sparrow chat

There’s an obsession in America. It’s the fear of losing. Everyone has to do better than everyone else, and their kids have to be better than everyone else’s kids.

According to a report last night on NBC Nightly News, ambitious US parents are hiring ’sports tutors’ to give their kids a leg-up on the rest of the field. Their aim: to turn kids into super-athletes who can saturate their parent’s egotistical demands by winning glory, and a place for themselves in college.

“Everyone wants their kid to be competitive,” says the mother of one twelve year old attending rigorous, daily, two-hour sessions five days a week at one of the many private sports facilities opening up throughout the nation, as this lucrative business is aggressively marketed to parents – at $35.00 per 2-hour session.

To an observer of life and culture in this country the comment, spoken with such obvious enthusiasm by this mother, encompasses virtually everything wrong with America today. Everybody in the US is competing with everyone else. There is no togetherness, except within families where all are dedicated to doing better than the folks next door, or further down the street.

Competition, the iron core of educational policies in this country for decades, is driving people apart from their neighbors. It’s the reason for those ridiculous car stickers:

“My Kid’s an Honor’s Student”,

or,

“My Gamer Kid Fragged Your Honor Student.”

We’ve all seen them.

At town boundaries throughout America stand old metal signs proclaiming the athletic achievements of once young townspeople, now either long dead or drawing their retirement pensions.

Who cares? Obviously, America cares; but why?

Why is it so important that your kid jumps higher, runs faster, or throws a ball further than the rest of the kids in the school? Is it so you can brag about it to your friends and make them feel inferior because their kids are just no good at sports?

If so, you should be ashamed, and you deserve to have no friends.

Competition is like religion, it segregates and divides, not just this country, but the world. Once, it wasn’t like that. Fifty years ago there was ’sportsmanship’. It was the taking part, not the winning, that mattered. Professional athletes were barred from the Olympic Games. It was good to win a medal for one’s country, but it was the being there that really counted.

Now, American parents shell out thousands of dollars and ruin their kids’ childhoods by pushing them to limits of physical endurance no child should have to tolerate. All in the name of “Competition”.

There is another way.

Why not take “Competition” out of life altogether, and replace it with “Co-operation”?

Instead of the Jones’s wearing themselves and their kids out, by pushing them relentlessly towards achieving more than the Adams’ kids next door, wouldn’t it be nice if they all cooperated and helped each other to do well?

We could all sport new bumper stickers:

“Cooperation’s Cool, Competition’s for Clods.”

It’s a lesson that could also be carried into other aspects of life: the boardroom, the shop floor, the office, Capital Hill, the White House, attitudes towards other nations…….the list is almost endless.

One day it might even bring peace to this world, and we could all play our games and enjoy taking part – without that obsessive fear of losing.

^{NOTE: For those unaware of the meaning of the verb “to frag”: “Frag is a term from the Vietnam War, most commonly meaning to assassinate an unpopular member of one’s own fighting unit by dropping a fragmentation grenade into the victim’s tent at night.”}

Still think competition is a GOOD thing?

Filed under: Better ways

Posted under Sparrow Chat

CNN just don’t get it, do they? This morning they announced that many Americans were just not bothering to get influenza vaccinations.

Why could this be, they pondered? Probably due to that ‘old wive’s tale’ that the shot itself could give you the disease, was the eventual conclusion reached by those two dozy, over-powdered, pin-ups fronting ‘American Morning’, or whatever it calls itself these days.

CNN is not the usual source of “news” in the Adam’s household. It was long ago consigned to the trash can of media junk, along with Fox and most other American cable stations that lie blatantly to their viewers every time the word “news” is decreed as their prime raison d’etre.

Gleaning a little of the events happening in that vast expanse of desert known vaguely as ‘outside of America’ – where the latest designer drug that may possibly help point naught-five percent of cancer suffers live ten minutes longer, or a lone South Carolina woman knitting woolly socks for the whole of the US military, is not necessarily the blazing headline of the moment – has to be in the more capable hands of the BBC or PBS, who both combine at five o’clock each morning to broadcast half an hour of BBC World News to the people of central Illinois.

