Two in one

Dear reader,

the dandelions were blooming in the garden so vast that I only needed about a quarter of the flowers for the receipt doubled of the dandelion marmalade, which I made in april. But then came the gardener and mowed the lawn and then the dandelion blooming period was over. It seems like I won't be able to make any more dandelion marmalade this year. Not many people know that dandelion isn't weed, but can be used. The flowers can also be used for tea. I would like to taste dandelion tea. My first one definitely brewed for too long and was bitter tasting. Now I don't have the flowers. At least the leaves are still growing and I can use them for my guinea pigs.

In China the government permitted that the sparrows be shot. They eat up the crops for the people there. With the sparrows gone, the crops are infested by bugs. So pesticides are used to kill them off. The pesticides however don't just kill the bugs, they also kill the bees. As a result of that people have to pollinate the plants in China. Anyone care to guess who's better pollinating plants: bees or people?

So many could be used with a little bit more information and knowledge. Instead everything that's not wanted is destroyed. But, hey, maybe Mars will be habitable in a couple of decades! Since the Earth is not nice enough anymore, maybe we could move there instead. Wouldn't that be nice?

Until next blog,
sarah

Two and a half cultures

Dear reader,

there are two big human cultures. One is that of the indigenous people, especially earlier often called "primitive" or "wild". They lived and live ever since they can remember basically the same way without huge changes and above all they live in accordance with the part of the world that's around them. The others call themselves civilised, spread throughout the whole planet and destroy not only the planet. Their lifestyle is so demanding that many of them are sick and probably destroy themselves that way, too. Many are so desperate that in fact they kill themselves. Mind you, not every death can be traced back to that unusual lifestyle.

In his book „Ishmael“ Daniel Quinn uses a different pair of words for those two cultures. Even though he describes one culture as destructive, he still wants to move away from the generally loaded with prejudices words of civiliced and primitive or even wild. Based on the saying „take it or leave it“, he chose “Takers” for the civilised and “Leavers” for the indigenous people. One can argue about whether or not it makes much sense to use a new pair of words. Like so many other things that are simply renamed because of the bad image. Daniel Quinn himself has since gone back to writing about civilised and indigenous people. His books, not just Ishmael, are quite well known. Maybe he moved away from his pair again, because in the end it doesn't matter what you call those two cultures.

I want to call your attention to one other aspect regardless of that. Daniel Quinn stresses the point that there is no one right way to live for humanity. Although the civilised spread out and with that also spread the very thought of just that. Namely that their lifestyle is the right way and desirable for all people. On the other hand it's obvious that the lifestyle of the indigenous people is by far calmer and less demanding for the immediate environment of the people living that lifestyle. If the civilised are so destructive with their lifestyle, wouldn't it be better to destroy this culture and lifestyle. Particularly since the destruction of the Earth by man will stop with that, too. (Whether with the climate change will stop, too and the Earth will be more “stable” all together, is another doubtful subject.) I assume that indigenous people would most certainly rather fight to defend themselves, but not to actually attack the civilised. They are, as history has shown, far more powerful anyway. A dismantling of the civilisation to save the Earth would more likely happen from within. By people, who are unhappy with that lifestyle and want to put it to an end. But if civilisation is most likely to be dismantled by civilised people, would those fighters not in the end fight themselves? Maybe they'd be something in between those two cultures. Half a culture?

Besides, what if civilisation with all its flaws is just a intermediate stage for humanity to the next stage? Much like a toddler clumsily learning how to walk, very uncertain at first, before they actually walk and run like the grown-ups. How would we know whether civilisation is more like a virus that should better be destroyed to protect all the others or whether it's a clumsy intermediate stage towards something far better?

In any case: more and more young native americans show more interest in their own culture again and overall there is a greater interest in self supplying, how to make fire and other related subjects. I don't know how much those things will actually be useful in the end. At least the knowledge about those kind of things doesn't get lost with interested people like that. Does that really help the Earth in some way? Could the civilised, who showed interest in such things so far actually live like that when civilisation is broken down? No idea. Maybe time will tell when it actually happens.

Until next blog,
sara

A vent (gut) post

Dear reader,

my blog is called "ventquest", because at the time of starting it, I was interested in ventriloquism, the gut in a broad sense. Not really on a quest as such though. It was more the fact that "quest" seemed close and funny enough to "quist" from "ventriloquist". Anyway, some days back I spent my evening... no, not in front of the telly, but on Youtube. One video followed another until finally I found one with the german title "Help with autism". I expected the "usual" autism being a "defect" in the brain, genetic, starting with healthy normal kids which then between 1 and 3 years getting "strange". Some are lucky and learn to communicate, others are fully dependent on others to care for them and can't speak.

