History

This one word headline should be the one word that should be universally accepted without any complications or misunderstanding and should thus be generally acceptable to all situations and in all discussions, but is, quite regrettably not the case.  It has been used and abused so much by so many that it attracts more controversy and disagreement than space age science, the latter which should of course be a misnomer.

Let’s get off that and look at history.

It is not written or made in a day.  Hillary Clinton called it Living History and pointed to all the cracks in the glass ceiling; the silly woman is a nut case.  Her philandering husband concentrated all his efforts on getting gays in the army when he was not chasing skirt around the White House.

I always marvel at the serious history buff going back to events of 1 000 years ago; they quote old battles between city Kingdoms and Magna Carta but I don’t see or cannot find the relevance of any of that in what faces the World right now.

What lies ahead of us for the half century from 2010 tom 2060 will be determined by what has been recorded in the past two centuries from 1810 to 2010.  In fact it will largely be decided by what we have done to the world in the recent fifty years of 1960 to 2010.  You can wipe the rest of the table.  We have a New World out there.

We will have to get out of Space; there is absolutely nothing up there that we can use to solve the problems on Earth.

Spread the flat earth map out on the table or use the round Globe if you wish and think for a moment.

Look at the Great Continents and try figure out how many we have.  The numbers are in dispute but whatever they are you will find Russia and China close to each other way up North East; way round to the West you will locate Northern America and Canada; south of that you will find south America with Brazil and Mexico.  In between these two extremes you will find Europe in the North and Africa in the south with, thank heavens Australia down south almost exactly below or on the side away from Africa.

You can go on and try to find the EU nations in Western Europe and all the little islands scattered around the seven seas but that is not going to change the picture.

Do you as the reader know how much of all this existed in 1810?  The simple answer is all of it exactly like now but for one important difference that started in 1960 or thereabouts.

World populations have started migrating again; in waves of them hither and dither in search of the Heavens know what but we are at loggerheads with each other again.

 And we have a new problem.  Some will say that it has always been there and I will grant the point, but it has become a lot worse than before.  Yes, we had poverty in the old Worlds and lots of hardship that came with that but poverty levels have escalated while we are messing around with Cyber Space with our eyes and heads in the Skies.

 People are starving while we busy ourselves with a renewed arms race.  Underneath all that, so unobtrusive that it shouts at the heavens, trade and the control of money has been handed to the few [the 1% of 1% of the World population] that are manipulating it on the Internet and call it Forex.

 We have no money left.  I see an enormous catastrophe looming before we reach 2020.

 But there is some hope; just yesterday a feller [big guy at the annual Davos horse and pony show] published this in his daily Newsletter:

 {Start of fun}

 “Yesterday a friend of many years introduced me to E-Smart Foods, a South African invention he’s involved with. Using lettuce as an example, he explained the test unit of their business is generating an annual 500 kg/sq of food. By comparison, conventional farming delivers around 7.5 kg and the best hydroponic systems up to 80 kg.

 The plants are grown in interlocking vertical pipes in greenhouses. The smart bit is in the design which makes water more efficient in delivering nutrients to the plant’s root system, dramatically
accelerating growth. Funding was provided by a wealthy Singaporian entrepreneur who is now building similar greenhouses in East Asia and intends listing the company on his local stock exchange.

 Earlier in the week another pal had me fascinated with his story about a group of former Pelindaba nuclear physicists whose business is proving Thorium as a cheap, safe alternative to uranium. Like E-Smart Foods, their idea also has the potential to change the world. It’s good to see that although many of South Africa’s brightest have taken their talents elsewhere, there’s still plenty of brainpower left here.

 {end of fun}

 Ike Jakson

In Americus GA saka Americoon

ikejakson@gmail.com

 

Tags: History of the World today