International Day of Peace – Wikipedia International Day of Peace website
Author:astraea
A story about changing course: Trading derivatives for dogs.
Here’s a short story about a former financial trader who now sells frankfurters in Frankfurt’s business district. A new and interesting job, hard work, fulfilling. “If you’re not happy with your job, it’s bad for you.” BBC: German fat cat turns to hot dogs
Looking at the dawn of time.
A telescope sent far in to space to study the oldest light in the Universe has returned its first images. The Planck observatory is surveying radiation that first swept out across space just 380,000 years after the Big Bang (15,000,000,000 years ago). The light holds details about the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos. …
Continue reading Looking at the dawn of time.
US to cut missile defence plan. A good start.
The US has cancelled or postponed the plan to emplace missiles in Poland. This is good news. Increasing the volume of armaments is a ludicrous policy in a world where people are dying of malnutrition and thirst and where a gun has no practical purpose except to kill another person. The resources would be better …
Continue reading US to cut missile defence plan. A good start.
Our future. You choose.
This photo is not a scare tactic. It is a picture of the biosphere in human form … today. That big head is the rich world, the body is everyone else. We can change our future. The girl in the picture can not. It is up to you to change. To recognise your fears, breathe …
Continue reading Our future. You choose.
Togetherness – fights pain, increases fun
A study at Oxford University shows that exercising together appears to increase the level of the feel-good endorphin hormones naturally released during physical exertion. An unexpected result perhaps, though it reinforces the notion that team work is more productive than individual performance. We know that teams can be synergistic, that is 1 + 1 = …
Continue reading Togetherness – fights pain, increases fun
From nothing to 43 marathons in 51 days. You can do it.
A less than athletic comedian has completed 43 marathons in 51 days in a run for charity. Wow! If he can do it, so can you and I. I guess it’s simply getting our of bed that’s the challenge … BBC: If he can do it… Eddie Izzard’s run 43 marathons in a row. How …
Continue reading From nothing to 43 marathons in 51 days. You can do it.
Crisis: lessons not learned!
It is no surprise that headlines a year after the collapse of Lehman Bros declare that the lessons of the financial crisis have not been learned and there is no sytstemic improvement in the financial system. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says the rapid return to the City’s bonus culture shows real reform …
Continue reading Crisis: lessons not learned!
$ 10 trillion and rising. Does it mean anything.
Another perspective released today is that everyone has spent $10,ooo each on the bailout of economies. $ 10 trillion is a lot of value, but may not mean much to anyone. It’s enough to buy a country, or two. We are were we are. The money is gone. The question remains about whether or not …
Continue reading $ 10 trillion and rising. Does it mean anything.
Education – Kurt Hahn
From Kurt Hahn and the Aims of Education by Thomas James Kurt Hahn was suspicious of presumed excellence; he paid scant attention to the glories of unsurpassed individual performance, whether it be on the playing fields at Eton or the examination ordeal of the German gymnasium. He understood, as few educators have so well, the …
Continue reading Education – Kurt Hahn