside of us, how can we ever expect a man to understand us?

Perhaps testosterone would be a solution. But then we´d have to shave our faces, too.

Disorders

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:04:00 +0000

There is a certain beauty to chaos, and very likely a system behind it that fails to meet the eye at first glance. The construction of the trabucci , found around the Italian Gargano, are a case in point: They look like a mixture of planks, nets and ropes, which seem to have been assembled totally at random.

Which, perhaps, they are.

In any case, they are very well working devices for catching fish. (Unlike my own random system of non-order, which does not always work when it comes to deliver the catch of the day.)

For as long as I can think, I have been suffering from various types of disorder. Not disorders in the sense of some bodily or emotional or mental function which might be described as disorder.

I do, however, experience serious attacks of stupidity intolerance, authority intolerance, bigotry intolerance, not to mention very regular attacks of racism intolerance. Most of them might, in fact, be called chronic conditions.

But then these intolerances are nothing I would call "disorders". In fact, I think they are totally healthy, necessary, and in order. Which, in turn, is probably an expression of my state of mind, and a propensity to refuse certain types of order.

In any case, "suffering" is probably the wrong word, so I shall reformulate: I am a very disorderly person. Not only when it comes to authorities, but also in a more basic sense.

The other day, I had to sort some stuff for our tax advisor. Needless to say, due to my cardbox-filing (un)systematic, I had hours of fun getting all the documents into some kind of decent order. It was as if some evil ghost had taken them prior to my going through them and shuffled them like a deck of cards, so there were practically no two documents that were filed (or thrown into the box) in a (chrono)logical order. But of course, there was no ghost I could blame other than my own disorder spirit.

On second thought, "suffering" might be the right word after all, because this lack of order sometimes is a source of stress. Or at least one of inconvenience.

But I am getting better. Today, my sweetheart was looking for some tool. Now, we don´t have a toolbox in the classical sense, since none of us is very much of a homeworker/handicraft type of person. But we do have a cardbord box (yes!) where we collect most of our tools. So I dug through it and - tata! - much to my own surprise, I found the tool in question.

"There seems to be," I said, "some systematic developing in our system of disorderliness. We might throw everything into cardbord boxes, but increasingly, there seems to be some sort of logic behind it. We actually start finding things we are looking for, without having to plow everything under."

"Should I start getting worried now?" my sweetheart asked.

"About what - our imminent gentrification?" I asked back.

"Yes, exactly," he replied.

Personally, I think it is to early to start worrying, as long as questions beginning with "Do you have any idea where I might find ....?", followed by shoulder-shrugging, swearing, and, ultimately, giggling, are part of our daily experience.

And the day when above intolerances recede or stop ... that would be the day to start worrying.

The Knight Will Lift You From Darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:55:00 +0000

Some day, he will come along, take you by the hand and lift you up on his horse to take you with him, to a better place, to a better world. He will take you with him, to lands unknown, where milk and honey flow. Or where you won´t have to deal with the drags of ordinary everyday life, anyway. And you´ll live sorrow-free and happily ever after.

Don´t believe it! Reality is not a fairy-tale, and, yes, sometimes, it just flat-out sucks.

Perhaps you are still fairly young, or perhaps you are anything above 40. You have been working most of your life, and very likely, you don´t particularly enjoy what you are doing. But, after all, one has to make a living. Your relationship may have lost is magic, and you may be living side by side with one another, rather than with one another.

Perhaps you have stopped exchanging tendernesses, and you don´t really remember when you last had sex. But you probably don´t even miss it. In fact, you may even have seperate bed rooms and be content with this. In short, your life may not particularly exciting, but on the other hand, it is not particularly nasty, and it seems to be pretty much the same with everyone around you. And, somehow, you have grown used to this routine.

Chances are, you don´t think too much about these things anyway, because in your daily routine of getting up early, downing your coffee, rushing to work, working, getting home in the evening, having dinner, taking care of the kids, before dropping off to bed, only to get ready for the next day, you don´t have too much time to reflect upon anything beyond the daily routine. In case any questioning of this status quo should ever creep up, there are always ways to numb your mind by little escapes, such as TV shows or legal drugs.

Until one day ...

It may be a movie you have been watching. Or something you have been reading. Or an encounter you have recently had, perhaps a total stranger who looked at you with a certain glance, or perhaps someone you have stumbled across in a virtual environment.

This encounter suddenly threatens to disturb the world you have grown accustomed to live in. Suddenly you wonder whose life it is you have been living for the past you-don´t-remember-how-many years; it is, in any case, not the life you have actively chosen to live, but somehow you ended up in it. You did not so much define it than were defined by ... what? Circumstance? Necessity? Things you got used to?

Suddenly you realize that there is something inside you that you have long since forgotten, having been tucked away so safely by you. You may start wondering what happened to your passion, your dreams, your love. Worst of all, you realize that all of this which has been buried inside you has been there all along, all these years.

And you wonder if this is actually it. Is your life over before it has actually begun? You have 30, maybe 40 or 50 more years ahead of you, and you doubt that you´ll want to carry on like this.

Then you start contemplating your options: Should you follow the newly discovered path and leave your somewhat bleak routine? This would mean, on the other hand, to swap the relative comfort and security of the "known" against the big unknown. What would happen if you tried to shake up your partner and re-awaken that which brought you together in the first place, a (perhaps not so) long time ago? Would s/he even react, understand what you´re trying to say? Would s/he care? Or would s/he just look at you and wonder what has gotten into you now, hoping for the storm to pass? And ... what would you do then? Draw the line? Leave her/him?

Perhaps it would be safer to try and numb the nagging of your recently awoken mind, so you can at least stick to what you have become used to, and don´t risk to lose the comfy routine of it all, including your partner.

But that nagging just won´t go away, now that this string of thoughts has finally made its way from your sub- to your consciousness. And you feel like a character from "Desperate Housewives" as you meander between madness and depression.

You look for an escape. More to the point, you look for someone to take you by the hand and rescue you: The knight (or knightess) on the white horse (or black, depending on your orientation, state of mind, and preference). A strong, independent soul who will make everything allright. Undemanding, ever respectful, and yet protective.

