Entries Tagged 'Reflexion' ↓

I would like you to read this article from Julian Treasure.  If this content hooks you, then I would advise you to deepen your awareness on the effects of sound on your being.

The Sound of Silence

I’m just back from a short holiday in Northern Italy, where my wife is from. Doing what I do, I naturally listen to every place I visit and on this trip three experiences made me think about the subject of silence.

First was a visit to Isola S. Giulio in the middle of beautiful Lake Orta, near Milan. This small island houses a basilica and a convent for a community of nuns of a silent order, which is why it’s known as ‘the island of silence’. Encircling the island is a single footpath: La Via del Silenzio. Visitors are encouraged to walk the path in silent reflection, and every hundred metres or so there is a board showing one meditation on silence for the way out, and on the other side one for the way back. I was struck by these meditations because they are so universal. There is no hint of Catholic dogma; rather, they resonate with the deep wisdom mined by every spiritual path that has discovered the power of silence – which is most of them. I list these meditations at the end of this blog, so that you can use any or all of them without having to go all the way to Orta. Walking the path and internalising these reflections created a sense of deep peace and wellbeing, and of being fully present in the moment – which is probably saying the same thing in two ways.

Second by dramatic contrast was Milan’s railway station. This is a monumental building from Mussolini’s time, built on massive scale and with the acoustics of a cathedral. Sadly its grandeur is being eroded by the recent installation of many plasma screens showing a looped couple of minutes of advertising – with sound played through the entire station PA system. At first I thought they were playing opera, until the fragment repeated again and again as a small part of the loop, advertising as it transpired a mobile phone service. Opera in that space would have been interesting, pleasing and, with La Scala close by, very appropriate. The looped advertising sound felt intrusive, overbearing, irritating and even profane in that grand building, adding a gratuitous extra level of noise to the existing reverberating cacophany of train engines, footfall, voices and sundry machinery. When I lecture on sound I end with our Four Golden Rules for public sound. Rule 1 is: make it optional. Rule 2 is: make it appropriate. Rule 3 is: make it valuable. Rule 4 is: test it and test it again. The sound in Milan station breaks all four rules at once. (Incidentally, all the subway stations have two large projectors on each platform, again with sound booming out of them. Thank goodness that in London the projectors now being installed are silent.) I blogged earlier about the digital out of home industry that is putting screens up in every conceivable location, and about the need for these installations to integrate their sound carefully into existing soundscapes. Milan is a very worrying example of what could be the future in all public spaces if we’re not careful. Never did silence seem more valuable than in this awful noise.

The third experience was high in the awe-inspiring Dolomites, which I think are the most beautiful mountains on the planet. We trekked for three days, staying at rifugii up to 2,500m above sea level. The air was like crystal, the views were overwhelming and from time to time we heard the silence of the mountains. In my experience, the deep silence of nature is to be found only in high mountains or in deserts (hot or cold), because in these places there are no birds or insects. When the wind dropped and in between the intermittent high-altitude overflights by Ryanair, the Dolomites offered us that rare experience. This is where I agree with Evelyn Glennie, who said in her wonderful film Touch The Sound that silence is itself a sound, and not just the absence of sound. The deep silence of nature is rich and pure: it is the essential context for all other sound, just as a dress in black (the absence of all colour) is the context for what it contains. This silence is the sound between all sounds. Immersed in it, one can start to sense connection and resonance with all of nature.

As we traveled back, I reflected on the different kinds of silence. At the extreme is an anechoic chamber. With no sound source and zero reverberation, this is the purest silence humans can achieve (because we can’t survive in a vacuum, the ultimate silence). However, after a short time in such intense silence one starts to hear internal sounds: blood pumping, lungs and other organs moving, tinnitus in the ears. This overbearing artificial silence does not, it transpires, offer us the experience of silence at all.

In a truly silent building such as  late at night, silence settles on the listener like a warm cloak – but its overtones define the shape of the space. With eyes closed and without any sound, you can sense you are in a huge room. Indoor silence like this is rare and to be cherished, and is wonderful for meditation, prayer, contemplation, or even working. It has an entirely different quality to the silence of the mountains, resonating with all that is best about humanity rather than a deeper connection with nature.

The silence of nature is the finest of all, because in it we sense our connection with everything. However, it’s becoming a precious commodity. If silence was golden in the 60s, it’s a rare and precious diamond now. There are few remaining wildernesses which offer more than a short burst of true silence. Nature recordist Bernard Krause claims there is now almost no place on Earth – including the North Pole, Antarctica and the dense forests of Indonesia and the Amazon – that is free of aircraft overflights, the buzz of chain saws or other human clatter. Krause remembers when it took 20 hours to get 15 minutes of usable recorded material. “Now it takes 200 hours,” he says.

