1. How living beings share the sun's light

    The light that reaches the earth from the sun changes mostly into warmth and sooner or later leaves our globe. The sun's energy has become the life-giving current, which all take a part of. (Gottfried Schatz, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, 2.11.2009) Translation by Maryam Yahiaoui-Doktor

    "The sun rose in Paderborn, with very peevish gesture. She had to indeed carry out an annoying deed. To light the dumb earth." - with these words from "Germany - a winter fable" Heinrich Heiner gives our earth an overly enlarged significance, even though in his bitter verses he had little else left for her. The sun pours only one tenth of a milliard of its light towards us - and more than a half of that is swallowed up or reflected back to space by our atmosphere.

    Every square meter of the earth's surface receives on average only around 1700 Kilo Calories of energy in the form of visible light per year. Most of this turns into heat and sooner or later leaves the earth again as Infrared rays.

    Man cannot eat light


    However, single-celled organisms managed already around four million years ago, to capture a small part of this light energy and live from it. Soon other beings learned to feed themselves on this organisms and therefore indirectly from the sun. The sun's energy would become a life-giving rays, whose countless ramifications feed the various of life on our planet. This ray is denied only the original single-celled organisms, who live deep under the surface of the earth or around volcanoes, and use geochemical processes as their energy source.

    Energy is the ability to perform work. It cannot be created or destroyed, but only change from one form to another: from light to heat, from movement to electrical current - and from this to almost all other forms. the Kilo Calorie ist officially an outmoded unit for energy, but still usable in public. A Kilo Calorie can warm up one litre of water by one degree celcius - and support a walk of 13 metres or life for one minute. Under the false sign of "Calorie" countless people suffer to burn these off and strive for the bizarre slim ideal.

    So much that we also enjoy the warming light of the sun - it cannot feed us directly. Every hungry tropics inhabitant is a modern Tantalus. Only plants and photosynthesising single-organisms with the magic wand of light are able to turn carbon dioxide and water into organic biomass. These deliver fuel for plant-eaters, for the fire of their cells' breathing and therefore energy for living. For the plant-eater this type of parasitism is expensive: they can use around a tenth of the light energy saved in plants for their own biomass. This is because they need energy to move and hold their temperature and chemical balance of their body constant. Therefore a kilogramme of plant nutrition often offers fewer calories than a hundred grammes of meat. The energy need of predators is even larger, because they use a lot of energy to travel long distances to hunt their prey.

    The seepage of the sun's energy in this food chain is dramatic. In the free nature, plants save - in the normal fun of their lives - only a half percent of of the sun's energy they receive as biomass, while plant-eaters around one hundreth of a percent and predators another ten times less. Therefore we know such large herds of reindeer or antilopes, but not of tigers or leopards. It is even worse for animals that prey or feed on other predators. A predator who mostly eats leopards has to put itself so far back in the queue of sun's light that it could never increase its numbers. It is therefore no wonder that the leopard has no natural enemies. These remorseless rules of the food chain go also for us humans. Every one of us must take around 700 000 Kilo Calories of chemical energy in the form of food, in order to lead a normal and healthy life. As vegetarians the residents of Zurich could feed themselves with less than a hundred square kilometer agricultural land, while with a pure meat diet the neede land would be - and the price of the food - around five to ten times as much.

    Cultures, genes

    The strive for the sun's energy has also affected the development of man's culture. As hunter gatherers our nomadish ancestors had to cross long ways in order to ensure they got their share of the sun's energy. Agriculture and intensive domestication of animals allowed them to travel less, settle, establish cities and develope a higher culture. In order to produce evermore nutrition from smaller land masses, we use mighty amounts of water, artificial fertilizers, pesticides and crude oil. In order to gain one Kilo Calorie of nutrition, we often have to burn one Kilo Calorie of crude oil. Our industrial food production has become a grotesque machine that feeds on oil.

    Our genes also aid us in our search for energy from the sun. An example are two closely related Ariaal-Sippen of Kenya. One group are nomadish stock breeders in the mountains and the other settled farmers living in low lands. A rare gene that brings out aggression, lack of concentrationm impluse and hyperactivity in humans is found mostly in the nomadish group in the well-fed and muscular, whereas in the settled farmers, mostly in the under-nourished and weaker-muscled men. This suggest that this gene variety is an advantage for nomads and the other way around a disadvantage for the settled farmers. Being implusive, ready to attack and the ability to react quickly can help nomads to defend their herds, find new grazing land or as children learn life's necessities in a life on the move - and ensure they get enough nutrition. In a village community these characteristics would be a hindrance.

    Nuclear fusion?

    We humans have come forward in our waiting list for the sun's energy: with the taming of fire we tapped into energy from the sun that light-using beings had saved over years or even millions of years. And with wind and water mills, solar cells and solar energy farms we jumped to the top of the queue. However, first spliting teh atom gave us access to energy that is not from our sun. Perhaps one day we will succeed in making an artificial sun from splitting atoms in fusion reactors. This would give us warmth and electricity on our dumb earth, but not enough light. The life-giving rays of the natural sun light can never be replaced.
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  2. A poem from Ghadeh Alsaman
    An able poet from Syria