OK, now let me tell you something: Forget it! Stop waiting for a miracle, and stop waiting for a saviour. There is no knight, neither a white one, nor a black one. YOU and you alone have to drag yourself out of this swamp-hole that you have gotten (yourself) into. Stop wallowing in self-pity and stop indulging in the blame-game, or projecting your hopes upon some vague fantasy of an even vaguer saviour. And don´t believe in that crap of someone coming along with the sole purpose and intention of rescuing you.

Get your act together and do whatever it takes to make this life your life.

To put it with the (admittedly: somewhat dated and no longer en vogue) lyrics of "The International":

No saviour from on high delivers
No faith have we in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear

The decision to act is yours. This is not decided for you, and it is not done for you.You have to take it in your own hands.

It is your life!

PropagandArt

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 09:13:00 +0000

We´ve all heard the story about the Iranian speedboat recently threatening American vessels in the Gulf´s strait of Hormuz.

We´ve also all heard the ominous threat muttered - supposedly - by someone of the Iranian speedboat´s crew, muttering (in, I might add, a Schwarzeneggerian tone of voice reminiscent of "Terminator I") "I am coming at you. You will explode after a few minutes."

The supposed incident was, of course, immediately taken up by the US administration which found itself in a hurry to reaffirm what a big threat Iran is for stability in the reagion, world peace, and probably chocolate chipped cookies; and how this is another proof of their aggressive intentions, and reason enough why Iran should never ever be allowed to enter the nuclear game (not that I am a friend of this nuclear game - as far as I´m concerned, none of us, including the US of A, should be playing around with this kind of fire).

Well, turns out that the ominous threat was added to the video, posthumously, so to speak (wouldn´t be surprising if it turned out to actually have been text spoken by Arnie, would it?). It was, according to the BBC, in fact "a radio recording made seperately".

Monday´s (January 07, 2008) incident bears an erie similarity with a similar scenario which lead to the shooting down of an Iranian airliner in 1988 by a US vessel, killing all 290 people aboard the Airbus:

It has worrying similarities with the incident in 1988 when, in the same Strait of Hormuz, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, having failed to monitor the radio traffic properly.

The crew of the Vincennes became wrongly convinced that the airliner, an Airbus with 290 people on board, all of whom died, was an Iranian fighter jet.

[...]

What is clear is that there are grave doubts about who uttered the warning picked up by the US ships. A deep voice was heard to say: "I am coming at you. You will explode after a few minutes."

The video released by the US implied that the warning was part of a series of transmissions to the ships from the Iranian craft.

It turns out that the warning was added onto the video. It was a radio recording made separately.

Experts say it could have come from another ship in the area or from a radio transmitter on shore. The channel used by the Iranian vessels to make their inquiries is an open one.

Iranian version

The Iranians later issued their own video, in which one of their sailors, in a much higher and quite different voice from the one which issued the "warning", asks the US ships who they are and what course they are on.

He gets a dusty reply that the US vessels are in international waters.

Thank goodness that the BBC leaves no doubt about who are the true masters of propaganda:

This goes beyond the back and forth of a propaganda battle, in which once again the Iranians show themselves to be masters.

Uh-huh. The Iranians. Of course. Oh, not that their government are not artists at that.

BUT, I´d say this latest incident can be fully booked under the label "propaganda to serve our means". Not that we shouldn´t have gotten used to that meanwhile.

Who can seriously believe anything anymore this administration in particular, and our governments, and our media in general, are proclaming?

Read the full article at the BBC´s website.

To Each and Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:39:00 +0000

A happy, healthy, peaceful, love-filled, sane, exciting, crazy, thoughtful, educated, prejudice-free, painless ... New Year!

Stay in motion!

Love, PP

Image by IgorLaptev

Post-Holiday Worries, Here and There

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:41:00 +0000

While we might be worrying about how to lose those extra pounds we gained during the holidays from indulging in too much yummie food.

Or if auntie Clara will be forever cross with us if we exchange that horrendous statue she somehow thought would fit in nicely with our living-room decor (or, more likely, she gave us because she didn´t really know what else to get us - but some Christmas present had to be bought, right?).

Or how to redeem that tie rack gift card ("Good grief, not another tie!").

In other words, while we are dealing with the basic problems of a typical consumption society, there are plenty of people around the world who would desperately wish to have that kind of post-holiday worries.

Not that they have to worry much about holidays in the first place, since day-to-day survival is their primary concern.

The following is an excerpt from the press release of the upcoming UNICEF report on the situation children in Iraq are faced with.

If there is no future for the children, how is there supposed to be a future for the country?

Little respite for Iraq’s children in 2007

But window to reach more vulnerable families opening for 2008

ERBIL/AMMAN/GENEVA, 21 December 2007: An estimated two million children in Iraq continue to face threats including poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education.

Iraqi children were frequently caught in the crossfire of conflict throughout 2007. Insecurity and displacement continues to cause hardship for many in the most insecure parts of the country and further eroded access to quality essential services country-wide. Iraq remains volatile; however conditions begin to allow for more a concerted effort to deliver assistance.

“Iraqi children are paying far too high a price,” said Roger Wright, UNICEF’s Special Representative for Iraq. “While we have been providing as much assistance as possible, a new window of opportunity is opening, which should enable us to reach the most vulnerable with expanded, consistent support. We must act now.”

Available information from different sources shows that:

Only 28 per cent of Iraq’s 17 year olds sat their final exams in summer, and only 40 per cent of those sitting exams achieved a passing grade (in south and central Iraq).
Many of 220,000 displaced children of primary school age had their education interrupted, adding to the estimated 760,000 children (17 per cent) already out of primary school in 2006.
Children in remote and hard-to-reach areas were frequently cut off from health outreach services.
Only 20 per cent outside Baghdad had working sewerage in their community, and access to safe water remains a serious issue.
An average 25,000 children per month were displaced by violence or intimidation, their families seeking shelter in other parts of Iraq.
By the end of the year, approximately 75,000 children had resorted to living in camps or temporary shelters (25 per cent of those newly-displaced since the Samarra shrine bombing in February 2006).
Hundreds of children lost their lives or were injured by violence and many more had their main family wage-earner kidnapped or killed.
Approximately 1,350 children were detained by military and police authorities, many for alleged security violations.

