tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65428110163272555242024-01-21T13:05:54.892-08:00Paintings for PeaceDr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-33032853340495534122011-05-31T01:24:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:25:22.216-07:00Alhambra Pollock<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Alhambra Pollock</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>Gideon Polya, “Alhambra Pollock” painting. Arab-Islam-West amity through Art”, MWC News, 24 April 2007.</p> <p><b>For an image of the huge “Alhambra Pollock” painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288352915/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288352915/</a> .</p> <p><b>Alhambra</b><b> Pollock” painting. Arab-Islam-West amity through Art</b></p> <p>ARAB-ISLAM-WEST amity and understanding is urgently needed at this time with anti-Arab anti-Semitism and Islamophobia entrenched in the West, American or US-surrogate forces partially or completely occupying a swathe of Arab culture, Islamic countries from Somalia to Afghanistan (Somalia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan), with Iran under attack from Afghan opium smugglers and from US-backed Pakistani Baluchistan terrorists and Iran (population 70 million) also under acute threat of conventional or even nuclear attack by the US or by America’s Middle East surrogate, Apartheid Israel. </p> <p>Small comfort that outstanding French Jewish writer Emmanuel Todd argues that the American Empire is in its last throes in his best-selling “After the Empire” (“Après l’Empire”; English translation Constable, London, 2004) - because he also indicates that a lot of innocent people will die in the process. Indeed as of December 2010, the post-invasion excess deaths (violent and non-violent avoidable deaths) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total 0.3, 2.5 and 4.5 million, respectively; the post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2, 0.9 and 2.4 million, respectively (90% avoidable); and the refugees from these Occupied countries now total 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively.</p> <p>I have painted a huge painting “Alhambra Pollock” that attempts to enhance Arab-West and Islam-West amity through art. The painting arose from a series of other large paintings with a similar humanitarian, pro-Peace, pro-Woman and pro-Mother and Child messages that can be seen on the Web via Flickr, notably Qana, Sydney Madonna, Manhattan Madonna, Melbourne Madonna, and Truelove (see: </p><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/</a> ).</p> <p>The bold vision of “Alhambra Pollock” was to create a beautiful painting conflating the most extreme form of contemporary Western abstract expressionism (that of American Jackson Pollock) with the ravishing colours and beautiful geometric forms of Islamic and Arab tile patterns (most wonderfully seen in the great mosques of Bokhara, Samarkand, Isfahan and elsewhere and the exquisite 13 th - 14th century Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain). The simple message was that this conflation of such radical extremes – the post-war, alcohol-fuelled, radical, American abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock VERSUS the pure Islamic, non-representational, tile pattern Art of the Golden Age of Islamic and Arab Art and Culture from Spain to Central Asia - demonstrates the essential unity of Man. If such conflation is possible between such extremes then there is no serious argument between Men - with PEACE, understanding and amity being the inexorable consequences.</p> <p>Indeed PEACE is an Acronym for the essential ingredients of this specific kind of Artistic polemical which can be described as Pólya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism as outlined below.</p> <p>My Great Uncle George Pólya (1887-1985) was a great Hungarian mathematician who spent much of his professional life at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland in the period 1914-1940 and thence at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California from 1953 until his death in 1985 at the age of 98 (see: <a href="http://www.amt.canberra.edu.au/polya.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>). He was a pacifist and was lightly punished by the Swiss by having to teach at a Gymnasium in WW1. Shortly after his return to the ETH he published a mathematical description of the 17 plane symmetry groups that describe the 17 possible types of tile patterns of the kind most wonderfully employed in Islamic and Arab Art. M.C. Escher was fascinated by such patterns found in the exquisite 13th-14th century Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain and in the great mosques of the Islamic World from Spain to the Middle East, Iran, Central Asia, South Asia and South East Asia. M.C. Escher was alerted to George Pólya’s work, corresponded with him for many years and used these patterns in his wonderful lithographs (see Harold & Loretta Taylor, “George Pólya. Master of Discovery”, Dale Seymour, Palo Alto, 1993).</p> <p>My painting arose out of discussions with dear Muslim, Muslim-origin and other friends. I knew it as a wonderful humanitarian and artistic idea and also knew how to approach the painting technically. However I really struggled for 4 months with the compositional solution to the problem. Great Uncle George published a wonderful book called “How to Solve it” (published in 1945, published subsequently in many languages and still in print) that is beloved of mathematics teachers and students. Mathematics is the technical core of the “Alhambra Pollock”. Specifically, the underlying design involves conflation of a particular kind of plane symmetry group (“wallpaper group” or tile pattern) with the Fibonacci Sequence-based Golden Rectangle (Da Vinci Code) geometry used by many artists over several millennia and most gloriously in the Italian Renaissance. Nevertheless a crucial artistic SPARK was missing.</p> <p>Several weeks ago I returned to university teaching to help out a scientific department at a top university because a highly respected scientific colleague was ill. Lecturing and thinking about how to “get through” to his cohort of second year university science students evidently “opened doors in my mind” and – Eureka! – walking back from lectures and laboratory classes one day the solution suddenly crystallized. A similar process - precipitated by the excellent “Morning Pages” stream of consciousness exercise in Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” - led to the huge humanitarian paintings that are the precursors of “Alhambra Pollock”. </p> <p>The solution involved adding a further layer of complexity to the underlying plane symmetry group (tile pattern) and Fibonacci Sequence geometry. Specifically, I added elongated figures akin to the elegant and beautiful Australian Aboriginal Bradshaw Figures found on rock paintings in the North West Kimberley Region of Australia and dated to over 17,000 years old. Perhaps the inspiration also came from seeing so many slim, young undergraduate students reclining, walking and playing on the university lawns and quadrangles. Excited, I created a first rough version of the painting and then hastened to the next stage of the huge 1.3 meter by 2.9 meter canvas. However the first version departed from my original conception – “the painting took over control” – and a beautiful, unique, ALTERNATIVE solution evolved. I then embarked on a second attempt in order to more precisely achieve my original conception, the painting again took over control -and the result was “Alhambra Pollock”. </p> <p>In short, “Alhambra Pollock” describes one year in the life a human being - Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn. The Four Seasons occupy a Double Golden Rectangle geometry (as in Picasso’s “Guernica” and my similarly-motivated, anti-war painting “Qana”) that lies between a lower strip (representing Earth, Fire and Water) and a smaller upper strip (representing Air and Sky). The figures of the large Central Strip evolve into Mermaids at the interface with the Lower (Water) Strip and Winged Fairies at the interface with the Upper (Sky) Strip. The colours match the mood and nature of the Four Seasons, which are in turn allegories for the moods and nature of Man. The three elements (tile patterns, Golden Rectangle Geometry and conflated figures) create a chaotic complexity – order in chaos, chaos in order – akin to both the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and the Arabic Calligraphy often superimposed on great Islamic Art tile patterns.</p> <p>According to a recent lecture by the President of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), the World faces three acute problems, namely nuclear weapons, global warming and poverty. Bush America is a major part of these problems – the US has the most nuclear weapons; the US is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter, refuses to sign Kyoto and will not constrain carbon dioxide pollution; and the US is at the helm of Spaceship Earth on which 16 million people die avoidably each year (10 million of these avoidable deaths being those of under-5 year old infants). </p> <p>These are acutely serious problems and the World needs to deal with them urgently by Rational Risk Management as most successfully applied in Aviation and successively involving (a) correct information, (b) scientific analysis involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, and (c) systemic change to minimize the dangers. Instead, the 21st century has seen the Bush-ite and Racist Zionist promotion of anti-Arab anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, terror hysteria, war and imperialism and an overall approach involving (a) Goebellsian lies and propaganda, (b) anti-scientific spin involving use of asserted facts to support a partisan, prejudiced position and (c) blame and shame culminating in horrendous wars that have killed millions and seriously exacerbated the danger to the world. </p> <p>Peace is the only way and this present contribution of PEACE – Pólya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism - through ART is one of many possible ways to increase empathy for the Other that underscores amity and understanding between human beings. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-28552643831049105082011-05-31T01:23:00.002-07:002011-05-31T01:24:37.691-07:00Apocalypse Now<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Apocalypse Now</span> </h3> <p><b>For an image of "Apocalypse Now" see:</b> <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/</a> </span>.</p><p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">See Gideon Polya, “War on Terra – US Empire strikes back”, MWC News, submitted 24 February 2006 (<b>but now updated as of February 2010</b>). </span></span> </p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/climatecrisisarticles/war-on-terra">http://sites.google.com/site/climatecrisisarticles/war-on-terra</a></span>.<br /></p><p>This article is well illustrated by my huge paintings "Terra":<span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/</a> </span> and "Apocalypse Now": <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/</a> </span>.<br /></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">War on Terra – US Empire strikes back</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">SCIENCE FICTIONS FANS are familiar with the Terrans who inhabit the one-moon planet Terra that orbits the medium-sized sun called Sol. A frequent theme is threat to Terra and Terrans from evil extra-terrestrial aliens as initiated by “War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells (1898) and thence re-jigged in the famous, panic-inducing Orson Welles radio broadcast (1938), Byron Haskin’s film “The War of the Worlds” (1953) and Steven Spielberg’s recent movie “War of the Worlds” (2005).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The War on Terra has become a reality under the egregiously violent democratic imperialism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism) of the evil Bush Administration. Millions of Terrans are dying and Terra - the blue jewel of the Sol system and the only planet in the Galaxy or indeed in the whole Universe presently known to carry life - is terminally threatened.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">Since World War 2 (WW2) the major European empires slowly retracted, albeit replacing explicit colonialism with neo-colonialism and continued First World economic domination. However as the British Empire retracted, so the US Empire has expanded. This is illustrated clearly by the following listings of countries actually occupied by the UK or the US in the post-war era.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">Countries in which the UK was a major occupier in the post-WW2 era include </span>Afghanistan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Cyprus; Diego Garcia, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong, India, Iraq, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & Grenadines, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. </span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The UK is currently only a major occupier of Afghanistan, Diego Garcia and Iraq.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">In contrast, before WW2 the US was in partial or complete military occupation of only Cuba, Guam, the Panama Canal Zone, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">However, countries in which the US was a major occupier in the post-WW2 era include </span>Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cuba, Diego Garcia, Dominican Republic, Federated States of Micronesia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guam, Haiti, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Laos, Panama, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Somalia, South Korea, US Virgin Islands, and Vietnam.</span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Of course the US has had other major<i><span style="font-style:italic"> </span></i>world-wide involvements in other violence (e.g. in Angola, the Congo, the Honduras-based Contra terrorism against Nicaragua and militarism elsewhere in Central America, South America, Africa and Asia) and the US has military bases in numerous countries throughout the world.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The post-war era began with the noblest of intentions, international agreement on the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions. However these international conventions have been increasingly flouted by the US and its key military allies Israel, the UK and Australia.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The 1950s saw the independence of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries but Zionist racism, militarism, colonialism and expansionism has had a catastrophic effect on the Middle East and South Asia was crippled by the legacy of 2 centuries of frankly genocidal British imperialism. The 1960s and 1970s saw the formal independence of a large number of African countries – but neo-colonial realities have made Africa a continuing nightmare. With increasing international concern over human rights abuses, the operations of the International Criminal Court came into effect in 2002 – with the notable absences of the US and Israel. With increasing international concern from scientists over global warming, the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Japan in 1997 and was subsequently ratified by nearly all countries of the world – with the notable exceptions of the US and its greedy lackey Australia, the world’s worst greenhouse gas producer per head of population.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt">The US Empire strikes back</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The world currently has a population of about 6 billion and key resources are dwindling, notably arable land, forests, major ecosystems, fisheries, fresh water and oil. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The US Empire, its allies or surrogates conducted major military campaigns for world resource domination in East Asia (early 1950s), South East Asia (1950s-1975), Central Asia (1980s-present), the Middle East (1980s-present), Central America (all of the 20th century to the 1990s), South America (all of the 20th century until the 1990s via US-backed régimes), South Asia (backing of Pakistan militarization) and in Africa (since the 1960s via US-backed régimes and US-backed rebels).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The cost of Anglo-American violence and economic hegemony has been horrendous. The impact of mindless, racist Anglo-American greed can be gauged from 2 key parameters: (a) global avoidable mortality and (b) global warming.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt">(a) Avoidable mortality (excess mortality)</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">Avoidable mortality (excess mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, well-administered country with the same demographics. Using United Nations (UN) data, avoidable mortality (technically, excess mortality) has been calculated for every country in the world since 1950. The post-1950 avoidable mortality totals 1.3 billion for the world and 1.2 billion for the non-European world, these figures being consonant with independently-calculated estimates of post-1950 under-5 infant mortality totaling 0.88 billion for the world and 0.85 billion for the non-European world (see: </span>my book "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950", G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: <a href="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/" title="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/">http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/</a>).</span> </p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">In order to make comparisons, it is useful to calculate the “post-1950 avoidable mortality/2005 population” ratio for different countries and regions of the world: 2.7% (for Overseas Europe i.e. the US, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), 5.0% (Western Europe), 7.5 % (Eastern Europe), 9.4% (Latin America and the Caribbean), 10.9% (East Asia), 20.7% (Turkey, Iran and Central Asia), 23.0% (Arab North Africa and Middle East), 25.1% (South East Asia), 27.3% (the Pacific), 31.9% (South Asia) and 43.2% (non-Arab Africa).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The post-1950 avoidable mortality in countries in which the US and its key allies were MAJOR occupiers at some stage in the post-WW2 era is as follows (post-war occupations of Cuba, Germany and Japan excluded): countries occupied by Australia (2.1 million), Belgium (36.0 million), France (142.3 million), Israel (23.9 million), Netherlands (71.6 million), New Zealand (0.04 million), Portugal (23.5 million), Spain (8.6 million), Turkey (0.05 million), UK (727.4 million) and by the US (82.2 million).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The US and its major allies have been complicit in a substantial part of the horrendous, post-1950 Third World Holocaust involving a billion avoidable deaths.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">(b) Global warming</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">Global warming is a reality for an international scientific consensus. According to NASA (2006), 2005 was the warmest year in over a century. </span>Over the past century, the world has warmed by 0.8° C (1.44° F) – however, just over the last 30 years Terra has warmed by 0.6° C (1.08° F) </span><span lang="EN-US">(see: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html">http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/2005_warmest.html</a>). The world is getting warmer with horrendous implications for a crowded planet. James Lovelock in his latest book “The Revenge of Gaia” (Penguin, London, 2006) says that fundamental planetary self-regulating mechanisms have been irreversibly damaged and that the Earth is in for a rough ride in the long term with average temperature set to rise by as much as 8</span>° C <span lang="EN-US">in temperate regions and 5</span>° C <span lang="EN-US">in the tropics over the next century (see: <a href="http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece" rel="nofollow" title="http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece">http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece</a>).</span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">US Empire and its allies - notably its loyal lackey Australia - bear a major responsibility for the developing disaster. Thus in 1999 the tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) <i><span style="font-style:italic">per capita</span></i> were as follows for the following key players: Australia (27.9), Canada (22.2), US (20.7), Ireland (15.6), Netherlands (14.5), New Zealand (14.4) and Denmark (13.6) – with lesser values for Germany (11.6), UK (10.8), Japan (9.6), Italy (9.1), France (8.2), and Russia (7.6) (see: <a href="http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita070802.pdf" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita070802.pdf">http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita070802.pdf</a> and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html">http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/18/1087245110190.html</a>).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The US and Australia are the world’s most profligate greenhouse gas producers but the US still refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocols for greenhouse gas control (Australia signed 10 years too late in 2007). Worse still, both the US and Australia are gagging top climate change scientists. Thus the Bush</span> Administration attempted to gag </span><span lang="EN-US">NASA’s top climate change scientist Dr Hansen, longtime director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (see: <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2006/01/29/1138469606831.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2006/01/29/1138469606831.html">http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2006/01/29/1138469606831.html</a>). Australia is having an economic boom based significantly on coal-based electricity and huge coal exports to the burgeoning China economy. The corporate greenhouse gas producers have an extraordinary political influence in Australia as in the US. Australian authorities have been gagging public servants and indeed the very top Australian climate change scientists (see: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1566257.htm" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1566257.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1566257.htm</a>). </span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The War on Terra has to be won by ordinary humanity or Planet Earth is doomed. What can ordinary people do? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people around the world must (a) inform others to overcome the dominance of lying mainstream media and (b) behave ethically in all their personal and business dealings with the US Empire and its allies.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">Just as Sanctions and Sporting Boycotts were ultimately successful against the Minority White Apartheid régime in South Africa, so these mechanisms can be applied very effectively to other SMALL – and hence vulnerable - players in the system of Anglo-American global hegemony and involved in the War on Terra. SMALL countries such as Denmark and Australia - that are major greenhouse gas polluters, are complicit in the egregious violence of US Empire in Iraq (post-invasion avoidable mortality now 0.5 million) and which violate effective free speech (by effectively blocking any media reportage of horrendous Coalition war crimes against Muslim women and children) – are good candidates for such international action. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US"> </span></span></p> <span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt" lang="EN-US">The <i><span style="font-style:italic">sine qua non</span></i> of the neo-liberal US Empire is “free choice” and the “market place”. Would you buy soap made in Auschwitz? Would you deal in any avoidable way with politically correct racist countries involved in passive mass murder of Terran infants or threatening the very survival of Planet Earth through their War on Terra? <br /></span></span>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-35822529615151729932011-05-31T01:23:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:23:51.225-07:00Bundoora Arabesque<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Bundoora Arabesque</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><b><span style="font-weight:normal"><b>For an image of the huge “Bundoora Arabesque” (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/" rel="nofollow"><span>http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/</span></a> . </span></b></p> <p><b><span style="font-weight:normal">Gideon Polya</span></b><b><span style="font-weight:normal"> , “</span></b><b><span style="font-weight:normal">La Trobe University, “Bundoora Arabesque” And Australian Aboriginal Genocide</span></b><b><span style="font-weight:normal">” Countercurrents, </span></b><span>12 August, 2007: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/-bundoora-arabesque-la-trobe">http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/-bundoora-arabesque-la-trobe</a> <span> </span>and <a href="http://www.countercurrents.org/polya120807.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.countercurrents.org/polya120807.htm</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span>“</span></b><b><span>La Trobe University, “Bundoora Arabesque” And Australian Aboriginal Genocide</span></b><b><span>”</span></b></p> <p><b><span style="font-weight:normal">L</span></b><span>a Trobe University (Bundoora, outer Melbourne, Australia is its main campus) ranks roughly #10 out of Australia’s 40 odd universities. It can boast past or present associations with some outstanding scholars in the areas of bioethics, gay rights, science and human rights. It is named after Charles Joseph La Trobe who was a governor of Victoria in the 19 th century. However La Trobe has an ambivalent history - he was a traveler, mountaineer and writer on the one hand but during his rule the notorious Native Police were involved in the Aboriginal Genocide that delivered the rich agricultural lands of Victoria to European settlers. Indeed this ambiguity is possibly behind a statue of Governor La Trobe at La Trobe University which is UPSIDE DOWN (i.e. head on the ground, feet and plinthe in the air!).</span></p> <p><span>This same dichotomy arises now. I have painted a huge painting (1.3 metre x 2.9 metre) called “Bundoora Arabesque”. </span><b><span style="font-weight:normal"><b>For an image of the huge “Bundoora Arabesque” painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/" rel="nofollow"><span>http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/</span></a> .<br /></span></b></p><p>I <span>am using this Art to inform people around the world about the appalling, ongoing Australian Aboriginal Genocide. In this process of Art versus Genocide I have been doubly inspired by La Trobe University – I have been inspired by the beauty of Bundoora in which it is set and in which I live (Bundoora means “the country kangaroos like” in the Aboriginal language of this region – try to spot them, in the painting!) and by the example of an outstanding La Trobe University academic, Professor Robert Manne, who has led the scholarly fight against right-wing Denial of the Australian Aboriginal Genocide. </span></p> <p><span>Professor Robert Manne of La Trobe University is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals and in recent years he has been particularly forthright and articulate in his defence of Australia’s downtrodden Aboriginal community. One of the world’s and Australia’s leading experts on genocide, Professor Colin Tatz (University of New South Wales, formerly of Macquarie University), has described what happened to Australia’s Indigenous Australians as the Aboriginal Genocide – the Indigenous population fell from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after European invasion (mainly through introduced disease, deprivation and horrendous violence); a policy of forcible Aboriginal child removal (0.1 million “Stolen Children”) continued up to about 1970; Indigenous Australians were not even “counted” or able to vote as Australians until after a referendum in 1967 that permitted the Federal Government to legislate about them; and horrendous Aboriginal Genocide through deprivation and discrimination CONTINUES (9,000 Aborigines die avoidably every year out of a population of 500,000 due to deliberate, sustained Federal and State Government neglect).</span></p> <p><span>Professor Robert Manne has been a leading figure in the so-called Australian “History Wars” in which many Australian scholars have pitted themselves against writers and politicians who claim that there was NO Aboriginal Genocide. Indeed the extreme right-wing, Bush-ite Australian Government refuses to say “sorry” for the past atrocities. A very notable publication is a major academic anthology edited by Professor Robert Manne entitled “Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle's Fabrication of Aboriginal History”, Melbourne, Black Inc, 2003. (for more a detailed list of relevant scholarly comments see "Aboriginal Genocide": </span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/</a> </span><span>). However we live in an Orwellian Age in which “money buys truth” and in which “all the news that’s fit to print” means “fit to print by the corporate Mainstream media” – denial of the Aboriginal Holocaust is alive and well in White Australia.</span></p> <p><span>This has been dramatized by very recent events in Australia. In response to shocking anecdotal reports in 2006 of Aboriginal child sexual abuse in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT), the NT Government set up an expert Inquiry. The subsequent Northern Territory (NT) Report “Little Children are Sacred” concluded that from a QUALITATIVE perspective Aboriginal child sexual abuse IS occurring and this and other serious Aboriginal circumstances must be URGENTLY addressed but sensibly and with community CONSULTATION. </span></p> <p><span>However the Report (p57) states that “it is not possible to accurately estimate the extent of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territory” while DOCUMENTING that 34% of females and 16% of males in Australia as a whole experience child sexual abuse (Dunne, M.P., Purdie, D.M., Cook, M.D., Boyle, F.M. & Najman, J.M.(2003), Is child sexual abuse declining? Evidence from a population-based survey of men and women in Australia, Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 27 (2), pp141-152)<br />(see: <a href="http://www.nt.gov.au/dcm/inquirysaac/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.nt.gov.au/dcm/inquirysaac<br />/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf</a> ). </span></p> <p><span>Yet the Bush-ite Australian Federal, “Coalition” Government and Mainstream media have been commenting extensively and in very strong terms about this without actually knowing about the ACTUAL extent of NT aboriginal child abuse (for all we know it is far LESS than in Australia as a whole).The Government is simply INCORRECT in implying that it knows of the horrific extent of the NT child abuse problem when it does NOT actually know the NUMBERS - just as it was INCORRECT about children overboard (it won the 2001 election by falsely claiming that Muslim refugees had thrown their children into the sea); Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (a falsehood used to “justify” the illegal, war criminal Australian invasion if Iraq); ignoring and denying Australian Wheat Board (AWB) bribes to Saddam Hussein; and denying huge civilian casualties in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths now total over 3.4 million).</span></p> <p><span>Thus there were actually NO children thrown overboard; there were NO WMDs; everybody knew of the need for Iraqi wheat sale bribes from the mid-1990s onwards (the $250 million in Australian bribes diverted from the UN Oil for Food Program are estimated to have killed up to 21,000 Iraqi infants); post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively, and post-invasion under-5 year old infant deaths total 0.5 million and 1.9 million, respectively (largely avoidable and due to war criminal Occupier mass child-abuse in gross violation of the Geneva Convention; see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/</a> ). </span></p> <p><span>The racism and neglect of the Conservative (Coalition) Australian Federal Government has created appalling Aboriginal living conditions. My recent book “Body Count, Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: <a href="http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/">http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/</a> ; copies in major libraries around the world) estimates that the “annual death rate” (2003 figures) is 2.2% (for Aboriginal Australians) and 2.4% (for Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory) – as compared to 0.4% (what it should be for a comparable high birth rate society), 2.5% (for pre-drought sheep in paddocks of Australian sheep farms), 0.7% (for White Australians), 1.7% (non-Arab Africa), 2.6% (Occupied Iraq under-5 year old infants), 6.5% (Occupied Afghanistan under-5 year old infants) and 10% (Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War 2).</span></p> <p><span>This is happening in one of the richest countries of the world because of deliberate and sustained neglect – Australian Aboriginal health services are funded at about 50% of what they should be according to the Commonwealth Grants Commission (2001) report “Report on Indigenous funding” (quoted by a recent and very detailed report on Indigenous Australian Health by N. Thomson et al: “Overview of Indigenous Health, 2004”: <a href="http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/html/html_bulletin/bull_44/reviews/thomson/reviews_thomson_1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/html/html_bulletin/<br />bull_44/reviews/thomson/reviews_thomson_1.htm</a> ). </span></p> <p><span>The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates “total per capita medical expenditure at average exchange rate ($US)” (2004) as $14 (US-UK-Australia-Occupied Afghanistan) and $58 (US-UK-Australia-Occupied Iraq) versus $3,123 (Occupier Australia) (see: http://www.who.int/nha/country/Annex%202.pdf ). With an Indigenous population of about 0.5 million that is funded at roughly the national average (despite huge morbidity and remote location problems) the EXTRA funding required is about US$1.5 billion annually – as compared to the US$0.4 billion now offered, and this largely for Army and bureaucratic personnel and infrastructure.</span></p> <p><span>Let us be clear about what this legislation does and how it grossly violates the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act, International ant-racism conventions and indeed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 (specifically Articles 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 17, 19, 22 and 30; see: <a href="http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html</a> ). Racist White Australia is proposing to grossly abuse the human rights of NT Aboriginals in a racially-specific way. </span></p> <p><span>Thus: NT Aboriginals will be circumscribed about what they can read, see, drink, use, consume and purchase in ways that do NOT apply to White Australians; their welfare payments will be withheld by the Government; they will not be able to litigate to protect themselves – the Racial Discrimination Act is suspended in a racially-specific way; a Permit system, vital for keeping drug- and alcohol-pushers from remote Aboriginal communities will be abolished; NONE of the 97 recommendations of the expert NT Report will be addressed and indeed the key #1 Recommendation of URGENT ACTION WITH CONSULTATION is fundamentally violated; their Land (Sacred to Indigenous Australians) and their Communities will be seized and controlled for years by the Federal Government which currently presides over 9,000 avoidable Aboriginal deaths annually and which still refuses to say “sorry” for the past horrendous Aboriginal Genocide and Ethnocide. Indeed the Aboriginal Genocide continues – it took 90,000 lives in the last 11 years alone of rule of Australia by the Coalition Government.</span></p> <p><span>According to the Australian Human Rights Commission (see: <a href="http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about_the_commission/legislation/index.html#rda" rel="nofollow">http://www.humanrights.gov.au/about_<br />the_commission/legislation/index.html#rda </a>) the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 gives effect to Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Its major objectives are to (1) promote equality before the law for all persons, regardless of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin, and (2) make discrimination against people on the basis of their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin unlawful. </span></p> <p><span>Sanctions and Boycotts were applied successfully against the racist Apartheid régime in South Africa which had an “annual avoidable death rate” of 0.4% overall in 1993 as compared to 2.0% for Northern Territory Aborigines in Australia TODAY. The head of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) says that the Federal Government's legislation for intervention in Northern Territory Indigenous communities could face an international back-lash (see: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000137.htm%20" rel="nofollow">http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/08/2000137.htm </a>).</span></p> <p><span>The Nazis wiped my family from the face of Europe. I am married to a Black Australian. The Jewish Holocaust and the Aboriginal Genocide both instruct that there must be ZERO TOLERANCE FOR RACISM. The racist Bill has already passed the House of Representatives with bi-partisan support – only Senate approval is now needed but the Senate is overwhelmingly dominated by the 2 major parties that support the Bill (only the minority Greens and Democrats oppose the Bill). Australians have been given just a few days to present submissions to a One Day Senate Inquiry into the 500 page NT Intervention Bill and about 70 submissions have been made (for details - my submission is #35 – see: <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/nt_emergency/submissions/sublist.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/<br />legcon_ctte/nt_emergency/submissions/sublist.htm</a> ). I and others have urged all Senators to vote against this Bill – a vote for this Bill is a vote against a non-racist Australia and the international reputation of this country. </span></p> <p><span>The World should be watching. Tell everyone you know about the horrendous, continuing Aboriginal Genocide and the resurgent, bi-partisan-backed, politically correct racist (PC racist) New Racist White Australia. </span></p> <p><b><span style="font-weight:normal">Dr Gideon Polya</span></b><span> published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007).</span></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Also see </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">Gideon Polya, </span></b></i><i><span style="font-style:normal">“</span></i><b>Racism in Australia</b> <b>– </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">La Trobe, “Bundoora Arabesque” & Aboriginal Ethnocide”</span></b></i><i><span style="font-style:normal">, MWC News, </span></i>8 August 2007 (partly cached <span> </span>by Google):<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/-bundoora-arabesque-la-trobe"> http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/-bundoora-arabesque-la-trobe</a> . .