Unfortunately, being as they’re all asleep at that time, they never see it.

Thanks to the modern technological wonder of video tape, however, the Adam’s household views the BBC World News over breakfast, a whole half-hour after its original broadcast. At least, that’s what happens on most weekday mornings. On Monday, for reasons not immediately apparent, either the video failed to record or PBS failed in its programming and screened a load of brain-numbing kids’ cartoons instead.

Now, as Monday was a school holiday in this part of the world, the assumption was drawn that in America there exists the eternal equation: kids on vacation equals kid’s cartoons on TV, so after a few choice curses the matter was forgotten. Arising this morning to find the video had failed to record BBC World News for a second time, posed a more calculating dilemma. Was the video at fault? Perhaps the tape cassette was defunct? All the usual tests a still sleep-numbed brain can devise at 5.45 in the morning failed to pinpoint the cause, so eventually and with a sense of self-disgust that one could stoop so low, the channel was switched to CNN, just as those of the pearly white teeth reached the conclusion that large swathes of their fellow citizens were stupid enough to believe idiotic fables.

Resisting the temptation to reach for the ‘OFF’ switch and settling instead for muting the following ten minutes of adverts, my hand was just about to release more of CNN’s tortured reasoning to my ears when a sudden notice flashed on the screen, demanding attention. The video, it proclaimed, was about to change channel and begin recording.

This was puzzling, as nothing gets recorded at 6.00am. It was the kitchen TV with inbuilt video, utilized only to record the 5.00am BBC World News, so it can be viewed over breakfast. The living room set has a Tivo digital recorder, used to capture everything else.

A quick check of the TV’s internal clock revealed the cause.

The kitchen TV is not new, but it’s Japanese – a Panasonic – and thanks to the clever, intuitive, design technology of Japanese companies, this set is programmed to recognize the date and switch automatically from summer time to winter time. It did so, exactly as it was supposed to – on Sunday 28th October.

Unfortunately, the US Congress is not programmed to do anything correctly, and in their usual blundering, interfering, and worthless manner, ordained – for reasons only apparent to them and certainly not to any sane, sensible human being on the planet – that the end of ‘daylight saving time’ be moved back a week to November 4th. Presumably their senilely affected minds failed to grasp the implications for millions of electronic devices throughout this nation.

What the Japanese spent years perfecting, the US Congress demolished in one swift stroke of the pen.

The clock on the Adam’s family kitchen TV has now been reset. Hopefully, it will record the BBC World News at its correct time on Wednesday morning.

Until then, American news sources will have to suffice. The NBC Nightly website has a video report on how the middle classes in America are being squeezed financially; barely, they say, managing to make it from one pay check to the next.

Hmmm! Given that a flu-shot costs around $30 plus the cost of a doctor appointment, maybe America’s citizens aren’t quite so stupid as the pin-ups on CNN seem to think. Maybe, after all, they just can’t afford flu shots.

Maybe, more folks are just plain poor.

Of course, it’s unlikely Congress will choose to fix that so easily, with one swift stroke of the pen – now is it?

Filed under: Time for change

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Is George W Bush hell bent on wrecking the United Nations? Not content with raising his digit in contempt of other nations, and unilaterally imposing US sanctions on Iran for daring to implement a nuclear energy policy in the 21st Century, he deliberately berated Russia and China for not supporting America’s actions.

It seems the legacy George W Bush wishes to leave behind him is one of American alienation from the rest of the world. While certain European poodles still continue to lick their US master’s genitals, most of the world is sick to the back teeth of this gangster administration and its bully-boy policies.

Iran is in the US cross-hairs because it stands as a barrier to continued military interventionism in the Middle East. Bush and Co, in their infinite foolishness, thought Iraq the pushover that would allow a huge troop build-up on the Iraq-Iran border prior to a ground invasion to follow air-strikes on Iran’s Istafan nuclear facilities.