Out of Reach ;)

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:32:00 +0000

Image by DavedeHaan

Feel the storm of desire
rattling your soul

Feed the burning fire
to break away from it all.

Escape these boundaries
limiting your mind.

Smell the adventure
you´re certain to find.

Taste the promise
of freedom to roam

Freed from all chains
escape on your own!

Jump! You sense you´re finally unleashed!
How good it feels
to be out of reach!

The wind in your hair
the sun on your skin.

The peace of your mind
the freedom within.

The sweet sensation
makes you feel high

To be free like an eagle
commanding the sky

Discover and explore
limitless lands

Imprinting your footsteps
into ever new sands

Escape! You are breaking free from the leash!
How good it feels
to be out of reach!

Boundless, unbridled,
you venture, you dare

To uncover new sides
of which you´d been unaware.

Your mind, at peace,
and totally free

You open your eyes
and you finally see

The magic, the wonder,
the beauty around

And for the first time in a long while
you feel no longer bound.

No holding back! There never has been a leash!
How good it feels
to be out of reach!

Dreamcatcher

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:42:00 +0000

Dreamcatcher by Ashalind

He roams the arcane lands of secret shadows
knowing no fears

With fierce power he seeks those ghoulish ghosts
who are out to haunt you

Unflinchingly he hunts them down and breaks their shady spell
before they can cast it on you

With fervour he protects you against the petrifying pall
which they seek to wrap around your mind

Unbeknownst to you he accepts the crucial challenge,
time and again, never tiring

Mindful of the perils, he devotes his preternatural powers
to battle the cataclysmic mares of night

Strong-willed, he searches for the hounds of horror,
catching them with his web

With resolve he fends off the ghastly gnomes
so you may walk the path of your dreams.

May the Dreamcatcher protect you against all nightmares, so you may pursue your dreams!

Whatever You Do, Have a Good One!

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 08:23:00 +0000

No matter whether you love or loathe the holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Chanukka, Eid, Kwanza or simply life:

All the best to you and your families! May your holidays and the coming year be filled with joy and laughter, peace, bliss, health, success. And love. Lots of it.

Hopefully, you´ll find a couple of quiet days ahead where you can just sit back, relax and ponder. Remember to cherish those that you love and who are dear to you. Make them feel they´re special. Not only this time of the year, but all year round. Because they are.

And don´t give your sweetheart hell because his socks are laying around, or because (s)he always seems to take ages to get ready, and you´ll be late for your holiday lunch/dinner with your family. Or because you´re stressed out. Or for any other seeming reason which, when looked upon with some distance and through the eyes of reason, turns out to have been naught but fiddlesticks.

Take it easy, ok?

Cuddly cougar hugs!

P.S.: The graphic, as so often, is from Deviantart, by platinum420.

Nonsense Narrations

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:35:00 +0000

Image by justaloser

Safely shell shocked,
searching shadowy spoofs
she supplies them soft subtleties

Laying low
lest luddites lurk
lamenting their lacrimonious lullabies.

Creatures of chaos
carry conventional carnations,
chasing controversies

While withered weather witches
wickedly wail,
wallowing in wild willows.

Dapper dames drinking daiquiries
dance dreamily,
dressed in diaphanous dungarees.

Aspiring adequate alacrity,
alabaster aardvarks
argue adversities from above.

Linguistic licorice
lingers lasciviously
over longing lovers.

But quintessential quagmires
quickly query
quaint questions in quadrophenia.

Tormented through trite trivia
thriving torrents of talk
tacidly tackle her.

She smells sedation
searching shadowy shelters
of sweet silence.

Feel ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:41:00 +0000

the touch
of my thoughts

the caress
of my mind

the embrace
of my love

the tickle
of my laughter

the hug
of my eyes

the warmth
of my smile

holding you
as close as you want

giving you
what you want and need

no matter
where you are

whenever you want me to
I am here, with and for you.

Not only to tickle and pinch
;)

Hey sweetness,
I love you!

Fear of Flying ... Literally

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 04:55:00 +0000

It is my deep and profound belief that we humans are ground animals. To quote Emil Zatopek (once again, I know I have quoted him before ...): "Bird flies, fish swims, man runs." Therefore, whenever I have the disputable pleasure of boarding an airplane, I develop a strange feeling within my guts, and this has nothing to do with love-butterflies.

My sweetheart dreads it when the plane hits turbulences. Not because he worries much about turbulences and air-pockets, but because he knows that I worry, which usually leads to me digging my paws, er, claws into his thighs, leaving wet spots on his knee from my sweating hands.

Usually, there really is no reason to worry. However, we were on one flight where, judging from the reaction of the flight attendant, everything clearly was not ok. But one after the other.

We had spent a decadent 10 days in Barbados and were on our flight back to NYC. We flew American. You could tell AA was in financial dire straits, simply because they didn´t seem to be hiring a lot of new (read: young) flight attendants, which meant that the attendants were all about 40 and upward. (Without wanting to be ageist, it´s just that on most other airlines I have ever flown the cabin crew tends to be somewhat younger.)

Anyway, we were in mid-air, when one of the flight attendants made an announcement that did not fail to significantly raise my heart rate, at least for a moment: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a prob- ... we´re experiencing difficulties with our ..." - here, my heart first nearly stopped before it picked up excess speed; my brain raced "Why is she correcting herself? Geez, just like in the "Airport"-movies: Your plane´s engine is on fire, and the cabin crew does their best to not cause panic among the passengers by telling them that all that happened is the cook burned the food ... AND WTF IS IT THAT ´WE´ ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH?" - "... inflight entertainment system!"

At this point, an entire mountain range fell off my heart. My goodness - all that it was was some minor difficulties with the frigging inflight entertainment system, not the engines, or the cabin pressure, or the fuelage, or anything else really worth worrying about!