</p><p> </p><p><b>For an image of the huge painting </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">“Bundoora Arabesque” (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</span></b></i><i><span style="font-style:normal">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/" rel="nofollow"><span>http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/</span></a> .</span></i></p> <p><b>Racism in Australia – </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">La Trobe, “Bundoora Arabesque” & Aboriginal Ethnocide</span></b></i></p> <p>“<i><span style="font-style:normal">Bundoora Arabesque</span></i>” is a huge 4-seasons abstract expressionist painting that represents an ecumenical and amity-promoting fusion of Islamic, Renaissance Italian and contemporary styles overlaid with abstract expressionist figurative elements reminiscent of Jackson Pollock and of 20,000 year old cave paintings from Europe and Australia. “Bundoora” is my local area and means “the country that kangaroos like” in the Aboriginal language of this region. Indeed I often see kangaroos in the early morning and evening in the local bushland (see if you can spot them as well as local bird life in this complex painting). </p> <p>Bundoora is the Outer Melbourne suburb in which La Trobe University is located. La Trobe ranks about #10 among Australia’s 40 odd universities and some major scholars with international reputations have variously been associated with La Trobe. The university is named after 19th century Victorian governor Charles La Trobe, a traveler, mountaineer and author who is also notorious for setting up the Victorian Native Police who were involved in the Aboriginal Genocide in South East Australia. This ambiguity is reflected in a life-size upside-down statue of La Trobe at La Trobe University in which the head is on the ground and the plinthe in the air.</p> <p>My “<i><span style="font-style:normal">Bundoora Arabesque</span></i>” painting was inspired by the beautiful local area through which I walked frequently some months ago when I was delivering a big theory and practical course to second year science students at La Trobe University. The painting has a quite unintended ”Aboriginal” feel to it in striking support of Australian feminist guru Germaine Greer’s idea that European Australians have become unwittingly imbued with love of land that is so intrinsic to Indigenous (Aboriginal ) Australian culture. </p> <p>Unfortunately completion of this huge (1.3 x 2.9 metre) painting has coincided with the appalling MILITARY invasion of Aboriginal communities in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) by the extreme right-wing, Bush-ite Australian Federal Government. The “excuse” was an expert NT Report “Little Children are Sacred” that detailed huge problems of alcohol, violence and poverty in NT Aboriginal communities. However the media and right-wing politicians have run with the revelations of appalling NT Aboriginal child sexual abuse that provided the climate for the Federal Government “invasion” of isolated NT aboriginal communities using soldiers in camouflage dress. </p> <p>This has now culminated in passage of a 500-page Bill (with cowardly Labor Opposition support) that allows for racially-specific expropriation of NT Aboriginal land; race-based constraints on what Aborigines can read, see, drink, consume and purchase; and race-based withholding of NT Aboriginal social welfare payments. </p> <p>This Bill involves breaching the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act 1975 that (among other things) stopped Federal violation of Aboriginal Australians who had suffered 2 centuries of what genocide experts call the Aboriginal Genocide. The Indigenous population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century of European colonization; the 20th century saw the forcible removal of 0.1 million Aboriginal children from their mothers; and indeed Aborigines were only finally “counted” as Australians after a Referendum in 1967. Their long struggle to regain Land Rights has been compounded by conservative opposition and horrendous living conditions in one of the richest countries in the world.</p> <p>According to the Australian Human Rights, the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 gives effect to Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Its major objectives are to (1) promote equality before the law for all persons, regardless of their race, colour or national or ethnic origin, and (2) make discrimination against people on the basis of their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin unlawful.</p> <p>The obscenely-rushed racist legislation prompted an Editorial in the liberal conservative Melbourne newspaper The Age entitled” “Legislate in haste, PM, and you may repent in leisure” (Wednesday 8th August, 2007; <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">links to the Age</a>.)</p> <p>This editorial goes on to observe that the Opposition only had 24 hours to peruse the 500-page Bill; that the Federal Government will be seizing control of 73 NT Aboriginal communities; the Bill fails to adopt any of the 97 recommendations of the NT Report “Little Children are Sacred” which provided the ostensible excuse for the Federal Government action; and that cost will be A$587 million for the first year of operation. </p> <p>The militant, extremist, extreme right wing, Federal Australian Government already weeks ago sent soldiers in battle dress camouflage into NT Aboriginal communities. Now with cowardly and unprincipled Opposition support it has brought in profoundly dangerous and offensive racially-discriminatory legislation that grossly violates Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act 1975 that gave effect to Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and which formally ended 2 centuries of race-based discrimination underlying the Aboriginal Genocide. </p> <p>This is happening in one of the richest countries of the world because of deliberate and sustained neglect – Australian Aboriginal health services are funded at about 50% of what they should be according to the Commonwealth Grants Commission (2001) report “Report on Indigenous funding” (quoted by a recent and very detailed report on Indigenous Australian Health by N. Thomson et al: “Overview of Indigenous Health, 2004”). </p> <p>The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates “total per capita medical expenditure at average exchange rate ($US)” (2004) as $14 (US-UK-Australia-Occupied Afghanistan), $58 (US-UK-Australia-Occupied Iraq) versus $3,123 (Occupier Australia)</p> <p>With an Indigenous population of about 0.5 million that is funded at roughly the national average (despite huge morbidity and remote location problems) the extra funding required is about US$1.5 billion annually – as compared to the US$0.4 billion now offered, and this largely for Army and bureaucratic personnel and infrastructure…</p><br /><p> </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-41709892539608432062011-05-31T01:22:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:22:59.635-07:00Bundoora Eucalyptus<table id="sites-chrome-main" class="sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td id="sites-chrome-sidebar-left" class="sites-layout-sidebar-left"><div id="COMP_2bd" class="sites-embed"><div class="sites-embed-content sites-sidebar-nav "><ul><li class="nav-first"><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"> </div><br /></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/alhambra-pollock" class="sites-navigation-link">Alhambra Pollock</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/apocalypse-now" class="sites-navigation-link">Apocalypse Now</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/bundoora-arabesque" class="sites-navigation-link">Bundoora Arabesque</a> </div></li><li class=""><div class="current-bg" dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;">Bundoora Eucalyptus </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/civilization-aka-genes-and-memes" class="sites-navigation-link">Civilization (aka Genes and Memes)</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/clean-energy-world" class="sites-navigation-link">Clean Energy World</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/darebin-wetlands" class="sites-navigation-link">Darebin Wetlands</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/deep-mind" class="sites-navigation-link">Deep Mind</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-1" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 1</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-2" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 2</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-3" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 3</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-4" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 4</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/four-seasons" class="sites-navigation-link">Four Seasons</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/isfahan-matisse" class="sites-navigation-link">Isfahan Matisse</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/jeruslem-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Jerusalem Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/manhattan-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Manhattan Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/melbourne-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Melbourne Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/my-country" class="sites-navigation-link">My Country</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/one-day-pathetique" class="sites-navigation-link">One Day Pathétique</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/qana" class="sites-navigation-link">Qana</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/rosanna-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Rosanna Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sacred-profane-real-da-vinci-code-exposed" class="sites-navigation-link">SACRED & PROFANE - REAL DA VINCI CODE EXPOSED</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/scheherazade" class="sites-navigation-link">Scheherazade</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/seymour-bushland" class="sites-navigation-link">Seymour Bushland</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/swan-lake" class="sites-navigation-link">Swan Lake</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sydney-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Sydney Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/terra" class="sites-navigation-link">Terra</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/truelove" class="sites-navigation-link">Truelove</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/truth-beauty-saving-the-world" class="sites-navigation-link">Truth, Beauty & Saving the World - Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/wilson-s-promontory" class="sites-navigation-link">Wilson's Promontory</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy" class="sites-navigation-link">Sitemap</a> </div></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="sites-clear"> <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/admin/appearance/pageElements" rel="nofollow" class="sites-system-link sites-edit-sidebar-link">Edit sidebar</a> </div> </td> <td id="sites-canvas-wrapper"> <div id="sites-canvas"> <div id="goog-ws-editor-toolbar-container"> </div> <div id="title-crumbs" style=""> </div> <h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Bundoora Eucalyptus</span> </h3> <div id="sites-canvas-main" class="sites-canvas-main"> <div id="sites-canvas-main-content"> <table class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1"><div dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, </span>“Australia’s Secret Genocide History. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” & Black Crimes of White Australia”, MWC News, 30 April 2008.</p> <p> </p> <p><b>For an image of the huge “Bundoora Eucalyptus” painting <span> </span>see:</b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4318154968/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4318154968/</a> .</p> <p> </p> <p>Revised and updated, 2010.</p> <p> </p> <p><b>Australia</b><b>’s Secret Genocide History. La Trobe, “Bundoora Eucalyptus” & Black Crimes of White Australia. </b></p> <p> </p> <p>La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne is one of Australia’s top dozen universities with particular expertise in paramedical training and an excellent reputation for research and teaching in the humanities and biological sciences in particular. The main campus is set in beautiful bushland about 20 kilometers north of Melbourne at Bundoora. Bundoora means “the country kangaroos like” in the local Indigenous Australian Wurrundjeri language and indeed one can often see kangaroos grazing and hopping about in the outskirts of La Trobe University in the evening and early morning. </p> <p> </p> <p>La Trobe University is named after a former Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801-1875), who administered the colony of Victoria from 1839-1854. However there are 2 sides to this man that reflect a continuing dichotomy of good and evil in Australia as a whole. Thus Charles La Trobe was a gentle, cultured man and a mountaineer, adventurer and writer. However he was a poor administrator and his rule over the British colony of Victoria was associated with 2 major failures: (1) the Eureka Stockade rebellion of gold miners that was brutally put down by British soldiers and (2) the expansion of the Aboriginal Genocide with ethnic cleansing of Indigenous (Aboriginal) people involving the notorious Native Police set up under La Trobe. This paradoxical good/evil duality is perhaps behind the statue of Charles La Trobe at La Trobe University that is exhibited standing on its head! </p> <p> </p> <p>The beautiful La Trobe Bundoora landscape with its wonderful gum trees (Eucalyptus species), birds and kangaroos is the inspiration for my huge (1.3 metres x 2.9 metres) “Bundoora Eucalyptus” painting which also illustrates the dark/light, good/evil dichotomy of Charles La Trobe and of Australia as a whole. On the one hand Australia is a prosperous, educated, democratic society that was one of the first countries to have women’s suffrage, trade unions, and compulsory State-provided education. On the other hand, Australia has a shocking secret history of involvement in appalling genocides that continues to this day. Thus in 2008 Australia is involved in Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide.</p> <p> </p> <p>Before going further it must be clearly stated that the term “Genocide” used here is “Genocide” as precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: <a href="http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html" title="http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html</a> ): “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Further, in assessing deaths from particular policies of invasion, occupation and dispossession one notes that deaths can be violent (from bombs and bullets) or non-violent (from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease). Both kinds of avoidable death (death that should not have happened) are included within the term “excess death” used below (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007).</p> <p> </p> <p style="text-align:justify">The following catalogue of Australian involvement in Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention – and notably in British- and American-imposed genocides - is given below in roughly chronological order from 1788 (the year of European Invasion and First Settlement) to 2008. A key reference is my book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”; other relevant books are Chalk, F. and Jonassohn, K. (1990), <i>The History and Sociology of Genocide. Analyses and Case Studies</i> (Yale University Press, New Haven & London); Tatz, C. (2003), <i>With Intent to Destroy. Reflecting on Genocide</i> (Verso, London); and Blum, W. (2006), <i>Rogue</i><i> State, A guide to the world’s only superpower</i> (Zed Books, London)).</p> <p>.</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">1. 18th-19th century Aboriginal Genocide (the Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">2. Tasmanian Aboriginal Genocide (the “full-blood” Indigenous population dropped from 6,000 to zero in 1803-1776; however there are several thousand “mixed race” decendants of Tasmanian and Mainland Aborigines still living in Tasmania today).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt"><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">3. British Indian Genocide</span></strong> (post-invasion excess deaths 0.6 BILLION, 1757-1837; 0.5 BILLION, 1837-1901 under Queen Victoria; 0.4 BILLION, 1901-1947.</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">4. European Chinese Genocide (10-100 million deaths in the European imperialism-driven Tai Ping rebellion period; Australia was involved in suppressing the Boxer rebellion).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">5. Maori Genocide (Maori population dropped from 0.1-0.2 million in 1800 to 42,000 in 1893; Australia was involved in the 19th century Maori wars).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">6. African Genocide (scores of million perished over 5 centuries of European slavery and colonialism; Australians participated in the Sudan War, 1881-1898).</p> <p>7. Pacific Genocide (there was a catastrophic population decline due to introduced disease and slavery; thus 40,000 Fijians died from measles out of a population of 150,000 in 1876; “blackbirding” slavery was conducted by Australians in the late 19th century).</p> <p> </p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">8. Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide (1899-1902; 28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps; Australians participated in the Boer War as immortalized in the movie “Breaker Morant”).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">9. Armenian Genocide (1.5 million killed; the Australian invasion of Gallipoli as part of an Anglo-French force in 1915 helped to precipitate this atrocity; indeed April 24 is Armenian Genocide Day and April 25 is the day of the Australia invasion in 1915 and also a sacred war dead remembrance day for Australians and New Zealanders – it is called Anzac Day after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) which stormed ashore on that first Anzac Day at Gallipoli in 1915).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt"><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">10. Bengali Genocide</span></strong> (6-7 million perished in the “forgotten” man-made Bengal Famine atrocity in Bengal and adjoining provinces in British India, 1943-1945; Australians were there and indeed the Governor of Bengal in 1944 was an Australian, R.G. Casey: <a href="http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html" title="http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html</a> ).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt"><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">11. British post-1950 Third World Genocide</span> </strong>(1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to British occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 727 million; Australia has the same Head of State as the UK and continues to be a loyal military ally of the UK in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan).</p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">12. US post-1950 Third World Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to US occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era totalled 82 million; Australia participated in all post-1950 US Asian Wars in Korea, Indo-China, Iraq and Afghanistan with Indigenous Asian excess deaths now totalling 25 million). </p> <p style="margin-bottom:12pt">13. Australian Colonial Genocide (1950-2005 excess deaths in countries subject to Australian occupation as a major occupier in the post-war era, namely Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands totalled 2.1 million).</p> <p>14. 20th century Aboriginal Genocide (total excess deaths clearly of the order of 1million; 0.1 million Stolen Generations Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their Mothers in the 19th and 20th centuries; excess deaths in the 11 years of the Bush-ite Coalition Government totalled 90,000 for 1996-2007). </p> <p>The following Australian genocide involvements in this catalogue of horrors are ON-GOING.</p> <p>15. Palestinian Genocide (post-1967 excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million and 7 million refugees; with bi-partisan agreement Australia provides diplomatic, financial and haven support for Israeli state terrorism – even when directed against tens of thousands of Australian citizens as in Lebanon in mid-2006 - and up to life imprisonment for anyone giving support to the Hamas Party that overwhelmingly won the 2006 Occupied Palestinian elections).</p> <p>16. Iraqi Genocide (4.4 million excess deaths 1990-2010; 2.5 million post-invasion excess deaths, 0.9 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths and 5-6 million refugees; Australia militarily involved since 1990(as of December 2009).</p> <p><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">17. Afghan Genocide</span></strong> (3-7 million post-invasion excess deaths, 2.3 million post-invasion under-5 infant and 4 million refugees; Australia involved militarily since 2001).</p> <p>18. Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually; 90,000 excess deaths in the last 11 years of Bush-ite Coalition rule).</p> <p><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">19. Biofuel Genocide</span></strong> (16 million die avoidably each year but this is increasingly biofuel-impacted as the legislatively-mandated US, UK and EU biofuel perversion forces up global food prices; Australia is a major sugar cane grower and sugar exporter with 60% of sugar going to bioethanol production worldwide; Australia has biofuel-promoting legislation and is a major canola grower, this being a major source for biodiesel ).</p> <p><strong><span style="font-weight:normal">20. Climate Genocide</span></strong> (16 million die avoidably each year ALREADY from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that over 6 billion will perish this century die to unaddressed climate change; on a per capita basis Australia is among the very worst greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters – in terms of 2004 figures for “fossil fuel-derived annual per capita CO2 pollution” Australia is <strong><span style="font-weight:normal">about 40 times worse than INDIA and 160 times worse than Bangladesh</span></strong> if you include Australia’s world number 1 coal exports).</p> <p>Yet politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia steadfastly “looks the other way” and its past and present involvements in the above atrocities are overwhelmingly NOT reported by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring Mainstream media NOR taught in Australia’s schools and universities. PC racist White Australia just cannot see the “Elephant in the room” – its continuing involvement in over 2 centuries of horrendous genocide. </p> <p>Australians are trapped in an Orwellian dream - Australia will only stop doing it when it is INFORMED that it is doing it. Please inform everyone you can. </p> </div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-41685393785631911342011-05-31T01:21:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:22:14.121-07:00Civilization (aka Genes and Memes)<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Civilization (aka Genes and Memes)</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><em><span style="font-style:normal">Gideon Polya, “State Terrorism -"Genes and Memes" or “Civilization” Painting & the New Barbarism”:, MWC News, </span></em>16 November 2007.</p> <p>For an image of the huge “Civilization” (aka “Genes and Memes”) painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096920/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096920/</a> . </p> <p><em><b><span style="font-style:normal">State Terrorism -"Genes and Memes" or “Civilization” Painting & the New Barbarism</span></b></em></p> <p>Man's behaviour has evolved through two major mechanisms, the Darwinian natural selection of particular Genes (DNA-based alleles or gene variants) and the non-genetic selection and social transmission of Memes (socially-transmitted ideas and behaviours). </p> <p>For a seminal account of this dual Genetic and Memetic transmission of behaviour determinants (e.g. for altruism) see Professor Richard Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene" (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976).</p> <p>To illustrate this dichotomy I have painted a huge painting called “Civilization” or "Genes and Memes", of which more later. In short, running through the painting are images of the DNA double helix (the molecular basis of our genes) and of the Memetic evolution of human behaviour from first steps and thence animalistic abandon to violent warfare and thence introspective consciousness of, for example, the nakedness of Ourselves and of Others. </p> <p>Darwinian selection at the genetic level involves mutation yielding variant forms of particular genes (alleles). If particular gene variants (alleles) confer a "selective advantage" for survival to reproduction age then "Nature red in tooth and claw" ensures the evolutionary selection of such genes. Thus alleles contributing to human altruism towards infants will be selected for if such altruism promotes survival of the carriers to reproductive age. This sort of evolution is at the level of Genes that are constructed chemically of DNA molecules. </p> <p>In contrast, human behaviour can be selected for by non-genetic mechanisms involving the social selection of ideas or behaviours (Memes) that contribute to societal survival. Thus ideas such as "thou shalt not kill" and "love thy neighbour as thyself" are very useful socially and minimize internecine strife. Such Memetic selection of human behaviour is clearly very important.</p> <p>However whether it is hard-wired, DNA-based, gene-based altruism or the brotherly love Memes that are passed to us orally or in the written word, there is a tussle between greed and self-preservation on the one hand (our most basic animal instincts) and genetic or memetic altruism on the other. Further, when it comes to altruism in primates the care we offer to others diminishes markedly as we go from our immediate family group to more distant social groupings. </p> <p>Thus our close cousins the chimpanzees (with 99% genetic identity ourselves) show great altruism towards their infants and other members of their tribe but can commit horrendous atrocities on "foreign" chimpanzee interlopers (e.g. pulling off their arms and legs and leaving them to die as a dire warning to others straying into the tribal territory).</p> <p>We see this same decline in human altruism as we go from family to distant foreigners. Thus I have recently published a huge book entitled "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950" (G.M. Polya, Melbourne) that details the terrible impact of "foreign occupation" or "foreign hegemony" on excess deaths (avoidable deaths, avoidable mortality, deaths that should not have happened) in subjugated countries. </p> <p>When we consider 1950-2005 excess mortality in the world it steadily increases as we go from the "best case" countries of Overseas Europe (the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel - countries that have never been invaded but which have a sustained and continuing record of invading and occupying other countries) to the "worst case" countries (that have typically never invaded and occupied other countries but which have been subject to centuries of brutal and often genocidal violence from European countries or Japan).</p> <p>Without being immersed in the detailed history, the modestly informed general reader can see this for himself/herself by considering the RATIO of 1950-2005 excess deaths to the 2005 population expressed as a percentage (%) for the major regions of the world, from "good outcome" to "worst outcome": Overseas Europe (2.7%), Western Europe (5.0%), Eastern Europe (7.6%), Latin America and Caribbean (9.4%), East Asia (10.9%), Central Asia Iran and Turkey (20.7%), Arab North Africa and Middle East (23.0%), South East Asian (25.1%), Pacific islands (27.3%), South Asia (31.9%), and Non-Arab Africa (43.2%).</p> <p>Formally non-racist, typically highly educated, prosperous, ostensibly "democratic" and free speech-observant Western countries have a moral blind spot about what they have done to Indigenous people of occupied countries in the past and indeed what they are doing at this very moment. </p> <p>This selective amnesia is best illustrated by Western understanding of World War 2 atrocities. Thus Westerners are universally aware of the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) but are much less aware of the Holocaust in general in Eastern Europe (some 30 million Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Polish, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Bosnian and Slovakian victims) or of the horrendous Japanese crimes in China (35 million Chinese war dead). </p> <p>Perhaps only 1% of Westerners in my experience as a lecturer on the subject are even aware of the World War 2 Bengali Holocaust, the man-made Bengal Famine in British India (4 million victims; associated with horrendous sexual abuse of starving women and girls and a 1940s Bengal demographic deficit of over 10 million; possibly due to a deliberate British "scorched earth policy" to forestall Japanese invasion from Burma; and , of course, almost completely rubbed out of British history and from general public perception) (see my book "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability":</p> <p>Similarly, Western countries complicit in the horrendous, ongoing US and Apartheid Israel Asian wars have populations that - thanks to lying, racist Mainstream media, academics and politicians - are generally unaware of the horrendous human cost of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 2.0 million and 6.0 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees totaling 7 million, 4 million and 3.7 million, respectively).</p> <p>While Westerners generally appreciated the importance of national independence and self-determination in the 1970s, this anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist position has been steadily eroded by the example of Apartheid Israel's abusive confinement of (presently 4 million) Occupied Palestinians in an increasingly abusive Concentration Camp for over 40 years and the poisonous virulence of the traitorous Racist Zionist (RZ) Lobbies who cry "anti-semitism" when any decent anti-racist humanitarian Jew or non-Jew voices any objection. Indeed the once-liberal, post-Enlightenment West has now degenerated to a horrible Mainstream position of horrendous holocaust commission under the aegis of US State Terrorism jn a swathe of countries including Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.</p> <p>This Western holocaust commission and genocide commission is coupled with holocaust denial, holocaust ignoring, genocide denial and genocide denial. We have indeed entered into a New Barbarism informed by and exampled by racist, genocidal US State Terrorism (USST), UK-US State terrorism (UKUSST), Israeli State Terrorism (ISST) and US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST).</p> <p>"Memes and Genes" sums up where we have come to in the Genetic and Memetic Evolution of Man's Sense and Sensibility. This HUGE acrylic painting (1.3 meters x 2.9 meters) has a central DNA double helix motif indicative of the genetic hard-wiring evolution of Genes. However a 4 seasons motif indicative of Youth (Spring), Maturation (Summer), Acquisition (Autumn) and Introspection (Winter) illustrates (albeit somewhat disingenuously) our Memetic Evolution through successive stages of Arising (Youth), Wild Abandon (Maturation), Violence (War and Acquisition) and Consciousness of our Nakedness and that of Others (a metaphor for the empathic introspection of Ourselves and of the Other that is required of decent, civilized Humanity according to News' wonderful correspondent Professor Walter Davis in his book "Death's Dream Kingdom. </p> <p>Unfortunately the Humanitarian Nirvana promised by the 18th century European Enlightenment (and indeed achieved domestically in many prosperous countries) has been reversed by the horrendous violence of the Racist Zionists and Racist Bush-ites in recent decades. A simple Google Search today on the Web reveals 163,000 hits for the obscene phrase "nuke Iran" and 675,000 URLs for the phrase "bomb Iran" – Iran being a peaceful, remote, democratic, NPT-signatory , NPT-observant, IAEA-complicit, anti-racism and anti-nuclear weapons country of 70 million people, half of them Children and three quarters of them Women and Children. </p> <p>What happened to the Memes "thou shalt not kill Children" and "thou shalt not kill Women" or indeed "thou shalt not kill?" Do not despair – spread the message of hope, of zero tolerance for racism and violence. Perhaps this glowing painting "Genes and Memes" - involving a conflation of Medieval Islamic, Renaissance Christian, ancient Indigenous cultures and modern Abstract Expressionism traditions or "Memes" - can help achieve Peace and Amity where words have failed. Help spread this Meme for Love and Peace and link this "Genes and Memes" image to everyone you can. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-24251020289315715912011-05-31T01:20:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:21:19.794-07:00Clean Energy World<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Clean Energy World</span> </h3> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, "“Clean Energy World” Painting. NASA’s Dr Hansen Pleads for NEGATIVE CO<sub>2</sub> Emissions”, MWC News, 9 June 2008.</span></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For image of “Clean Energy World” Painting</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: </span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290160934/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290160934/</a> .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">“Clean Energy World” Painting. NASA’s Dr Hansen Pleads for NEGATIVE CO<sub>2</sub> Emissions</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen has written a letter to the newly-elected PM of Australia, Mr Kevin Rudd, urging global cessation of net carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) pollution (letter dated 27 March 2008: <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf</a> ). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Before summarizing what Dr Hansen said it is useful to summarize who Dr Hansen is: he is Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute, New York; he is a member of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences; and he has received numerous awards including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) </span></span>2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (see: <a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-092.asp" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-092.asp">http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-19-092.asp</a> ) and the World Wildlife Fund’s Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal from Prince Philip. <span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">In addition to citing the latest scientific take on the “looming climate crisis” facing the world in a detailed attachment entitled “Fossil Fuel Facts”, Dr Hansen gave the following unequivocal message to Australian PM Rudd: </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">“The conclusion that net carbon emissions must be cut to a fraction of current emissions must be stunning and sobering to policy makers. Yet the science is unambiguous: if we burn most of the fossil fuels, releasing the CO<sub>2</sub> to the air, we will assuredly destroy much of the fabric of life on the planet. Achievement of required near-zero net emissions by mid-century implies a track with substantial cuts of emissions by 2020. Aggressive short-term fostering of energy efficiency and climate friendly technologies is imperative for mitigation of the looming climate crisis and optimization of the economic pathway to the eventual clean-energy world.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">And as for the “science is unambiguous”, Dr Hansen provides the following sobering summary: “Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Indeed in a paper written by Dr Hansen and 8 other climate science colleagues variously from the US, France and the UK (see: <a href="http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf" rel="nofollow" title="http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf">http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf</a> ) the summary states that “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that [atmospheric] CO<sub>2</sub> will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm”.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Dr Hansen provided a summary Appendix in his letter to PM Rudd entitled “Basic Fossil Fuel Facts” and I have provided below a Summary of the 6 Figures provided in that Appendix together with the obvious major conclusions from the data [my own additions are in square brackets]. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 1</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> shows that it takes a long time for atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> to be dissipated - even after a century 33% of the CO<sub>2</sub> is still in the air and 20% is still in the atmosphere after 1,000 years. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: CO<sub>2</sub> pollution has long-term consequences even after zero emissions is attained i.e. the sooner and better we act the better.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 2</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> has 2 pie charts, (a) showing that of today’s CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, 39% come from coal, 42% from oil and 19% from gas and (b) that of the CO<sub>2</sub> in the air today 50% has come from coal, 37% from oil and 13% from gas. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: coal, oil and gas are the overwhelmingly major sources of CO<sub>2</sub> pollution and zero emissions means cessation of the burning of these fossil fuels [noting that clean energy substitutes for electricity, heating and transport are technically available now at costs per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity of less than the “true cost” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">of electricity of fossil fuel burning: <a href="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/" title="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/">http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/</a> ].</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 3</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> summarizes estimates of the world fossil fuel reserves, specifically of oil, gas, coal and other sources (methane hydrates, shale and tar sands). Proven reserves (in Gt or billions of tons of carbon) are about 270 for coal (about 110 already used); 120 for gas (20 used already); 1220 for coal (with 140 used already); and perhaps 1200 for methane hydrates, shale oil and tar sands. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: Avoiding dangerous atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> levels requires long term curtailing of coal burning, coal being overwhelmingly the greatest future source of CO<sub>2</sub> of those sources being currently used. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 4(a)</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> is a pie chart showing the breakdown of “2006 World annual fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions”:19.5% (the US), 19.5% (China), 5.3% (Russia), 4.9% (India), 4.1% (Japan), 2.6% (Germany), 1.9% (the UK), 12.1% (the rest of Europe) and 21.7% (the rest of the World), 3.2 % (Canada and Australia) and 5.2% (ships and air transport). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 4(b)</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> is a pie chart showing the breakdown of the “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions”: 27.5% (the US), 8.2% (China), 7.4% (Russia), 6.6% (Germany), 6.0% (the UK), 3.9% (Japan), 2.5% (India), 18.0% (rest of Europe), 3.1% (Canada and Australia) and 4% (ships and air transport). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">[The 2005 populations of these countries or regions are (in millions): 300.0 (the US), 1,322.3 (China), 141.6 (Russia), 1,096.9 (India), 127.9 (Japan), 82.6 (Germany), 59.6 (the UK), 32.0 (Canada), 20.1 (Australia), 464.0 (rest of Europe), 1,100 (Europe and Overseas Europe), 5,350 (the non-European World), and 6,450 (the whole World)].</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: Ignoring their ship and air travel contributions, of the countries and regions listed, the major industrial countries listed (including Europe, Japan, India and China) are overwhelmingly responsible for about 78% of “2006 world annual fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions”; European countries are responsible for 44.6% and Anglo countries (the US, the UK, Canada and Australia) are responsible for 24.5% of annual fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions [while having only 6.4% of the world’s population; 2005 data]. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Ignoring their ship and air travel contributions, of the countries and regions listed, the major industrial countries (including the rest of Europe, Japan, India and China) are overwhelmingly responsible for about 87% the “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO2 emissions”; European countries are responsible for 81.8% and Anglo countries (Anglo countries (the US, the UK, Canada and Australia) are responsible for 36.6% the “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2 </sub>emissions” [while having 6.4% of the world’s population; 2005 data].</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 5 (a)</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> lists the “2006 annual per capita fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions” (in tons of Carbon per person per year) for the major polluters as bar graphs; 5.5 (the US), 1.3 (China), 0.4 (India), 3.1 (Russia), 2.7 (Japan), 2.7 (Germany), 5.4 (Canada), 2.2 (the UK). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">[Multiplying by a 3.73 correction factor yields the same 2006 data in “tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person per year”: 20.5 (the US), 4.8 (China), 1.5 (India), 11.6 (Russia), 10.1 (Japan), 10.1 (Germany), 20.1. (Canada), 8.2 (the UK), 4.9 (the World, as estimated using data from Figure 4) - and 20.2 for Australia using US Energy Information Administration (US EIA) data. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">By way of corroboration, using US Energy Information Administration data for 2004 and UN Population Division 2005 population data we get the following estimates for 2004 of “tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person per year”: 19.7 (the US), 3.6 (China), 11.9 (Russia), 9.9 (Japan), 10.4 (Germany), 18.4 (Canada), 9.7 (the UK), 4.2 (the World) and 19.2 (Australia).]</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: the annual contribution from China is still below the World average “annual per capita CO<sub>2</sub> emissions” and that of India is over 3 times lower than the World average. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 5 (b)</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> lists the “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2 </sub>emissions” in tons carbon per person” based on the 2006 population data: 305 (the US), 20 (China), 170 (Russia), 265 (Germany), 330 (the UK), 100 (Japan), 5 (India) and 210 (Canada).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">[Multiplying by a 3.73 correction factor yields the same “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2 </sub>emissions” data in “tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person”: 1,138 (the US), 75 (China), 634 (Russia), 988 (Germany), 1,231 (the UK), 373 (Japan), 20 (India), 783 (Canada) - and the figures for Australia and the World are 660 and 192, respectively as estimated below.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Using data in Figures 4 and 5 and assuming a world population of 6,450 million (2005), one can estimate the “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions” in tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person as 1,241,100 Mt/6,450 million persons = 192 tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person. The figure for Australia and the World just for 1900-1999 and dividing by the 2005 population are 10,026 Gt/20.1 million = 499 and 933,686 Gt/6,450 million = 145, respectively. Proportionality, noting Australia’s constant rate of increase in fossil fuel usage over the last quarter century, indicates a “1751-2006 cumulative fossil fuel CO<sub>2 </sub>emissions” figure for Australia of about 660 tonnes CO<sub>2</sub> per person.]</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: the historical per capita contribution of CO<sub>2</sub> pollution by China and India [noting the devastation of these countries by European colonialism from the 18th century onwards: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” , G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/</a> ) is well below the World average and negligible compared to that of the US, Russia, Germany, the UK, Canada and Australia. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Figure 6</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> plots the ratio of “observed atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> increase” to “fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> emissions” as an “annual mean” (very noisy), a “7 year mean” (a much less noisy wobbly line) and a “1958-2006 mean” (a straight line) over the period 1950-2006. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Message: on average over the last 60 years, the increase in CO<sub>2</sub> in the atmosphere has been 57% of the fossil fuel emissions – 43% of the fossil fuel emissions has been taken up by the ocean, soil and biosphere [however the Great Southern Ocean recently ceased to be a net CO<sub>2</sub> absorber; current agricultural practices militate against carbon storage in soil; global warming threatens ocean phytoplankton crucial to ocean life and cloud formation; and major deforestation also limits biosphere CO<sub>2 </sub>sequestration, and contributes about 18% of annual greenhouse gas pollution].</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Summary</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Dr Hansen pragmatically appreciates the enormous weight of the present carbon-based energy economy and argues that Governments must urgently recognize the dominant place of coal in the current and “business as usual” energy mix. He suggests phasing out of coal use that does not capture emitted CO<sub>2</sub> coupled with appropriate pricing of fossil fuels to drive the uptake of requisite renewable and clean-energy technologies.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Dr Hansen concludes his summary for the PM of Australia with the following comment: “Perhaps the most important question is this: can we find the leadership to initiate the tipping point among nations? Can we find a country that will place a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants unless they capture and store CO<sub>2</sub>? Unless this happens soon, there is little hope of avoiding the climate tipping points, with all that implies for the planet.” </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Unfortunately Dr Hansen’s plea to Australia via its extreme right wing, Bush-ite Prime Minister Rudd will have fallen on deaf ears. Coal is King in climate criminal Australia. The Rudd Labor Government came to power at the end of 2007 with the promise to continue Australia’s world leading coal exports and to merely reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution by “60% by 2050” – a promise that simply means that, with Australia’s world-leading coal exports included, the projected “annual per capita fossil fuel CO<sub>2</sub> pollution” will actually INCREASE from a 2007 value of 43 tonnes per person per year to 65 tonnes per person per year. Indeed Australia helped the US to sabotage the December 2007 Bali Climate Change Conference; is spending BIG on expanding coal export facilities; and at the recent “Australia 2020 Summit”, a Government-sponsored talk-fest involving 1,000 selected “brightest and best” of Australia to chart Australia’s future, the Climate Change sub-Section refused to even use the term “renewable energy”.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">The only thing that remorseless, climate criminal countries like Australia will understand are Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands. Indeed I have made a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australia’s evidently resolute commitment to a Climate Genocide involving the likely death of over 6 billion people this century due to unaddressed global warming, according to Professor James Lovelock FRS (see: <a href="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/" title="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/">http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/</a> ). Sanctions were successful against Apartheid South Africa for denying “one-man-one-vote” to South Africa’s African and Asian citizens – they are surely warranted for a small, politically correct racist (PC racist) country that is selfishly hell bent on devastating the whole planet. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Poor fellow my Planet. <br /></span></span></p>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-74098610264158802662011-05-31T01:19:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:20:17.888-07:00Darebin Wetlands<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Darebin Wetlands</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>The La Trobe University wetlands feed the Darebin Creek that eventually makes its way to the Yarra River near Alphington, Melbourne. There is great wildlife (swans, ducks, coots, swamp hens, tiger snakes, river red gums, wattle, white and black cockatoos, kookaburras, magpies, peewees, hawks). The painting “Darenbin Wetlands” (<b>for image </b>see: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3728855991/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3728855991/</a> ) with extraordinarily anthropomorphic dead red gums (Darebin wetlands, La Trobe University, Bundoora) is in acrylic on canvas board (22 inch x 30 inch = 55.9 cm x 76.2 cm) and has a classical, Fibonacci Sequence-implicit, Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website.</p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-51306037313292832902011-05-31T01:18:00.002-07:002011-05-31T01:19:34.244-07:00Deep Mind<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Deep Mind</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">"For an image of “Deep Mind” painting see:</span></span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/" rel="nofollow"> http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/</a> </span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>Gideon Polya,</b> </span></span><b>"Humanism, Science, Art & Love – "Deep Mind" painting", MWCNews, 6 November 2007.</b> </p> <p><b>“Deep Mind” is a huge painting that explores the World Within, the Mind, and prompts questions such as What are we? Who are we? Why are we here? How do we balance and control the dichotomies within us of light/dark, human/animal, good/bad, peace/passion, joy/anger, love/hate, altruism/greed?</b> </p> <p>This indeed is an ambitious painting, my first attempt in Art to address the big question about Life, the Universe and Everything (the answer to which according to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is simply “42”). I have painted a further version but a Loved One who is my most trenchant critic says that she loves this later version but it looks better rotated 90 degrees - perhaps after 42 attempts (hard work painting huge paintings this size!) I will find the Answer. </p> <p>This reminds me of the Buddhist parable about an illiterate peasant who asks the Master: “I am just an ordinary Man, I toil hard for a living, I am untutored and I do not know how to read – how can I find the Answer?” The Master replies “Take a bag of rice on your back and climb to the top of the Mountain and you will find the Truth”. The peasant does as he is instructed, climbs the Mountain and finally reaches the top, casts down the bag of rice and takes in the enormous view. The Master was Right – he has Arrived.</p> <p>Agnostic humanists such as myself approach Ontology (the Science of Being) through the Popperian Scientific Method involving the critical experimental testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses, refining our models of reality and then repeating the process. Theists give up on the objective, scientific approach to the Answer and typically accept ancient stories from our ancestors as metaphors for reality. However Humanists, Theists and Buddhists can find a common ground in Art which all three accept as valid metaphorical, poetical and Artistic attempts to get to the Truth of things.</p> <p><b>Let me give you a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the World of “Deep Mind”.</b></p> <p>Technically, this is a huge painting (1.3 metres by 2.7 metres) painted in acrylic on high quality doubly-primed canvas. The dominant underlying geometry is a classical Golden Rectangle employed by the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians and also widely exploited by painters since the time of the Italian Renaissance. Arising from this fundamental geometry (mathematically, a Fibonacci Sequence of 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13, 21, 34 …; the Da Vinci Code) are elements including (1) the Divine Sections (that divide the Golden Rectangle to form a square and another Golden Rectangle, these Golden Rectangles having the property that the Length is 1.618 – or phi – times the width); (2) 2 dominant circles (encompassing the obverse dichotomies referred to in the first sentence of this essay); (3) the central Vesica Pisces symbol from the overlapping of these Circles (a simultaneously sacred symbolism for the Christian fish, the Son of God in the Human Womb, the Gothic Arch and profane symbolism for the female vulva and the male penis and thence phallic bombs, bullets and missiles); and (4) the Sacred Flowers from the intersection of the Circles with the Diagonals of the Squares into which they fit exactly (these cruciform – cross-like - structures are sacred in representing the Cross and the Christian Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit plus the Blessed Virgin and profane in that 4 is “lucky” and they resemble Paris quadrifolia or Truelove, the aphrodisiac and poisonous European plant that was used to bring “luck in Love” in Chaucer ‘s “Canterbury Tales” and in Chaucer’s Medieval Europe).</p> <p>However “Deep Mind” also draws upon the Artistic Metaphors of Islamic culture. Thus underneath the classical Italian Renaissance Golden Rectangle symbolism is one of the patterns used in the wonderful Tile Art patterns of Islamic Art from the Alhambra Palace in Spain to the glories of Isfahan, Samarkand and Bokhara. There are generically 17 such kinds of patterns (defined by my great uncle mathematician George Polya of the Swiss ETH and America’s Stanford University as 17 plane symmetry groups and exploited by the great Dutch lithographer M.C Escher who was in correspondence with George Polya for many years).</p> <p>The Islamic Tile Art patterns were created when Muslim civilization was a light in the World at the time of the European Dark Ages. These patterns arose from the Biblical and Quranic prohibition of graven images and always included an Imperfection as a metaphor for our imperfection as compared to the perfection of the Creator. I have described this cultural conflation by the acronym PEACE – which stands for Polya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism.</p> <p>Yet Man’s attempts to deal with the Inner Reality of the Mind and the Outer Reality of the physical world date back to the figurative cave paintings by Europeans and Indigenous Australian aboriginals of 20,000 years ago. Such figurative elements can be seen in “Deep Mind” at various levels – behind the complexity one can see large figures that in the upper, sunny, light, “good” zone are Ascendant and in the lower, darker, subterranean, ocean deep “bad” half of the painting are Descending like Fallen Angels. In addition there are smaller figures that repeat this theme of Ascendant Good and Descending Bad, a dichotomy first explored by the early agrarian Persian proto-Zoroastrians in Iran as early as 6000 BC.</p> <p>On top of this complexity I have represented molecular, microscopic and macroscopic aspects of the reality of “Deep Mind”.</p> <p>Thus at the molecular level (perceivable by highest resolution electron microscopy) we can discern a dominant geometrical theme resembling a DNA double helix of the genes that program our existence. The individual helical strands can represent the alpha-helices of the DNA-encoded proteins that make up most of our physical reality (together with water and thousands of other small and large molecules – for a rapid guide to this complexity see my huge pharmacological text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. <span>A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, Taylor & Francis & CRC Press, London & New York, 2003: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291</a> .</span></p> <p>At the microscopic level I have represented neuronal connectivities, the neuron cell bodies (the blobs) and the axons and dendrites connecting neurons to each other in such a way that “the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts”. Indeed if the World survives George Bush, Bush-ite-driven global warming and the nuclear threat perhaps in a century there will be robots whose connectivities are such that we will have created true Superman intelligences vastly superior to our own. These neural net representations are indeed disturbingly anthropomorphic like the medieval Mandrake Roots to which great superstition was attached.</p> <p>At the macroscopic level the two dominant circles represent the fundamental dichotomies of Deep Mind - the light, human, good, peaceful, joyous, loving, altruistic Person shadowed by a dark, animal, bad, impassioned, angry, hateful, and greedy Alter Ego. Just as there is no escaping our shadow out in the sunlight, we cannot ignore the remnants of our animal evolutionary history (Tyrannosaurus rex and ourselves have common ancestors). However our intellectual and moral evolution does not simply involve natural selection of hard-wiring genes (DNA) – it also involves the selection of “memes”, or ideas and cultural elements through societal selection of words, writing, music and art(see Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene”). </p> <p>Indeed “Deep Mind” illustrates this selection of “memes”, encompassing perceptions of Mind and Reality from 20,000 year old European and Aboriginal cave paintings, Zoroastrian, Greek and Egyptian elements, Medieval and post-Medieval Islamic Art, Renaissance Italian Art and post-Renaissance European Art combined with molecular, microscopic and macroscopic Scientific images of the Human Mind – with the overall, “order in chaos” Big Picture resembling post-war American Jackson Pollock Abstract Expressionism.</p> <p>I have been invited to take part in a public panel discussion of Australian Humanists over the question “what does Humanism mean to me?” In reading and thinking about this question I stumbled upon this definition of the Humanist Ideal from leading Australian philosopher Professor Brian Ellis: “to respect equality in the dignity of everyone”. Hopefully the silicon-and-steel (or possibly carbon-based Buckminsterfullerene-, organic semiconductor- and carbon nanotube-constructed) Superman of the future, conscious of his ontogeny (the history of his development) will “respect equality in the dignity of everyone” and obey Biochemist Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics: “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”.</p> <p>“Deep Mind” is a cultural conflation of many views of the Human Mind that summarizes its animal past and bubbling, interacting good/bad dichotomies. In a sense we have already arrived at a version of the robotic Superman. Recent “memes” from the outstanding Australian bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (author of “Animal Liberation” and now at Princeton University, USA) instruct that human beings are obliged “not to injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm”. Indeed he has extended this ethical imperative to not inflicting avoidable pain on any sentient creature.</p> <p>However this First Law is being grossly violated in the 21st century - 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation and disease every year (about 10 million being infants) on a Spaceship Earth with the First World in charge of the flight deck. The World ignores the horrendous carnage of the racist Bush I plus Bush II Asian Wars, an Asian Holocaust that is still continuing and which has already consumed 10 million people ( see my books “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: <a href="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html">http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html</a>, and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008: <a href="http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/2008/09/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html">http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/2008/09/jane-austen-and-black-hole-of-british.html</a> ).</p> <p>Send the image of “Deep Mind” (see: <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/</a> </span>) to everyone you can with the message that Peace and Love is the only way, that we must try to understand ourselves and others and “respect equality in the dignity of everyone”.</p><h3 dir="ltr" align="left"><a name="TOC-See-also-Gideon-Polya-Bush-ite-Rudd"></a><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">See also Gideon Polya, “Bush-ite Rudd Australia Denial. Australia 2020 Summit Ignores Genocide & Child Abuse”, MWC News, submitted 22 April 2008 .<br /></span></span></h3> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My huge dichotomous “Deep Mind” painting (see: </span></span> </p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/</a> </span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">) illustrates this national denial psychosis. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Bush-ite Rudd Australia Denial. Australia 2020 Summit Ignores Genocide & Child Abuse</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Australia</span></span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> has just witnessed an extraordinary Bush-ite propaganda event called the “Australia 2020 Summit”. The newly-elected, right-wing, Bush-ite, Rudd Labor Government called this 2-day Summit for discussion of new ideas for the future of Australia. Unfortunately the Australia 2020 Summit was – as predicted by astute observers - manipulated as a vehicle for endorsement of Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government policy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Citizens were asked for Submissions and over 3,000 people responded with over 8,000 submissions covering 10 Topic Areas (thus my 170 suggestions covering all 10 Topic Areas are given the ID 2015 in the Web-displayed submissions: <a href="http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm">http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm</a> ; the Initial Report of the Australia 2020 Summit can also be accessed via this link). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For the 2-day Summit the co-convenors were PM Rudd and the Vice Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Glyn Davis. Each of the 10 Topics Areas were co-chaired by a Government Minister and a Government-invited co-chair. Unfortunately while 5 of the co-chairs had PhDs only one of these was a scientist (a top medical scientist). One of the co-chairs was the CEO of the Rupert Murdoch News Limited media empire in Australia (that owns about 70% of city daily newspapers) and his boss-to-be Rupert’s son Lachlan was one of the 1,000 selected delegates –as if these guys didn’t have enough say already in the Australian Murdochracy. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Further, the composition of the 1,000 delegates (assertedly “Australia’s one thousand best and brightest”) was evidently BIASED as revealed by the fact that the delegates overwhelmingly supported Australia as a Republic by standing ovation - whereas a recent poll indicated 45% for, 36% against and 19% unsure (see a Republican report of this poll : <a href="http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/enewsletter/Feb2007/feb2007.htm" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/enewsletter/Feb2007/feb2007.htm">http://www.republic.org.au/ARM-2001/enewsletter/Feb2007/feb2007.htm</a> ) .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">At the end of the conference the 10 Groups delivered consensus suggestions out of the thousands of ideas submitted to the Summit. However the “process” was well controlled in this “stacked” conference as reflected in the outcome – 40 non-controversial suggestions, substantially of the “let’s set up a committee” kind and consonant with Rudd Labor policy. The Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government has said that it will “seriously” address the Summit suggestions – thus giving itself lots of time to do NOTHING about serious problems (notably the endemic Australia Child Abuse epidemic and the global warming Climate Emergency) and a licence to pick and choose from the Summit-endorsed pot-pourri of policies consonant with those of the Government. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">One of Australia’s (necessarily conservative) top political commentators provided the following summary of what she called Ten of the Biggest Ideas arising from the Australia 2020 Summit (see “The Age”: <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-plan-of-action/2008/04/20/1208629730818.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-plan-of-action/2008/04/20/1208629730818.html">http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-plan-of-action/2008/04/20/1208629730818.html</a> ). I have analysed these briefly below with reference to what I submitted to the Summit in my Submission number 2015 (the references below are to Topic Number and Suggestion; thus my last suggestion out of 171 made was #19 in Topic 10 and is denoted 10.19 for easy reference).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW">1. “Introduction of an Australian republic with a two-stage, beginning with a plebiscite on the issue, followed by a referendum” – as indicated above this arose from an evidently “stacked” conference; this was MY suggestion: “9.</span></span>12. The idea of a Republic is supported by most Australians – however a Republic Declaration should not enable us to escape our continuing remorseless association with past and continuing British atrocities.”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />2. “Creation of "community corps" to allow students to reduce their HECS [huge university fees] through volunteer work” – my suggestion was that education should be free and thus my “1.</span></span>6. Student HECS fees should be abolished – tertiary education should be FREE”.<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />3. “A national preventative health care agency funded by taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and junk food” – this was one of a number of excellent suggestions from the one Group headed by a top scientist; compare MY suggestion: “5.</span></span>11. Major medical problems in Australia due to obesity, smoking and alcohol – need greater preventive campaigns and free behaviour change assistance for all people at risk”.<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />4. “Increasing the formal and legal recognition of Aborigines, with the possibility of a treaty” – this watered-down suggestion IGNORES the horrendous reality that the Labor Party supported the conservative Coalition Government last year in specifically depriving Northern territory Indigenous Australians (Aborigines) of the protection afforded by the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (just imagine the international outcry if this sort of evil, racist specificity were applied to Jews or indeed to any vulnerable minority). This racist obscenity is still in place. I made 20 specific suggestions in the “Aboriginal” area based on non-racism and equal treatment e.g. my “7.</span></span>1. Indigenous health funding should be urgently doubled as recommended 4 years ago by medical experts to meet peculiar needs and to stop the horrendous Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually out of 0.5 million). 7.2. Apology to Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generations is the first step – re the on-going Aboriginal Genocide there should be a comprehensive Cessation, Acknowledgment, Apology, Amends and Assertion of “Never Again”. 7.3. Urgent steps should be taken with intimate Indigenous consultation to stop the current irreversible Indigenous ethnocide. 7.4. Australia should sign the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights . 7.5. Australia should urgently rescind the race-specific (i.e. racist) legislative suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Northern Territory Indigenous Australians. 7.6. Overall taxpayer-funded Indigenous Australian employment should be the SAME as for White Australians . 7.7. All social services (health, education, emergency, welfare, security, legal etc) should be provided to Indigenous Australian communities at the same or indeed greater level as appropriate …”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />5. “Contributing 1% of federal funding allocated to each government department to the arts” – this bit of glorious “bureaucracy gone mad” involves “funding by stealth”, hoping that people won’t notice what 1% of a total annual Federal Budget in 2007-2008 of about $230 billion actually represents (i.e. $2.3 billion, or about half of what we spend on all our public universities). This suggestion came from a Group headed by actress celebrity Cate Blanchett, Rudd’s chosen “Hollywood goddess” coup for the Conference. My suggestions were about using existing infrastructure and needs-based funding: “8.</span></span> 6. Greater use of school and university infrastructure for community Arts activities and for displaying community Art. 8.10. There should be much greater financial support for critical, iconic cultural assets (museums, art galleries, orchestras, ballet, theatre, Indigenous culture). 8.11. Around the country there are thousands of dedicated artists whose work could - with some public imagination - enrich our public life pro bono publico.”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"> <br /><br />6. “All new buildings to be carbon neutral” – this is a good idea but hardly comes to grips with the horrendous Climate emergency and sustainability Emergency facing Australia and the Planet. I offered many suggestions but the over-riding core suggestion was “10.</span></span>19. URGENT - a Global Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to a safe and sustainable level of 300-350 ppm.”</p> <p><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW">7. “Bringing regulations for transport and agriculture across states into line” – this was a very sensible suggestion from a Group headed by a top business man with a PhD in economics. However this also falls into the pro-US, pro-Federalism policies of the Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government. Thus diminishing States Rights would enable extension of racist removal of Aboriginal Human Rights to all states (and indeed this has been publicly canvassed). I made numerous suggestions in this area which were resolutely ignored e.g. “2.</span></span>1. Climate emergency and peak oil means renewables, electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, expanded public rail transport, and cessation of fossil fuel burning and highway building. 2.2. Just as we now have legislated mandatory efficient ENERGY USAGE (e.g. with long life energy-saving lights) so we need mandated efficient ENERGY PROVISION. 2.3. Building highways and fossil fuel power stations should stop – but sensible rail systems should expand in concert with intelligent re-design of our cities. 2.4. Urgent need for the expert estimation of the “true cost” of major economic components such as coal-fired power stations and cars. 2.5. There is an urgent need for the expert estimation of the “true value” of public assets. 2.6. Save wild nature - sustainable use of wild nature is economically compelling (Balmford et al). 2.7. Continued economic growth with NEGATIVE CO2 emissions means sole renewable energy use, re-foresting and restoring carbon to the soil. 2.8. In relation to the “true cost” of coal-fired electricity ALL renewables (including the latest photovoltaic technologies) are cheaper – and accordingly there must be massive investment in renewable energy. 2.9. Atmospheric CO2 must be kept to below 450 ppm in order to save the 63,000 jobs and $7 billion pa from the Great Barrier Reef. 2.10. The urgent need for a Declaration of Climate Emergency, Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency would have a transformative role in relation to economic infrastructure. 2.11. Change to “needs” rather than “desires” in our economy . 2.12. Economic efficiency must be the goal rather than economic expansion per se. 2.13. Implementation of Concentrated Urban goals should mean a more concentrated and efficient economic infrastructure. 2.14. There will be hugely expensive re-positioning of economic infrastructure unless the World declares a state of climate emergency. 2.15. There will necessarily be major changes to our economic infrastructure when Australia declares a Climate State of Emergency. 2.16. Massive changes to water-related infrastructure are urgently needed.”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />8. “Establishment of a new federation commission to review the roles and responsibilities of federal, state and local government” – this was another “set up a committee” suggestion but with an insidious agenda of supporting the pro-US and Federalism policies of the Bush-ite Rudd Government. As you can imagine my forthright suggestions for improvement in Australian public life were utterly IGNORED e.g. “9.</span></span> 1. Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide - see "Body Count" (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007) - is only possible because of Mainstream media, politician and academic LYING and decent taxpayers must demand punitive FEEDBACK from Government e.g. loss of radio licences, TV licences etc. 9.2. Outstanding Jewish American investor and philanthropist George Soros has called for the “de-Nazification” of Bush America and the same process should be urgently applied to genocide-complicit and genocide-denying Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite White Australia. 9.3. Australia urgently needs a Web-based Newspaper equivalent of the ABC that would involve expert academic, industrial and scientist correspondents and with public participation as citizen journalists and for open public commentary. 9.4. The Academies (such as the Academy of Science and the Academy of Humanities) should involve themselves actively in public policy through Reports by expert sub-committees. 9.5. As happened in post-Apartheid South Africa, Australia needs a Truth Commission to enable exposure and reconciliation with the guilty who would have immunity from prosecution and indeed would only be punished if they refused to cooperate and tell the truth. 9.6. As recommended by Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter there should be war crimes trials for Australian and other US Alliance politicians and officials involved in the Iraqi Genocide (1.5-2 million post-invasion excess deaths) and the Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths).”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />9. “A comprehensive reinvigoration of Asian language literacy and a recruitment drive of foreign language teachers” - this was a good idea but IGNORES the huge existing potential of multi-lingual people in Australia. Thus perhaps about 3 million non-Indigenous Australians or about 15% of the population speak a language other than English at home. I offered suggestions for efficiently accrediting language competencies (anathema to the Prosperous Anglo-Celtic men or Pacmen who run White Australia): “1.</span></span> 1. High quality, maximum access, minimum cost, de-regulated Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) (involving detailed electronic provision of lecture notes, syllabus, teaching materials etc) can deliver teaching and learning off campus equivalent to that being delivered on-campus. 1.7 A minimal Accredited Remote Learning (ARL) scenario would be simple Federal or State Government fiat ordering their academics to formally examine students on courses provided free from 63-Nobel-Laureate US MIT. 1.11. Accredited Remote Learning (ARL), with parent, aide and other participation in equitable, high technology, de-regulated, intelligently-streamed, disabled- and disadvantaged–responsive, competency-assessing and accrediting secondary education.<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW">)”. I also raised the need to save Indigenous Australian languages: “7.</span></span> 3. Urgent steps should be taken with intimate Indigenous consultation to stop the current irreversible Indigenous ethnocide.”<span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW;"><span style="font-family:FranklinGothic-BookCnd-OV-KGLW"><br /><br />10. “A charter of rights and a national action plan” – is a good idea but in the context of thre Australia 2020 Summit gross hypocrisy in view of the comprehensive failure of Australia to meet its International Human Rights Obligations. I too suggested a Bill of Rights and other measures to deal with the gross Human Rights violations by politically correct racist (PC racist) White Australia e.g. “7.</span></span> 1. Indigenous health funding should be urgently doubled as recommended 4 years ago by medical experts to meet peculiar needs and to stop the horrendous Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 excess deaths annually out of 0.5 million). 7.2. Apology to Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generations is the first step – re the on-going Aboriginal Genocide there should be a comprehensive Cessation, Acknowledgment, Apology, Amends and Assertion of “Never Again”. 7.3. Urgent steps should be taken with intimate Indigenous consultation to stop the current irreversible Indigenous ethnocide. 7.4. Australia should sign the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights . 7.5. Australia should urgently rescind the race-specific (i.e. racist) legislative suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Northern Territory Indigenous Australians” AND “9. 2. Outstanding Jewish American investor and philanthropist George Soros has called for the “de-Nazification” of Bush America and the same process should be urgently applied to genocide-complicit and genocide-denying Bush-ite and neo-Bush-ite White Australia. 