Away from wildernesses, there is a third kind of silence which comprises lack of proximate speech and machinery, especially cars, planes and trains. This is the silence one can experience at Orta: the soundscape is in fact quite rich, with lapping waves, birds, wind, and even distant human sound such as boats and high planes. It’s not total silence, but in this quietness there is still peace, as we found when walking the Way of Silence.

In cities, silence is something that most people actively avoid. Their first reaction on walking into a silent room is to turn something on – radio, TV, stereo, anything to stop the silence. They have become so used to urban noise that they feel uncomfortable without it. I think urban living has created an addiction to noise as a means of avoiding being fully present. This is fully expressed in the way so many people now walk around with iPods on or speaking on their mobile phones. In the noise of the city, we are becoming like ghosts: not really there at all.

Silence is a medium for growing human consciousness, an invitation to be fully present, and a doorway to a sense of connection with the universe, or God if you prefer. How sad that we have made it an endangered species – and that this process is accelerating. Will we in future trek across mountains wearing our iPods? Have we lost the desire to be present, connected and conscious? Or can we preserve the silent places and benefit from them in the ways of our ancestors?

If you hope for the latter as I do, then why not respond to this blog by posting some places you know where silence can be experienced. And then take some action to protect them. Maybe we can start to reverse the tide of noise and defend the silence in the world.

The silence meditations from Isola S Giulano, Orta

• In the silence you accept and understand

• In the silence you receive all

• Silence is the language of love

• Silence is the peace of oneself

• Silence is music and harmony

• Silence is truth and prayer

• In the silence you meet the Master

• In the silence you breath God

• Walls are in the mind

• The moment is present, here and now

• Leave yourself and what is yours

Mc 10,46-52.
Jésus et ses disciples arrivent à Jéricho. Et tandis que Jésus sortait de
Jéricho avec ses disciples et une foule nombreuse, un mendiant aveugle,
Bartimée, le fils de Timée, était assis au bord de la route.
Apprenant que c’était Jésus de Nazareth, il se mit à crier : « Jésus, fils
de David, aie pitié de moi ! »
Beaucoup de gens l’interpellaient vivement pour le faire taire, mais il
criait de plus belle : « Fils de David, aie pitié de moi ! »
Jésus s’arrête et dit : « Appelez-le. » On appelle donc l’aveugle, et on
lui dit : « Confiance, lève-toi ; il t’appelle. »
L’aveugle jeta son manteau, bondit et courut vers Jésus.
Jésus lui dit : « Que veux-tu que je fasse pour toi ? – Rabbouni, que je
voie. »
Et Jésus lui dit : « Va, ta foi t’a sauvé. » Aussitôt l’homme se mit à
voir, et il suivait Jésus sur la route.

===================================================

Ce court récit du miracle de Bartimée m’a subjugué.

Notre pauvre mendiant, aveugle de surcroît, était assis au bord de la route, il était en attente et peut-être bien dans l’espérance de rencontrer le Seigneur, son sauveur.

Est-ce mon cas ? Suis-je en attente dans l’espérance de rencontrer nom Seigneur ? Ai-je le brulant désir de rencontrer mon Seigneur ?

Je vois Bartimée tressaillir  en entendant  la clameur de la foule nombreuse. Il persévère en crier pour pouvoir couvrir le bruit de la foule et proclame humblement sa condition de pécheur.   Dans le temps de Jésus la maladie était considérée le résultat d’un pêché.

Me reconnais-je pêcheur et est ce que je demande pardon pour mes fautes dès que Ta présence se fait sentir ?

Bartimée  insiste malgré l’interpellation vive de la foule car sa volonté de rencontrer le Seigneur est prioritaire sur les ‘on dit’ et regards des gens. A l’appel du Seigneur, il se dépouille de son manteau, peut-être bien le seul bien matériel qu’il possède, il bondit et courut vers Jésus. Je vois dans ce texte la spontanéité de Bartimée et élan qu’il dégage en entendant Jésus.

Combien de fois ai-je répondu à l’appel du Seigneur qui me parle ? Et si je cherchais plus souvent  à T’écouter ou à  Te solliciter peu être bien que Tu m’accorderas une audience ? Mon doute ou l’ardeur de ma foi, sont ils mes freins ? Suis aussi aveugle pour me pas  Te voir mon Seigneur ?

Fort de la leçon de Bartimée, je reconnais Seigneur ma faiblesse et mes fautes. J’entends maintenant Ta voix qui me demande ‘Que veux tu que je fasse pour toi ?’ Maitre Seigneur Dieu fais que je vois et augmente en moi la foi pour que je puisse être nourris  en tout temps de Ta présence continuelle et comme la foule nombreuse  de cheminer avec toi vers la nouvelle Jérusalem.