As the flight went on, the weather went from bad to worse, and our plane was jumping like a kangoroo, from air pocket to air pocket (or so it seemed), and my sweetheart patiently put up with his left leg being poked by my fingernails (not that they are ever very long, fortunately) digging into his flesh.

(Near the end of the flight, the captain apologized for the bumpy ride, saying he´d been trying, evidently without too much success, to evade the turbulences by attempting different flight levels.)

When we finally started our approach to JFK, my sweetheart suddenly discovered that something was dripping on his shoulder. Whatever it was seemed to be coming from the cabin luggage compartment right above. The liquid went from clear to brown. When a flight attendant passed us by (on her way to make sure all the passengers were neatly strapped in and buckled up for the landing bounces), my sweetheart pointed out to her that he was being dripped on by - something.

"Could it be rum?" The flight attendant suggested helpfully (Barbados being one of those Caribbean rum paradises, and most passengers, excluding us, had bags stuffed with duty free Bajan rum in their hand luggage). We sniffed and smelled at it, but it didn´t smell like rum. In fact, it didn´t smell of anything, really. Nevertheless, the flight attendant opened the luggage compartment to check, but of course, to no avail: No puddles of rum overhead, and of course no broken bottles.

It was pitch dark outside, it was pissing down with rain, the plane jumped and bounced, and the cabin crew had actually had their call to take their landing positions several minutes ago. The dripping intensified, and the flight attendant was not really sure what to do about this. I didn´t like the more than slightly worried expression on her face one bit, when she asked me (I was seated next to the window) if we were already close to the airport and in the process of landing. I couldn´t see a thing, and I told her as much. She rushed off to get a Kleenex (which was, as she remarked apologetically, all she could offer my sweetheart at that point), and then hurried to her seat, maintaining this slightly worried look.

As you can tell by the fact that I survived to write about this, we landed safely, the airplane did not fall apart in the process, and hopefully they patched up the part of the airplane that had lost its leakproofness with some high-quality tape.

On my recent flight to NYC and back, I again had the pleasure of flying American. (No, I´m not starting to make this a habit!)

The plane on the flight back had been boarded and was ready to start early, when ... The flight attendant made the announcement that - "Ladies and Gentlemen" - someone from the cockpit had briefly stepped outside to make sure that "something" (which apparently needed checking) was as it should be. Yeah, right, the co-pilot wandering around the airplane and rattling at the engines to make sure they wouldn´t come off in mid-air? Well, not quite, as the announcement by the captain - after about an half-hour wait informed us: They were just "double-checking" that the tires were fully ok.

Mhmm. So, after the check had apparently resulted in the co-pilot´s satisfaction, which I did find somehow encouraging (I mean, hey, these guys want to live as much as I do, or don´t they?), we were ready for take-off. I still half expected one of the tires to blow (or come off) at take-off.

Well, that did not happen. The flight itself went smooth-ish-ly; yes, there were a lot of turbulences, and we were forced to stay strapped in our seats for most of the flight because of that, and one of the four economy-class toilets serving some 160 economy-class passengers was nevertheless occupied for most of the flight because one passenger seemed to be unable to stop driving the white bowl; but since I slept like a baby for pretty much of that late-night flight (the bouncing actually rocked me to sleep), I couldn´t have cared less.

Until we approached London Heathrow. For the landing process, of course, it was essential that the tires were, indeed, fully functional, or so I reckoned, and that they hadn´t worn too much during take off. Again, as you can see, I live to tell you about this. And although it was quite a kangoroo-landing, and the plane, upon hitting, er, touching ground, wobbled like a drunk after her third mega-strong Caipiroshka, yes, the tires seemed to have been sufficiently in order to get us safely off and back on the ground.

Of course, we had to wait for about 45 minutes until the plane could finally anchor in its landing slot, but I sort of expected that (it happened on the way in, too). And, since we were on the ground, that really did not touch me too much (apart from the urgent need to stretch and shake out my legs after spending a good 7 hours in the confinements of said economy class).

Did I mention that I nevertheless prefer to stick to the ground?

Apart From And On Top Of ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:20:00 +0000

... everything else, you´re just absolute ... ABSOLUT!
You make these butterflies ... WILD!

Thanks to Kayne Stock for the Blue Ulisses!

Oh ... and I absolutely love you, ;)

(Sorry, this corny song just fit in nicely!)

You

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:30:00 +0000

You
asked me what
you mean to me.

You
asked for it!
Are you ready?

You are
my buddy
my best friend
my love and lover.

You make
an entire swarm
of butterflies wake up
and flutter wildly.

You are
my inspiration.
You bring out sides
I never even knew I had.

You make
me grow beyond myself
and challenge me
to rise against all odds.

You are
the wind
that's sweeping through my life.
Because of you I dare.

You make
the stars move
and the earth rock for me
and make me join their dance.

You are
the powerful volcano
that erupts
to turn me inside out.

You make
me realize that everything's ok.
And if it's not,
we can and we will make it so.

And I love you
('scuse the corny sound of it!)
for all you are,
for all your strength,
for all your weakness.

I love you
for challenging each and everyone
and everything,
for not accepting boundaries
unless you define them.

I love you
for your curiosity
that constantly explores
never content with that
which is.

I love you
for your cheeky smile and wicked li'l grin
that make the sun rise
even on the darkest, bleakest day.
(Forget about November rains!)

I love you
for your touch
comforting and teasing
that sends a stream of tingles down my spine
and every other part of me.

I love you
for your kiss
tasty and passionate
that makes me long
for the infinity of every moment.

I love you
for your scent,
the sweet, warm fragrance of you,
that makes me want
to never stop inhaling.

I love you
for your sleepy morning look,
your growly grudginess,
until that first sip of coffee,
and your smile awakens.

You are
incredibly incredible!

Sei
tutte le pazzie chi posso
o non posso imaginare.

Sei
l'amore
della vita.

Sei
semplicemente
tu.

So,
are you
finally blushing? ;)

My buddy
my best friend
my love and lover.

Why do we run?

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:18:00 +0000

It´s fun. It´s healthy. It´s ... Hogwash!

I´ll start again.

Why do we run?

There are several theories.