9.3. Australia urgently needs a Web-based Newspaper equivalent of the ABC that would involve expert academic, industrial and scientist correspondents and with public participation as citizen journalists and for open public commentary. 9.5. As happened in post-Apartheid South Africa, Australia needs a Truth Commission to enable exposure and reconciliation with the guilty who would have immunity from prosecution and indeed would only be punished if they refused to cooperate and tell the truth. 9.6. As recommended by Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter there should be war crimes trials for Australian and other US Alliance politicians and officials involved in the Iraqi Genocide (1.5-2 million post-invasion excess deaths) and the Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths). 9.9. A Bill of Rights is urgently needed in this country especially re basic liberties, racism, free speech”.</p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The above analysis of Ten of the Biggest Ideas from the Australia 2020 Summit underscores its politcization, dishonesty, incompetence and moral failure. This moral failure is best illustrated in relation to the IGNORING of the Climate emergency that threatens Australia and the World and the IGNORING of horrendous Child Abuse in Australia (one third of all Australian women suffer childhood sexual abuse). These concerns are set out in the following letter I have sent to Australia media and politicians. The Silence has been Deafening. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">LETTER</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Dear Sir, Madam, Mr, Mrs, Dr, Senator etc,</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt">Australia 2020 Summit betrayed Australian children</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The Australia 2020 Summit Initial Report IGNORES the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency facing the World with Australia being the world's top Developed nation “annual per capita CO2 polluter” (and it also IGNORES horrendous Australian child abuse – one third of all Australian women are sexually abused as children). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen the world has passed a tipping point at which all Arctic summer sea ice may be totally gone by about 2015. He says that the world must REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to a safe and sustainable 300-350 parts per million (ppm). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Coincidentally 2015 is the ID for the over 170 submissions that I sent to the Australia 2020 Summit over the 10 Topics – my final suggestion was “10.19. URGENT - a Global Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to a safe and sustainable level of 300-350 ppm.” (also see my Submission 5.13: “… childhood sexual abuse – this and related abuses should be urgently addressed Nation-wide”).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">According to top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS over 6 billion will perish this century due to unaddressed climate change. UK Chief Scientific Adviser Professor John Beddington CMG FRS says that "billions" are threatened by the US, UK and EU biofuel perversion that is grossly CO2 polluting and ALREADY contributing to huge global food price rises and threatening biofuel famine, biofuel genocide and climate genocide. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">One of the Initial Report’s 10 Biggest Ideas was carbon neutral new housing by 2020. If PM Howard was Bush’s Man of Steel, then PM Rudd is the Man of Irony. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The Australia 2020 Summit has comprehensively betrayed Australian children (for citizen Submissions see: </span></span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm">http://www.australia2020.gov.au/submissions/home.cfm</a> </span></span>).</p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Yours sincerely,</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Dr Gideon Polya</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Melbourne</span></span>, Victoria, Australia</p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">END LETTER</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The “stacked’, perverted, Australia 2020 Summit has revealed the moral incompetence of PC racist Bush-ite White Australia which IGNORES horrendous endemic child abuse and Genocide of Indigenous Aborigines, Occupied Iraqis, and Occupied Afghans – crimes that are dwarfed by Australia’s world-leading climate criminal involvement in Climate Genocide. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">This Australian denial is a national equivalent of Sigmund Freud’s horrendous fraud in which he deliberately and knowingly dismissed the horrendous reality of child sexual abuse as fantasy in order to further his career (see: J.M. Masson, <i><span style="font-style:italic">The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory</span></i>. Farrar Straus & Giroux,1984; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson" rel="nofollow" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Moussaieff_Masson</a> ).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">PC Racist Australia is indeed the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">I have done MY duty by making a formal complaint (2008) to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Australian involvement in ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (see: <a href="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/02/formal-complaint-to-international.html" title="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/02/formal-complaint-to-international.html">http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/02/formal-complaint-to-international.html</a> ) .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Please do YOUR duty as a citizen of the world by informing everyone you can and acting ethically in all your avoidable dealings with those actively or passively complicit in genocidal Australian human rights abuses. Would you buy soap made in Auschwitz? </span></span></p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-6176135391988808382011-05-31T01:18:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:18:42.713-07:00Five Eighths 1<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Five Eighths 1</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>"Five Eighths 1" is a Fibonacci sequence-inspired collection of dancing and swaying overlapping figures (acrylic on canvas board; 56 x 76 cm; <b>for image see:</b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4448734453/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4448734453/</a> <span> </span>). The Fibonacci Sequence is implicit in the classical Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website.</p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-88183426977650655522011-05-31T01:17:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:18:04.059-07:00Five Eighths 2<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Five Eighths 2</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>"Five eighths 2" is a Fibonacci sequence-inspired collection of overlapping figures with a peaceful Japanese Zen contemplative feel (acrylic on canvas board; 56 x 76 cm;<b> for image see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4449511836/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4449511836/</a> ). The Fibonacci Sequence is implicit in the classical Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website.</p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-51291330310133284962011-05-31T01:16:00.002-07:002011-05-31T01:17:24.088-07:00Five Eighths 3<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Five Eighths 3</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>"Five Eighths 3" is a Fibonacci sequence-inspired collection of dancing and swaying overlapping figures (acrylic on canvas board; 56 x 76 cm; <b>for image see:</b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4448734905/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4448734905/</a> ). The Fibonacci Sequence is implicit in the classical Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website.</p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-76009790679800703162011-05-31T01:16:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:16:46.410-07:00Five Eighths 4<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Five Eighths 4</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>"Five Eighths 4" is a Fibonacci sequence-inspired collection of dancing and swaying overlapping Five Eighths figures that is contemplated by a related Eight Eighths (fully revealed) female figure in the foreground (acrylic on canvas board; 56 x 76 cm; <b>for image see:</b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4449512684/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4449512684/</a> ). The Fibonacci Sequence is implicit in the classical Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website.</p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-53685291660936464512011-05-31T01:15:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:16:04.347-07:00Four Seasons<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Four Seasons</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, “”Four Seasons” Painting. Easter, Holocaust & History Ignored Yields History Repeated”, MWC News, 23 March 2008. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p><p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For an image of “Four Seasons” see:</span></b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291170301/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291170301/</a> . </p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">”Four Seasons” Painting. Easter, Holocaust & History Ignored Yields History Repeated</span></b></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">“Four Seasons” is a huge painting I have created to illustrate fundamental cyclical, cosmological and behavioural aspects of the human condition. However we are not totally victims of the relative disposition of the Sun and the Earth – thus Man can control his physical environment. “ Four Seasons” also represents a powerful metaphor for Man’s repetitious behaviour that is best summarized by the aphorism “history ignored yields history repeated”. However Man is unique among sentient creatures in being potentially able to overcome his animal nature – history does NOT have to repeat itself.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My huge painting “Four Seasons” (1.3 meters x 2.8 meters; acrylic painting on doubly-primed fine canvas) has a geometrical basis that is precisely that used in Pablo Picasso’s 1937 anti-war masterpiece “Guernica” – both elongated, “landscape mode” paintings have a dominant, underlying, classical Double Golden Rectangle geometrical construction (for discussion see my article “Picasso, Guernica, Qana & the Da Vinci Code” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/</a> that describes a huge painting “Qana” dealing with the Israeli destruction of Lebanon in 2006 and the pre-Christian Phoenician Four Seasons story of the recurrent death and resurrection of Adonis – a story that is mirrored in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus celebrated at Easter in the Christian world ). This geometry involves 2 successive Golden Rectangles (each having a length 1.618 times – or Phi times - the width) bounded by upper and lower strips. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Each Golden Rectangle involves the bringing together of 2 squares (each containing an exactly fitting Circle and Diagonals) and when they reach the correct position of overlap (the so-called Golden Section or Divine Section) a beautiful four-petalled flower arrangement – the Golden Flowers – appears. For a related huge, female figurative painting entitled “Truelove” and a detailed discussion of the sacred and profane significance of the Golden Rectangle, the Divine Section and the Golden Flowers see my article “Woman & Truelove, Sacred & Profane” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11031/26/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11031/26/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/11031/26/</a> . </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">In the “Four Seasons” painting the dominant 4 circles in this dominant Double Golden Rectangle geometry are used to illustrate the successive seasons (from left to right) of Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall) and Winter. Female figures in various modes are used to illustrate the dominant human dimension of these Four Seasons and colours are used that are consonant with both the dominant mood and the season. Thus in Spring (light yellow, green and blue) these women are beginning to emerge and become active. In Summer (blue, reddish brown and yellow – these are Australian Summer colors!) the women dance with wild abandon. In Autumn (deep blue, brown, orange and red) the remorseful women cover their faces in shame over their Summer indulgences. However by Winter (cold purple, pink, white and blue-green) the women have sorted out their History and created a “nice”, ordered, fictional world in which all is forgotten and they are all set for history to repeat itself, again and then again and again … </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Man has the capacity to overcome the PHYSICAL aspects of the Four Seasons through clothing, glass houses, snow ploughs and central heating. Indeed when I worked in upstate New York years ago I was typically much hotter there in its icy, snow-bound Winter (due to requisite thick clothing and central heating) than I am in the benign Winter of sunny Australia. In all my working life in Melbourne, Australia I refused to use an umbrella or an overcoat and my concession to Winter was typically a button-up jumper or cardigan.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Man also has the capacity to modify his BEHAVIOUR. </span>Outstanding atheist and Humanist Professor Richard Dawkins analyzed the evolution of animal behaviour and human behaviour (notably altruism) in his seminal book “The Selfish Gene”. Altruism (being nice to others) has evolved in Man through Darwinian natural selection involving mutation of GENES and selection of alleles (genetic variants of a gene) that favour reproductive survival of the species. One can readily see how maternal and paternal altruism (and indeed the child-care by relatives or “allomothering”) can increase the chances of survival of offspring to reproductive age. However, in addition to this genetic evolution of altruism hard-wired in DNA-constructed Genes, Man has also evolved altruism through the non-genetic mechanism of selection of favourable MEMES, or societally-selected ideas and behaviours. Thus examples of powerful Memes include “thou shall not kill”, “love thy neighbour” and “all men are created equal”.</p> <p>In the last chapter of “The Selfish Gene” Professor Dawkins powerfully outlines Man’s capacity to rise above his animal nature : “<i>It is possible that yet another unique quality of man is a capacity for genuine, disinterested, true altruism. I hope so, but I am not going to argue the case one way or another, nor to speculate over its possible memic evolution … We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism -- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our own creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”</i></p> <p>Yet the horrible reality in the 21st century is that an awful, genocidal history is being IGNORED as it is happening. The West, led by the US, is involved in what it calls a War on Terror but which is in horrible actuality a Western War on Women and Children, or more specifically, a Western War on Semitic Women and Children (as in Nazi-occupied Europe in World War 2 but with a different Semitic target), a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children and a War on Non-European Women and Children. This US-led War on Women and Children in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories has been associated – so far - with about 9 million post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths (avoidable deaths) in these brutally occupied countries (see “The Big Lie & Falsity of Zionist, Neo-con & US Administration Terror Hysteria” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20850/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20850/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20850/42/</a> ).</p> <p>For 5 years in the mid-20th century the world largely IGNORED a horrendous Holocaust and genocide as it was happening – it was only about 30 months before the end of World War 2 in Europe that the Allies finally officially and publicly acknowledged ONE part of that Holocaust, the Jewish Holocaust that killed about 6 million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe (1 million of these victims dying from deprivation as opposed to violent killing). However the World War 2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma victims) has been largely deleted from general public perception by lying, racist, Zionist-beholden Mainstream media in the Western Murdochracies.</p> <p>Over 60 years later we see “history ignored yields history repeated”. The post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total 0.3 million, 1.7-2.2 million and 3.3-6.6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 4.5 million and 4 million, respectively. This carnage constitutes a Palestinian Holocaust, an Iraqi Holocaust and an Afghan Holocaust – and indeed a Palestinian Genocide, an Iraqi Genocide and an Afghan Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the United Nations Genocide Convention. Yet this is remorselessly IGNORED by racist, lying, holocaust-ignoring, racist Zionist-beholden and racist Bush-ite-beholden Mainstream media of the complicit Western Murdochracies.</p> <p>My country, Australia, is a loyal Bush-ite American lackey and has been variously involved in the Palestinian Genocide, the Iraqi Genocide and the Afghan Genocide as well as in a CONTINUING Indigenous Australian Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess Indigenous deaths in the 11 years of the previous Bush-ite Coalition Government; current Indigenous population 0.5 million) and – as the Developed World’s #1 annual per capita greenhouse gas polluter – in an horrendous, expanding Climate Genocide ( 16 million people die avoidably every year - with this carnage being increasingly climate-impacted - and Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that over 6 billion will perish this century due to unaddressed man-made climate change). </p> <p>Because these horrendous realities are IGNORED by racist, lying mainstream media in Murdochracy Australia, I have lodged a Formal Complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (see: <a href="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/" title="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/">http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/</a> ).</p> <p>However this remorseless DENIAL by Western Murdochracies involved in genocidal democratic imperialism, democratic tyranny and democratic Nazism gets even worse. In 1943-1945 a man-made famine atrocity in British-ruled India killed 6-7 million people in Bengal and neighboring provinces – yet this Bengali Holocaust has been essentially deleted from British History as exposed in my book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”: <a href="http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/" title="http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/">http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/</a> - a book written to cogently expose this continuing obscenity that “history ignored yields history repeated”. These millions perished when the price of rice double and then doubled again and those who could not afford to buy food simply perished horribly under a merciless British colonial administration.</p> <p>History ignored yields history repeated – US farm wheat prices have tripled in 3 years; the price of a wheat-based staple “roti” in Pakistan has doubled in the last year; FAO and the UN are expressing alarm at global food price rises; the price of food is again a major issue in Bangladesh as it outstrips the ability of the poor to pay for basic survival. Just as Argentina burned millions of tons of grain to drive trains in World War 2 (due to a coal shortage), in a year or so America will be using 10% of its wheat and 30% of its corn for biofuel – while 4 billion citizens on Spaceship Earth shift from malnourishment to starvation. </p> <p>For a very detailed exposition of this vital argument on “history ignored yields history repeated” see the detailed lecture notes of my current Melbourne course on Risk Management, Science and Denial (see: <a href="http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/" title="http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/">http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/</a> ) – you can scroll down to the end of this course to find detailed Tables on global excess death and Links to numerous companion paintings to “Four Seasons” published by the ethical and humanitarian MWC News. </p> <span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Times New Roman">Please tell everyone you can. </span></div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-90556636163442793692011-05-31T01:14:00.002-07:002011-05-31T01:15:22.445-07:00Isfahan Matisse<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Isfahan Matisse</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For an image of "Isfahan Matisse" see Payvand, 15 May 2007: <a href="http://payvand.com/news/07/may/1180.html" rel="nofollow">http://payvand.com/news/07/may/1180.html</a> and Flikr:</span> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290121654/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290121654/</a> .</span></p> <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">.</span> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Arial">Art For Peace and Iran-West Amity: "Isfahan Matisse" Painting </span></p> <p><span><span style="color:black">By Gideon Polya (</span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">originally published in 2007 in MWC News; revised and updated version 20 January 2010</span><span><span style="color:black">.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Iran</span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> is a remarkable country in that, part from inevitable border conflicts, it has not seriously invaded any other country for the best part of 2 millennia. Conversely, over the last 14 centuries it has been invaded by Arabs (641 AD), Mongols (1258), Portuguese in coastal areas (16th - 17th centuries), Russians (from 1722 onwards), Afghans (18th century), Russia (19th century), and Russia and Britain (20th centuries). The US got into the act with the 1953 US-backed overthrow of democratic rule (after Prime Minister Mossadegh's attempted nationalization of Anglo-Iranian oil), the installation of the Shah's dictatorship, the US-backed Iraqi invasion in 1980 and the subsequent 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war that killed millions of Iranians (1.5 million war dead; 1980-1988 excess deaths in the country as a whole total 2.1 million).<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Now Iran faces the horrendous prospect of a possibly TERMINAL nuclear cataclysm as the US backs Baluchi terrorists in South Eastern Iran, advances its nuclear-armed aircraft carriers into positions off the Iranian coast and the Americans and Israelis advance their virulent, war-mongering anti-Iranian rhetoric. Thus simple Google Searches for the utterly obscene phrases "nuke Iran" and "attack Iran" today (20 january 2010) yield 56,000 and 637,000 URLs, respectively. Reports from authoritative media such as the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6376639.stm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0, 51, 102)">BBC</span></b></a>, <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200702190014" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0, 51, 102)">The New Statesman</span></b></a> and <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO505A.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0, 51, 102)">Global Research</span></b></a> indicate that the Americans and Israelis may be ready to unleash NUCLEAR war on this peaceful, remote, non-aggressive country of 71 million people. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">The human consequences of an invasion and occupation of Iran (population 71 million) can be roughly estimated by PROPORTIONALITY from what the Racist Bushites (RBs) and Racist Zionists (RBs) have done to Occupied Palestine (population 4 million), Iraq (population 27 million) and Afghanistan (population 26 million). The post invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now (January 2010) total 0.3 million, 1.1 million and 3.4 million (mostly Women and Children and due to gross Occupier violation of the Geneva Convention that demands that occupiers keep their conquered subjects alive); post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.9 million and 2.4 million, respectively (90% of these deaths being avoidable); and there is a refugee nightmare of 4.3 million Palestinians registered with the UN, 5-6 million Iraqi refugees (half of whom have fled their country) and 3-4 million Afghan refugees (see Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/</a> ; <span>Palestinian Holocaust, Palestinian Genocide</span>: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/</a> ; <span>Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide</span>: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/</a> and<span> </span><span>Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide</span>: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/</a> .</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">It should be noted here that opiate-related drug deaths total about 0.1 million annually around the world (about 12,000 in the US and 400 in Australia) , this being largely due to US Alliance<span> </span>restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 6% of world share in 2001 to about 93% currently (see: <a href="http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2009/12/24/3673966-afghan-opiate-drug-money-trail-exposed-us-backed-corrupt-get-75-taliban-only-4" rel="nofollow">http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2009/12/24/3673966-afghan-opiate-drug-money-trail-exposed-us-backed-corrupt-get-75-taliban-only-4</a><span> </span>and <a href="http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19234" rel="nofollow">http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19234</a> ) .<span> </span>Iran is a major player in the interdiction of opium and heroin from US-Occupied Afghanistan </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">However the human consequences for Iran - and indeed its neighbours - from a NUCLEAR attack by Israel or America will be utterly disastrous and genocidal. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Faced with this appalling scenario that appears to be coalescing into nightmare reality, what can a decent person do? My concern is heightened by my and my family's friendship with lovely Iranians. Words having failed, my most recent response to this horrendously violent world is Painting for Peace - Art for Peace to demonstrate with beautiful images the Unity of Mankind. I have painted a huge painting called "Isfahan Matisse" that conflates the stunningly beautiful, pure Islamic tile pattern-based Art of Iran (as most wonderfully shown in the holy city of Isfahan) with modern, avant garde Western painting as exemplified by French painter Henri Matisse. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Several years ago, I published the image of a huge painting I had created called "Alhambra Pollock" that conflates pure, Medieval Islamic Art from the 13th and 14th centuries in the Alhambra Palace of Moorish Spain with Golden Rectangle (Fibonacci Sequence, Da Vinci Code) geometries from religious paintings of the Italian Renaissance and 20,000 year old Australian Aboriginal rock painting figures - to create a beautiful image conflating pure Islamic Art with post-war American Jackson Pollock Abstract Expressionism .</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">The beautiful IDEA was that if you could combine the extremes of pure religious Islamic Art with radical, avant garde American Abstract Expressionism then you can have a beautiful IMAGE that describes the essential Unity of Man � and therefore argues cogently that there is no call for the hatred, the xenophobia, the anti-Arab anti-Semitism, the Islamophobia, warmongering , wars, invasions, occupations and horrendous human suffering currently being inflicted by US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST) and the US Alliance (USA) on a swathe of countries from Somalia to Afghanistan � almost from the Nile to the Indus. In its awful actuality, the Bush War on Terror is a cowardly and racist War on Women and Children, a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children and a War on non-European Women and Children.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My "Isfahan Matisse" (1.3 metres x 2.9 metres; acrylic on doubly-primed canvas) has essentially the same geometrical, cultural and humanitarian basis as "Alhambra Pollock", described by the acronym PEACE that stands for Polya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism (after my Great Uncle George Polya who published a mathematical analysis of the 17 plane symmetry groups or "tile patterns" exploited in Islamic Art, and Dutch lithographer M.C. Escher who was inspired both by George Polya's analysis and by the wonderful tile pattern Art of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain). "Isfahan Matisse" has figurative elements and brilliant colours redolent of the wonderful work of contemporary French painter Henri Matisse. The figurative elements give the sense of the wonderful Calligraphy often superimposed on Islamic tile Art.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Whereas "Alhambra Pollock" was based on Four Seasons and ONE YEAR in the life a human being, "Isfahan Matisse" is based on ONE DAY in the life of a person. I have interpreted Tchaikovsky's wonderful last Symphony Number 6 “The Pathétique” as one day in the life of a Man. This wonderful symphony was popularly named The Pathétique because of Tchaikovsky's untimely death shortly after it was performed for the first time and its extraordinary conclusion. However Tchaikovsky himself was extremely pleased with the symphony. One Christmas morning, watching the dawn break over the beautiful Yarra River valley in Victoria, Australia - and coincidentally listening to The Pathétique Symphony - it suddenly dawned on me that this work was not a statement of the tragedy of human existence (as commonly thought by pessimistic interpretations) but an Ode to Joy, the accurate description of one joyous day in the life of a human being. No wonder Tchaikovsky was so pleased with this great work, <span> </span>as I am with my humble effort to conflate the beauties of Isfahan and Matisse (pinnacles of Iranian and French culture, respectively) in the description of one joyous day in the life of a human being. </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Peace is the only way and this present contribution of PEACE - Polya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism - through ART is one of many possible ways to increase empathy for the Other that underscores amity and understanding between human beings. I have previously painted a series of huge paintings as part of this commitment to Art for Peace, and for respect for Woman and for Mother and Child (for a listing of these paintings see “Art for Peace, Planet, Mother and Child””: <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/">http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/</a><span> </span>).</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">With the election of conservative, pro-American Nicolas Sarkozy in France there is an even greater need for Islam-West Amity as the world teeters on the brink of a nuclear nightmare in the Middle East. Please tell all your friends and associates about "Isfahan Matisse" and spread the positive message of Islam-West Amity, Franco-Iranian Amity and Iran-West Amity through this joyous painting. </span></p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-33669741203773626322011-05-31T01:14:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:14:33.430-07:00Jerusalem Madonna<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Jerusalem Madonna</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>Gideon Polya, “Zionism, Occupation, Palestinian Genocide. <i><span style="font-style:normal">“Jerusalem Madonna”. Mother & Child</span></i>”<b>, </b>MWC News, 7 October 2007.</p> <p><b>For an image of the huge painting “Jerusalem Madonna” (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3428568005/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3428568005/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> . </p> <p><b>Zionism, Occupation, Palestinian Genocide. </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">“Jerusalem Madonna”. Mother & Child</span></b></i></p> <p>Jerusalem (al-Quds) is one of the most sacred cities in the world. It is sacred to 2.0 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 0.3 billion Arab Semites and to 15 million Jews (of whom most are essentially non-religious or strictly non-observant and only about 1 million are strictly observant adherents to Orthodox Judaism that rejects and opposes Zionism). Jerusalem has been home for about 1,900 years to non-Jewish Palestinians. Jerusalem was only ever ruled by Jews for several centuries in the last 3,000 years after they had totally exterminated the Indigenous Inhabitants in about 1000 BC (about 1,000-586 BC and 165-63 BC). Al-Quds (Jerusalem) has been the third most sacred site for about 1,400 years to Muslims throughout the World. </p> <p>Yet this city is illegally in the hands of the Nazi-style Racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel who are engaged in a slow Palestinian Genocide involving expulsion, mass murder, mass imprisonment, property theft, and gross human rights abuse while the World looks on – and even though half the Occupied Palestinians are Children and three quarters are Women and Children. Words having failed I have painted a HUGE painting entitled “Jerusalem Madonna” in an attempt to “get through” to a morally unresponsive World dominated by Racist Zionist-beholden, Racist Bush-ite-run America and its Western Bush-ite allies. </p> <p>For over 40 years Jerusalem has been illegally occupied by Racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel in a brutal, criminal Occupation involving theft of human rights, theft of property, denial of religious observance and ongoing ethnic cleansing. While the Racist Zionists deny 7 million Indigenous Palestinian refugees the right to live in their homeland, they have been unable so far to remove all the Indigenous Palestinians from the Holy Land. Thus there are roughly about 5 million Jewish Israelis who run the Holy Land, 1.5 million Indigenous Arab Israelis (second class citizens subject to Nazi-style race laws), and about 4 million Indigenous Arab Occupied Palestinians – 1.5 million incarcerated in the Racist Zionist-encircled Gaza Concentration Camp and about 2.5 million in the West Bank Concentration Camp.</p> <p>The US-, UK-, Australia-, Canada- and generally Western-backed Zionists have been unable to get rid of all the Indigenous Inhabitants of the Holy Land despite 60 years of an ongoing Palestinian Genocide that has involved the active killing of about 50,000 Indigenous Palestinians; 7 million Indigenous Palestinian refugees (4.3 million registered with the UN); post-1967 excess Occupied Palestinian deaths totalling 0.3 million; post-1967 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian infant deaths totalling 0.2 million; massive theft of land, imprisonment of tens of thousands of Occupied Palestinians in jails, and imposition of draconian conditions in what outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Noam Chomsky has described as a “Prison”. </p> <p>Half the Occupied Palestinians are Children and three quarters are Women and Children. Yet the Western World is complicit in an ongoing, horrendous, abusive Imprisonment of a Whole People in awful Prison conditions. It would be too inflammatory to list these conditions here but I will refer the reader to the latest United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report on the dreadful circumstances of Occupied Palestinian Children – the awful truth is just a few mouse clicks away. </p> <p>Deliberate, gross, war criminal Racist Zionist non-provision of the life-sustaining requisites demanded unequivocally of Occupiers by the Geneva Convention results in the avoidable death of about 2,400 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian infants EACH YEAR in the Racist Zionist-run Occupied Palestinian Concentration Camp. The World is seeing the deliberate, passive killing by the Racist Zionists of 2,400 Indigenous Palestinian infants EVERY YEAR – but looks the other way. The Racist Zionists (RZs) have succeeded in driving out 85% of Occupied Palestinian Christians (half of them Children) - but the Christian World looks the other way. </p> <p>Any people who knowingly deny, ignore, excuse, minimize, obfuscate, advocate, support or are otherwise complicit in the gross human rights abuse of Mother and Child – or indeed of ANYONE – have crossed the line separating decent humanity from Nazi-style barbarism.</p> <p>The Laws of the International Community are set down and instantly available on the Web – the World knows that this Child-killing, Child-abusing, criminal Occupation is illegal and evil. Outstanding Jewish scholars around the World (such as Professors Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Bertell Ollman, Tanya Reinhart and Steven Rose) have courageously stood up and roundly condemned the horrendous abusive imprisonment of the Indigenous Palestinians. Thus the following statement by outstanding Jewish American Professor Bertell Ollman (New York University): </p> <p>“Yet, the facts on the ground, when not obscured by one or another Zionist rationalization, show that the Zionists are the worst anti-Semites in the world today, oppressing a Semitic people as no nation has done since the Nazis” (see “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/">http://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/</a> ).</p> <p> </p> <p>But words have failed. The racist, Apartheid Israeli Occupation continues, seven (7) under-5 Occupied Palestinians are murdered by the Racist Zionists every day in the Occupied Palestinian Concentration Camp. The world needs to ACT urgently to stop the slow, remorseless Palestinian Genocide. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity – inaction kills and inaction is complicity. Decent people are obliged to inform others and to take peaceful action against the Nazi-style racist abomination that is Racist Zionist-run Apartheid Israel. </p> <p>Decent Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis at least can vote out the Racist Zionists in order that non-racist peace with equity, justice and reconciliation can happen in the Holy Land (e.g. see suggestions published in MWC News). However others need to impose collective and individual international Sanctions and Boycotts against Apartheid Israel and the people, corporations and countries supporting this proto-Nazi barbarism (notably Racist Zionist-beholden Bush Amerika and Racist White Australia (RWA), whose Bush-ite Prime Minister has been recently “honoured” by the naming after him of a forest in Apartheid Israel on stolen Indigenous Bedouin land).