    If you come to my home, bring me a pencil, a black pencil;
    I want to draw a line on my face, so I won't be caged for the crime of beauty, also a cross on my heart so I won't be tempted!
    Give me an eraser for erasing the lips, I don't want anyone to blacken me due to their redness.
    A shovel, so I uproot my feminine virtues, sow my being... without these is heaven's way easier.
    Give me a razor to shave my hair off and air my head, and to think some without head cover.
    Give me thread and needle, for my tongue. I want... to sew it to my mouth... this way are my cries quieter.
    Don't forget the scissors, I want to censor my thoughts!
    I also need washing powder to wash my brain!
    When I've washed my brain to hang it on the line so the wind can take my marks to where the Arab threw his flute.
    Do you know? One should be realistic! If you find a silencer, also take it!
    I want to shut my sobs in my throat when they beat me as a prostitute for the crime of love and choice.
    I want a copy of my identity, to, so when the religious brothers and sisters swear at me and humiliate me in the name of preaching, I can remember who I am.
    Pray to god... if you see they sell rights somewhere, buy some for me, so I can mix it with my food and deny me them before others do.
    Finally, if you get some money, buy me a sign to hang on my neck... and I'll write on it in large letters:
    I AM HUMAN! I AM STILL HUMAN, I AM A HUMAN EVERYDAY.
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  3. No, I don't mean capitalism gone out of control, but brutality. In Iran a 21 year old man was today killed, because at the age of 17 he had stabbed someone to death. The family of the original victim came to watch the murderer die, and were allowed to also stab him. The mother went along.

    How disgusting is this? What is wrong with this?
    1. The man was a minor at the time of the act.
    2. The mother of the murderer has now also killed.
    3. Death does not fix the original death.
    4. This does not deter anyone else from doing the same.
    Why isn't the UN, the world, doing something to stop capital punishment. It should NOT be legal anywhere.
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  4. Es is the 19th letter of many languages.
    Es means "are" in French and "is" in Spanish.
    Es means "it" in German.
    But, in French est also means "is".
    So, writing my German essay in my exam today, I caught myself, my mistake. I had est where es belonged. Who know what else I've written, or for oder? Water for Wasser? I do hope not.

    I may start a campaign for unifiying European languages... ;-)
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  5. REVOLUTION

    How revolting, revolving, what is this revolution thing about? Here's a definition. Now, the firstdefintion is probably good enough to get us going:

    Possibly violent change/overthrow/rejection of a government/regime by its subjects. We've seen ithappen soooo many times in history and when did it ever work properly?

    People of Britainviolently removed their king (including his head from his body), only to restore power to his sonsome years later, albeit he had to listen a little bit more to the parliament, who were still the nobelsand sons of nobels that served father king. Then
    there was the French revolution, hmm, let's say no more about Napoleon Bonaparte, except that he was a tyrant who made a world war, but is still remembered as the French Emperor of all times. Okay, the Russian revolution, hmm, where did it get to? Yes, the serfs overthrew the Tsar, but who killed millions of the serfs and their countrymen? The devoted communists Lenin & Stalin just to start with.

    I'm running out of breath, so will just point at Cuba quickly before my main target. This beautiful island is a mess, isolated, has no economy, but is still proud of its revolution. Just as is Iran, the Islamic Republic is proud. 30 years today since the revolution that allowed it to germinate. Hmm, yes independence from the USA was brought on by Socio/Communist Islamist students, who then lost the power to the current rulers. Did they even think about what they were doing? The last bloke was not happily a puppet of the US, he chose sides for a reason, didn't want to be swallowed up by the big BAD Soviet Union, too right. And let us remember even the old dog UK has to suckle on mama USA. It's the way it is in today's world.

    So, answer me this people of the previous generation in Iran. What was wrong with your lives, so drastically wrong, that you couldn't solve by dialogue and without revolution? Were you upset Iran had not been invaded for centuries, and hadn't lost its young men to stupid wars? Were you upset its economy was on the way up? Were you upset that its population was sustainble, and had better hopes for the future than most of its peers? Did you want your young to die or leave the country? Well, if you did, here you are, it's all there. WELL done.
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  6. FOOTBALL MANAGERS SACKED

    What is this about changing managers every three minutes? My club (Spurs) does it, even Chelsea does it. The most successful club/manager in England are whom? OH, Man U, and how long have they held onto their manager? Yes, 20+ years. Hmm, put two and two together people!!!!


    And while I'm here: three jobs to recommend to my child to seek: Football manager, politician or banker. No matter how crap they are or what mistake they make, sacking means nothing, they get a job within minutes or if not, then BIG bonuses they received while they were crap helps...
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  7. Sharon - seedless & sweet (Product of Israel)

    No, no, not the fat old prime minister (is he still alive? I don't care to look it up.)

    I was about to wash my Sharon fruit - Persimmon that I saw this on a sticker and giggled. Well, Ariel Sharon was certainly not sweet, and probably has kids. What this did make me do was look up what this fruit is about, and it's certainly no native of the disputed lands. Luckily this land is so furtile that it can grow ANYthing, including hatred, stupidity and wars.

    What is my point? Only that I thought and rethought several times before I bought and then later ate this fruit. Would my boycotting products from Israel make a dent on their economy, make them think twice about wars and help anything? Hmm, I thought not. Just look at the sanctions against Iran, all they've brought about are poorer people and a more determined and stupid government.

    So, what is the solution? I don't really know if anything but education helps. When everone is well-informed (educated) they can hopefully see other points of view and understand one another. Maybe. Well, I hope so. We should perhaps be looking to set up more schools, more educational charities, and free this wonderful medium of the internet for the world to use...
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