One. We run because we are "running toward ourselves", i.e., to reflect upon and ponder life while we are on our own with our thoughts (and our pumping heart and rattling lungs). Former German Foreign Minister, Green politician and irregular hobby marathoner Joschka Fischer several years ago wrote a book titled "The Long Run To Myself", where he stated that at around the 10k mark, he usually reached the point of getting a clear head. (Too bad he didn´t maintain the habit of running when he was part of the German government!)

And indeed, sometimes I have the best ideas when running. Sometimes things that I just wouldn´t get straight are sorted out while I´m out on a run. But at other times, admittedly, I am just too preoccupied with split-times, bad shape, or distracted by everything around me (or just plain too lazy to use my gray cells in addition to my hamstrings and calves) to do a lot of thinking. And on some days I just enjoy to float.

Two. We run because we are running away from something. Not in a literal sense, but in the sense of resorting to sports as an escape, as an excuse for not having to deal with all sorts of nasty things in life (stress on the job, taxes, unpaid bills, relationship troubles ...). While there is certainly a piece of truth in this, perhaps it is closer to the heart of the matter that running (or sports in general) is a great way to reduce stress. While it doesn´t solve money or tax problems (unfortunately), it might still help indirectly because - as I said above - it may help to get things back into perspective.

Three. We run because we have to. Running is part of our evolutionary history, according to a recent study by Dennis Bramble and Daniel Lieberman. We are, so to speak, born to run. Hard to believe, eh? ;) They make the point that certain body traits that we humans possess which our closest non-human mammal relatives, the chimpanzees, are missing (no, this time I am not referring to the thumb, make us perfect long-distance runners who - in the very long run - can even outpace just about every other animal on this planet:

From our abundant sweat glands to our Achilles tendons, from our big knee joints to our muscular glutei maximi, human bodies are beautifully tuned running machines. "We're loaded top to bottom with all these features, many of which don't have any role in walking," Lieberman says. Our anatomy suggests that running down prey was once a way of life that ensured hominid survival millions of years ago on the African savanna. (You find the article here).

While when it comes to speed, we humans stand no chance of winning against most quadrupeds, we are perfectly equipped for endurance running. And, apparently, this was a useful trait when hunting for food (or trying to be near a carcass that some bigger beast had killed and left behind) way back when.

As Czechoslovakian running icone and marathon gold-medalist of the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, Emil Zatopek, put it: "Bird flies, fish swims, man runs." Not that he himself always looked as if he was really enjoying it. (Neither does Paula Radcliffe, but she runs and wins.) In fact, he wore an expression of torture on his face, his tongue sticking out, while running, and both his unelegant gait and his way of breathing earned him the nickname "Locomotive".

All of which, of course, does not explain entirely why some of us derive not only pain, but also pleasure from the act of running, whilst others can only look upon runners with a mixture of amazement and pity, shake their heads and take another deep puff. ("Crazy buggers! Ah! That´s better!")

But probably even among our forefathers, there were those who´d join in the hunt, whilst others would rather stay at home and do other useful things, such as protecting women and children against potential evil forces. Or just hang out by the fire.

Those of us who nowadays engage in the pleasurable, on occasion nevertheless painful actvity of running might at some earlier point in history have even made a profession of this passion (linguistic note: the origin of the word "passion" is - not entirely coincidental - the Latin verb "patere", which also means "to suffer"; similarly, the German equivalent "Leidenschaft" contains the verb "leiden", which also means "to suffer"), to become a messenger in areas where horses were not an option.

Like the famous ancient Greek messenger-runner Pheidippides, who is often credited with having run "the father of all marathons" between the ancient site of Marathon and Athens. However, some sources say that it is highly unlikely that Pheidippides was the runner in question (if the Marathon-Athens race took place at all, which is a matter of debate). Pheidippides had some days earlier been sent to cover the 240 km (150 mile) -distance to Sparta (which took him 2 days - pretty good, eh?) to get help from the Spartanians in an imminent battle against the Persians. As logic has it, for him as a professional runner, the 40-odd-km (26 miles) distance between Marathon and Athens would have been a cakewalk, not a challenge, so it is unlikely that he would have died after that race.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The original marathon from Marathon to Athens probably was run - if it was run at all (there are no contemporary sources) - by a soldier who had fought in the battle of Marathon agains the Persians prior to the race.

The Athenians had just against all odds successfully battled the Persians, despite the fact that the latter ones had the larger army. The Spartans, because they were in the midst of some religious ceremony, never showed up, so it was up to a comparatively small army of Athenians to look after themselves.

Immediately after the battle, a messenger, still in his battle gear, was sent to Athens to break the good news. Why he had to run on foot rather than taking a horse remains somehow of a mystery, but some theories have it that the area was too rocky and generally impassable for a horse in a decent time. So the poor guy, who had just been involved in an exhausting several hour fight, raced the distance, arrived in Athens exclaiming "Nike! Nike!" (no, not a request for a pair of more suitable running-shoes by the brand that carries this noble name, but the Greek word for "Victory!"), collapsed and died.

Nowadays, runners have it a lot easier. For starters, we don´t have to fight a battle before the race (not a literal one, anyway); more often than not - unless you are part of the Olympic team running the original distance in Greek mid-summer temperatures around mid-day, or you are running the Dead Sea Ultra-Marathon - marathons are run in temperatures that are more becoming for exhaustive endurance sports activities; we do not run in some entirely inadequate battle-gear (unless we chose to dress up in that way, but we don´t do so by force), but we do have extra-cushioned sneakers and functional sports-apparel; there´s ample supply with Gatorade and/or water along the way, not to mention PowerBars and bananas.

Plus, there are all these cheering spectators, and all sorts of bands - in New York, the range goes from heavy metal, to jazz, to bagpipers on the way into the Bronx - playing along the way, and they provide modern day runners with enough of an adrenaline and euphoria rush to keep going. (Aside: On my training runs, I try to go for one just over 30k several weeks before the actual marathon date; these runs in the middle of nowhere are invariably disheartening experiences, at which point I usually question if I can actually make it through a marathon, if the entire thing is such a great idea after all, and if it wouldn´t be indefinitely more snug to just roll up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a cigarette ...).