</p> <p>Ronnie Kasrils, Jewish South African Government Minister and hero in the fight against Apartheid, has described Apartheid Israel thus: “Israel … worse than Apartheid”.</p> <p>Words having failed, I have painted a huge painting “Jerusalem Madonna” to help convince an unresponsive World of their obligation to help Mother and Child, not just in Occupied Palestine but indeed throughout the World and in all countries currently partly or completely occupied by Zionist beholden Racist Bush-ite Amerika, its allies and surrogates (currently Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Diego Garcia). What gives the proto-Nazi Bush-ites the right to invade and occupy other countries across the world and subject their conquered Indigenous Populations to passive genocide? </p> <p>“Jerusalem Madonna” is a huge painting (1.3 meters x 2.5 meters) in acrylic on high-quality, doubly primed canvas. It is the latest in a series of Madonna and Child (literally My Lady and Child) paintings I have created to promote love and respect for Mother and Child in a world in which 16 million people die avoidably every year, of whom about 10 million are under-5 year old infants (for links to these paintings and to my recently published book “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”). </p> <p>All these Mother and Child paintings published on the humane and ethical MWC News are accompanied, as is “Jerusalem Madonna”, by quantitative humanitarian articles in the hope that a combination of words and beautiful images can work where words alone have failed e.g. “Manhattan Madonna & 9/11”, “Sydney Madonna & Aboriginal Genocide”, “Melbourne Madonna. Australian Hedonism, Benign Racism & Denial” and the penultimate Madonna, “War, Deprivation & Denial. “Rosanna Madonna” painting” (for links to all these paintings see “Art for Peace, Planet, Mother & Child”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/home">http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/home</a> <span> </span>). </p> <p>All these paintings have a common underlying Fibonacci sequence-based Golden Rectangle (Da Vinci Code, Divine Section, Golden Flowers, Truelove) geometry that has been used extensively in Art from the Madonna and Child paintings of the Italian Renaissance onwards. However “Jerusalem Madonna “ and “Rosanna Madonna” also involve a huge cultural conflation of the Italian Renaissance Christian geometry; Medieval Islamic Tile Art (the 17 plane symmetry group patterns analysed mathematically by my great uncle Professor George Polya of the ETH Zurich and Stanford University and exploited by Dutch lithographer M.C. Escher); Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox icons going back to the Early Christian era; 20,000 year old European and Indigenous Australian cave figurative paintings; and modern French (Matisse) and American (Jackson Pollock) abstract expressionism. </p> <p>The beautiful idea is that if these cultures can co-exist within huge paintings - and especially works involving the universality of Mother and Child – why can’t they co-exist peacefully outside the canvas? </p> <p>The “Jerusalem Madonna” contains all these cultural references plus local references to the Dome of the Rock; traditional Jerusalem homes; trees; the Walls of the Old City; Angels or Spirits ascending; traditional Orthodox Hassidic Jews worshipping at the Wailing Wall (noting that Orthodox Judaism is opposed to both Racism and Zionism); the Palestinian Mother (loosely based on a young Palestinian Mother who once worked for me), her three Children and - it just cannot be ignored – the barbed wire separating Mother from freedom, security, self-determination, human rights, and indeed from her Child.</p> <p>We cannot ignore the plight of 3 million Occupied Palestinian Women and Children. We cannot walk by on the other side. Please send this message with its image of the “Jerusalem Madonna” to everyone you can. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-77900196012620911342011-05-31T01:13:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:13:52.632-07:00Manhattan Madonna<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Manhattan Madonna</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>For an image of the huge “Manhattan Madonna” painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429196820/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429196820/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> .</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, “Manhattan Madonna & 9/11”, MWC News, 11 October 2006.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Manhattan</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> Madonna & 9/11</span></b></p> <p><strong>MANHATTAN MADONNA</strong> is a huge painting that I have recently completed as part of a series of Madonna and Child paintings based on major cities. The Manhattan Madonna has a fundamental message that the most profound beauty and truth in our world is that of Mother and Child and that this beauty and truth transcends the greatest works of Man.</p> <p>This truism for decent people must be endlessly re-stated because it is so blatantly ignored in our present globalized, Bush-ite-led Spaceship Earth in which 10.6 million under-5 year old infants die every year, 29,000 daily and about 90% avoidably due to man-made deprivation and First World greed.</p> <p>The 9/11 tragedy took the lives of 3,000 ordinary people like ourselves. Unlike other homicide events, in this case the culprits (Muslim-origin terrorists, Americans, Israelis?) have not yet been apprehended, tried and punished. Instead the world has been treated to years of hysterical propaganda, anti-Arab anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and horrendous war and suffering imposed on the Middle East and Central Asia. However the Bush War on Terror that followed 9/11 has been associated with a total of 3.0 million post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories, 0.9 million excess deaths in Occupied Iraq and 2.1 million excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan [as of December 2009 post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 2.5 million and 4.5 million, respectively; see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/</a> ) .</p> <p>By way of corroboration of the above estimates that derive from the latest medical literature and UN data, a quick inspection of the latest <a href="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">UNICEF figures</a> reveals that each year 122,000 under-5 year old infants die in Occupied Iraq (population 28 million) and 359,000 die in Occupied Afghanistan (population 29 million) - as compared to 1,000 dying in Occupier country Australia (population 20 million).</p> <p>Thus about 0.5 million under-5 year old infants die each year in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories – 1,300 each day and ONE EVERY MINUTE – and this carnage is largely due to sustained US Coalition refusal to supply the life-sustaining requisites unequivocally demanded by the Geneva Conventions for the protection of civilians in time of war. </p> <p>The Bush War on Terror is in reality a War on Women and Children, a War on Mother and Child.</p> <p><strong>The Manhattan Madonna explained</strong></p> <p>The Manhattan Madonna derives from a nearly 2 millennium tradition of painting icons of The Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus – that is, of Madonna (My Lady) and Child. Such icons have been revered in the Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Christian Churches. This subject came to a great flowering in the Italian Renaissance with the greatest Madonna and Child exponents including Botticelli (e.g. Madonna of the Magnificat, Uffizi Gallery, Florence), Leonardo Da Vinci (e.g. the 2 versions of the Virgin of the Rocks in the National Gallery, London and the Louvre, Paris, respectively), Raphael (e.g. Madonna of the Goldfinch, Uffizi Gallery, Florence) and Michelangelo (e.g. the Bruges Madonna, marble statue, Bruges).</p> <p>A widely used geometry in paintings from the Renaissance onwards was the Golden Rectangle in which the length (L) is 1.618 (Phi) times the Width (the Da Vinci Code). Thus the 2 versions of the Madonna of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci are based on this geometrical construction. To understand this construction, imagine 2 identical squares each having the diagonals drawn and each containing an exactly fitting circle. Now bring these squares closer together so that the circles begin to overlap. When the overlap in the resultant Rectangle corresponds precisely to the Golden Section (the Divine Ratio) and the length (L) of the Rectangle is 1.618 times the Width (W) then you have a Golden Rectangle – and when you have attained the Divine Ratio and the Golden Rectangle 2 beautiful 4-petalled flowers appear (the Golden Flowers). The overlap of the Circles is called the Vesica Pisces and has a sacred significance (the Christian fish, the Gothic Arch of Christian Churches) and also a profane symbolism (the female vulva and male penis, bomb, bullet and missile). The Golden Flowers have a sacred significance (the Cross and the Father, Son, Holy Ghost and Virgin Mary) and a profane symbolism (the aphrodisiac and luck in love properties of the 4-petalled Paris quadrifolia flower). </p> <p>The Manhattan Madonna shows a universal Mother superimposed on the image (from East of the Brooklyn Bridge) of Manhattan a few seconds before the second plane crashes into the South Tower on 9/11. The billowing smoke becomes part of Her hair or hijab. Two dancing female figures on either side also become Her hair/hijab and displaying 2 heads for each of these figures conveys motion – the heads become part of Her Crown as Regina Mundi (Queen of the World). Two Golden Flowers at the top of the painting become jewellery in Her hair. Further decoration of the Madonna include the Moon in 2 phases (indicative of the menstrual cycle) and a white top of the Crown indicative of the Torch of the Statue of Liberty.</p> <p>In the lower half of the painting we have the Manhattan buildings around the Twin Towers, the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. A golden Flower appears on the Left Hand Side (LHS) and its opposite partner on the Right Hand Side (RHS) becomes an eagle (symbol of the CIA – who was responsible for 9/11?). On the RHS we have a lovely Child – a Born Child, one of the 0.5 million infants who die every year in the US-occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories or the 9.5 million who die avoidably each year in the World as a whole. However on the LHS we have an Embryo (the early Head and a tiny Hand are apparent) – the Racist Religious Right Republican (R4) Bush-ites are fanatical about the Right to Life of the Unborn but are complicit in horrendous avoidable mortality of Born Children in the Middle East, Central Asia and indeed in the Third World in general due to First World greed and unresponsiveness.</p> <p>At the bottom of the painting we have 2 Golden Flowers that are converted into Seagulls (Free, Wild Nature). However there is a central Vesica Pisces that encompasses the Male – penis, bomb, missile, arrow and harpoon imagery connected with the water of the East River. The metal suspension strands of the Brooklyn Bridge make it a Bow for the Arrow/Harpoon directed at the water of the East River. Thus the painting overall encompasses male/female principles, air/water/earth/fire, the vulnerable and transient works of Man, the wider tragedy of 9/11 and the universal beauty, truth and dignity of Mother and Child. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-23682305796702524402011-05-31T01:12:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:12:46.648-07:00Melbourne Madonna<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Melbourne Madonna</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p><b><span style="font-weight:normal">Gideon Polya, “Melbourne Madonna. </span></b>Australian Hedonism, Benign Racism & Denial<b><span style="font-weight:normal">”, MWC News, </span></b>17 April 2007.</p> <p><b>For an image of the huge painting “Melbourne Madonna” (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429309944/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429309944/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> . </p> <p><b>Melbourne</b><b> Madonna. </b><b>Australian Hedonism, Benign Racism & Denial</b></p> <p><b>MELBOURNE MADONNA</b> is the third painting in a series of huge paintings I have created that are dedicated to the transcendent importance and sanctity of Mother and Child. This message has to be endlessly re-stated because the awful current reality is that 16 million people die avoidably each year on Planet Earth, about 12 million are Women or Children and about 9 million of these avoidable deaths are of under under-5 year old infants. “Melbourne Madonna” uniquely captures the quintessential innocence, hedonism and denial of the happy, a-political people of this great, liberal city who simply “look the other way” over their national complicity in horrendous world events such as this continuing global avoidable mortality holocaust in the Third World.</p> <p>The first painting in this series was “Manhattan Madonna”(see “Art for Peace, Planet, Mother & Child”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/home">http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/home</a> <span> </span><span> </span>) <span> </span>that depicts a young Bengali or Third World mother, her born child and her unborn child superimposed upon Manhattan as seen from East of the Brooklyn Bridge just a few seconds before the second plane slams into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Manhattan is one of the greatest works of Man but the immense and iconic Twin Towers were reduced to rubble in less than a minute in this appalling atrocity. Yet Mother and Child will continue whether in the West or in the Third World. The fundamental message of this 9/11 Memorial painting is that Mother and Child transcend the greatest works of Man.</p> <p>The second painting in this series was “Sydney Madonna” that depicts an Aboriginal or Australoid Mother and Child superimposed – together with the animals, trees and marine creatures of Wild Australia - on what is arguably the most beautiful man-made landscape in the world, that of the Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge, the North Shore and Sydney Harbor. The same essential message is given – that Mother and Child and Wild Nature transcend the greatest works of Man. However this truism must be needlessly repeated because 44,000 people - three quarters women and children – perish avoidably EACH DAY on Planet Earth. Indeed in Australia the “annual death rate” for Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians) is 2.2% as compared to 0.7% for White Australians and 2.5% for Australian Sheep. </p> <p>“Melbourne Madonna” is a huge acrylic painting (1.34 meters x 2.84 meters on doubly-primed canvas) that is based on the Golden Rectangle-Fibonacci Series (Da Vinci Code) Geometry of many Italian Renaissance “Madonna and Child” paintings (e.g. those of Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci). Inherent in this geometry is not only Sacred symbolism but Profane imagery deriving from pre-Christian use of these patterns e.g. the Vesica Pisces (the Christian Fish and the Gothic Arch of Churches but also male and female sexual parts) and the 4-petalled Truelove flower (the Golden Flowers; the Christian Cross and the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary but also an aphrodisiac, a “lucky four” symbol and a flower bringing “luck in love’) (for details of the REAL Da Vinci Code see: <span> </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sacred-profane-real-da-vinci-code-exposed">http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sacred-profane-real-da-vinci-code-exposed</a> ).</p> <p>My “Melbourne Madonna” and her 2 children (one a blond and blue-eyed boy and the other a much darker girl) are superimposed over the iconic image of the famous triple-domed Flinders Street Railway Station at the heart of the City. The Melbourne Madonna is presented as a typical young Melburnian woman that one sees on the trains – red hair, nose stud and cheerful funky fashion. Her handmaidens are similarly “sporty” and cheerful Melbourne girls. The superimposition over the Flinders Street Station lends an almost irreverent, clown-like cheerfulness to the Madonna, redolent of both Melbourne’s and Sydney’s Luna Park Amusement Park Entrances. At the top of the painting are the ever-present seagulls of this major Port City that fly further inland at times of storm. At the bottom of the paintings are scores of ordinary Melburnians going between the Suburbs and the City via the Flinders Street Railway Station (I have put several family members in the painting).</p> <p>The essence of the imagery is of happy suburban normalcy, of the simple joys of work and play unruffled by the big issues of the world. Indeed the now-sunny Melbourne in the grip of drought is one of the world’s big cities closest to the South Pole. The “Melbourne Madonna” is about the simple pleasures of ordinary life conducted between City and Suburbs and untrammeled by the great issues of Spaceship Earth. Melburnians who have seen the painting agree – that’s our undemonstratively, low-key, quietly hedonistic and quintessentially civilized Melbourne. </p> <p>Melbourne is one of the major cities of a country that was among the first to have trade unions, the 8 hour working day, the basic wage, free and compulsory secular education, one man one vote, female suffrage, compulsory voting, public hospitals, old aged pensions and social services such as unemployment relief. </p> <p>Melburnians are aware of the past wrongs done to Aboriginal Australians and a hundred thousand marched in a public demonstration of remorse on Sorry Day some years ago. Forty years ago a national referendum overwhelmingly voted for finally “counting” Aboriginal Australians as citizens of Australia after 2 centuries of subjugation. Melbourne is a very multicultural city (the biggest Greek city after Athens and Thessaloniki). Melburnians are avowedly anti-racist and there are laws prohibiting religious and racial bigotry. Four years ago 150,000 Melburnians marched against the impending illegal Anglo-American-Australian invasion of Iraq. Last year 30,000 out of 4 million Melburnians marched against global warming. </p> <p>Yet Melburnians like other Australians enhance enjoyment of their simple hedonism and self-righteous decency by DENIAL and determined IGNORING of horrendous realities in which they are complicit in a democratic country with compulsory voting. Melburnians, like other Australians, are aware of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) but are largely unaware of the WW2 man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India that killed 4 million Hindu and Muslim victims and was associated with horrendous, large-scale military and civilian sexual abuse of starving women and girls. Melburnians are “sorry” for past wrongs to Indigenous (Aboriginal) Australians and are generally aware that Aboriginal life expectancy is nearly 2 decades less than for White Australians – yet few would be aware that the “annual death rate” for Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians) is 2.2% as compared to 0.7% for White Australians and 2.5% for Australian Sheep. </p> <p>About 50% of Melburnians have repeatedly voted for the ruling Federal Bush-ite Conservative Coalition Government. Yet Melburnians and Australians IGNORE the horrendous human cost of Bush’s War on Terror that has so far been associated with 1.0 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq and 2.4 million post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan. On Saint Patrick’s Day in 2007 only about 300 Melburnians (my partner and myself included) demonstrated against the Iraq War on the 4th Anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Only the Bush-ites support continued Occupation of Iraq but there is bi-partisan Australian agreement for continued occupation of Afghanistan. Bush’s War on Terror is in horrible reality a War on Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children, a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children and indeed a war on Non-European Women and Children extending from US surrogate-occupied Somalia in East Africa to US-occupied Afghanistan in South Asia. </p> <p>Iran is subject to US-backed terrorism from Pakistan’s Baluchistan and is under acute threat of conventional or even nuclear attack from US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST). Yet a major Australian public figure totally and outspokenly opposed to this utterly evil prospect, Sheik Hilaly, has been virulently excoriated by both sides of politics in Australia which are firmly committed to a dog-whistling, politically correct racism (PC racism) or benign racism involving cowardly, vote-winning xenophobia, anti-Arab anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.</p> <p>However the most serious IGNORING involves greenhouse gas pollution. Australia is the big country with the highest per capita annual carbon dioxide pollution; Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and the US is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter; neither will sign up to the Kyoto Protocol; and neither will agree to substantial cut-backs in carbon dioxide pollution. Unfortunately both major parties in Australia are committed to Coal (although the Opposition Labor Party will sign Kyoto and favours increased energy efficiency and use of renewables). Selfish, “benign racist”, Climate Criminal greed by Australia is acutely threatening deltaic Africa, Asia, Americas, Europe and the Pacific with Climate Genocide. </p> <p>Ordinary Germans claimed in 1945 that they did not know of the Nazi atrocities. Australians have no such excuse, notwithstanding the lying and holocaust-ignoring by benign racist Mainstream media and politicians. Thanks to the Internet, authoritative sources such as UNICEF and media such as MWC News, the awful truth is just a few mouse clicks away for Westerners, Australians and for Melburnians such as the Melbourne Madonna. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-27644945026676245542011-05-31T01:11:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:11:51.457-07:00My Country<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">My Country</span> </h3> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For an image of </span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>"My Country” see:</b></span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/" rel="nofollow"><br /></a></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/</a> </span>.</p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For discussion see Gideon Polya, “”My Country” Painting & Poem. Australia – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, MWC News, .5 April 2008.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">"My Country” is the most famous Australian poem – and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” is the title of the most famous Italian spaghetti Western movie.<br /></span></span></p><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">”My Country” Painting & Poem. Australia – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (the name of a famous Italian Spaghetti Western movie) is a succinct summation of Australia, a beautiful country with remarkable achievements but with a bloody history that still continues. Australia is under international scrutiny at the moment because its newly-elected Prime Minster Kevin Rudd is on a 17-day tour of the world. So far PM Rudd has suggested destruction of the US-restored, Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry (a GOOD idea – but promptly rejected by Australia’s racist, war criminal and genocidal US and NATO allies in war-ravaged, Occupied Afghanistan); he has fawned disgustingly over the world’s #1 terrorist and war criminal George Bush (BAD); and he has enthusiastically and dishonestly committed Australia to continued involvement in the racist and war criminal US Alliance War in Afghanistan that has so far been associated with 3.3-6.6 million post-invasion excess deaths, 2.3 million post-invasion under-5 infant deaths and 4 million refugees (UGLY) (see MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20907/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20907/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20907/42/</a> ).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">PM Kevin Rudd, elected in a major victory several months ago, simply reflects the political realities of contemporary Australia in which the American Alliance has been the sine qua non for the 7 decades since Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941). Australians overwhelmingly back the US Alliance to “protect us” from what they unashamedly still, albeit now jocularly, refer to as the Asian “yellow hordes” or the Asian “yellow peril”. Indeed a huge yellow-painted metal sculpture in the heart of Melbourne was instantly dubbed “The Yellow Peril” and is still known as such. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">To that end, to meet our “insurance premium” down-payments to the Americans, Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian Wars, wars that have been associated with a total of about 24 million excess Indigenous Asian deaths in the various devastated Asian counties, the excess mortality breakdown being roughly 1 million (the Korean war), 13 million (the Indo-China War), 2 million (the Iraq Sanctions and Gulf War), 2 million (the 2003 onwards Iraq War) and 6 million (the 2001 onwards Afghan War). Any departure from the violent, racist and genocidal US Alliance is political death in Australia – in vain do unheard, decent Australians suggest that the best security is being nice to your neighbours and trading with them.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Of course this racism, xenophobia and cowardice of White Australia is reinforced by the lying, racist, holocaust-ignoring, quasi-monopoly Mainstream media. Australia is a Murdochracy in which former Australian and now American citizen Rupert Murdoch owns 70% of the daily newspapers – these extreme right-wing and racist newspapers have a disproportionate influence over Australian voting. Thus one supposes that decent Australians would be totally opposed to the mass murder of Muslim infants in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan but they simply don’t know what is happening because it is simply not reported by the Mainstream media, including the taxpayer-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the very best of a very bad lot. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Yet a quick check with the UNICEF website (see: <a href="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html">http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html</a> ) informs us that about 1,000 under-5 year old infants die EACH DAY in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories, 90% avoidably and due to horrendous, war criminal Occupier non-provision of the life–sustaining food and medical requisites unequivocally demanded of Occupiers by the Geneva Convention. Australians pride themselves on their “innate decency” and would claim – like the post-1945 Germans but with much less justification – that they just did not know of these awful crimes because Mainstream media simply do not report them.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">PM Kevin Rudd’s performance so far is an extraordinary mixture of humanity or GOOD (saying the historic “Sorry” to the Indigenous Australians after over 2 centuries of Aboriginal Genocide; trying to get his war criminal US-NATO allies to destroy the US-fostered Afghan opium industry that kills about 300 Australians annually and about 0.1 million people world wide each year); distasteful active and passive pragmatism (continued suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Northern Territory Indigenous Australians; failure to act with requisite urgency to arrest the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide in which 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably each year out of an Aboriginal population of 0.5 million - BAD); and cowardly complicity in the remorseless, UGLY evil of the Bush-ite- and Zionist-promoted, anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, war criminal, US Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide and terracidal, climate criminal failure to act to diminish Australia’s world-leading per capita greenhouse gas pollution that helps to threaten Climate Genocide and the deaths of over 6 billion this century (see MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21277/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21277/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21277/42/</a> ) .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">This Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde dichotomy of PM Kevin Rudd (earnest, self-assertedly evidence-persuaded, Religious Right Rudd, R3, who nevertheless actively collaborates with the world’s #1 terrorist, war criminal, mass paedocide and mass murderer, George W. Bush) ) is reflected in Australia’s history. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Thus Australia was one of the first countries in the world to have trade unions, free and compulsory education, public hospitals, public universities and women’s suffrage (GOOD). However Australia has an awful, BAD and UGLY history of over 2 centuries of active Aboriginal Genocide (the last massacres occurring in the 1920s); the Stolen Generations in which 0.1 million Aboriginal Children were forcibly removed from their mothers (this continuing up to the1970s); effective slavery that continued in the Pacific islands up to the 1920s (and on Australian Mainland pastoral properties up to the 1970s); loyal support for the horrors of British imperialism that caused 1.5 billion excess deaths in British-ruled India alone; continuing involvement in post-1950 US Asian Wars (with Indigenous excess deaths totalling 24 million); and continued involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, the Iraqi Genocide, the Afghan Genocide and the horrendously threatening Climate Genocide.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">What has permitted this dichotomy of Good and Evil in Australia has been a combination of innate humane decency coupled with self-interest, cowardice, Silence and Lying – Australia is indeed still the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). Thus recently there was salivating, bi-partisan outrage and calls for removal of citizenship and expulsion from Australia of a “controversial” Muslim cleric who merely used “unfortunate” language to comment on the desirability of modest women’s dress (language aside, very sensible); recognition of pre-European Islamic contact with Australia (extensive trade with Indigenous Australia by Muslim Macassans operated for 5 centuries before abrupt, racist termination of this exchange by White Australia in 1906: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassan_contact_with_Australia" rel="nofollow" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassan_contact_with_Australia">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassan_contact_with_Australia</a> ); and comments about the “convict origins” of many Australians (true). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">As a citizen of Australia and of the World I have done my duty by making a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australia's continuing involvement in the war criminal, anti-Arab culture anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 3.3-6.6 million, 4 million refugees); the continuing Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 avoidable Indigenous deaths in the last 11 years; present Indigenous population 0.5 million); the Iraqi Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 1.7-2.2 million, 4.5 million refugees); and Climate Genocide (16 million avoidable deaths annually, this being increasingly biofuel- and climate change-impacted with climate criminal White Australia the Developed World’s worst annual per capita CO2 polluter): <a href="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/" title="http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/">http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/</a> ). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">One could argue that in terms of culture and landscape Australia is an acquired taste. Australians are proud of their “rough diamond”, “larrikin”, “democratic”, and ostensibly “fair go” culture - as opposed to Home Country English “refinement” and Jane Austen-style “manners”. (Although, to be realistic and frank, there is not much of a “fair go” for the 0.3 million Afghan infants who perish avoidably EACH YEAR in Australian-occupied Afghanistan nor for the 0.6 million bereaved parents). Further, Australians love the sharp light and harshness of the Australian landscape – as opposed to the moist, verdant, lush European landscape. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">This is beautifully captured in Dorothea Mackellars’s famous and iconic poem “My Country” which the Australian poet (1885-1968) wrote while homesick for a “sunburnt country” and a “wide brown land” Australia while living in green, grey, misty, wet England at the age of 19 (see: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country" rel="nofollow" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Country</a> ) :</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The love of field and coppice</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Of green and shaded lanes,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Of ordered woods and gardens</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Is running in your veins.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Strong love of grey-blue distance,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Brown streams and soft, dim skies</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">I know, but cannot share it,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">My love is otherwise.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">I love a sunburnt country,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">A land of sweeping plains,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Of ragged mountain ranges,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Of drought and flooding rains.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">I love her far horizons,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">I love her jewel-sea,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Her beauty and her terror</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The wide brown land for me!</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The stark white ring-barked forests,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">All tragic to the moon,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The sapphire-misted mountains,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The hot gold hush of noon,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Green tangle of the brushes</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Where lithe lianas coil,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">And orchids deck the tree-tops,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">And ferns the warm dark soil.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Core of my heart, my country!</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Her pitiless blue sky,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">When, sick at heart, around us</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">We see the cattle die</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">But then the grey clouds gather,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">And we can bless again</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The drumming of an army,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The steady soaking rain.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Core of my heart, my country!</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Land of the rainbow gold,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">For flood and fire and famine</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">She pays us back threefold.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Over the thirsty paddocks,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Watch, after many days,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">The filmy veil of greenness</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">That thickens as we gaze…</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">An opal-hearted country,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">A wilful, lavish land</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">All you who have not loved her,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">You will not understand</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">though Earth holds many splendours,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">Wherever I may die,</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">I know to what brown country</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic">My homing thoughts will fly.</span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:italic"> </span></span></i></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">I have tried to capture the dichotomies of Australia in my HUGE (1.3 meter x 2.9 meter) acrylic painting entitled “My Country” that is based on Dorothea Mackellar’s iconic poem. The geometry of the painting is a 4-circle, Double Golden Rectangle as employed in Pablo Picasso’s great anti-war painting “Guernica” (1937) - but the painting also contains an underlying medieval Islamic tile art geometry involving one of the 17 plane symmetry groups (or wall paper patterns, if you like). The painting also includes human and animal figurative elements redolent of Australian Aboriginal and pre-historic European cave art (for a detailed discussion of these elements see ““Alhambra Pollock” painting. Arab-Islam-West Amity through Art” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14082/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14082/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14082/42/</a> ).</span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">In short, “My Country” - the painting – can be conveniently “read” as 4 key sub-set images from West to East, from the Red Western half of Australia that is experiencing a Red Dawn some hours after the Sun has already illuminated the now heavily European-dominated Eastern sea board. Thus in the West (Right Hand Side, RHS) we have initially a red, sunburnt country, Uluru (formerly Ayer’s Rock) in Central Australia, kangaroos, emus, other bird life plus, at the bottom, images of the Northern Territory wetlands with water birds and crocodiles. Next we have the very yellow Western Plains with wildlife and burning Sun plus, at the bottom, images of flood inundation i.e. of “drought and flooding rains”. In the next quartile we have a Green, lush, well-watered country around the Great Dividing Range (the Eastern spine of Australia) plus, below, an image of drought. Finally, in the Eastern Left hand Side (LHS) we have the European, Eastern sea board with skyscrapers, Bondi swimmers, shark fins, Sydney Harbor Bridge, hump-backed whales and the brilliantly-colored fish of the Great Barrier Reef.</span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">This is “My Country” with its huge variety of dichotomies in one large painting – a labor of love indeed. </span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">However, when in a few months you see brilliant young Australian athletes scoop the swimming gold medals in the Beijing Olympics, just remember that “all that glistens is not gold” and that My Country has differing facets, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Only the truth will set us free – and save the Afghan.and Iraqi infants dying at the rate of 1 every minute in White Australian–occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.