I am so pleased to relive my teenage period, as I have received today a couple of illustrated classics which I was fond to read during the days I attended St. Mary’s college. The form has changed, as I am not reading the document in hard copy from the library in the early sixty’s whilst the content is still the same.

I owe much to these illustrated Classics which have enhanced my reading skills and provided me with much culture in a fun way. There was no way for a young boy of 12 to read Charles Dickens in the original old English version ,yet I then got a taste of great literature through the Illustrated Classics series.

Time has changed. There were no Manga’s in those days. I would encourage the youth of today to read these Classics which are still available in Comics strips forms and on a mobile telephone or any nomad instruments.

Une expression est un oxymore (ou dite « oxymorique ») lorsqu’elle met côte à côte deux mots ayant des sens opposés et aboutissant à une image contradictoire et frappante pour la représentation comme dans « un silence assourdissant ». En exprimant ce qui est inconcevable, crée ainsi une nouvelle réalité poétique qui suscite un effet de surprise, en ajoutant de la force à la vérité décrite. Celui qui veut devenir grand sera le plus petit ou celui qui veut être le premier sera le dernier de tous.

Le Seigneur semble nous prendre à contrepied. La transition de notre vie terrestre vers notre vie éternelle nous demande t il une logique différente ? Etre petit nous rendrait encore plus grand ? Servir et non être servi ! Jésus est autant plus grand qu’il s’est fait le dernier de l’humanité. Nous mériterons notre vie éternelle que dans le service et non en étant servi !La vraie vie commence avec notre mort!

Je vous livre ce jour la réflexion de Saint Augustin sur le texte de cet Evangile :

« Celui qui veut devenir grand sera votre serviteur »

Quelle nécessité y avait-il à ce que le Fils de Dieu souffre pour nous ? Une grande nécessité, que l’on peut résumer en deux points : nécessité de remède à l’égard de nos péchés, nécessité d’exemple pour notre conduite… Car la Passion du Christ nous fournit un modèle valable pour toute notre vie… Si tu cherches un exemple de charité : « Il n’y a pas de plus grand amour que de donner sa vie pour ses amis » (Jn 15,13)… Si tu cherches la patience, c’est sur la croix qu’on la trouve au maximum… Le Christ a souffert de grands maux sur la croix, et avec patience, puisque « couvert d’insultes il ne menaçait pas » (1P 2,23), « comme une brebis conduite à l’abattoir, il n’ouvrait pas la bouche » (Is 53,7)… « Courons donc avec constance l’épreuve qui nous est proposée, les yeux fixés sur Jésus, qui est à l’origine et au terme de notre foi. Renonçant à la joie qui lui était proposée, il a enduré, sans avoir de honte, l’humiliation de la croix » (He 12,1-2).

Si tu cherches un exemple d’humilité, regarde le crucifié. Car un Dieu a voulu être jugé sous Ponce Pilate et mourir… Si tu cherches un exemple d’obéissance, tu n’as qu’à suivre celui qui s’est fait obéissant au Père « jusqu’à la mort » (Ph 2,8). « De même que la faute commise par un seul, c’est-à-dire Adam, a rendu tous les hommes pécheurs, de même tous deviendront justes par l’obéissance d’un seul » (Rm 5,19). Si tu cherches un exemple de mépris pour les biens terrestres, tu n’as qu’à suivre celui qui est le « Roi des rois et Seigneur des seigneurs », « en qui sont cachés tous les trésors de la sagesse et de la connaissance » (1Tm 6,15; Col 2,3) ; sur la croix il est nu, tourné en dérision, couvert de crachats, frappé, couronné d’épines, et enfin, abreuvé de fiel et de vinaigre.

Lors d’un brillant exposé par un expert en goût et Å“nologie, Jean Verget, que j’ai eu l’occasion d’y assister mercredi soir à l’hôtel School Gaëtan Duval, j’ai retenu parmi une mine d’informations nouvelles, un élément simple et important en matière de goût. Simplement je ne peux distinguer avec mes papïlles que quelques saveurs :

· salé comme le sel

· amer comme la quinine

· acide comme le citron

· umamie comme les glutamates

· calcium comme dans le chou

· sucré comme le sucre

Ce qui semble important c’est une harmonie de goût pour rendre l’expérience agréable. Comme chaque individu à son propre instrument gustatif calibré pour soi, l’harmonie ne peut qu’ être personnelle.

Comment faire l’harmonisation ?

_

Qui est Jean Vegert et quel est son parcours en la matière ?

Certificat d’œnologie et de législation viticole

Ecole supérieure de commerce de Montpellier

Certificat d’économie viticole de la fac de droit de Montpellier

Directeur technique de la maison Brocard (vins de bourgogne) de 1966 à 1971

Directeur général des Compagnons Gourmets de 1971 à 1977

Directeur générale Président de Laplace, le chemin de la propriété jusqu’a sa retraite.