Wrong for this movie. Partly anyways. This film tells the story of Adar Hassan with their sons, who came from somalia to america. Two of her sons are autistic. It started for one of them after he was treated with antibiotics for respiratory problems. She adopted the american ways of eating at first. But she found that when she cooked fresh food like she used to in somalia, her sons autistic expressions were less severe. Many immigrants found similar developments with their children.

But Ellen Bolte's son suddenly became autistic, too. She too lives in america. Her son was treated with antibiotics after an ear infection. Much like Adar Hassan's son, Ellen Bolte's son started with autistic behaviour after that. Ellen Bolte then started being interested in gut bacteria and found out some pretty interesting things. See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH1UD7uIQ4 (about 52 minutes running time) (Sorry for the subtitles, couldn't find any other version)

I wonder if disorders like ADD/ADHD may have similar causes. At least I see the treatment of that with tablets for "quieting" as worrying.

Giulia Enders studied medicine and is rather famous here in germany for her science slam about the gut. Very funny and entertaining. Sadly it's only in german. She also, rather unsurprisingly, published a book about that. That too is only in german. I do have another english clip for you though, which is a bit of a treat for you, because it only exists in english. Dr. Nancy O'Hara talking underlining the connection of the gut and autism in her presentation

Autism & ADHD: Healing From The Inside Out (about 21 minutes)

Until next blog
sarah

Memes

Dear reader,

in his book “The Egoistic Gene“ evolution biologist Richard Dawkins describes that genes aren't the only particles, which a person can pass on to another person. Genes are only particles on a biological level of a human. Culture can be passed on as well. Songs, stories, dances, traditions, ideas and much more is passed on in one culture. Unlike genes, culture particles can not only be passed on from older people to youngsters and don't necessarily stay in just one family. A song for example can also be passed on from a student to a teacher and a boy can tell his girlfriend a joke. Of course parents also pass on loads of things to their kids as well. With books and especially the internet ideas and thoughts can go anywhere. But not every song, joke, story, traditions or ideas are a culture particle as such. Two things are important:

1. A person has to remember something.
2. What is remembered by that person must be passed on to another person.

Only then this culture particle is interesting for scientists. Only then this particle that was remembered and passed on is truly a culture particle. Dawkins thought about how he could name this culture particle, in order to not call it for example culture particle all the time. He wanted a shot word, much like “gene” effectively is a short word for a biology particle.To remember something is the key: memory. Culture is something active, to mime something. So that's how Dawkins came up with “meme” for the culture particles. Somewhat resembling the spelling of “genes”.

The author Daniel Quinn follows that idea of memes and writes in his book “Beyond Civilization” that memes aren't all positive. There are deadly memes, too. Much like some combination of genes can lead to a shorter life of a creature. As an example he mentions the “Heaven's Gate” cult, which was based on the idea that suicide would get its members into heaven. Sad for the people killing themselves, but this deadly idea is only limited to the members of the cult. According to Daniel Quinn civilisation is based on two main ideas:

1. that the way of living of its members is the only one right way for all humans of the whole world to live
2. that food has to be under lock and key and only be given to those who work.

This way of life is unknown in the animal world and also unknown in any other society among humans, other than those calling themselves civilised. We can see the result of these two ideas combined on a daily basis. More on Daniel Quinn's ideas in following blog entries.

To those of you, who are interested in memes, you might want to check out “The Meme Machine” by Susan Blackmore. In this book she describes different aspects of memes, their relevance and how they are passed on.

Until next blog,
sarah

Everything used to be better in the old days?

Dear reader,

2003 was the year in which our family-computer got an internet connection. We had a world of options!

We created e-mail addresses and suddenly we were writing much cheaper and faster e-mails to long distant family and friends. Do you remember when you wrote your last letter to someone all in handwriting? A letter, not a postcard! My last handwritten letter to someone was last year. More of a sort of accident, because I needed to send something for a new ID card and had no printer. My last letter before that? No idea. How about you?

How did you order presents for last christmas? I bought exactly one present in a shop. Everything else I ordered comfortably online over the internet. Somewhat sad really.

Anyway, what did we do without the internet in the earlier days? Read more, I suppose. In november 2012 the german newspaper “Frankfurter Rundschau” filed an application for bankruptcy at the court in Frankfurt on the Main. The printing costs were too high compared with the number of sales. Why buy a paper anyway, if you can read everything online for free? In february 2013 it was announced that the paper will keep on going still.