</span></span></p>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-60670868900298068472011-05-31T01:09:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:10:37.118-07:00One Day Pathétique<table id="sites-chrome-main" class="sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td id="sites-chrome-sidebar-left" class="sites-layout-sidebar-left"><div id="COMP_2bd" class="sites-embed"><div class="sites-embed-content sites-sidebar-nav "><ul><li class="nav-first"><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"> </div><br /></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/alhambra-pollock" class="sites-navigation-link">Alhambra Pollock</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/apocalypse-now" class="sites-navigation-link">Apocalypse Now</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/bundoora-arabesque" class="sites-navigation-link">Bundoora Arabesque</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/bundoora-eucalyptus" class="sites-navigation-link">Bundoora Eucalyptus</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/civilization-aka-genes-and-memes" class="sites-navigation-link">Civilization (aka Genes and Memes)</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/clean-energy-world" class="sites-navigation-link">Clean Energy World</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/darebin-wetlands" class="sites-navigation-link">Darebin Wetlands</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/deep-mind" class="sites-navigation-link">Deep Mind</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-1" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 1</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-2" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 2</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-3" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 3</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/five-eighths-4" class="sites-navigation-link">Five Eighths 4</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/four-seasons" class="sites-navigation-link">Four Seasons</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/isfahan-matisse" class="sites-navigation-link">Isfahan Matisse</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/jeruslem-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Jerusalem Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/manhattan-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Manhattan Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/melbourne-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Melbourne Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/my-country" class="sites-navigation-link">My Country</a> </div></li><li class=""><div class="current-bg" dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;">One Day Pathétique </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/qana" class="sites-navigation-link">Qana</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/rosanna-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Rosanna Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sacred-profane-real-da-vinci-code-exposed" class="sites-navigation-link">SACRED & PROFANE - REAL DA VINCI CODE EXPOSED</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/scheherazade" class="sites-navigation-link">Scheherazade</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/seymour-bushland" class="sites-navigation-link">Seymour Bushland</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/swan-lake" class="sites-navigation-link">Swan Lake</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/sydney-madonna" class="sites-navigation-link">Sydney Madonna</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/terra" class="sites-navigation-link">Terra</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/truelove" class="sites-navigation-link">Truelove</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/truth-beauty-saving-the-world" class="sites-navigation-link">Truth, Beauty & Saving the World - Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/wilson-s-promontory" class="sites-navigation-link">Wilson's Promontory</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy" class="sites-navigation-link">Sitemap</a> </div></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="sites-clear"> <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/admin/appearance/pageElements" rel="nofollow" class="sites-system-link sites-edit-sidebar-link">Edit sidebar</a> </div> </td> <td id="sites-canvas-wrapper"> <div id="sites-canvas"> <div id="goog-ws-editor-toolbar-container"> </div> <div id="title-crumbs" style=""> </div> <h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">One Day Pathétique</span> </h3> <div id="sites-canvas-main" class="sites-canvas-main"> <div id="sites-canvas-main-content"> <table class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1"><div dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Gideon Polya, ““One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting. HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power”, MWC News, submitted 24 October 2008.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Image of </span></span><i><span style="font-style:normal"><b> “One Day Pathétique”</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/</a> .<br /></span></i></p><p><b><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">“One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting. HOPE – Best Renewables Now Cost Same as Coal Power</span></span></b></p><p><b><i><span style="font-style:normal">Tchaikovski’s final “Pathétique” Symphony is actually Joyous and Hopeful as is the energy cost cross-over point - the best renewable and geothermal power options now cost roughly the same as coal burning-based power.</span></i></b></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal"><b>I have painted a huge (1.3 metre x 2.9 metre) painting entitled “One Day Pathétique”</b> (see: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291910148/</a> ) that captures Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovski’s final Symphony Number 6, the so-called “Pathétique”. Tchaikovski was delighted with this symphony but because he died a fortnight after its first performance the symphony has become known as the “Pathétique”. There is, however, a joyous and hopeful interpretation of this great work as opposed to the traditional sad, pathos-laden view. One Christmas morning I listened to Tchaikovski’s Symphony Number 6 as the sun was rising over the beautiful Yarra River Valley and I suddenly realized why Tchaikovski was so pleased with his final symphony – it clearly describes one day in the life of a human being. The Symphony is in 4 Movements and is famous for starting off very gently (as one slowly wakes up) and for concluding so softly that you strain to hear the last notes (as one drifts off to sleep after a full day). In between, the Symphony successively evokes the early morning, morning activities, noon time glory, the march of shadows in the late afternoon, and the glory of the stars. Once you realize the One Day interpretation everything fits so beautifully that you can really understand why Tchaikovski was so delighted with the symphony and regarded it as his finest work.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">My “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting is also conveniently divided into 4 Sections (evoking the 4 Movements of the Symphony) which are determined by the 4 major overlapping circles of a classical Italian Renaissance Double Golden Rectangle geometry. I use beautiful young maidens as figurative, almost abstract expressionist elements to tell the story of a lovely day. Reading Left to Right, the maidens slowly wake up (as do birds and flower buds); they then go into the woods gathering wood, berries and flowers; midday sees them busily engaged in the meadows (as are rabbits and birds); and in the evening the glorious stars come out, the birds roost, night birds fly out to hunt, and the maidens rest and finally drift off to sleep. </span></i></p> <h3><a name="TOC-My-One-Day-Path-tique-Symphony-Pain"></a><br /><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal">My “One Day Pathétique” Symphony Painting is about joy, beauty, nature and hope – and is ideal for illustrating the Good News in the current Climate Emergency. Just as my painting was inspired by the Sun coming up over the beautiful Yarra Valley, so have I been galvanized by our local Yarra Valley Climate Action Group that is trying to help save the Planet from man-made global warming. Many of my colleagues in the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (and in its umbrella Climate Emergency Network and Climate Movement national umbrella groups) are deeply despondent about the notorious Australian inaction in the mounting Climate Emergency. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and one of the world’s worst per capita polluters but its extreme right wing, pro-Coal Government is strong on rhetoric but lacking in action. The circa $100 billion per annum Australian coal industry has effectively squashed sensible action and determined the resolutely pro-Coal stance of the major political parties (the Federally-governing Labor and the Opposition Liberal-National Party Coalition, these being collectively known as Lib-Labs) (see “</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal">Post-Copenhagen Australia will INCREASE its per capita Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution</span><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-style:normal">”: <b><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/post-copenhagen-australia" style="font-weight:normal" title="http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/post-copenhagen-australia">http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/post-copenhagen-australia</a> ).</b> </span></i></h3> <p><i><span style="font-style:normal">I am nevertheless optimistic and tell my colleagues that science, technology, sensible risk management and sensible business practice will eventually triumph over neocon greed, irresponsibility, denial, ignoring, climate scepticism, climate racism, climate terrorism, climate genocide, dishonesty and spin. </span></i></p> <h1><a name="TOC-Man-made-anthropogenic-greenhouse-g"></a><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal">Man-made (anthropogenic) greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from fossil fuel burning, methanogenic livestock production, other agriculture (notably major crop-based biofuel generation) and deforestation have lifted the atmospheric GHG concentration to a dangerous level. Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) has declared that “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, a view recently essentially endorsed by the Head of the Nobel Prize-winning UN IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri (see James Hansen et al,”</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Times New Roman;font-weight:normal"> Target atmospheric CO2: Where should humanity aim?<i><span style="font-style:normal">”, </span></i>Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2008<i><span style="font-style:normal">: <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126" rel="nofollow" title="http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126">http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126</a> ).</span></i></span></h1> <h1><a name="TOC-In-2007-I-published-an-assessment-o"></a><i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal">In 2007 I published an assessment of the relative costs of power from a variety of sources. A key observation was that a Canadian Ontario Government-commissioned study had found that the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (taking the human and environmental impact into account) was 4-5 times the “market price”. Already in 2007 it was apparent that the cost of power from all the lower-cost systems (in cents per kilowatt hour) was LOWER than the “true cost” coal burning-based power (see Paul Gipe, “</span></i><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Times New Roman;font-weight:normal">Ontario Study Identifies Social Costs of Coal-Fired Power Plants</span></h1> <p><i><span style="font-style:normal">”, EV World, 2006: <a href="http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836">http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836</a> and "Cost Benefit Analysis: Replacing Ontario's Coal-Fired Electricity </span></i><i><br /></i><i><span style="font-style:normal">Generation" by DSS Management Consultants Inc. and RWDI Air Inc., for the Ontario Ministry of Energy, April, 2005, 93 pages, </span></i><i><br /></i><a href="http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/english/pdf/electricity/coal_cost_benefit_analysis_april2005.pdf" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/english/pdf/electricity/coal_cost_benefit_analysis_april2005.pdf">http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/english/pdf/electricity/coal_cost_benefit_analysis_april2005.pdf</a>.<i><span style="font-style:normal">)</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">However, as summarized below, it is now apparent that a crucial CROSS-OVER POINT has now been reached at which the cost of power from a range of lower-cost is about the SAME as the “market price” of coal burning –based power. In the analysis below the COST OF POWER (e.g. as measured in units such as US cents per kilowatt hour or US$ per megawatt hour) is given for a variety of non-carbon energy sources, together with an estimate of the MAGNITUDE of the various renewable and/or non-carbon energy resources. For detailed documentation of the information given below the reader is directed to a summary provided (with numerous links) by the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group entitled “</span></i><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached" target="_blank" title="http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached"><i><span style="color:windowtext;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none"><span title="http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached">CROSS-OVER POINT</span></span></i></a><i><span style="font-style:normal">: Best Renewable and Geothermal Power NOW for SAME COST as Fossil fuel-based Power”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached" title="http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached">http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/cross-over-point-reached</a> .</span></i></p> <p><br /><b>1. Wind Power</b><i><span style="font-style:normal"> </span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to NOVA Science in the News (published by the prestigious Australian Academy of Science, 2008): “advances in wind power science and technology are reducing the cost of wind power to a point at which it is becoming competitive with many other energy sources (at about 8 Australian cents per kilowatt hour)” [i.e. 5.6 US cents per kilowatt hour [kWh] or US$56 per megawatt hour [MWh]). According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) the average cost of onshore wind power in the UK (2005) was 3.2 p/kWh [i.e. 5.2 US cents per kilowatt hour or US$52 per megawatt hour (MWh)] . According to the US Energy Information Administration the cost per unit of energy produced from wind was estimated in 2006 to be comparable to the cost of new generating capacity in the United States for coal and natural gas: wind cost was estimated at US$55.80 per MWh [megawatt hour], coal at US$53.10 per MWh and natural gas at US$52.50 per MWh. </span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to a Stanford University study “global wind power generated at locations with mean annual wind speeds ≥ 6.9 m/s at 80 m is found to be ~72 TW (~54,000 Mtoe [million tons of oil equivalent]) for the year 2000. Even if only ~20% of this power could be captured, it could satisfy 100% of the world’s energy demand for all purposes (6995-10177 Mtoe) and over seven times the world’s electricity needs (1.6-1.8 TW)”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">There is huge potential for off-shore wind power. According to Research and Markets (May 2008; summarizing the Global Wind Power Report 2008): “Wind is the world’s fastest-growing energy source with an average annual growth rate of 29% over the last ten years. In 2007, the global wind power generating capacity crossed 94 gigawatts (GW). This represents a twelve-fold increase from a decade ago, when world wind-generating capacity stood at just over 7.6 gigawatts (GW). Being an emerging fuel source a decade ago, wind energy has grown rapidly into a mature and booming global industry. Further, the power generation costs of wind energy have fallen by 50%, moving closer to the cost of conventional energy sources. The future prospects of the global wind industry are very encouraging and it is estimated to grow by more than 70% over the next five years to reach 160 gigawatts (GW) by year 2012”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><b>2. Concentrated Solar Power with Energy Storage</b></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">The US solar energy company Ausra uses a form of Concentrated Solar Thermal (CST) technology called Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) technology. In short, solar energy is collected and concentrated in a sophisticated way and used to generate steam to drive turbines and hence generate electricity. A key feature is that solar energy is stored, enabling Ausra CLFR plants to generate electricity 24 hours per day. An Ausra factory producing 700 megawatt (MW) of solar collectors annually opened in Nevada in 2008. Ausra is involved in joint construction of a 177 megawatt (MW) CLFR plant for California. According to Ausra (2008): “Ausra's innovations in collector design dramatically reduce the cost of solar thermal generation equipment and bring solar power to prices directly competitive with fossil fuel power. Using Ausra's current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">Solar energy hitting the Earth is roughly 10,000 times greater than the energy we consume globally. Global electricity production (2005) was 17,400 TWh. Exciting new research developments on hydrogen fuel cells (at Monash University, Australia) and efficient electrolysis (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) presage an efficient, solar energy-based, hydrogen fuel cell-run transportation system within a decade.</span></i></p> <p><br /><b>3. Wave power</b></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">The cost of wave power by the CETO system (a sea bed-fixed pump linked to a buoyant actuator) is about that of wind power. There are further big cost efficiencies if wave power is used for cogeneration of potable water. A Carnegie Corporation submission to an Australian Parliamentary Committee (2007) states: that “CETO can offer zero-emission base-load electricity generation capacity at a cost comparable to existing wind power [i.e. about US$50 per MWh] and the capacity to provide potable water to major population centres using 100% clean energy”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">Further, this Submission states: “The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately 2 Terawatts (TW), about double current world electricity production, could be produced from oceans via wave power … It is estimated that 1 million gigawatt hours (GWh) of wave energy hits Australian shores annually, or more than four times Australian’s total annual electricity consumption of 210,000 gigawatt hours (2004 figures)”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><b>4. Hydro power</b></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development (2002) various New Zealand hydroelectric power systems provided power for 4-10 NZ cents per kilowatt hour [2.4-5.9 US cents per kilowatt hour i.e. US$24-59 per megawatt hour]. </span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to BNET (2007): “Hydropower currently accounts for approximately 20% of the world's electricity production, with about 650,000 MW (650 GW) installed and approximately 135,000 MW (135 GW) under construction or in the final planning stages … It is estimated that only about a quarter of the economically exploitable water resources has been developed to date”.</span></i></p> <p><br /><b>5. Geothermal power</b></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to Professor John Veevers (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia): “The [Australian hot rocks] geothermal resource extends over 1000 square kilometres … Modelled costs are 4 Australian cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid [4.5 Australian cents per kWh = 3.2 US cents per kWh or US$32 per MWh]. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents” see “The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related chapters in this book by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and by Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”).</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">According to the Report of an interdisciplinary panel of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) experts entitled “The Future of Geothermal Energy” (2006) : “EGS [Enhanced Geothermal Systems] is one of the few renewable energy resources that can provide continuous base-load power with minimal visual and other environmental impacts … The accessible geothermal resource, based on existing extractive technology, is large and contained in a continuum of grades ranging from today’s hydrothermal, convective systems through high- and mid-grade EGS resources located primarily in the western United States) to the very large, conduction-dominated contributions in the deep basement and sedimentary rock formations throughout the country. By evaluating an extensive database of bottom-hole temperature and regional geologic data (rock types, stress level, surface temperature etc), we have estimated that the total EGS resource has to be more than 13 million exajoules (EJ) [13 million EJ x 277.8 TWh per EJ = 3611.4 million TWh]. Using reasonable assumptions regarding how heat would be used from stimulated EGS reservoirs, we also estimated the extractable portion to exceed 0.2 million EJ (0.2 million EJ x 277.8 TWh per EJ = 55.56 million TWh) ... With technological improvements, the economically extractable amount of useful energy could increase by a factor of 10 or more, thus making EGS sustainable for centuries” (see Chapter1, p1-4).</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">Nuclear power can be dismissed as a serious future option in this analysis because the overall nuclear power cycle (from mining to waste disposal) currently has a major CO2-polluting component (equivalent to that of a modern gas-fired power plant); the cost of nuclear power via the UK's newest Sizewell B plant is 15 Australian cents per kilowatt hour [10.5 US cents per kilowatt hour or US$105 per MWh; required high grade uranium ore is a very limited resource; and long-term safe storage of waste and security issues are unresolved. Biofuel from land-based crops (notably canola, palm oil, sugar and corn) is highly CO2 polluting from mechanisms such as de-forestation and loss of soil carbon. Indeed the biofuel perversion that is legislatively mandated in the US, the UK and the EU is making a huge contribution to global food price rises that in turn are threatening the lives of “billions” of people according to UK Chief Scientific Advisor Professor John Beddington FRS (see “Biofuel Genocide”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/home">http://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/home</a> ) . </span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">In Summary, while the World has arguably already reached “peak oil” and uranium, gas and coal resources are limited, the solar energy hitting the Earth is roughly 10,000 times greater than the energy that Man consumes globally. Geothermal resources are immense. Already developed and implemented geothermal power technologies and low-cost renewable energy technologies directly dependent on solar energy (concentrated solar thermal power) or indirectly dependent on solar energy (hydro, wind and wave power) have reached a CROSS-OVER POINT at which the cost of power in cents per kilowatt hour are COMMENSURATE with the current “market cost” of fossil fuel burning –based power. Further, the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (i.e. taking the environmental and human impact into account) is 4-5 times the “market cost”. Exciting new research developments at Monash University, Australia, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, presage the possibility of an efficient, solar energy-based, hydrogen fuel cell-run transportation system within a decade.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">Former US Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore has recently (mid-2008) called for 100% renewable electric power with ten years: “Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years” (see: </span></i><a href="http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_to_repower_america/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_to_repower_america/"><i><span style="color:windowtext;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none"><span title="http://www.wecansolveit.org/pages/al_gore_a_generational_challenge_to_repower_america/">here</span></span></i></a><i><span style="font-style:normal">). Carbon-free power is now technically and economically feasible at a “market cost” commensurate with the “market cost” of fossil fuel burning-based power. </span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">The science, technology and economics thus indicate that the urgent need (enunciated by NASA’s Dr James Hansen and his colleagues) to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current 387 ppm to no more than 350 ppm can be realized NOW with low-cost renewable energy and geothermal energy implementation coupled with cessation of fossil fuel burning and de-forestation, minimization of agricultural methanogenesis, massive re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to the world’s soils.</span></i></p> <p><br /><i><span style="font-style:normal">Just as there is an Optimistic Interpretation of Tchaikovski’s “Pathétique” Symphony, so we see that with honesty and goodwill the World can successfully address the acutely serious Climate Emergency in a vigorous and timely fashion.</span></i></p> </div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-65744150438741150382011-05-31T01:08:00.002-07:002011-05-31T01:09:40.201-07:00Qana<table id="sites-chrome-main" class="sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td id="sites-chrome-sidebar-left" class="sites-layout-sidebar-left"><div id="COMP_2bd" class="sites-embed"><div class="sites-embed-content sites-sidebar-nav "><ul><li class="nav-first"><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"> </div><br /></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/alhambra-pollock" class="sites-navigation-link">Alhambra Pollock</a> </div></li><li class=""><div dir="ltr" style="padding-left: 5px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/apocalypse-now" 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href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy" class="sites-navigation-link">Sitemap</a> </div></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="sites-clear"> <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/admin/appearance/pageElements" rel="nofollow" class="sites-system-link sites-edit-sidebar-link">Edit sidebar</a> </div> </td> <td id="sites-canvas-wrapper"> <div id="sites-canvas"> <div id="goog-ws-editor-toolbar-container"> </div> <div id="title-crumbs" style=""> </div> <h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Qana</span> </h3> <div id="sites-canvas-main" class="sites-canvas-main"> <div id="sites-canvas-main-content"> <table class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1"><div dir="ltr"> <div dir="ltr"> <p><span>Gideon Polya, “</span>Picasso, Guernica, Qana<span>”, MWC News, </span>Picasso, Guernica, Qana – 16 September 2006.</p><p> </p><p><span><b>For the image of the huge painting “Qana “ (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see:</b> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/</a> .</span></p> <p><span> </span></p> <p><b>Picasso, Guernica, Qana</b></p> <p><span> </span></p> <p><span>Western Mainstream media simply ignore the horrendous human cost of US-Israeli state terrorism and, conversely, continue to promote “terror hysteria” and Islamophobia. Now the head of the Catholic Church has threateningly joined the Bush chorus of hatred. My attempts as a humanist scientist to inform the world of the horrendous human cost of the Bush Wars (as of September 2006, 3.2 million avoidable deaths) have largely fallen on deaf ears (except for enlightened journals such as Al-Jazeerah). </span></p> <p><span>When words fail one should not give up - one should just try something else. I am an artist as well as a humanist scientist. Back in the 1960s in New York we saw Pablo Picasso’s huge painting “Guernica” at the Museum of Modern Art. Picasso had painted this huge masterpiece in 1937 in response to the destruction of the Basque town of Guernica by Nazi bombers during the Spanish Civil War. Indeed we had a big “Guernica” poster in our apartment in those Vietnam War days. Years later my mentor as a painter was the Spanish artist Ignacio Marmol who knew Picasso and introduced me to classical geometrical scaffolding in painting. In short, I discovered the mathematical “secret” of Picasso’s “Guernica” (technically, a Double Golden Rectangle) and in September 2006 I painted a huge painting derived conceptually from “Guernica” but based on “Qana”, the Lebanese town destroyed in July 2006 by US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST). For an image of my painting “Qana” and a detailed analysis see my article “Picasso, Guernica, Qana and the Da Vinci Code” in MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/</a> . </span></p> <p><span>Lebanon</span><span> only emerged from 2 decades of partial Israeli occupation 6 years ago. The Lebanon avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that should not have happened) for the period 1982-2000 total about 80,000. However the latest Israeli War has killed over 1,000, wounded some 4,000, rendered 1 million homeless and made much of Southern Lebanon uninhabitable by unexploded bombs, including those deriving from the dropping of 1 million cluster bombs. It is estimated that reduction of Lebanon to a UK-US-occupied Iraq scenario through the destruction of economy and infrastructure would cause 20,000 avoidable deaths annually (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/</a> ). The horrendous Israeli War continues against Palestine, largely ignored by lying, racist Western mainstream media. </span></p> <p><span>Of course the crimes of US-Israeli state terrorism in Lebanon are but one part of its crimes in the Muslim world. Just think for a moment – since 1945 over one hundred countries gained their independence from European colonial rule but in 2006 FIVE (5) substantially Muslim countries were under partial or complete occupation by Western armies, specifically Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is asserted that Egypt barely escaped Zionist-inspired nuclear annihilation in 1967 after the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty; Iran is currently under acute threat (the more so now that the Pope is actively promoting Islamophobia); and we have just learned from Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf that in 2001 the US threatened to bomb his country “back to the Stone Age”. </span></p> <p><span>Avoidable mortality is defined as the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics (see: </span><span><a href="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/">http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/</a> </span><span>). The post-invasion avoidable mortality in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now totals 0.3, 0.5 and 2.0 million, respectively – 60 % under-5 year old infants and due to Occupier violation of the Geneva Conventions that demand that Occupiers keep their Conquered Subjects ALIVE (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9357/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9357/26/</a> ). Using precise, non-rounded figures, the total post-invasion avoidable mortality in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan totals 2.6 million. However the cost of Bush-Blair War on Terror (in reality a cowardly, racist War on Asian Women and Children) is greater still. Thus 100,000 American infants have died avoidably over the last 5 years due to warped Bush priorities (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/</a> ) and since 9/11 0.5 million people have died globally from opiate drug-related reasons (including 50,000 Americans), largely due to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry to a present 89% of world market share (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/</a> ) . </span></p> <p><span>The total number of post-9/11 avoidable deaths in the Bush-Blair War on Women and Children now totals 3.2 million (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/7102/26/</a> ) – 1,000 times greater than the number of Coalition/NATO military deaths and 1,000 times greater than the number of people killed in the 9/11 atrocity. Indeed the number of Western civilians (including Israelis) killed by Muslim-origin non-state terrorism over the last 40 years totals 7,000 (assuming no US or Israeli complicity in 9/11). Nevertheless, lying, racist Mainstream media will simply not report the horrendous civilian deaths in the Bush-Blair Wars in a continuing process of gross holocaust denial. Conversely, the lying, racist Mainstream media actively promote Islamophobia and “terror hysteria” while ignoring the horrendous cost of UK, US and Israeli state terrorism. Even the Pope has now joined in the general Islamophobia which can be seen to relate to UK-US democratic imperialism (democratic tyranny, democratic Nazism) in the same way that anti-Jewish anti-Semitism was employed by German Nazism (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9624/42/" rel="nofollow">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9624/42/</a> ). </span></p> <p><span>Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to inform others about gross abuses of humanity in any way appropriate to our skills. Shostakovich used music. Picasso used painting in his masterpiece “Guernica”. My scientific, statistical skills having largely failed, I have followed Picasso’s example - perhaps my painting “Qana” can help to mobilize the civilized world against US-Israeli state terrorism.<br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span><b>See also the following analysis.</b><br /></span></p> </div><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b>For an image of the huge painting “Qana” (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4293063550/</a> .</p> <p> </p> <p>Gideon Polya, “Guernica 70th Anniversary & Qana. <i><span style="font-style:normal">Picasso & Polya Paintings for Peace</span></i>”, MWC News, <span> </span>28 April 2007<b>, not cached by Google. </b></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span>Guernica</b><b> 70th Anniversary & Qana. </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">Picasso & Polya Paintings for Peace</span></b></i></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt"> </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">ON 26 APRIL 1937 Nazi German and Fascist Italian bombers attacked the Basque town of Guernica. They generated a firestorm that destroyed three quarters of the town and caused huge civilian casualties (estimates ranging from 300-1,600 dead). Many believe that this was in part a trial run for the Nazi Luftwaffe. Thus at his post-war Nuremberg trial German Luftwaffe chief Göring stated: </span></span> </p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US">“</span></span><i><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-style:italic">I urged him [Adolf Hitler] to give support [to Franco] under all circumstances, firstly, in order to prevent the further spread of communism in that theater and, secondly, to test my young Luftwaffe at this opportunity in this or that technical respect </span></span></i><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">” (see: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica#Outcome_of_the_Raid" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica#Outcome_of_the_Raid">HERE</a>).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">The bombing of Guernica prompted Pablo Picasso to paint his huge painting “Guernica” for the 1937 Paris Exposition (Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, International Exposition for Art and Technology in Modern Life). Picasso’s “Guernica” masterpiece has become THE iconic anti-war painting – and competes with Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” as THE iconic painting of the 20th century. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">On 27 January 2003, just prior to the impending war with Iraq, UN officials SHROUDED of the UN’s copy of “Guernica” in New York. This copy of “Guernica:” was shrouded while US Secretary of State Colin Powell was presenting arguments (later proven to be based on FALSE information) for the Invasion of Iraq. This is, in part, what Australian Labor Party (ALP) Opposition parliamentarian Laurie Brereton said in a speech to the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/05/1044318661158.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/05/1044318661158.html">Australian Federal Parliament on 4 February 2003</a>.</span></span></p> <p><i><b><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;color:black;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:12pt;color:black">“On 26 April 1937, German bombers attacked the town of Guernica in northern Spain. The village was left in ruins with sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded. This act of terror - the first large scale aerial attack against a civilian population centre - outraged the world. It compelled Picasso, then living in Paris, to begin the work that would become his testament against the horrors of war and one of the greatest artworks of the twentieth century.</span></span></i></b></i></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt"> </span></span></p> <p><i><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">I'm told that the UN's Guernica was donated by the philanthropist Nelson A Rockefeller in 1985. Unfortunately, it is now no longer on display. According to press reports, on 27 January this year a large blue curtain was hung to cover it up. Questioned why the painting had been covered, UN press spokesman Fred Eckhard said the blue curtain was a technically better background for the cameras covering statements being made outside the Security Council.</span></span></i></i></p> <p><i><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">This may be the official explanation, but the same media reports quote unnamed diplomats observing that it would not be appropriate for the US Ambassador at the UN John Negroponte or Secretary of State Colin Powell to talk about war with Iraq against a backdrop depicting images of women and children and animals crying with horror and showing the suffering of war.</span></span></i></i></p> <p><i><i><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Whatever the reasons, there is a profound symbolism in pulling a shroud over this great work of art. For throughout the debate on Iraq, whether at the UN, in the US, or here in Australia, there has been a remarkable degree of obfuscation, evasion and denial, and never more so than when it comes to the grim realities of military action.” </span></span></i></i></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">The rest is history. In vain, millions demonstrated around the world against the impending disaster. 