So, in the vast majority of cases, modern day marathoners reach the finish line, without exclaiming "Nike! Nike!" (though we might stil carry that feeling inside us for having just successfully battled the 42.195 km (that is 26.something miles).

It is a great experience. It is painful, yet addictive (the pain, I imagine similarly to that of giving birth, is erased from memory after a while). The atmosphere is filled with adrenaline. And starting out on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on a beautiful, crisp, sunny morning with almost 40,000 fellow runners, with a great view of the Manhattan skyline, has got to be the ultimate runner´s high.

Before the start: Runners waiting at Fort Wodsworth. It´s a bit like Woodstock, only without the smoke and the music ;) In the background the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

The New York crowd is unlike any other I´ve ever come across (ok, aside from New York I´ve only run Munich and Berlin, so my experience is somewhat limited), and the cruise through large parts of Brooklyn and Queens lets you travel through an entire macrocosm of different neighbourhoods and cultures.

And when you finally arrive in Central Park ("Oh sh ... Two more miles! How am I ever going to survive them?"), you have no choice really but to keep running. The last half mile ("Hey! That´s only 800 m!") ... And then - after a last small ascent - the finish line is finally in sight. Try and smile into the cameras (I didn´t; honestly, I couldn´t be bothered, because I simply didn´t have the power to force my grimaced face into anything at least resembling a smile). And - phew!!!!

After having then walked the approximate equivalent of 20 blocks (from the entrance to the final stretch in Central Park at Columbus Circle/ 59th street, to where the truck with your clothes is parked, which is probably around 82nd street), you´ll finally be able to breathe.

And it´s bound to feel a little unreal, partly because your body is still readjusting, partly because you´ve probably spent the last 7km in some sort of exhausted dizziness, and partly because you are bound to feel exhilarated and still high on adrenaline. Unless, of course, you happen to be Paula Radcliffe, and you have just won the New York Marathon - again! - in one of those amazing races where a co-runner is glued to your heels, up until the final stretch, which is like your home run and you shake her off, though not without visible effort.

And every other runner around you, this entire army of exhausted, but happy looking bipeds who, wrapped in their tin-foil finisher blankets, have somewhat of an alien look around them, feels the same. Well, come to think of it, although it might be more of a routine for her, Paula probably feels that way, too. Although there´ll be a far smaller group of tin-foiled co-runners around her.

Special thanks to my sweetheart for making me go for it and for supporting me, and ultimately propelled me across the finish line (even if I took one hour and 10 minutes longer than Paula ... we´re still discussing what went wrong, and how to improve this), and for being simply incredibly ... incredible.

And to my lovely friends Steven and Michael who gave me shelter in their "house filled with love and laughter" ;), and who fed and generally pampered me before and after the race.

And to all of you who were there, one way or the other.

Nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:31:00 +0000

It only worked
as long as it was a lie.
I used to think
that we were different.

How flattering
and how naive!

Now the dream is over.
Welcome to the real world!

Wish someone would release me from this nightmare.
But then I realise
that´s not possible.

Because the nightmare
is what´s real.

The Four Seasons: Autumn

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 19:06:00 +0000

Autumn Leaves, Jean Michel Folon (1975)

Here´s to the season in between: Harvest is over (well, at least for local farmers, planters and growers of all kind), and the time to savour the fruits of the fields (and pots) has arrived.

Colourful leaves in yellow, red and orange, seem to reflect memories of summer sun, while longer shadows are casting a first premonition of cold, somber winter days to come. But initially, autumn lets us savour the last sensations of warmth.

Clear, crisp air and intensive sunlight to refuel, so indulge in it, while it lasts!

Slowly, everything seems to be winding down, in preparation for hibernation.

In theory, anyway.

In practice, the most horrendously hectical time of the year is about to start: Christmas shopping season! That time of the year used to be a time for reflection and calm, way back when and once upon a time, before it all spun out of hand into a that forceful, mindless craze x-mas has become.

But I am getting carried away and ahead of myself.

Autumn. Yes, I guess what I was going to say before getting cheesy, was: I like it. I like the crisp days, filled with more clear air than my smoke-accustomed lungs are able to take in, the light, the incredible depth of the sky.

Even the foggy days have their charm. Initially, at least. After four weeks of not catching a single idea of a glimpse of the sun (remember what it looked like?) the continuous state of near-darkness tends to evoke a state of near-depression, coupled with a lack of motivation that no amount of chocolate (or gingerbread, which has been on the shelves since early September) can defeat.

But so far, autumn here has been showing itself (himself? herself?) from its pleasant side.

Enjoy!

Animation by Ferenc Cakó, music by Antonio Vivaldi.

Don´t Panic!

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:02:00 +0000

Panic. It is one of these archaic instincts which used to be useful survival tools, but which have - to modern man - become entirely useless, not to say counterproductive, or even outright life-threatening.

Take the adrenaline rush (a close relative to panic), for example. It raises the heart rate and enables us to grow beyond our normal capacities, for instance enabling us to run faster. That feature, without doubt, used to be an essential survival tool for ancient man when running for from a stronger adversary (mammoths, tigers, other men).

Nowadays, aside from competitive sports (or actual run-for-your-life situations), stress-induced adrenaline rushes only serve to raise our blood pressure (a life-shortening feature), without us being able to actually take advantage from the strength or speed-enhancing effect, because, although that might be our primal instinct and ultimative urge at that point, usually we don´t simply run in adrenaline raising situations (job interviews, exams, stress with customers/spouses/bosses, turbulences in aircrafts, etc.).

And now, panic. It switches off our rational thinking capacities and causes us to freeze. Which, again, might have been useful when being confronted with said stronger adversaries in a situation where running was not an option ... and with a bit of luck, the stronger adversary would not notice, or ignore the frozen victim. (Even if chances for the latter were probably rather slim, but the brain-numbing effects of panicking perhaps made whatever was to follow a little easier to suffer.)

All in all, however, panic causes an inability to go about with the required ratio and disables us from seeing clearly, so chances are we behave in an way (if we behave at all) which, in all likelihood, makes things even worse.