Maybe everything was better in the old days. At least many of us didn't spend that much time in front of a screen and went out with others more often. Are computers a bad thing as such though? The world is changing, that's just the way it is and cultures and people are changing. In the old days there were only books in libraries. Now you can get CDs and DVDs there as well. In the old days there were catalogues of libraries in boxes and information on index cards on paper. Now everything is in computers and you can search easily and fast. And you don't even have to go to the library to find they don't have the book you're looking for or you can't currently borrow it. We can check that online at home. Contrary to the online shopping, which makes me somewhat sad, although I do that, too, I quite like the online search in library catalogues. Or maybe not. Because without it, at least I'd be outside once... The computer doesn't, at least not for now, replace humans totally. The work does change a bit with computers though. I also don't yet see the danger of technological changes and inventions endangering our work place as such. Machines taking over the world? I don't think so. Because for that the machines (for now) have too little of a life of their own and in the end it's up to us, the users of the technology to decide if or how much and how to use it. Even though some tv programs by now are thought to be rather low and stupid by many people, I still trust the humans to not be controlled by machines that much in a sense that in the end the machines control the humans.

Or maybe they do? Because, what's left in a time of a black out that disables our devices? Even if in our desperation, we'd turn to our books, we'd need light for that to read them. Although that should cause no problem with the modern eBook-readers, even in a time of a black out. Or if you've got enough lights in the house and a match or fire-lighter.

In 2012 an australian film came out called Underground: The Julian Assange Story telling the story of the youth of Julian Assange, the founder and chief editor of WikiLeaks. There's a scene where the young Julian sits in his room with his girlfriend. It's already dark outside. She tells him of a place where she'd like to go and asks him, if he likes to travel. He tells her that he already has. When he's hacking computers, he travels all the time. Sitting here in his bedroom and at the same time being at the other side of the world. Then he asks her to look outside the window and pick a suburb. She does. Julian types in a few lines on the computer and suddenly all the lights to out in the suburb she told him. “Did you just do that?”, she asks him. He doesn't reply, just tells her to pick another suburb. “No”, she says. “All those poor people are in the dark.” “They are happy”, he says. “Did you know that nine months after a black out, there's always a rise in the number of child births?”

Finally the vision of the “Factory of the Future” as Warren G. Bennis saw it:

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Until next blog,
sarah

The Noseless People

Dear reader,

I think there's a reason why the nose is above the mouth. Most of us might notice that especially when they've got a cold. Can't breathe through the nose and we're not really hungry. My guinea pigs, like probably most other animals too, decide whether they can or want to eat something at first by sniffing. If it smells good, they nib a bit, if it taste good, they eat it.

I wonder, whether a good sense of smell plays any part with eating and the body weight of a person. Even if it's relevant, it certainly doesn't come first. But maybe still a little bit somehow? Do bigger people maybe have a worse sense of smell?

Some people definitely seem to not have a good nose. It's better again now. Some years ago even, I had the assumption that especially female teenagers must have taken a bath in spray deodorants or perfume. I had their smell in my nose long after the distance between us was quite big. Awful!

I know that some people are really sensitive to too strong deodorants or perfumes. I don't have that problem myself. Not generally anyway. Some time this year I was shopping. I sensed the smell of a strong perfume of a woman already before I entered the shop. I entered the shop with her and I tried to get out of her way in the shop as much as I could. I have nothing against perfumes, but that was too much. Unfortunately she was right in front of me at the cash register. Unfortunatelier the cue was long and I had to wait accordingly. I'm really, really not sensitive. But this one time I got very sick from that strong smell, which I could not escape. I almost felt like coughing or doing something else that indirectly hinted that something wasn't quite right. But I was polite and didn't do or say anything. I couldn't have taken it a minute longer than I actually had to. I could even sense her smell when I got out of the shop. When I was out, I breathed a couple of times out through my nose. That was really terrible.

The other day I was at the bus station. Next to me was a teenager and she was smoking. Since it rained and there was wind, I ended up getting all the smoke. I don't smoke and with all of my immediate family not smoking either, I'm not used to that smoke. This reached a high point however when the bus came into view: she put out her cigarette, took her spray deodorant out of her pocket and sprayed it all over herself to cover the smell of the cigarette. I was close to tell her something like, “That will not make it any better. Just stop smoking.” But I was too shy and I said nothing. I'm too polite to the noseless people.

Until next blog,

sarah