150,000 people (including me, friends and family) demonstrated in Melbourne, Australia against the coming invasion of Iraq. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">On 20 March 2003 the US, UK and Australia invaded the remote, non-threatening, oil-rich but sanctions-crippled country of Iraq in gross violation of the UN Charter and of International Law. Four years on in Occupied Iraq the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that should not have happened) total 1.0 million; post-invasion under-5 year old infant deaths total 0.5 million; and there are now an estimated 4 million Iraqi refugees out of a population of 27 million (see <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13296/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13296/42/">MWC News</a>). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">This now amounts to an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide (as defined by the UN Genocide Convention) that is being perpetrated by the American Bush Administration with the assistance of Racist Bush-ite (RB) governments around the world (notably those of the UK, Australia and Canada) and the support of the Racist Zionists (RZs) of the Western Israel Lobbies and the Racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel (AI). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">The War on Iraq is ONE part of 21st century US or US-backed invasion and occupation of typically weak and impoverished countries around the world, specifically Haiti, Somalia, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The accrual cost (i.e. the long-term committed cost) of just the Iraq and Afghanistan part of the Bush War on Terror has been estimated at $2.5 TRILLION by 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate US Professor Stiglitz (Columbia University ) and Professor Linda Bilmes (Harvard University). The post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories now (April 2007) total 0.3. 1.0 and 2.4 million, respectively; the post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2, 0.5 and 1.9 million, respectively; and there are over 4 million Palestinian refugees registered with the UN, 4 million Iraqi refugees and 3.7 million Afghan refugees (see <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/">MWC News</a>). We are seeing an ongoing Palestinian Genocide, an Iraqi Genocide and an Afghan Genocide – while the world simply looks on.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">Since the invasion of Iraq I have been writing around the world as a humanist scientist (most notably on the ethical and humanitarian MWC News), attempting to inform an unresponsive world about the horrendous consequences of Bush’s War on Terror that has so far been associated with 3.4 million post-invasion deaths in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan – mostly of Women and Children and mostly due to deliberate US and US Alliance war crimes. Indeed in terms of horrendous actuality, the Bush War on Terror is in reality a cowardly and racist war on Women and Children, a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children and a War on Non-European Women and Children. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">The carnage continues. The WORDS of little people such as myself or of great people such as UK Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter have failed to convince an unresponsive world. Inspired by Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” I have a painted a huge painting “Qana” to commemorate the Apartheid Israeli bombing destruction of the Lebanese town of Qana in mid-2006. This painting is based on a “double Golden Rectangle” underlying geometry (as is “Guernica”) but is one third the size of “Guernica” and also differs in being very colourful and deliberately painted so that it will not scare children (see <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/9547/26/">MWC News</a>). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">The world in practice ignored the URGENCY and PAIN of Picasso’s masterpiece “Guernica” – it plunged into WW2 with the invasion of Eastern and Western Europe by the Nazis, the 35 million dead in China, 20 million dead in Russia, 6 million dead in Poland, the Jewish Holocaust with 6 million victims, the London Blitz, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Rape of Nanjing – and, albeit RUBBED OUT OF HISTORY, the man-made, WW2 Bengal Famine that killed 4 million Bengalis in British-ruled India. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">Similarly, my modest offering of my huge “Qana” painting and the like protests of millions of anti-war demonstrators around the world are ignored by the Racist Bush-ites (RBs) and Racist Zionists (RZs) – the killing continues and there is acute threat of conventional or even nuclear attack on peaceful and remote Iran (population 70 MILLION) by the forces of US-Israeli State Terrorism (USIST). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">I have now tried a different tack, painting a huge and colourful painting called “Alhambra Pollock” that conflates pure medieval Islamic Art with the radical, post-war abstract expressionism of American Jackson Pollock – the argument being that if such radical cultural extremes can be unified then there is absolutely NO excuse for the hatred, violence, anti-Arab anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, war and mass murder of so many millions of innocents (see <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14082/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14082/42/">MWC News</a> ). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt">Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Tell all your friends about “Guernica”-inspired “Qana” and about the glowing “Alhambra Pollock” painted for Arab-Islam-West amity. Can LOVE and BEAUTY succeed where words and even polemical paintings have failed? </span></span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-66683175304009102842011-05-31T01:08:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:08:47.578-07:00Rosanna Madonna<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Rosanna Madonna</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>Gideon Polya, “War, Deprivation & Denial. <i><span style="font-style:normal">“Rosanna Madonna” painting</span></i>”, MWC News, 8 September 2007, part cached by Google.</p> <p><b>For an image of the huge ”Rosanna Madonna” painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) <span> </span>see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3428526429/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3428526429/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> .</p> <p><b>War, Deprivation & Denial. </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">“Rosanna Madonna” painting</span></b></i></p> <p> </p><p>“Rosanna Madonna” is a huge and joyous painting of Mother and Child in the beautiful Christian tradition dating back to the Early Christian era. This huge painting (1.3 metres x 2.7 metres) follows a series of previous polemical paintings I have created to foster Respect for Woman and for Mother and Child, specifically: “Manhattan Madonna” (a very sad memorial to the 9/11 tragedy and the ongoing Third World Holocaust:: <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429196820/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429196820/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> </span>); “Sydney Madonna” (a glowing painting which declares that Mother and Child transcend the greatest works of Man, such as the beautiful man-made landscape of Sydney Harbor: <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429287878/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429287878/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> </span>); and “Melbourne Madonna” (that celebrates the simple joys of Mother and Child and ordinary living in Melbourne, now only recently supplanted by Vancouver, Canada as “most livable city in the world”: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429309944/in/set-72157616584873236/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3429309944/in/set-72157616584873236/</a> ).</p> <p>All these Madonna and Child paintings have the same fundamental, universal message of Love and Respect for Mother and Child that is basic to all Humanity. Indeed love and care for Children other than our own is technically called “allomothering” (“aunt behaviour” for females of the species behaving in this way) and is found in social primates such as the great apes and Man, Homo sapiens. </p> <p>In his seminal book “The Selfish Gene”, Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University describes the evolution of female altruism by Darwinian natural selection. However, as explained by Dawkins, such evolution in Man has occurred through 2 mechanisms, one through selection for particular mutated forms of DNA-constructed genes (termed “alleles”) and the other through verbal and written transmission of ideas, or what he calls memes. Both mechanisms of behavioral evolution involve selection for traits that enhance human survival to reproduce and care for progeny.</p> <p>The transmission of survival-enhancing Memes can be seen in the great moral messages of Humanity such as the universal “thou shalt not kill” and the even more fundamental “thou shalt not kill children”. Respect for Mother and Child is far more fundamental than the inspiration of one particular religious faith. Indeed it is likely that we are “hard-wired” genetically to respect and care for Mothers and Children. This can extend to care for the infants of other species as evidenced by the true “wolf child” stories of Indian children cared for and raised by wolves. Indeed I observed this behavior recently at the launch of a painting exhibition - during the speech by an eminent Art Critic journalist the attention of everyone was diverted by the charmingly clumsy antics of a tiny, black, Great Dane puppy belonging to a member of the audience. </p> <p>Perhaps the most powerful “memes” in relation to Children - and hence implicitly in relation to their parents and especially their Mothers - are the words of Jesus in the Holy Bible. Here are some very well known injunctions of Jesus in relation to Care for Children and which He has presented very forcefully (the wonderful King James Version of the Holy Bible): </p> <p>“Mark 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. </p> <p> </p> <p>Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. Matthew 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. </p> <p> </p> <p>Matthew 18:10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew 18:14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. </p> <p> </p> <p>Mark 9:42 And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.15 Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them. </p> <p> </p> <p>Luke 17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.”</p> <p>Yet today we have an extraordinary dichotomy in the largely nominally Christian West involving major political involvements of the so-called Religious Right in support of wars, invasions, occupations and an economic order that involves horrendous large-scale abuse of Mother and Child coupled with remorseless DENIAL of these realities. This goes beyond mere fear or selfishness as in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan who helps the Jewish robbery victim while his fellow Jews “walk by on the other side”. This current Western Denial is deep-seated, promulgated by racist, lying, holocaust-denying Mainstream media and borne of a psychological need to deny participation in awful crimes.</p> <p> </p><p>Thus Australia as a whole largely ignores the horrendous abuses with which it is variously associated in Bush’s War on Terror – a war which is in horrible reality a War on Women and Children and more specifically a War on Arab, Muslim, Asian, Iraqi, Afghan, Lebanese, Palestinian, Somalian, South Asian, Non-European and Third World Women and Children. Thus the post-invasion excess deaths (avoidable deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories currently total 0.3 million, 2.5 million and 4.5 million, respectively (mostly Women and Children; <b>updated as of March 2010</b>); the post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.8 million and 2.4 million, respectively (largely avoidable and due to US or US surrogate war crimes); and the refugees total 7 million (4.3 million registered with the UN), 5-6 million and 3-4million, respectively (plus a further 2.5 million NW Pakistan Pashtun refugees). One <span> </span>remembers the Holy Family and Their Flight to Egypt. </p> <p>These horrendous realities are explored in book I recently published after years of careful research, writing, cogitation, discussions and editing. This huge book is entitled “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). In short, this huge book deals with the post-1950 avoidable mortality (excess death) Holocaust that has taken 1.3 billion lives in the World as a whole, 1.2 billion in the Non-European World and 0.6 billion in the Muslim World (a Muslim Holocaust 100 times greater in number of victims than the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust or the contemporaneous but “forgotten”, man-made Bengal Famine Holocaust of World War 2 British India). Each year 16 million people die avoidably throughout the world - on Spaceship Earth with the First World in charge of the flight deck. Most of these avoidable deaths are of Women and Children. Nearly 10 million of these avoidable deaths are of under-5 year old infants. Yet this carnage is utterly preventable at very little cost – but what prevents the Solution is denial of the Problem. As I conclude in my book: </p> <p>“The continuing, horrendous global avoidable mortality is fundamentally due to violence, deprivation, disease and lying. We are one species confined to one planet and we revel in the richness of nature and human cultural diversity. The peace and cooperative community we commonly experience at the level of village, town, city and nation should apply internationally throughout Spaceship Earth. Intolerance of dishonesty, bigotry and violence, respect for human rights, international law and our common environment and commitment to truth, reason and a modestly decent life for everyone will end the global avoidable mortality holocaust and ensure that it will never be repeated.”</p> <p>“Rosanna Madonna” was painted after talking to a very nice local clergyman about my recently completed painting “Jerusalem Madonna” (watch this space!). I declared that although I am an agnostic humanist we share a common commitment to “truth and right-ness” and that I would paint a Madonna and Child painting based on a Church in the heart of Rosanna, my own suburb in the Northern part of Melbourne. </p> <p>The acrylic painting (1.3 metres x 2.7 metres) on double-primed high quality canvas incorporates an ecumenical conflation of Medieval Islamic Art (the 17 plane symmetry groups of Islamic tile Art), Christian Renaissance Italian Art (the deeply symbolic Fibonacci Sequence-, Golden Rectangle-, Da Vinci Code-based geometries of Italian Madonna and Child paintings), elements from the Australian landscape and from Indigenous cave-painting figures from 20,000 years ago and also includes modern abstract expressionist elements. </p> <p>The Mother is blond and blue-eyed in reference to the original Rosanna, the wife of an early Anglo-Celtic settler of this part of Melbourne that is officially called “Banyule” (after the local Indigenous Australian Wurrundjeri word for “hill” ) and better known as “Heidelberg”, the historical site of the famous Heidelberg School of Australian Impressionist painters (such as Arthur Streeton, Walter Withers, Charles Conder, Frederick McCubbin, David Davies and Tom Roberts). The Mother is clad in the Palestinian garb that Mary would have worn. </p> <p>The painting includes the most beautiful and utterly surrealistic nearby avenue of pinkish-grey-trunked gum trees (together with local Australian wildlife including birds, possums and kangaroos). The bottom of the painting includes a stylized facsimile of this local Church, its distinctive tower (the top of which and the associated crucifix appear as a symbolic key) and scores of adult and child worshippers in brightly coloured weekend clothing. Happily, two young observers instantly recognized the Church in the “Rosanna Madonna” <span> </span>as the venue for a Kindergarten and for Australian Girls’ Choir practice sessions, respectively. </p> <p>The Infant is happy and wise - and by a wonderful, quite unintended accident (or the Spirit of the Painting taking over control), the Child appears to embrace the Image of the Rosanna Church and its scores of parishioners at the bottom of the painting. That indeed is the message – we must embrace all the World with the Love we must have for the Truth and Beauty of Mother and Child. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-91130192981419548302011-05-31T01:06:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:07:46.738-07:00Sacred & Profane. REAL Da Vinci Code Exposed<p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Sacred & Profane. </span></b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">REAL Da Vinci Code Exposed</span></b></i></p> <p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, “Sacred & Profane. </span><i><span style="font-style:normal">REAL Da Vinci Code Exposed</span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">”, MWC News, 25 June 2006 partly cached by Google).</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Sacred & Profane. </span></b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">REAL Da Vinci Code Exposed</span></b></i></p> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></p> <p><b>THE DA VINCI CODE</b> has been introduced to a mass audience by Dan Brown’s best-selling but ultimately implausible “airport novel”, the subsequent “plagiarism trial” and now the movie starring Tom Hanks. However Hollywood-style mass culture frequently seems to get it wrong or miss the obvious point – and the Da Vinci Code is no exception as I will explain. </p> <p>It is patently clear that Corporate Mainstream Media often want us to miss the obvious point – thus they have promoted “Islamophobic terror hysteria” over appalling Muslim-origin non-state terrorism (7,000 Western civilian deaths over 40 years) but soft-pedalled on something like 10 million cigarette smoking-related deaths in the US alone over the same period and 0.4 million such deaths each year in the US alone (5 million globally). This “Islamophobic terror hysteria” has enabled the War on Terror which has so far been associated with 2.3 million avoidable deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (50% female, 60% infants, comprehensively ignored by lying Mainstream media and due to gross Coalition violation of the Geneva Conventions) and constitutes in reality a War on Women and Children. “The Da Vinci Code” book and movie propose a “dreadful secret” of Jesus Christ being married and having children. The REAL Da Vinci Code relates to sacred and profane symbolism in Mediterranean and European culture. </p> <p>ARTISTS are familiar with the Golden Rectangle, a geometric construction in which the ratio of the Long Side to the Short Side is 1.618 (this number being known as Phi). The Golden Rectangle can be sectioned by a line called the Golden Section (also known as the Golden Ratio, Golden Mean or Divine Proportion) that divides the Golden Rectangle into a Large Square and a residual Small Rectangle - which simply turns out to be another Golden Rectangle and which can then be similarly subdivided into a square and another Golden Rectangle. Reiteration of this Golden Sectioning yields a Spiral Pattern (<a href="http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/W/weirdworlds/da_vinci_code/leonardo.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/W/weirdworlds/da_vinci_code/leonardo.html">for a good illustration see</a> ). </p> <p>The mathematical series underlying the Golden Rectangle and its implicit Spiral is called the Fibonacci Series: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 … The numbers of this series (named after the 13th century Italian mathematician popularly known as Fibonacci) are interesting in that (a) successive elements are the sum of the previous two (e.g. 0 + 1 = 1, 1+ 1 = 2, 1+ 2 = 3, 2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 5 = 8, etc) and (b) the ratio of higher to lower successive elements progressively approximates to 1.618 i.e. to Phi (8/5 = 1.6, 13/8 = 1.625, 21/13 = 1.615, 89/55 = 1.618181818 …). Phi (like Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) is an “irrational number” and extends as follows: 1.61803 39887 49894 84820 45868 34365 63811 77203 09179 80576 … </p> <p> </p> <p>Phi has unusual properties. Thus (a) 1/Phi = 1/1.618 = 0.618 and accordingly 1/0.618 = 1.618, (b) Phi = 1 + 1/Phi, and (c) Phi = (1 + square root 5)/2. Phi is the ratio found not only in the Golden Rectangle but is also a key ratio in the 5 arms of the Pentagram (regarded by Pythagoreans as a symbol of Health and invoked in Western occultism and Satanism) and in the Pentagon. The Pentagon in turn is intrinsic to the Dodecahedron (a Platonic solid having 12 Pentagonal faces) and the Icosahedron, both solid bodies having mystical and Cabbalistic properties that inspired Kepler in his solution of the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun.</p> <p>The Golden Rectangle was beloved of the Greeks (inspiring the Parthenon, for example) and was known to the Ancient Egyptians (e.g. the ratio of the altitude of a face of the Great Pyramid to half the side of the base is Phi). The Golden Ratio was widely employed by Renaissance and subsequent artists to the present (some of the numerous exponents including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Goya, Delacroix and Modigliani). The Spiral implicit in the Fibonacci Series occurs in Nature (e.g. in patterns of seeds and petals) because it enables ordered expansion, but the Nautilus shell spiral is not actually a <a href="http://www.nexusjournal.com/Sharp_v4n1-intro.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.nexusjournal.com/Sharp_v4n1-intro.html">Golden Section Spiral</a> . </p> <p>Fibonacci described a “population explosion” arising from putting 2 newborn baby rabbits together and assuming a sexual maturation period of 1 month, a gestation period of 1 month and twin births – the number of pairs of mature rabbits in successive months is the <a href="http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/%7Efrans/COMP101/week8/fibonacci.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~frans/COMP101/week8/fibonacci.html">Fibonacci Series</a> of 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ect.</p> <p>You can derive a Pentagon and the implicit Golden Ratio and Golden Rectangle very simply using a <a href="http://www2.engr.tu.ac.th/%7Ecdulyach/me111/lec02.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www2.engr.tu.ac.th/~cdulyach/me111/lec02.pdf">Ruler and a Compass</a> . However I would like to describe another way of generating a Golden Rectangle that will provide you with a GREAT SURPRISE and will work if all you have is a stick to draw patterns in sand (it will be more precise if you have a pencil, graph paper, a compass and a ruler): </p> <p style="margin-left:36pt"><span>(1)<span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-size-adjust:none;font-stretch:normal"> </span></span>draw a square and insert an exactly fitting circle #1; (2) draw another identical square below it and an exactly fitting circle #2, with the 2 squares sharing a side; (3) draw in the diagonals of each square; you can see that you have a rectangle with 1 side 2 times the length of the other; (4) now imagine, in Portrait mode, sliding the 2 squares into each other – ultimately the 2 squares and circles exactly superimpose and you have the original pattern found in step (1); (5) now try sliding the 2 squares together so that the circles don’t go as far as in (4) and just touch the diagonals of the opposite squares - a FISH symbol (a type of “Vesica Pisces”) will appear due to the intersection of the 2 circles; and NOW (6) (the CRUCIAL STEP), try sliding the bottom square just a TINY bit higher so that its circle just crosses the diagonals of the opposite square (and vice versa) and suddenly you will see two 4-petalled FLOWERS appear on either side of the middle of the resultant rectangle. When the flower pattern is fully formed and SYMMETRICAL the Rectangle you have will be a Golden Rectangle and the furthest extension of each Square will exactly correspond to the Golden Section (Golden Ratio, Golden Mean, the Divine Proportion).</p> <p>The Golden Rectangle and attendant exactly fitting Circle construction described above is best illustrated by The Virgin of the Rocks (aka Madonna of the Rocks) by Leonardo da Vinci (versions of this painting are held in the National Gallery, London and the Louvre, Paris, respectively). These paintings have roughly the correct dimensions, one of the exactly fitting circles is explicit, the Golden Section Spiral is evident and the Virgin Mary’s hand indicates the position of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_the_Rocks">Golden Section</a></p> <p>The FISH is a type of Vesica Pisces and an Early Christian symbol of both Jesus Christ the Savior and the Saved. However if you rotate your Golden Rectangle so that is now in Landscape Mode the FISH now becomes an extremely profane (i.e. non-sacred) image, specifically of the external organ of generation in the female i.e. the vulva - as well as the sacred Gothic arch of Christian churches. Christianity did not arise in a cultural vacuum and was influenced by the sacred-profane dichotomies of the polytheistic pre-Christian Greek, Roman and Egyptian religions that permitted Gods having human desires and proclivities. Indeed the pure monotheism of the Jews can be seen to have been compromised by Early Christian accommodation to the dominant polytheism within the Roman Empire. Thus while Judaism and Islam retained uncompromising monotheism, Christianity is peculiar among the Abrahamic religions in having intrinsically polytheistic elements, namely the Holy Trinity and the Blessed Virgin.</p> <p>The 4-leafed or 4-petalled FLOWER image (the Golden Flowers) that so suddenly pops out of the Golden Rectangle geometry is not only surprising and beautiful - it is also indicative of the mathematically- and aesthetically-precise positioning for the Divine Proportion and of a sacred-profane dichotomy in the Christian tradition. Four is fundamentally “good” in its symbolism - 4 elements of earth, air, fire and water; 4 humours; 4 Christian Gospels (now we have the recently discovered fifth Gospel according to Judas); Father, Son, Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary (Grace); Faith, Hope, Charity and Happiness; and, of course, the Sign of the Cross and Salvation. Accordingly, the Irish Shamrock (the 4-leafed clover variant of the normally 3-leafed Trifolium repens) is considered “lucky” because of its rarity and these lucky “4” associations. </p> <p>More specifically, a European plant Paris quadrifolia (Truelove) has the narrow, “crossed bows” appearance of the Golden Flowers of the Golden Rectangle. Truelove is “holy” in the sense of the Holy Trinity plus the Virgin Mary but is also profane in the sense of being associated with “luck in love” and as an aphrodisiac (dangerous since Truelove is very poisonous). Indeed in the raunchy “Miller’s Tale” of Chaucer’s Medieval “Canterbury Tales” , the love-struck clerk Absolon advances his “noble, knightly love” to the carpenter John’s adulterous wife Alisoun (naughty with student Nicholas) with love-promoting Truelove under his tongue (“Under his tonge a trewe-love he beer”). Perhaps the 4-leafed aquatic fern Marsilia quadrifolia (water clover) had related significance for the Ancient Egyptians. </p> The REAL Da Vinci Code reveals a profound sacred-profane dichotomy in Christian culture that is scrupulously ignored by lying, racist Mainstream media currently hell-bent on dishonestly “selling” a War for Oil (or War for Global Hegemony) as fundamentally arising from differences between Abrahamic religions (rather than from military-industrial complex and corporate greed and pathological narcissism). The Mainstream culture that scrupulously ignores the all too human, profane constructions of the Da Vinci Code also ignores the horrendous human cost of what is in reality a War on Women and Children.Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-6491516481379473932011-05-31T01:05:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:06:20.703-07:00Scheherazade<table id="sites-chrome-header" class="sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr class="sites-header-primary-row"><td class="sites-layout-searchbox"><div class="sites-header-cell-buffer-wrapper"><div><form id="sites-searchbox-form" action="/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/search"><div class="goog-inline-block goog-button goog-button-base "><div class="goog-inline-block goog-button-base-outer-box TOP"><div class="goog-inline-block goog-button-base-inner-box"><div class="goog-button-base-pos"><div id="sites-searchbox-search-button" 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href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/sitemap/hierarchy" class="sites-navigation-link">Sitemap</a> </div></li></ul> </div> </div> <div class="sites-clear"> <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/system/app/pages/admin/appearance/pageElements" rel="nofollow" class="sites-system-link sites-edit-sidebar-link">Edit sidebar</a> </div> </td> <td id="sites-canvas-wrapper"> <div id="sites-canvas"> <div id="goog-ws-editor-toolbar-container"> </div> <div id="title-crumbs" style=""> </div> <h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Scheherazade</span> </h3> <div id="sites-canvas-main" class="sites-canvas-main"> <div id="sites-canvas-main-content"> <table class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1"><div dir="ltr"> <div dir="ltr"> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For image of "Scheherazade</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">" see: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/</a> .<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, “</span>War on Women & Women's Rights. <i><span style="font-style:normal">“Scheherazade” Painting. Heroines</span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">”, MWC News, 24 August 2007. </span></p> <p><b>War on Women & Women’s Rights. </b><i><b><span style="font-style:normal">“Scheherazade” Painting. Heroines</span></b></i></p> <p>Scheherazade was the Persian woman immortalized in the One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights. This wonderful collection of stories from the Muslim World was introduced to the West in the 19th century through the translation into English by the famous Arabist, Orientalist and traveler Sir Richard Burton. Generations of Western children have been brought up on these wonderful stories but it has taken only a few decades for Racist Bush-ites, Racist Zionists, complicit Western media and Bush-ite politicians to replace a legacy of affection with a culture of hatred and fear. </p> <p>I have painted a huge painting “Scheherazade” (1.3 metres by 2.9 metres) to remind people of the World and of the West in particular of this heroine of the Muslim world and of the billion contemporary heroines of the Third World – the women, girls and mothers who day by day attempt to protect their children and families and deal with the exigencies of life on Spaceship Earth dominated by a greedy, racist and rapacious Bush-ite West.</p> <p>We will recall the famous Scheherazade story. The Persian King Shahryar was upset over betrayal by his wife who he consequently beheaded. He then took to taking a new virgin wife each night and then beheading her the following morning. King Shahryar had killed 3,000 such innocent women before he was introduced to Scheherazade, the daughter of his Grand Vizier. Against the fearful protests of her father, Scheherazade offered herself to the King. However on the first night in the King’s chamber she told the King that she had promised to tell a last farewell story to her sister Dunyazad. The King remained awake and was enthralled by the story. Scheherazade remained alive and was ordered to tell another story on the following night. After One Thousand and One Nights and One Thousand and One stories, 3 sons and extensive moral instruction of the King, Scheherazade was made Queen and, as they say, they all lived happily ever after. </p> <p>There are MANY contemporary, latter-day Scheherazades, latter-day heroines who inspire immense admiration for their courageous moral instruction of the world on behalf of the suppressed and downtrodden women of the Third World. Two stand out, namely brilliant Indian writer Arundhati Roy and the courageous Bangladeshi doctor and writer Taslima Nasrin.</p> <p>Arundhati Roy (Kerala Syrian Christian mother, Bengali Hindu father) came to fame with the Booker Prize-winning novel “The God of Small Things”. She has used her fame to promote humanitarian causes in India and around the world, writing numerous books excoriating poverty and “internal refugees” in India (notably concerning the Narmada Dam and India’s nuclear weapons policies) and Western invasion and occupation of Asian countries (notably by violent, racist American imperialism). Some of these polemical books of humanitarian advocacy include “The Cost of Living”, “The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire” and “The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile”. In 2005 Arundhati Roy headed the World Tribunal on Iraq that condemned the war criminal invasion and devastation of Iraq by America and its allies.</p> <p>Taslima Nasrin is a Bangladeshi doctor and writer who, while of Muslim origin, is an atheist, secular humanist and feminist advocate for the human rights of women. The Holy Qu’ran makes it quite clear that religious belief is personal and cannot be imposed by force. However Taslima Nasrina is a refugee from homicidal religious fanatics in her native land and elsewhere. She has written numerous novels (e.g. “Opposition”, “Revenge”, “Invitation”, “Return”, and “Shame”), autobiographical and polemical books and much poetry. This gifted, immensely courageous, humanitarian writer and advocate has been awarded numerous prizes for her humane advocacy.</p> <p>Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin are two stand-outs in the War on Women and the War on Third World Women being conducted both by Third World dictators and bigots and by racist Western imperialists. However there are so many more courageous women advocates of Womens’ Rights, Child Rights and Human Rights and hundreds of millions more who do their best - day by day, with dignity and courage - to ensure survival for themselves, their families and their children. </p> <p>“Scheherazade” is one of a series of HUGE culturally-conflating paintings created to promote Humanity and East-West Amity, the other most notable efforts (all originally exhibited on MWC News) being “Isfahan Matisse”:, “Alhambra Pollock”:, “Terra” and “Bundoora Arabesque” (see these on Fllickr: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/</a> ).</p> <p>These paintings all involve a conflation of Medieval Islamic tile art patterns (mathematically, the 17 plane symmetry groups defined by my great uncle Hungarian mathematician George Polya in the 1920s and exploited by Dutch lithographer M.C. Escher); Renaissance Italian Golden Rectangle geometries used in much Christian iconography and in subsequent painting up to the present day (mathematically based on the Fibonacci Sequence – the “Da Vinci Code” – 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34 …); figurative cave paintings of 20,000 years ago in Europe and Australia (notably the so-called Bradshaw Figures of the Bungle Bungles in North Western Australia); and with the end result being something akin to the secular, humanist art of contemporary French Henri Matisse and American Jackson Pollock abstract expressionism. </p> <p>The beautiful idea is that if these cultures can co-exist in a beautiful painting then they can surely co-exist in real life human rights-respecting world of the kind advocated by Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin. There is a long way to go. I have recently published a huge book entitled “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007). Post-1950 avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) total 1.3 billion (for the World), 1.2 billion (the non-European World), 1.1 billion (the Third World), and 0.6 billion (the Muslim World); annual avoidable mortality totals 16 million (mostly infants and mostly in the Third World); post-invasion excess deaths total 0.3 million, 1.0 million and 2.4 million, respectively, in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories – and all this on a Spaceship Earth with a Bush-ite West in charge of the flight deck. Three quarters of the victims are Women and Children.</p> <p>The Bush War on Terror can be seen in horrible actuality as a War on Terra (a greedy War on the Biosphere) and a War on Women and Children, or more specifically a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children, a War on Non-European Women and Children, and a War on Third World Women and Children. </p> <p>The War on Women continues. Humane, articulate, passionate advocacy by our present-day Scheherazades, Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin has no trouble convincing decent humanity just as Scheherazade convinced even the murderous King Shahryar – but fails to convince the selfish, greedy and racist First World which IGNORES the carnage it creates. Arundhati Roy has commented thus in “The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile” on this simultaneous First World holocaust commission and holocaust denial: “the ultimate privilege of the élite is not just their deluxe lifestyles, but deluxe lifestyles with a clear conscience.”</p> <p>Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to inform others about gross abuses of human rights, following the examples of Third World heroines such as Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin. The Pen is mightier than the Sword – but is it possible that the Brush is mightier than the Pen? On the basis of this possibility, please send this article and the image of “Scheherazade” to everyone you know. </p> </div><p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><br /></span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">For image of "Scheherazade</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">" see: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/</a> . </span></p><p>Decent people around the world protest the carnage of US wars and occupations from Occuoiped Haiti and Occupied Somalia , through Occupied Palestine, Occupied Lebanon, Occupied Syria and Occupied Iraq to Occupied Afghanistan and US robot-bombed NW Pakistan. It is estimated that 0.7 million people die avoidably in the US Overseas Empire every year under Obama with about half being children. <b>However words having evidently failed – the carnage continues – I have tried to present the humane argument in pictures. I have painted a huge painting called “Scheherazade” to illustrate the beauty being destroyed this Western democratic Nazism.