Instead, those troops are bogged down fighting Iraqis who want them out of their country. The US is equally determined it is never going to leave. Iraq must be subdued. The huge US military bases presently under construction throughout Iraq are for a purpose. That purpose is the consolidation of American fire-power prior to a preemptive strike – an invasion – against Iran. “Regime change”, or “bringing freedom and democracy to the Iranian people” will be the banner spewed out by US media outlets as “shock and awe” again glues American citizens to their TV screens.

Of course, right now it’s all still a Cheney pipedream.

Unless Iraq can be squelched into submission quickly, before the elections of 2008, America will be in no position militarily to take on the Iranian forces; a body they’ll find somewhat more hostile than the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein.

Hence, the present upsurge of rhetoric; the latest round of US sanctions against Iran, designed more to rouse anti-Iranian sentiment in the US than produce an effective stifling of Iran’s economy.

Today, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, likened America’s intention of siting a missile shield on his doorstep, to the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960’s, at the height of the Cold War. The comparison is wholly accurate. Admittedly, Poland is a little further from Russia than is Cuba from the Florida coast, but given the range of modern missiles the difference is insignificant.

Putin also compared the US administration to “a madman running around with a razor blade” when asked about America’s Iranian sanctions. No doubt he is acutely aware of the consequences should the US eventually prove successful in gaining a foothold in Iran.

They would be at the very gateway of Russia.

As stated earlier, it’s all a pipedream for the moment, but Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her support for military action against Iran. A change of face, or even sex, in the White House is no guarantee that the dream may not one day become reality.

Filed under: Games children play

Posted under Sparrow Chat

The price of gas in central Illinois today is $2.73 per gallon. Today the cost of a barrel of crude passed $90.00.

Six months ago, the price of crude was between $50.00 and $60.00 a barrel, but gas prices in central Illinois hovered around $3.00 – $3.50 per gallon.

Back then, oil companies argued the cost was dependent on the price of crude, and they could not control prices. Today, it seems they’re controlling the price very efficiently. At least, for the time being.

Here’s an interesting statistic:

The US consumes an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day. At $90.00 per barrel, the cost of that crude is $1.8 billion EVERY DAY, or around $657 billion dollars per year.

There are some very rich oil sheiks out there.

Filed under: Crudities

Posted under Sparrow Chat

“The extremists in the Middle East … are trying to seize power by force, keep power by intimidation, and build an empire of fear.” ~ Dick Cheney, US Vice President, speaking of militant Islamists in Africa.

Has he checked in the looking glass lately?

Filed under: Mirror image

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Take a few minutes to digest and enjoy the beauty and the culture of a nation George W Bush is planning to destroy, just as he devastated its neighbor, Iraq.

Click HERE to view more of the photographic work of Mahdi Ayat.

I recommend the slideshow.

Filed under: Wars “R” Us

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Just how much do you know about Iran? You’re probably aware its capital is called Tehrain, the religion is mainly Muslim, and its president has a funny-sounding and almost unpronounceable name. But do you know anything about everyday life in Iran; what its small towns are like, the illnesses suffered by its people, or how life expectancy compares with, say, Port Arthur in Texas?

Port Arthur, Texas, is in the news. Like many small towns grown up around heavy industry, it suffers from the profit mentality of corporate America. It’s a petrochemical town. The bigwigs of the petrochemical industry don’t live in Port Arthur. Their houses are far, far away from the fumes, the pollution, the squalor that exists in Port Arthur, Texas.

You can read all about it on this Yahoo News page.

Of course, if you have an interest in finding out just what Iran is really like, rather than leaving it to George W Bush or Condoleeza Rice to fill your mind with their twisted ideas, you could try reading the Tehrain Times.

Not only will it help illuminate you to life in Iran, but it will also reveal what it’s like to live in Port Arthur, Texas.

