I must confess that when seachanges tagged me I had not the least idea what I had to do, I rather lately inferred I was asked to open a post in my blog to give my ideas about book preferences, which in my case is something difficult to do for the reasons I will try to give below.

That I remember not one book has particularly been of my predilection, although perhaps history novels were some time in my life my day-to-day kind of reading, but I came to decide with time that all types of reading were the focus of my attention, some of the topics also depend on the age, the epoch and the circumstances I have gone through.

What I seek in books is the views the author pour on the various/many circumstances they reflect along the pages, how the characters in the book solve their problems and what these problems are.

My big problem is time, life should last longer and days should be longer and we should need fewer hours to rest, but we’d better leave things as they are lest problems increase and then we still be experiencing the same shortage in time or perhaps even worse.

Where is the sin in sex? Ah! Sin, that word that assails woman and man continuously regardless of what sin really means. Religions have dictated strict measures for their followers to interpret the sense of sin. There is no way to escape their interpretation of what a sin is and how it should be avoided. Religions as we all know are based on fear of an after life.

I remember a funny story of a very chaste lady who died and went straight up  to heavens, there to find that many other women of doubtful chastity also had been admitted. Upon asking she was told that having sex promiscuously was not a sin.

Who is the owner of truth in this Earth of ours?

Sex is one of the most important perks of our life. Without sex we are subject to be the prey of some important illnesses, as with sex we may able to experience illnesses of a different nature if we are not careful enough, but sex is something we have been created with and we cannot ignore. Having sex is tantamount to having food, to washing, to walking, thinking, in sum to all the needs that being alive imply.

There is a mandatory precept in religious books : grow and multiply yourselves; religions only think of themselves without the merest attention to anyone’s personal needs. There are religions that have implemented the biblical mandate to have sex with the corresponding reservations that are suitable to the particular religion. Sexual ablation or periods when sex is not permitted are rife everywhere, but in my opinion the concept of sin cannot be applicable to a woman’s or a man’s libidos because sex in itself is something that has been conferred upon us since we have been born and there is the freedom inherent to the person to use it however that person deems convenient. One other thing is the freedom of the human being to procreate or not. By the way when religions were conceived hundreds, or thousands, of years ago there were not the requirements a human being encounters these days, and that I know for religions to change a cataclysm must occur in the religious ambit.

 Don’t be gullible or naive. Use sex and enjoy it as best you can.

Respect is another side of the question, if there is not any respect among us then sex can be catastrophic.

As catastrophic as the lack of it is in other aspects of our life.

I’ll be having my PC cleaned and “weeded”, which it needs very badly (shame), and will be off-line for a short while, say 2/3 days, so I regret I won’t be able to read blogs and forums for that time.

Am already anxious to be back to normal again.

My very best wishes to you all.

Richard has opened a new Forum and I must give it publicity. No restrictions to become a member, just the obligation to discuss and post your ideas.

Click on Richard’s Forum on my blogroll and start shooting.

At the receiving end of a giant telescope, a man of science - an astronomer - watches a large scope of the universe in search of phenomena and other events that he must note down with exact Earth’s time for ulterior study by colleagues using special programmes in an attempt to determine likely causes and effects of the phenomena, in most cases unsuccessfully. He suddenly detects an explosion occurred at several light years from his emplacement: his immediate guess is that a star has exploded, but it could as well be a planet, a planet like ours. Immediately he makes an entry in his note pad for development later on.

Having done this he notices a tremor under his feet growing in intensity until it reaches catastrophic effects. A earthquake of the highest magnitude has occurred, allegedly because tectonic plates under the surface of the planet have been displaced.

But, let us imagine that on top of the problems we are experiencing due to the enlargement of the holes in the ozone layer giving way to  unopposed sun rays which heat the planet to temperatures becoming more and more unbearable, temperatures that dilate firstly the surface of the Earth and  then keep on dilating the following layers until vent is given to the unknown forces contained in the core; fire from the inner part of the planet will add to the uncontrolled heat being received from the sun, the expansion of the planet exceeding the limits of resistance and causing an immense explosion that will terminate with all kinds of life: human, animal or vegetable, everything; as I say let us add to the problem that a nuclear war broke out, with thousands of intercontinetal ballistic missiles soaring the skies to and fro, deteriorating more rapidly the conditions that have permitted the earth to live so far. The acceleration of the destruction of the ozone layer would be immediate, to me there is not the slightest doubt, and I believe the disparition of planet Earth, which would be turned into stellar dust, unstoppable.

God’s present problems with humans would go for good, it would be the very humans who will assume the task of doing away with them.

Another man of science in another planet several light years afterwards would be trying to determine the causes of that explosion he has just observed and its likeliest consequences, of course so unsuccessfully as his predecessor on the Earth was many light years before.