Here´s an example. Many years ago, we were hiking in a cirque full of boulders, when all of a sudden, we heard a thundering noise. It didn´t take us long to discover that the noise was caused by boulders falling. Because we were surrounded by mountain walls, due to the echoe effects we couldn´t quite locate where the rocks were coming down. In any case, it sounded like they were coming down all around us. And it sounded as if they were coming down increasingly closer to us.

So my instincts told me to do the unsensible thing, and my body followed suite. My brain totally blacked out, and I started running. Not a very good idea in the middle of a field of boulders in the first place. My sweetheart was behind me, and in the middle of my panic-stricken race across the rocks, I turned round to check if he was still there and alive (and to see if the falling rocks were catching up with us). Without stopping. Not a good idea either.

Of course, I stumbled and fell full length on the rocky underground, scratching the wrist of my left hand. The scratch was not deep, but it bled like hell, causing my sweetheart to panic in turn, because to him it looked like I´t slit my wrists. It looked a lot more dramatic than it was, and the actual problem was that - which I didn´t know at the time - I had broken the metacarpal bone of the little finger on my right hand.

Suddenly, panic had been replaced by pain. I forgot about the thundering mountain, completely distracted by the throbbing pain in my hand. Amazingly (and luckily), my legs had suffered minor scratches at the most, so we were able to make it down to the valley safely.

Oh, the falling boulders? I´m not sure when the rock slide actually stopped. But it did before we left the cirque, and it never got really close to where we were.

The moral of this story is, of course, to try and remain cool-blooded, particularly when a situation seems awry. Because chances are that panic will make everything more precarious.

No wonder authorities happily exploit this primal instinct, an emotionalized, panic-stricken citizen being a willing believer in and blind follower of whatever governments are telling them.

So, by all means, don´t panic.

Unless, of course, authorities are trying to tell you that everything´s fine, and there is no problem whatsoever, for instance after an accident in a chemical installation. Or an accident in a nuclear powerplant (Harrisburg, Sellafield, Chernobyl).

Or (nuclear) warheads are accidentally being flown across the USA; or warheads have mysteriously going missing in the process (hmmm ... was it five or six warheads? C´mon guys, can´t be that hard to count up to six ... or is it?).

Or the mortgage crisis (aka credit crunch), and how it might ultimatively affect consumer spending, the health of the economy, the Fed deciding to keep lowering rates in the face of rising inflation and sky-rocketing oil prices, and a stock market that has just hit a new all time high. (Oh, and do we need another war to fend off the adverse economic effects of another bubble bursting?)

When that kind of shit hits the fan, perhaps it is time to hit that panic button, after all.

The Über-Ghost

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:59:00 +0000

Alan Greenspan is back, looming over the markets, and, even more, over the current chairman of the Federal Reserve! Not that A.G. ever left the scene completely; his comments on an increased likelihood of a recession haunted the markets more than once this year.

But now he´s back for more. His memoirs "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World", due to hit the bookshelves on September 17, 2007 - which happens to be, incidentally, one day ahead of the Federal Reserve´s next, both eagerly and nervously awaited rate-decision - are bound to haunt the markets, the Bush administration, and his successor as Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke.

Poor Ben, it should be added, is not in an enviable position right now, stuck as he is between a rock and a hard place: On one side (the rock), the subprime crisis, recent market turmoil and market expectations have put an almost unbearable pressure on him and his Fed to lower interest rates for the first time in more than four years.

On the other hand (the hard place), the Greenback has been on a plunge, not only against the European currency, but against all major currencies, with the notable exception of the Japanese Yen.

Now, while a falling Dollar may be good for exporters, it leads to increased imported inflation, and to a flight of foreign capital from US assets (e.g., stocks: if you, coming from a Euro country, buy shares of an American company, e.g. Microsoft, as the dollar´s value dwindles, so does your Microsoft stocks´, even if the company´s shares remain unchanged).

And now, here is the honorable Mr. Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve, with the luxury of no longer having to give a damn, and in a position of pissing against the legs of the government, while at the same time taking an obviously sadistic pleasure to expose to his successor the dilemmas and problems Ben Bernanke and the Fed are facing - dilemmas and problems, that are no longer his to deal with (so-called SEPs - Somebody Else´s Problems).

First, Greenspan paints a dark scenario on what to expect in terms of inflation:

To keep inflation under 2 percent, ``the Fed, given my scenario, would have to constrain monetary expansion so drastically that it could temporarily drive up interest rates into the double-digit range not seen since the days of Paul Volcker,'' Greenspan wrote.

[...]

Consumer prices, which increased at an average annual rate of 3.1 percent during Greenspan's tenure, will likely climb by 4.5 percent or more a year in the future, he wrote.

[...]

Greenspan also forecast an end to the anti-inflation pressures from the inclusion of China and other emerging economies into the global trading system.

[...]

The third source of pressure on inflation will come from U.S. government budget deficits, according to Greenspan. Federal spending absorbs private savings and uses them for less productive purposes, imparting ``a bias toward inflation'' Greenspan wrote.

The federal deficit is something particularly loath to Alan Greenspan: "Deficits don't matter,' to my chagrin, became part of the Republicans' rhetoric,'' he complains about the current administrations budget discipline (or , more precisely, lack thereof).

Next, he outlines what to expect in terms of economic growth, which is no good news, either:

The economy will probably slow to a pace of under 2.5 percent on average from now until 2030, Greenspan forecast in the book.

[...]

Productivity gains averaged a 1.7 percent annual rate in the first six months of this year, down from a 3.6 percent rate during the high-technology boom of 1999. Greenspan forecast a long-term average of 2 percent for increases in output per hour.

He expects increased pressure on the Fed from politics, endangering the agency´s - ahem - independence (the outcome of the September 18 Fed meeting will be a first indicator on how independent the Fed actually is):

"Federal Reserve independence is not set in stone,'' wrote Greenspan, 81, who led the Fed for 18 years until January 2006. ``The dysfunctional state of American politics does not give me great confidence in the short run'' and there may be ``a return of populist, anti-Fed rhetoric,'' he wrote.

(All above quotations are from this Bloomberg article).

