Hero

A hero (heroine in female) (Ancient Greek: ἥρως, hērōs), in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion.

Later, hero (male) and heroine (female) came to refer to characters who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice – that is, heroism – for some greater good, originally of martial courage or excellence but extended to more general moral excellence.

Stories of heroism may serve as moral examples.

In classical antiquity hero cults – veneration of deified heroes such as Heracles, Perseus, and Achilles – played an important role in Ancient Greek religion.

Politicians, ancient and modern, have employed hero worship for their own apotheosis (i.e., cult of personality).

Wikipedia

And so where have they all gone?

Are we left with none today?

The Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela are maybe the closest we have today to heroes

Both because they have moral power

Both stood up to tyranny

Both have will power

And compassion

And humility

And then recently we see the Noble committee giving President Obama a Nobel Prize after five minutes on the world stage, which seems to confirm that we have lost something as he himself says "I do not deserve a Nobel prize"

Fair comment

The Nobel prize as with most things over time is becoming more political and losing its way, become trivialised even

When the word hero is used to describe biscuits, socks and games one sees that even the concept of hero has also become trivialised 

Then we have minor celebrities promoted to the ranks of hero by the mass media, for whom hype is an essential feature of their daily fare

How is the truly authentic hero to emerge form the surrounding dross of modern communications?

From urgency

From a paradigm shift

From authenticity

From the coming times that we are entering

Times are becoming more and more challenging and for sure in the coming period when the world is faced with the breakdown of several of it's systems new heroes will emerge
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When breakdown forces change
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Men and women who have the moral courage and character to state what needs to be done and act accordingly

Their fight as for all heroes and heroines will not be easy in the face of well organised vested interests and those who oppose change

Their lives spent facing overwhelming odds

How nice to look forward to heroes of character and courage instead of the cardboard cutouts on offer today
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Heroes prepared to fight for what needs doing

Bring on our new heroes please...........

What's up over Norway

Yesterday  morning in Norway, people saw a strange and still-unexplained phenomenon.

Eye-witness Nick Banbury of Harstad reports:
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"We are used to seeing lots of auroras here in Arctic Norway, but on my way to work this morning I saw something completely unexpected.
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Between 7:50 and 8:00 a.m. local time, there was a strange light in the sky," shown here in a photo taken by Jan Petter:
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"It consisted initially of a green beam of light similar in colour to the aurora with a mysterious rotating spiral at one end," continues Banbury.
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"This spiral then got bigger and bigger until it turned into a huge halo in the sky with the green beam extending down to the earth.
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According to the press, this could be seen all over Northern Norway and must therefore have been very high up in the atmosphere to be seen hundreds of km apart."
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"[A popular] suggestion at the moment is that it was a rocket shot up by a Russian submarine in the white sea, but the Russians deny this apparently.
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A big mystery indeed!"
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Taken from Space weather

As an aside comment
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Very often green lights or beams are associated with  UFO's
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Before you dismiss this idea be aware that the Russians spent a large amount of time and money investigating such phenomena during the era of the Soviet Union
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They have as a result more knowledge on this subject than most others
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They have also a more open mind as many confirmed sightings are in their dossiers
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This is how we can say this about green beams from lights or objects in the sky
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Also be aware that these beams are not good news and one should most certainly stay out of the beam

Although not fashionable at the moment UFO's continue to be seen by many in the former Soviet Union, which is not surprising given that this area constitutes more than a fith of the world's surface area

Meeting again

In another life is something that worries some people

Many who visit us accept karma and reincarnation but get worried about not meeting each other again

That people meet at all seems to show that they are connected to the same part of the pattern of things
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And because of this they would probably often be working together in different lives

Nature chooses those things that work

Nature chooses the economical

If you know each other and love each other then this is a good basis for further lives together

Love being the power in this universe, the glue if you will

Then it makes sense and sense rules nature that it pull us together again

No one can prove this in a scientific sense, however we can look at probability and use that as a guide

In our own lives we feel this to true, Liuba and I that is

How we met is beyond any normal possibility or chance

And why should that happen if for no reason?

We say it would not

And the reason?

We would say our love for each other

And would then add that this alone is not enough

It is because we have work to do together

True or false?