Michael has asked me to post this comment here and I oblige:

“Shared values”

Gordon Brown on his recent visit to the USA to pay homage to Bush said that Britain and the USA has shared values. He is correct of course, unfortunately, Britain is very much tied to the failure or success of the USA, Blair made that choice when he involved Britain in the illegal invasion of Iraq instead of moving closer to both Germany and France which had the good sense to oppose it and not to get involved. The Poodle of course is still happily wagging his tail, Bush managed to get him a highly paid job masquerading as a “Peace Envoy” for the Middle East.

But let’s not fool ourselves, there’s a war raging right now but I’m not referring to either Iraq or Afghanistan, although both are a direct consequence of the real battle that is taking place and the reason British soldiers are dying. The war I’m referring to is the attempted preservation of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency, which the USA hoped, would be used for all oil transactions. At one time every country that purchased oil from OPEC had to pay in U.S. dollars.

This enormously increased the demand for the floating dollar. Oil importing countries were faced with the problem of how to earn or borrow dollars to pay for their oil. OPEC oil countries were soon overflowing with oil dollars. Most of these oil dollars ended up in accounts in London and New York banks, but that’s changing.
It’s a battle, which in reality is already lost, the first shots actually came from that “Arch Villain” Saddam Hussian, an act which eventually led to his own death, because in November 2000 he exchanged $10 billion dollars to Euros and also started selling oil in Euros.
It is no coincidence of course that a new “Arch Villain” in our lives, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, has declared that he will accept payment for oil in any currency. It’s no coincidence that Russia is also slowly being added to the “ Axis of Evil” and that China will surely follow. China currently holds over $1 trillion as a part of their reserves but have indicated that they are going to move some of that and also reduce their monthly investment of US$ back into the US economy. It’s not a coincidence that over a year ago the US Treasury stopped issuing a report (M3) concerning money supply, because the bottom line is that the US$ is slowly becoming a currency backed by not gold or oil, but printing presses.

Since 2003 the US$ has fallen by 23% against the Euro and has fallen against all other major currencies, not surprising at all when you consider the fact that the USA is haemorrhaging money to the tune of $60 billion a month in regards to their trade deficit. A deficit that refuses to improve despite the fact that in theory US exports should be cheaper. But how much is it being affected by the fact that the USA has become the most distrusted nation in the word and that’s not just my view but also the results of many opinion polls. Investment of surplus dollars by countries such as China, Russia and the OPEC countries is falling sharply and is hardly surprising, it’s a little like asking someone to invest with a 3% interest return with 8% account charges,
The future seems uncertain in regards to the real war, which is taking place, not in relation to who the eventual victor will be, but in regards to how desperate the USA will become, and what final throws of the dice will take place.

Yes of course we have “shared values” which include bringing death and destruction all over the world simply for economic reasons, although I have to say it’s a shame those shared values didn’t end in 1776 when a group of terrorist insurgents declared independence.
 
 
Michael Lee

The humankind has gone a long way since the olden times of primitivity. Then it is presumed that people could not think on why they were living, they just had to earn their living by hunting and fishing and eat all the delis Nature of then had to offer them. Not today. They were also had for lunch or dinner by their fellows, or enemies, and wild animals.

Education has served us to think about our existence and its reason to be.

Not that the world has changed very much, we still see how the human being feels attracted to having conflicts, to killing and to enjoy as much as possible of the delis Nature offers these days, although I am ready to bet they are not of the same quality our ancestors procured for their nourishment, we humans tend to spoil everything we touch.

Why do we live? The instant answer should be plainly: because we are conceived by our mothers, a fruit of a sexual intercourse with a male or, if this is not available, because the seed that originates us has been previously kept in a glass container in temperatures well below zero degrees centigrades. But that is not the answer sought by that question: is there really a reason to exist?

Naturally enough we are born, we live as long as our individual circumstances permit and then we die, ending up like organic fertilisers or in an ever increasing number burnt to ashes. I suppose ashes are also fertilisers of a kind, I do not know.

Religions have been invented to give life a reason to be: that of an after life where there would only be bliss or fire, depending on how we have behaved during our life, until too recently the Catholic religion also had limbo, now in disuse because too many more people than in the other two outlets were cramming that middle-of-the-way destination.

But my opinion is that everything we must do must be done on this world of ours, in fact religions also impose this premise if their followers want to enjoy happiness after they are dead. Which in itself is not a bad idea.

Morals and ethics are the most important weapons we ought to use here, both should be often wielded and nursed with care so as to keep them continuously operational. That is a sense to our existence: to get oneself so used to the use of these two weapons that the lack of them would make us lose our balance in our relations with the rest of the humans, animals or plants, because these two are also a part of our existence, not only the human beings.