Finally, he has the chuzpe to reveal the real motives behind the war against Iraq. No, not the fight against terrorism, or against a rogue regime in the possession of WMDs (the latest rhethorical spin of the government has it that Saddam Hussein had to be removed to prevent him from producing weapons of mass destruction in the future), or to bring freedom, democracy and popcorn to the region.

The war against Iraq was guided by motives related to (surprise, surprise!) oil. Greenspan himself was a proponent of war against Iraq, fearing that control over the Strait of Hormuz - an important passage for oil transports - would enable Saddam Hussein to threaten the USA and its allies.

In essence, Greenspan admits that the whole WMD rhethoric used to justify the war against Iraq was and is nothing but a load of hogwash:

"Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein's `weapons of mass destruction,' American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy."

(Quoted here.)

And as if the turmoil his book is already creating wasn´t enough, Greenspan keeps talking to the press - THE PRESS, for crying out loud! - making sure his irreverent opinions aren´t overheard.

Just in case his earlier recession-warnings will not be forgotten or go unheeded, in his latest interview with the Financial Times, he glumly forecasts that the fall in US house prices triggered by the latest subprime crisis will likely be bigger than expected.

And, heresy of heresies, in another interview (to be published in the September 20 issue of German magazine "Der Stern"), he openly talks about the possibility of the Euro replacing the US Dollar as reserve currency of choice (quoted in the International Herald Tribune).

That will most likely not earn him a long friends list within the administration. But, quite likely, he won´t give a shit.

Beware Of The Pirates!

noreply@blogger.com (Ragamuffin) — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 18:53:00 +0000

They steal. They lie. They blunder. And, ultimately, they kill.

I remember that day very vividly. The minute stock futures tanked - it was around three o´clock in the afternoon in Germany -, we figured something had happened. We turned on the TV and were glued to CNN Europe.

At first there was total confusion. Reports initially talked about a "small plane" that had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Twin Towers.

But why? It didn´t look like a weather related accident, since it was a clear and wonderful September morning in New York.

Then, gradually, as events evolved, we watched in shock and horror as the second plane smashed into the second tower, broadcast live by CNN, like a well-orchestrated, marcabre Hollywook movie. Only this was real.

When the headline "Pentagon on fire" scrolled across the screen, initially I didn´t grasp that it was a literal fire, not one figuratively spoken of.

What was going on?

Where was the government? Where was Dubya?

Complete chaos.

The horror kept unfolding.

I remember images of people desperately waving from the top floors - above where the planes had struck -, thinking to myself, "Someone will, someone must be able to save them", somehow believing that it was impossible to witness those men and women die.

I was naively thinking that because the world was able to watch all of this happening, somehow "someone" must be able to help, perhaps taking them aboard a helicopter. Yeah, right, like it was a Hollywood movie!

Then there were accounts on the Internet, equally contradictory and confusing as that what was being broadcast on TV. I remember talk about an intercom message in the towers, telling people to remain calm and at their desks, because everything was under control (NEVER ever believe officials and authorities telling you that one, NEVER!).

I will never forget the images of the people jumping, out of desperation, because the heat and air were becoming unbearable.

I will never forget Howard Lutnick, CEO of broker firm Cantor Fitzgerald, bursting out in tears. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 of a total of 1000 employees. (Lutnick himself survived, because he had taken his son to his first day of kindergarten that day. His brother, Gary, was among those who died.)

I will also never forget Bush (after he finally materialized), and his blabber about "I saw the plane hit the first tower, and I was thinking to myself, what a terrible pilot."

I was thinking to myself, "What a weird reaction. I mean, a plane crashes into one of the WTC towers, and all this guy has to say is `What a terrible pilot?´ And - you saw the plane hit the first tower? How could you? At that point, there was no film material of that ...".

I also remember how surprised I was that amongst all this total confusion and chaos, all of a sudden authorities were able to declare who was behind these atrocities: Osama Bin Laden´s Al-Quaeda.

I remember witnessing in horror as the towers collapsed.

Many questions remain unanswered.

And then ...

It was the hour of the Pirates of the Constitution.

Remember the recount of the Florida votes? Nobody, in these times of national crisis, could have possibly doubted the government, much less the President. This would have been terribly unpatriotic. Or would it?

9/11 serves as an excuse to brainwash and blindfold citizens by telling us that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran have been, are and will be waged in the name of defending our freedom, and the freedom of those living there.

(Digression: Not that I ever cared for the oppressive Taliban regime and its system contemptous of human rights. But ousting a regime because it trampled the rights of its citizens, particularly of women, was not the reason for attacking Afghanistan. At least human rights in Afghanistan had not been an issue from 1997 to as late as July 2001, when larger issues were at stake, namely oil:

"When George W. Bush took office in 2001, his administration made new overtures to the Taliban, and the pipeline deal gained renewed support, as an incentive to get the Taliban to make political concessions and form a broader government.

[...]

In March 2001, several Taliban officials, including Sayed Rahmattulah Hashimi, Mullah Omar's personal advisor, were invited to Washington by their U.S. lobbyist, Leila Helms, the niece of former CIA Director Richard Helms. The agenda included discussions of extraditing bin Laden as well as facilitating American companies' access to oil reserves in central Asia." Quoted here.

And not that I cared much for Saddam Hussein either. But, contrary to what one of three Americans to this day have successfully been brought to believe, he had nothing to do with 9/11. Or Al-Queda for that matter.)

The horrible events of 9/11 served and continue to serve as a perfect excuse to wreak havoc on our constitutions. Not only in the US of A, but also in Germany, in the UK, in France, in Spain, in Australia ...

They serve as an excuse to happily chop away on civil rights and liberties.

Prisoners kept at will without trial. Prisoners subjected to torture. Citizens (who turned out to be have done nothing wrong, apart from being Muslims, like Khaled Masri) abducted to CIA prison camps, with the knowledge of our government, all covered up in a web of lies.

The very freedom that our governments are purportedly intent on defending, they seem to have very little problem sacrificing by silently doing away with constitutional rights.

Shame on you, Pirates of the Constitution!

We shall and we will never forget.