Others may judge one day

For ourselves we know this to be true by what we are better able to do together than apart

This is our experience and might not be the proof you need

However we can share that it is so for us

Just look in your heart and see if this resonates?

Yes we meet again in life after life where our love draws us together and our work needs or can use that multiplication of effort

Compassion

Cannot be bought in a shop

It cannot be produced by machines

Without compassion humanity has nowhere to go

Compassion is the well spring of freedom

Compassion is needed more than ever today with millions starving and disadvantaged

And yet if we feel that all our needs can just be bought with money

Then compassion goes

And where goes compassion so go we

Compassion can only be found through inner development

It cannot be found in OK and Hello magazines

Let those who thirst for trivia live with this as their escape from reality

For those whose thirst is for understanding and personal evolution

Compassion is part of our evolution leading as it does to greater understand and awareness

Do not wait for others to agree your life choices these are yours alone

Yours alone

Developing compassion is part of our journey

Compassion comes to us as we see others as ourselves

Just people trying to get through life

Ever thought in your next life there go you?

For sure all of us experience tough lives and one way to guarantee that your next one is tougher is to abuse ignore or refuse to help those less advantaged than your self

Guess why there are so many millions experiencing tough lives today?

What goes round comes round

No one avoids her karma

Compassion is a natural human emotion

Greed and selfishness are learned

Let out and develop your compassion

Thoughts about those with money

If you have lots of money you do not need anybody
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Money will allow you to ignore others
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To lead your life plus minus as you want to
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You do not need to create relationships you just buy company
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You do not need to compromise you just let go those who irritate and hire or find others
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You never trust because you have worries about whether they like you or are after your money
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With most things people share
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People do not share money
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Money is not part of any natural cycle
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Money as we have it today is going increasingly to a few
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Most people have little or no money
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The distribution of money is increasingly towards those who already have money
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The world population is around 6.8 billion people and growing
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This uneven distribution cannot continue something must give
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So are those with lots of money about to change?
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Or are those without money able to change?
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Something must give

Mediterranean diet again

Still not convinced by the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet?

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Now there is another reason to follow it:

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It makes you happy.

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People who eat a diet rich in the classic ingredients consumed in the countries bordering the
Mediterranean Sea – vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains and fish – are less likely to develop depression, researchers have found.

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.Mental disorders are less common in the Mediterranean countries than in those of northern countries
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Europe and scientists believe the reason may lie with the diet.

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People accustomed to the gloomy skies of Britain may imagine that the weather has a bigger impact on mood.

But the researchers corrected for this effect by limiting their study to Spaniards living in Spain who were compared for the rigour with which they stuck to the classic Mediterranean diet.

Previous studies have suggested that olive oil, which contains high levels of monounsaturated fatty acids – and without which no Mediterranean meal is complete – may be protective against depression.
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Researchers from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Clinic of the University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, asked 10,000 participants to record what they ate and ranked them on their adherence to nine components of the Mediterranean diet.
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After following the participants for more than four years, they identified 480 new cases of depression and showed the risk of developing the illness was 30 per cent lower in those who adhered most closely to the healthy diet.
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The specific mechanisms by which a better adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern could help to prevent the occurrence of depression are not well known, the authors write in Archives of General Psychiatry.
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Components of the diet may improve blood vessel function, fight inflammation, reduce risk for heart disease and repair oxygen-related cell damage, all of which may decrease the chances of developing depression.
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However, the role of the overall dietary pattern may be more important than the effect of single components.
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It is plausible that the synergistic combination of a sufficient provision of omega-three fatty acids together with other natural unsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants from olive oil and nuts, flavonoids and other phytochemicals from fruit and other plant foods and large amounts of natural folates and other B vitamins in the overall Mediterranean dietary pattern may exert a fair degree of protection against depression, they say

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Telegraph

Corporate cultures

Or as some call them Corporate minefields or mindsets

In the Corporate world or any organization come to think of it people don’t have much trouble communicating with friends and those people they trust.

If communications are a problem, the first place to look for an answer is the level of trust in the organization.