To be satisfied with what we do for our fellow humans, for the Nature, is a target we all should attach to a normal existence. To claim any compensation for this attitude would automatically deprive us of its most important component. Going to bed at night with the satisfaction of a well done work is not enough, going to bed with the satisfaction of having treated the rest of the living things in a correct way should be the climax of our fullfilled moral and ethical obligations during the day.

I cannot understand how people think that amassing big fortunes is a sense for living, when we all know we are bound to be dust after we die. The pharaohs of old died and were interred with riches around them, the rich of today do not consider this to be a good investment, but those who die cannot enjoy at the moment of their death of the big fortunes made at the expense of the rest of their human fellows, I do not know what they will think at that moment, but I would say if they have the chance to think perhaps they will lament to die because they leave all those coins behind.

Nothing satisfies more to an ethical, moral human being than the safisfaction of having struggled to behave as is correct along their lives. Nothing.

I’ll try to die like it. From then on my being will be nothing but dust - or ash.

Des films americains? J’en suis ras le bol!. ¡Hasta las narices! Fed up!

I was watching this afternoon an American(?) film where everything was about American Justice, American judicial proceedings and American police investigations, everything under the American point of view. And I was wondering what was different in that film to our Spanish Justice and laws. And suddenly I grasped everything!

All my life since I was a young boy I have been very fond of British films, mind you not of Spanish films which I have always considered too folkloric, but the American film industry suddenly after World War II intruded in our lives in Europe. And with it came its influence.

The other day I was watching the TV here in Spain and a gypsy that tried to kill a man - I don’t remember if he eventually killed him -  who inadvertently ran his lorry into the gypsy’s little daughter causing her minor injuries, was imprisoned.

The almost eerie part of the story was that the presumed would-be killer alleged in his defence that he invoked the “fifth ammendment”. What “fifth ammendment” in Spain? As everybody who reads this post should have presumed by now he was referring to the American Constitution’s Fith Ammendment”.

This guy must be a fanatic of American films, as many Spanish, British, French, Germans, and other Europeans in general the influence of American films extrapolate to their ordinary existence in Europe, making them forget what the “real” European laws are and how Europeans live.

Conversely British films have never made me think of anything different to what happens in Spain, I am referring to thrillers, as you may have assumed by now.

My question is : should our European countries take into account this subliminal influence in European lives? Or haven’t they considered how much of evil this influence is doing to our existence, how much do these American films influence what our young study in their schools?

Why the American way of living should be consubstantial with our way of living? And not all the way round?

 All in all America is a product of Europe majoritarily.

Why does the Right so much opposes the many attempts that have been made to enact legislation on the abortions? It is incredible how the political parties that win elections use this prerogative to avoid that the part of the population that has not voted for them be considered as such: a part of the whole that the parties are obliged to take into account when laws are to be passed. On the contrary what they do is create new sources of division among the citizens. And those citizens that support them carry on with their system of avoiding the national laws and taking their daughters abroad whenever they have to face their conscience.

My experience has taught me that both the Right or the Left prefer in many cases to make use of the abortion to solve these problems, irrespective of whether the Law in their own countries permits it or not. So we are considering here a case of moral hypocrisy.

But no, as usual the so-called Right - which in my opinion should be called Ultra-Capitalism - ignore the interests of those electors one of whose main problems of always has been abortion, apart from the proved fact that many of the offspring of those Rightists have used their money and power to move abroad to have the dreadful - for them - abortion operation which they cannot get in their country of origin because of their progenitors’ fake fanaticism. Because this is nothing but an idea that originated in Religions which have always been the staunchest allies of the so-called Right or Ultra-Capitalism as you like.

Abortion is a problem of conscience, not a legal problem by all means. I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of a woman whose dilemma is to abort or not to abort because once a new being is begot in her womb to decide whether to dispose of it or not is not an easy question.

And it must be women in all cases who should decide how to proceed. Nobody knows better than they in these cases.

Nobody.

Having to read so many blog sites as I do every day simply makes me wonder whether this is really good for my health, mainly for my mental health. My political inclinations are quite clear for me. My moral inclinations are quite clear for me. My human motivations - Richard - are clear as far as I am concerned.

I am awfully sorry because I cannot dedicate my attention to as many blogs and forums as I would like, therefore I will be reducing my range of attention to just a few blogs every day, those blogs will be shown in my blogroll and my attention regarding forums will be dedicated to the forum my loyalty has always been for, Respect, here

http://michaellee.modernwriters.org/index.php

Thank you for understanding my motivations, just time is the key here.

My very best wishes to you all and my encouragement to proceed with all your ideals for a better world.