Filed under: Ignorance is rarely bliss

Posted under Sparrow Chat

This week, yet again, the media is dominated by raging fires ravaging the California landscape. Whole towns are evacuated; hundreds of homes are going up in flames. Yet still everyone holds back, hesitates, as though afraid to make the final declaration.

Yesterday, on NBC Nightly News a veteran weather forecaster was asked to explain the cause of these intense infernos. His response: La Niña – the sort of opposite of El Niño.

He’s probably right, but it’s unlikely anyone living in California would argue against the frequency and intensity of these devastating fires having increased dramatically over the past decade.

While it’s comforting to blame El Niño and La Niña for the problems in California, these atmospheric genies that act like an enormous weather pendulum swinging ocean currents and temperatures backwards and forwards across the globe, have been around for eons. It’s easy to sit back and listen to ‘experts’ postulate their theory that the increase in El Niño/La Niña intensity documented over the last twenty years is nothing more than a temporary aberration – a mere quirk of the weather patterns – and the explanation might be acceptable, were it not for all the other evidence piling up to discount it.

This year has seen environmentally devastating weather conditions throughout much of the planet. Records are not yet available, but it is likely to prove, yet again, another of the warmest years on record. In parts of the world heatwaves have killed many. In other areas devastating floods have been responsible for catastrophic disasters. Only a few months ago, Greece was consumed by fires equally as intense, if not worse than those presently experienced by California.

Still the ‘experts’ will not commit themselves. Like the proverbial ostriches, they bury their heads in the sand and mumble incoherently about El Niño or La Niña being the only culprits of this wayward weather.

Scientists from the Global Carbon Project, the University of East Anglia, UK, and the British Antarctic Survey, have just published a report stating that carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000. 17% of that figure is due to industrial nations taking no action to curb their carbon emissions. The cause of the other 18% is even more concerning.

Oceans around the world have always been a vast filter of CO2 from the atmosphere, absorbing much of the carbon that would otherwise turn this planet into another greenhouse-gas-run-riot environment like our sister planet, Venus. Scientists have now realized the oceans are no longer able to store more carbon dioxide. They are reaching saturation point. Uptake of CO2 in the North Atlantic has halved in the last fifteen years. A similar situation exists in the Southern Oceans. The 18% CO2 increase, additional to the 17% caused by wayward politicians, is due to this factor.

Earth’s filters are clogged.

Landmass also acts as an absorber of CO2. Trees and plants do their share, but it is mainly the great forests of the Amazon basin that are the main ‘lungs’ of the planet. Prior to our ‘conversion’ from hunter-gatherers to agrarians there was much more forestation on the planet, but even today the landmass will normally absorb a similar amount of carbon dioxide to that of the oceans.

But, the very nature of the rainforest is changing. A twenty year study in Amazonia has revealed that, even in areas still untouched and pristine, the vegetation has altered. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is causing a shift in tree growth that will almost certainly have an increasingly negative effect on the forest’s ability to absorb CO2.

It would seem Planet Earth is reaching saturation point. The implications are enormous.

Meanwhile, our leaders mouth platitudes designed to placate our fears, while continuing to grant free reign to the greatest polluters on the planet – industry. Much is presently being made of an individual’s responsibility to decrease his ‘carbon footprint’, but industry still churns millions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year with no restraint whatever.

It is right to applaud the ‘green’ communities that have sprung up all over the planet, doing their little bit to help reduce emissions, but their effectiveness is negligible set against the criminal complacency of the corporates.

Once the Earth’s natural filters become blocked and cease functioning, this planet will no longer be able to support life. It will happen quickly; snowballing. Temperature will rise ever more rapidly as the ‘greenhouse effect’ escalates. A 6 – 7 degree increase will mark the inevitability of human extinction.

As that happens, will the weather forecasters still be insisting its just La Niña?

Read More of El Niño/La Niña HERE.

Read about ocean CO2 absorption HERE.

Read more on the rainforest changes HERE, and HERE.

Read more on the disastrous 2007 weather HERE.

Filed under: Weather or not

Posted under Sparrow Chat