Then look at the culture if it is macho and vicious with everything being based on short-term, cheap-and-nasty tricks

Essentially being about giving the leaders what they want while giving as little as possible to those who provide it
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Then here is your clue
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Look at the boss, right up at the very top
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When we worked with corporations it always intrigued us that the top man’s character usually told us what we would find inside his structure

Sure enough if he was a nasty greedy little piece of work then his organisation would reflect that too

On the other hand if ethics and reasonable behavior were his thing then the corporation would reflect this

So often was this true that we could know from this one piece of information how often the culture would likely be in trouble with the media, the law courts, unions and so on.

Not infallible for sure but pretty accurate
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And once a certain ethos gains hold then it permeates the whole organisation
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Like hires and retains like

So what culture are you in?

Is this where you should be?
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Is this where you want to be?
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Oh and don’t expect this to change, unless the corporation gets taken over or bought out and another culture prevails
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Like does attract like
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As an old proverb says a fish rots from the head down

Times

Marriage in Marbella Spain

Every country has quirks, some nice, some not

If you marry in Marbella they give you a paper after your marriage ceremony

On this paper is the heading "Practical Advice for Marriage"

Recently we found it among some old papers

We liked it as it is simple and not bad advice

So we show it here in the original wording


1 - Don't both be angry at the same time

2 - Don't you ever shout to each other, unless the house is burning

3 - If one of you wants to win the fight, let it be the other

4 - If you have to criticise something, do it with love, as you would like the other to do it to you

5 - Don't ever remember mistakes of the past

6 - Be always at his or her disposal

7 - Never go to sleep if something you disagree with has not been solved out

8 -  At least once a day, try to say something nice to the other and express your love with a thoughtful gesture

9 - When you have done something wrong, be humble enough to recognise it and say you're sorry

Drones

A human drone is someone who sees life as a totally self indulgent experience 

All the time, every day, in every way

Taking, taking and adding nothing

Just being self indulgent

Selfish

The life dedicated solely to self and its amusement

What a waste!

Can anyone imagine that life is about consumption and amusement alone?

Self absorption alone?

Imagine the surprise of the drone when he finds that his pleasure dims as he gets older

Nothing seems to offer much of a buzz anymore

He heeds more and more of everything in order to get the same buzz as before

Maybe  that's why his life is boring to him and others around him

Maybe just maybe life is designed for more than that of the drone 

Can anyone believe that God or intelligence put us here to spend all our time playing at amusing ourselves?

Really?

That would not be the hall mark of any God or intelligence we can think of

No God or intelligence would go to the trouble of creating this amazing planet and its nature for the selfish amusement of drones

And no this planet did not randomly evolve into what we have today

It is far too subtle and complex

No we are on a journey where we all learn a bit more in each life

Each life to designed for us to experience and learn more

That makes more sense and the hallmark of intelligence is that there is sense
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Drones do not learn this they just get stale like anything that sits around indulging itself

Parasites are to be found in any environment

Feeding on others so that they do not have to work

Drones are parasites

And there are many millions of them around us today

When things get too bad nature or that intelligence has a way of shaking things up

This is what we are in the beginning of now

The shake out has started

Climategate

For those of you who have not heard about this scandal large numbers of emails were recently put on the Internet showing that scientists supporting the idea of global warming had and have been altering data,

They have been suppressing data, pressuring the media and scientific journals not to print or show anything that did not support their ideas of global warming

Today we learn that all supporting data for world-wide global warming (or climate change) has been destroyed by the guardians of that data.

University of East Anglia (UEA) Climate Research Unit (CRU) claims to only keep “value added data”, data that they have modified.
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All historic “raw” data from temperature measurement stations around the world has been destroyed!

This makes it impossible for anyone to verify whether global warming is real or not (so much for peer review).

In light of ClimateGate emails that have surfaced admitting to hiding, destroying, and modifying data it is no longer possible to believe anything coming out of that office or based off of their “value added” data.

Most of the conclusions from the IPCC have their roots in this CRU data.

The Mann hockey stick (which is also involved in ClimateGate –  bases the hockey stick curve upward on CRU data.
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Anyone still believing that our climate scientists are impartial and that we have any accurate climate data must be a fool.

Though there are undoubtedly honest climate scientists (and we really feel sorry for them right now) most of their work is based off invalidated data.

Not only has the public been made fools of but so have the honest scientists.