</b></p> <p>The most fundamental of women’s rights is the right to life and for a mother the right to life of her children. Yet the US Alliance is engaged in a bloody assault on the women and children who represent three quarters of the population of the Muslim world. The Bush (now Obama) War on Terror can be seen in horrible actuality as a War on Terra (a greedy War on the Biosphere) and a War on Women and Children, or more specifically a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children, a War on Non-European Women and Children, and a War on Third World Women and Children. Post-invasion violent deaths and non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan territories total 0.3 million, 3.5 million and 4.5 million, respectively, and post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.9 million and 2.4 million, respectively (see <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/</a> )</span>. </p> <p>Scheherazade was the Persian woman immortalized in the One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights. This wonderful collection of stories from the Muslim World was introduced to the West in the 19th century through the translation into English by the famous Arabist, Orientalist and traveler Sir Richard Burton. Generations of Western children have been brought up on these wonderful stories but it has taken only a few decades for Racist Bush-ites, Racist Zionists, complicit Western media and Bush-ite politicians to replace a legacy of affection with a culture of hatred and fear.</p> <p>I have painted a huge painting “Scheherazade” (1.3 metres by 2.9 metres; see: <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/</a> </span>) to remind people of the World and of the West in particular of this heroine of the Muslim world and of the billion contemporary heroines of the Third World – the women, girls and mothers who day by day attempt to protect their children and families and deal with the exigencies of life on Spaceship Earth dominated by a greedy, racist and rapacious Bush-ite West.</p> <p>We will recall the famous Scheherazade story. The Persian King Shahryar was upset over betrayal by his wife who he consequently beheaded. He then took to taking a new virgin wife each night and then beheading her the following morning. King Shahryar had killed 3,000 such innocent women before he was introduced to Scheherazade, the daughter of his Grand Vizier. Against the fearful protests of her father, Scheherazade offered herself to the King. However on the first night in the King’s chamber she told the King that she had promised to tell a last farewell story to her sister Dunyazad. The King remained awake and was enthralled by the story. Scheherazade remained alive and was ordered to tell another story on the following night. After One Thousand and One Nights and One Thousand and One stories, 3 sons and extensive moral instruction of the King, Scheherazade was made Queen and, as they say, they all lived happily ever after. </p> <p>There are many contemporary, latter-day Scheherazades, latter-day heroines who inspire immense admiration for their courageous moral instruction of the world on behalf of the suppressed and downtrodden women of the Third World e.g. former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (see: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/mckinney-cynthia">http://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/mckinney-cynthia</a> ) and Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire (see: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/maguire-mairead">http://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/maguire-mairead</a> ) who protested the evil incarceration of 1.5 million Occupied Palestinians (0.8 million of them CHILDREN) in what the Catholic Church has described as the Israeli Gaza Concentration Camp (see: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/martino-renato">http://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/martino-renato</a> ). <span> </span></p> <p>“Scheherazade” (see<b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> Scheherazade</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/</a> )</span> is one of a series of huge, culturally-conflating paintings created to promote Humanity and East-West Amity – links to some other paintings of this series are listed below. </p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Alhambra</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> Pollock</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288352915/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288352915/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288352915/</a> .</span> </p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Apocalypse Now</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096468/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Bundoora Arabesque</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288353489/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Bundoora Redgums</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290122090/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290122090/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290122090/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Deep Mind</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288356319/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Civilization</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096920/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096920/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289096920/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Isfahan</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> Matisse</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290121654/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290121654/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4290121654/</a>.</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My Country</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289416543/</a> .</span></p> <p><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Terra</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4289095912/</a> .</span></p> <p>These paintings all involve a conflation of Medieval Islamic tile art patterns (mathematically, the 17 plane symmetry groups defined by my great uncle Hungarian mathematician George Polya in the 1920s and exploited by Dutch lithographer M.C. Escher); Renaissance Italian Golden Rectangle geometries used in much Christian iconography and in subsequent painting up to the present day (mathematically based on the Fibonacci Sequence – the “Da Vinci Code” – 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34 …); figurative cave paintings of 20,000 years ago in Europe and Australia (notably the so-called Bradshaw Figures of the Bungle Bungles in North Western Australia); and with the end result being something akin to the secular, humanist art of contemporary French Henri Matisse and American Jackson Pollock abstract expressionism. </p> <p>The beautiful idea is that if these cultures can co-exist in a beautiful painting then they can surely co-exist outside the 2-dimensional canvas. </p> <p>There is a long way to go. I have recently published a huge book entitled “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (for details see: <a href="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html" title="http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html">http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html</a> ). Avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) for a country is the difference between actual deaths and deaths expected for a peaceful, decently run country with the same demographics. 1950-2005 avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that did not have to happen) totalled 1.3 billion (for the World), 1.2 billion (the non-European World), 1.1 billion (the Third World), and 0.6 billion (the Muslim World). Annual avoidable deaths in the world from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease in 2003 totalled 16 million and in 2008 totalled 22 million (mostly infants and mostly in the Third World) (estimates from UN Population Division data).</p> <p>As of December 2009, in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories post-invasion non-violent excess deaths totalled 0.3 million, 1.1 million and 3.5 million, respectively; post-invasion violent deaths totalled about 12,000, 1.4 million and 1.0 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalled 0.2 million, 0.9 million and 2.4 million, respectively; and refugees totalled 7 million, 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively, with a further <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">2.5 million NW Pakistan Pashtun refugees generated under the war policies of Barack Obama (for details and documentation see “Palestinian Genocide”: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/</a>; Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/</a> ; Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/</a> ; and Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/" title="http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/">http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/</a> .</span> </p> <p>And all this carnage on a Spaceship Earth with a holocaust-complicit and holocaust-ignoring, neocon, Bush-ite West in charge of the flight deck. Three quarters of the victims are Women and Children.</p> <p>The Bush (now Obama) War on Terror can be seen in horrible actuality as a War on Terra (a greedy War on the Biosphere) and a War on Women and Children, or more specifically a War on Arab Women and Children, a War on Muslim Women and Children, a War on Asian Women and Children, a War on Non-European Women and Children, and a War on Third World Women and Children. </p> <p>The War on Women continues. Humane, articulate, passionate advocacy by our present-day Scheherazades, Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin have no trouble convincing decent humanity just as Scheherazade convinced even the murderous King Shahryar – but they evidently fail to convince the selfish, greedy and racist First World which ignores the carnage it creates. Arundhati Roy has commented thus in “The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile” on this simultaneous First World holocaust commission and holocaust denial: “the ultimate privilege of the élite is not just their deluxe lifestyles, but deluxe lifestyles with a clear conscience.”</p> <p>Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We are obliged to inform others about gross abuses of human rights, following the examples of Third World heroines such as Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin. </p> <p>The Pen is mightier than the Sword – but is it possible that the Brush is mightier than the Pen? On the basis of this possibility, please send this article and the image of “Scheherazade” (see: <span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4288354117/</a> </span>) to everyone you know.<br /></p><p><b>A further article by </b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>Gideon Polya, “</b></span></span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Times New Roman"><b>Lies & Slies by Orwellian Mainstream Media.</b> </span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>Scheherazade, Murdochracy Paczmen & Climate Criminals ”</b>, MWC News, 27 June 2008.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>Lies & Slies by Orwellian Mainstream Media. </b></span></span><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Scheherazade, Murdochracy Paczmen & Climate Criminals.<br /></span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">We are all familiar from childhood with the fabulous stories of The Arabian Nights, the One Thousand and One stories told by the courageous princess Scheherazade to stop the deadly mass murder of innocent princesses by the vengeful Sultan and indeed to change his heart to a course of humanity. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">This story is illustrated by my huge painting “Scheherazade” that was created in the interests of Peace and Humanity and to honour the Scheherazades of this world such as 2007 Literature Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing (Iran-born UK novelist), Booker Prize- and Sydney Peace Prize-winner Arundhati Roy (Indian writer) and the courageous poet, physician and activist Taslima Nasrin (free-thinking refugee from Bangladesh) (for a detailed discussion of this huge painting see “War on Women & Women’s Rights” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16294/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16294/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/16294/42/</a> ).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">What is the world that these wonderful women want to change for the better in their own unique ways? Imagine that some visitors from a far-off galaxy land in my garden and – because they are busy inter-galactic tourists writing a Lonely Galaxy Guide – they want a very quick run-down on the situation on the Earth (aka Terra) and allow me only a few minutes to “tell it like it is” before they transport themselves to the next planet with intelligent life forms in this part of the Galaxy.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">I say “Honored visitors - Terra has a population of 6.5 billion human beings and is acutely threatened by nuclear, greenhouse and poverty threats. Nuclear arsenals currently threaten virtual total destruction of humanity from blast, radiation and nuclear winter. Run-away global warming due to profligate greenhouse gas pollution from fossil fuel burning threatens to kill over 6 billion people this century. Poverty due to violence-backed First World hegemony over global resources already causes the avoidable deaths of about 16 million people each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. But the technical solutions to this nightmare are already available and some of us still plead that truth, science, system change and, above all, LOVE can yet save Terra ...”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My appalled intergalactic visitors (who have unfortunately encountered this scenario of life-forms being “too smart for their own good” on so many other devastated Planets) rapidly depart before my allotted time is up, to prevent any damage to their highly refined spiritual sensibility networks.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Great writers (and artists in general) tell stories – like Scheherazade – so that we can better understand ourselves, others and our interactions. Scientists largely confine themselves to quantitative data, scientific assessment (this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and proposals for sensible system change for the betterment of man and other unique life forms on Earth. Scientists and artists have at their moral core a common commitment to truth and beauty. As John Keats put it in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">When old age shall this generation waste,<br /> Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe<br /> Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,<br />"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all<br /> Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Unfortunately </span></span><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">blind capitalist expansionism and Western imperialist violence and propaganda have perverted human sensibilities. The nightmare world of George Orwell’s “1984” has already arrived. Pick up any major newspaper and you will quickly discover - either explicitly stated by commission or implicitly stated by omission – Big Brother’s injunctions that “war is peace”, “ignorance is strength”, “slavery is freedom” and “2 plus 2 does not equal 4” .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Westerners live in Murdochracies in which the democratic process is subverted by Mainstream media (of which the Murdoch Empire is the most powerful and notorious) and an unaccountable and secret political Establishment. I have referred to the Anglo-American political Establishment as run by PACMEN (Prosperous Anglo-Celtic men) but the horrors of the Bush Oil Wars aka Zionist colonization of the Middle East and the War on Terror (associated with an estimated 11 million avoidable Indigenous Asian deaths, 1990-2008) calls for some revision. The Western Murdochracies can be seen as dominated by PACZMEN (pronounced, after the Hungarian fashion, “Patchmen”) i.e. Prosperous Anglo-Celtic and Zionist Men. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">We live in a world of lies of commission and omission that after 8 years of George Bush is now heavily dominated by “spin”. Whereas “Science” is about critically testing potentially falsifiable hypotheses, anti-science “Spin” is about selectively using “asserted facts” to support a partisan position.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My country is Australia, aka the Land of Oz, and famous as a “sunburnt country” (see “My Country” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21449/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21449/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21449/42/</a> ) in which the “Australian salute” refers to Aussies endlessly waving away FLIES. The lying and spin in Murdochracy Australia (the birth place of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, now an American citizen) is such that I refer to Australia as the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). There is a huge list of examples of INCORRECT REPORTAGE in Murdochracy Australia but several recent, illustrative examples are given below.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">1. Iraqi Genocide</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> – I recently had occasion to publicly ask the evidently Zionist former editor of a top Australian newspaper why Australian media don’t report the expertly-documented Iraqi Genocide. He dismissed my detailed concerns as “nonsense” and a vigorous public exchange ensued. A major Australian newspaper “The Sydney Morning Herald” (from the same media conglomerate) recently reported that “91,000” Iraqis had died post-invasion – however the appalling REALITY is </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:78%;"><span style="font-size:9pt;font-family:Georgia" lang="EN-GB">that post-invasion violent plus non-violent excess deaths in Occupied Iraq totalled 1.7 - 2.2 million as of March 2008. In addition one can estimate 1.7 million Sanctions excess deaths (1990-2003), 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths under Sanctions, 0.2 million Iraqi Gulf War deaths, 0.6 million post-invasion infant deaths (UNICEF) and 4.5 million Iraqi refugees (UNHCR). This is an Iraqi Holocaust and an Iraqi Genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention (see: <a href="http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm#polya" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm#polya">http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Messages190308.htm#polya</a> ) .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">2. Global warming</span></span></b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> – I belong to a Melbourne-based Climate Action Group (CAG) which in turn is associated with a national-based Climate Emergency Network (CEN). CEN attempts to make Australia and the world aware of the current Climate Emergency and the urgent need – most cogently expressed by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen – to return atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to a safe 350 ppm (parts per million) from the present 385 ppm at which all Arctic sea ice may disappear within 5 years (e.g. see: <a href="http://climatefactsheets.blogspot.com/" title="http://climatefactsheets.blogspot.com/">http://climatefactsheets.blogspot.com/</a> ). However the following shocking story illustrates what we are up against.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">The leading Australian and Murdoch Empire newspaper “The Australian” (23 April 2008; see: <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html" rel="nofollow" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html">http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23583376-7583,00.html</a> ) INCORRECTLY reported under a false and alarmist headline that, QUOTE: “All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">In ACTUALITY the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York (report updated 28 January, 2008; see: <a href="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/" rel="nofollow" title="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/">http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/</a> ) provides sobering graphs of increasing global temperature since 1880 and states a TOTALLY DIFFERENT current reality, QUOTE: “The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle.”</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">What can decent people do? We must INFORM others following the examples of outstanding scientists like NASA’s Dr James Hansen (recently awarded the </span></span>2007 AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science) and <span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">outstanding humanitarian writers - and latter day Scheherazades - such as Doris Lessing, Arundhati Roy and Taslima Nasrin. We can also APPLY Sanctions and Boycotts against the goods and services of corporations of the Paczmen (Prosperous Anglo-Celtic and Zionist Men, “Patchmen”) whose greed, racism, lies and slies (spin-based untruths) are devastating the Planet and threatening the biosphere with Terracide. </span></span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-46944217433697728522011-05-31T01:04:00.001-07:002011-05-31T01:04:57.704-07:00Seymour Bushland<h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> <span id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">Seymour Bushland</span> </h3> <div dir="ltr"> <p>“Seymour Bushland” <span> </span>is a painting of bushland near Seymour, north of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is painted in acrylic on canvas board (20 inch x 30 inch; 55.9 cm x 78.2 cm) (<b>for image see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3729751400/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/3729751400/</a> ), has an underlying human form and involves a classical, Fibonacci Sequence-implicit, Golden Rectangle geometry that is used (as well as other geometrical elements) in my huge Paintings for Peace shown on this website. </p> </div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542811016327255524.post-58975345425093937162011-05-31T01:02:00.000-07:002011-05-31T01:04:01.435-07:00Swan Lake<span style="font-weight: bold;">S</span><span style="font-weight: bold;" id="sites-page-title" dir="ltr">wan Lake</span><h3 id="sites-page-title-header" style="" align="left"> </h3> <div id="sites-canvas-main" class="sites-canvas-main"> <div id="sites-canvas-main-content"> <table class="sites-layout-name-one-column sites-layout-hbox" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="sites-layout-tile sites-tile-name-content-1"><div dir="ltr"> <p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>For an image of the huge “Swan Lake” painting (1.3 x 2.9 metres) see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291171221/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291171221/</a> .</span></p><p><span><br /></span></p><p><b><span>"Swan Lake" painting. Fear, Greed, Lying & Values, Biosphere & Market Collapse</span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Gideon Polya, “Swan Lake” (based on Tchaikowsky’s famous ballet score). My article is entitled ”Swan Lake” Painting. Fear, Greed, Lying & Values, Biosphere & Market Collapse”, MWC News, 10 October 2008.</span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"><b>For an image of the huge “Swan Lake” painting see</b>: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291171221/" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/4291171221/</a> .</span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><b><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight:bold;font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">“Swan Lake” Painting. Fear, Greed, Lying & Values, Biosphere & Market Collapse”</span></span></b></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">Everyone is familiar with the gorgeous Tchaikowsky score for the ballet “Swan Lake” that represents a pinnacle of the 19th century European Romantic musical tradition. I have painted a huge painting to tell the story of Swan Lake. In turn I am going to use the painting to illustrate the tragic perversion of Man’s intentions that mimic the tragic story of the ballet.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">The story of the classic ballet is told in 4 Acts. In the First Act Prince Siegfried dances at the Court with beautiful princesses and is expected to make a choice for marriage. In Act 2 the Prince flees to the forest, upset because he cannot marry for love. Hunting for swans he encounters Odette who has been transformed into a swan by the evil sorcerer von Rothbart, as have her fellow swan-maidens. Siegfried is moved by her story and falls for Odette. In Act 3 Siegfried returns to the Palace and encounters von Rothbart’s black-clad daughter Odile who he mistakes for Odette in declaring that she will be his wife. In the final Act 4, the Prince realizes the deception and his mistake, returns to the Lake and he and Odette commit suicide by leaping into the Lake. This act breaks von Rothbart’s power and he also dies. The curse is lifted and the world can hopefully recover and renew.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial">My huge painting (1.3 metres x 2.9 metres) was painted on specially doubly-primed, quality canvas in acrylics. The complex geometry underlying the painting is a fusion of pure geometrical medieval Islamic Art patterns (as employed in the Moorish Spanish Alhambra, mathematically defined by mathematician George Polya, and utilized by Dutch lithographer M.C. Escher) and the Fibonacci Sequence-based Golden Rectangle (Da Vinci Code) geometries (used by the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians and which have been widely exploited by painters since the time of the Italian Renaissance). This mixture, plus figurative elements, generates a complexitiy reminiscent of paintings by post-war abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. The beautiful Idea underlying this cultural admixture is that if diverse cultures can co-exist within the 2 dimensions of the canvas, then why not outside the canvas? </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Peace is the only way and this type of contribution called PEACE (for Pólya, Escher, Alhambra Cultural Ecumenism ) through ART is one of many possible ways to increase empathy for the Other that underscores amity and understanding between human beings. I have previously painted a series of huge paintings as part of this commitment to Art for Peace, and for respect for Woman and for Mother and Child (for detailed discussion see “Isfahan Matisse” Painting. Art for Peace and Iran-West Amity”: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14417/26/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14417/26/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/14417/26/</a> ). All of these huge paintings have been published on MWC News and an updated series of links to these works is available on the Web via an essay entitled “Truth, Beauty & Saving the World. Science, Art & nuclear, greenhouse & poverty threats”: <a href="http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-NvVV9NY2cqLwKJxdb8JAymVZRA--?cq=1&p=1" rel="nofollow" title="http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-NvVV9NY2cqLwKJxdb8JAymVZRA--?cq=1&p=1">http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-NvVV9NY2cqLwKJxdb8JAymVZRA--?cq=1&p=1</a> .</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The “Swan Lake” painting involves 2 Golden Rectangles, each involving 2 intersecting Circles that encompass the 4 Acts of the Ballet. Reading Left Hand Side to Right Hand Side (LHS to RHS), in Act 1 the Prince (in a suitably royal purple costume) dances with the maroon-clad princesses at the Court. At the far left we see the green-clad von Rothbart and the bewitched, white-clad swan-maiden Odette. In Act 2 the Prince dances in the Forest with white-clad Odette and her fellow swan-maidens (floating and flying white swans complement the swan-maidens). In Act 3 the Prince dances with the wicked, black-clad Odile back at the Court. In the final Act 4 the Prince returns to the Forest and plunges despairingly into the Lake with his beloved Odette. The despair of Odette and indeed of von Rothbart is evident. The ballet-painting concludes Bottom Left with the dying swan-maiden Odette gracefully expiring on a dried up Lake bed.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">There is, of course, more to this than mere thwarted love. Man is represented by the Prince who searches not just for a Life Partner but for Solutions to Risk Management problems – how to deal with life and minimize risk. However political realities intervene and he must make compromises. He flees to the solitude of the Forest and finds Truth and Beauty through introspection. However the Prince must eventually return to the Real World and is diverted from his True Path by the pragmatism, greed and deceit of Society (specifically by Odile and the Sorcerer). Pressured to make a choice the Prince makes the wrong choice. Realizing that he has been mistaken, the Prince reunites with Truth and Beauty – Odette - but it is futile and Goodness, Truth and Beauty perish. But the evil Sorcerer also perishes and out of the dried Lake bed will spring new life. Perhaps new Princes will learn from History and not repeat the mistakes of Prince Siegfried. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">This interpretation can be applied to a number of Big Picture human endeavours. Fundamentally, our intelligence has evolved to deal with Risk (see Richard Dawkins’ “The Selfish Gene”) but we have become too smart for our own good. Non-genetically transmitted Ideas (called “Memes”) can override behavioural priming from DNA-composed, mutable, selectable and physically transmissible Genes –and this over-riding can be for Good or Evil. While his more primitive mammalian relatives such as wolves will offer their necks in submission to a merciful Victor (read Nobel Laureate ethologist Konrad Lorenz’s masterpiece “On Aggression”), Man will knowingly and deliberately incinerate 100,000 innocents of Hiroshima and then, several days later, incinerate a further 100,000 innocents at Nagasaki.</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Jewish people have suffered several millennia of persecution (mainly in the Christian world) but sensible risk management lead to sensible systemic adaptations. Jews left areas of severe persecution and entered into economic niches (e.g. lending money and akin investment in jewellery) made available by the anti-usury edicts of the other Abrahamic religions of Christianity and Islam. A powerful adaptation was the notion of the Kingdom of the Mind – a beautiful spiritual kingdom requiring no empires and armies for its protection. With the Enlightenment and the opening of the ghettoes in the 19th centuries came Assimilation and Universalism. Unfortunately, in the late 19th century a number of thoughtless, ignorant and secular Jews turned their backs on this 2 millennium Kingdom of the Mind and saw security in copying the European Nation State and racist Colonial model. The Zionists thus turned their back not just on the Kingdom of the Mind and nascent, anti-racist Universalism but also on orthodox Jewish theology that for 2 millennia had said that return to Zion (Jerusalem) could only occur after the Moschiach (the Messiah) revealed the Glory of Adonai (the Lord) to all the World. The outcome has been the race-based invasion, occupation, devastation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The Occupied Palestinian Territories has been converted into a Bantustan-style, military-guarded Prison in the view of outstanding anti-racist Jewish leaders and scholars such as Ronnie Kasrils (South Africa) and Professor Noam Chomsky (MIT, USA). Post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian Territory total 0.3 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million and there are 7 million Palestinian refugees, these constituting the largest single component of the world refugee population. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The horrendous, continuing injustice of racist Zionism has been sustained by huge US investment (about $3 trillion) and has been accompanied by sustained, fanatical and virulent Zionist lying in the West with a consequent appalling collapse in hard-won Memes or Values. Thus, while colonialism was finally rejected as racist in the West by the 1960s, anti-universalist, differentialist, exceptionalist, pro-Zionist propaganda (especially from the late 1960s onwards in particular) defied UN Security Council Resolution 252 for Apartheid Israel to quit the Occupied Palestinian Territory and in effect said that invasion, occupation, devastation and colonization of foreign countries was OK if done by the State of Israel or the US. The inevitable consequences of this suspension of decency and reason have been the Bush Wars that have been associated so far with 9-11 million avoidable deaths in the period 1990-2008 (see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity – millions dead in Bush Wars” on MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25184/42/</a> ). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">“Zero tolerance for racism” and “never again to anyone” are the core messages from the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the World War 2 Western Theatre Holocaust in general (30 million Slav, Jewish and Roma dead) and the World War 2 Eastern Theatre Holocausts (35 million Chinese dead under Japanese occupation in 1937-1945 and 6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British in India in 1943-1945). These core injunctions are adhered to rigorously by decent people but are grossly violated by the racist Zionists and the neocons, Bush-ites and neo-Bush-ites involved in the Bush War on Terror that is in reality a War for Oil and Hegemony, a War on Women and Children and, more specifically, in horrible reality a War on Arab, Muslim, Asian and non-European Women and Children. Exaggerated “fear” and “terror hysteria” are still offered as the key justifications for the Bush Wars (9-11 million avoidable deaths in 1990-2008) – yet in comparison 7,000 Westerners have been murdered by Muslim-origin non-state terrorism in the last 40 years (this figure including Israelis and ignoring evidence that the US and Israel were complicit in the 9-11 atrocity that killed 3,000 Americans) (see MWC News: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23294/42/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23294/42/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23294/42/</a> ). </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The suspension of decency, reason and rational risk management in the Western Murdochracies has now led to an economic catastrophe. According to the 2001 Economics Nobel laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), the $3 trillion accrual cost of the Iraq war alone has “bankrupted” America. Decades of neocon greed, deregulation and foreign borrowing-based war have finally culminated in the Wall Street crash and global financial meltdown. The sensible risk avoidance mechanisms that Man has acquired through Genes and Memes have been perverted through lack of regulation, public feedback and public honesty. Rather than economies of “needs” we have greed-based economies of “desires”. It is insufficient to be millionaires, now Americans must aspire to be billionaires. Outstanding, anti-racist, humanitarian Jewish Israeli writer Gilad Atzmon has joined with other outstanding anti-racist Jewish thinkers in condemning the greed, exceptionalism and dishonesty that has led us to this pass, and in particular is concerned for fellow Jews, QUOTE: “Furthermore, the current economic disaster endangers the security of millions of Western Jews who have really nothing to do with global economy, banking and global Zionism. It would be devastating to see innocent Jews being implicated collectively by the crimes committed by a very few tribal nationalist enthusiasts.” (see: <a href="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25599/26/1/1/" rel="nofollow" title="http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25599/26/1/1/">http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25599/26/1/1/</a> ).</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">However the departure from Decency and Reason and from Truth and Beauty driven by fear and greed of the Zionists and neocons is set to have consequences far more dire than the 9-11 million avoidable deaths of the Bush Wars or the global financial meltdown. Industrial profligacy, driven by greed and enabled by entrenched racism (albeit often “politically correct racism or PC racism) and public dishonesty (lying by commission, lying by omission by the media of the Western Murdochracies), is threatening the very biosphere. The Planet is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency (for details see the Climate Emergency Fact Sheets of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home" title="http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home">http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home</a> ). Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York) says that with mass species extinctions and the melting of the Arctic the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) concentration is dangerous at the current level of 390 parts per million (ppm) and must be urgently reduced to no more than 350 ppm. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">There is no clear evidence that the World is moving significantly in this non-carbon power direction except in China, California and parts of Western Europe. Optimism says that science, technology and rational business will enable a cross-over point between the cost of renewable or other non-fossil fuel-based power and fossil fuel-based power in only a few years, and that the world and what is left of the biosphere can be saved. But the entrenched LYING in the United States of America (aka the Zionist-dominated United States of Israel) and in the other Western Murdochracies make a pessimistic outlook more realistic. 16 million people already die avoidably every year from deprivation and this is being increasingly impacted by climate change. Top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS says that billions are currently threatened and that over 6 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed climate change. </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Odette is dying, the Lake is drying up, the Prince is doomed, and even the Sorcerer is dying. Truth and Beauty are wounded. One is reminded of Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”:</span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">I met a traveller from an antique land,<br />Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand, </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Tell that its sculptor well those passions read </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">And on the pedestal, these words appear: </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Nothing beside remains. Round the decay </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> The lone and level sands stretch far away." </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt"> </span></span></p> <p><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:12pt">Yet we must have hope that Humanity will learn from its mistakes – and that means respect for Truth and Reason and indeed love for Truth and Beauty. In addition to the World War 2 Holocaust injunctions of “zero tolerance for racism” and “never again to anyone” we must insist on “zero tolerance for lying”. </span></span></p></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>Dr Gideon Polyahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04156886772294243824noreply@blogger.com0