Conférencier et formateur sur l’œnologie et le goût,

Formation auprès de groupe comme :

Accor, Hilton, Sodexho, Elior, Holiday Inn?.

Conférencier dans des clubs du Rotary et des Lion’s

Formation sur la dégustation, la vue, l’olfaction, le goût, les influences climatiques, l’harmonie des mets et des vins, les régions de production vinicoles?

A decade ago, I set out to investigate luck. I wanted to examine the impact on people’s lives of chance opportunities, lucky breaks and being in the right place at the right time. After many experiments, I believe that I now understand why some people are luckier than others and that it is possible to become luckier.

To launch my study, I placed advertisements in national newspapers and magazines, asking for people who felt consistently lucky or unlucky to contact me. Over the years, 400 extraordinary men and women volunteered for my research from all walks of life: the youngest is an 18-year-old student, the oldest an 84-year-old retired accountant.

Jessica, a 42-year-old forensic scientist, is typical of the lucky group. As she explained: “I have my dream job, two wonderful children and a great guy whom I love very much. It’s amazing; when I look back at my life, I realise I have been lucky in just about every area.”

In contrast, Carolyn, a 34-year-old care assistant, is typical of the unlucky group. She is accident-prone. In one week, she twisted her ankle in a pothole, injured her back in another fall and reversed her car into a tree during a driving lesson. She was also unlucky in love and felt she was always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Over the years, I interviewed these volunteers, asked them to complete diaries, questionnaires and intelligence tests, and invited them to participate in experiments. The findings have revealed that although unlucky people have almost no insight into the real causes of their good and bad luck, their thoughts and behaviour are responsible for much of their fortune.

Take the case of chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such opportunities.

I gave both lucky and unlucky people a newspaper, and asked them to look through it and tell me how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people took just seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper contained the message: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” This message took up half of the page and was written in type that was more than 2in high. It was staring everyone straight in the face, but the unlucky people tended to miss it and the lucky people tended to spot it.

For fun, I placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper: “Stop counting. Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win £250.” Again, the unlucky people missed the opportunity because they were still too busy looking for photographs.

Personality tests revealed that unlucky people are generally much more tense than lucky people, and research has shown that anxiety disrupts people’s ability to notice the unexpected. In one experiment, people were asked to watch a moving dot in the centre of a computer screen. Without warning, large dots would occasionally be flashed at the edges of the screen. Nearly all participants noticed these large dots.

The experiment was then repeated with a second group of people, who were offered a large financial reward for accurately watching the centre dot, creating more anxiety. They became focused on the centre dot and more than a third of them missed the large dots when they appeared on the screen. The harder they looked, the less they saw.

And so it is with luck – unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties intent on finding their perfect partner and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through newspapers determined to find certain types of job advertisements and as a result miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

My research revealed that lucky people generate good fortune via four basic principles. They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

I wondered whether these four principles could be used to increase the amount of good luck that people encounter in their lives. To find out, I created a “luck school” – a simple experiment that examined whether people’s luck can be enhanced by getting them to think and behave like a lucky person.

I asked a group of lucky and unlucky volunteers to spend a month carrying out exercises designed to help them think and behave like a lucky person. These exercises helped them spot chance opportunities, listen to their intuition, expect to be lucky, and be more resilient to bad luck.

One month later, the volunteers returned and described what had happened. The results were dramatic: 80 per cent of people were now happier, more satisfied with their lives and, perhaps most important of all, luckier. While lucky people became luckier, the unlucky had become lucky. Take Carolyn, whom I introduced at the start of this article. After graduating from “luck school”, she has passed her driving test after three years of trying, was no longer accident-prone and became more confident.

In the wake of these studies, I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune:

• Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell – a reason to consider a decision carefully.

• Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.

• Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck.

Richard Wiseman is a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire.

Mc 10,2-16.
Des pharisiens l’abordèrent et pour le mettre à l’épreuve, ils lui
demandaient : « Est-il permis à un mari de renvoyer sa femme ? »
Jésus dit : « Que vous a prescrit Moïse ? »
Ils lui répondirent : « Moïse a permis de renvoyer sa femme à condition
d’établir un acte de répudiation. »
Jésus répliqua : « C’est en raison de votre endurcissement qu’il a formulé
cette loi.
Mais, au commencement de la création, il les fit homme et femme.
A cause de cela, l’homme quittera son père et sa mère,
il s’attachera à sa femme, et tous deux ne feront plus qu’un. Ainsi, ils ne
sont plus deux, mais ils ne font qu’un.
Donc, ce que Dieu a uni, que l’homme ne le sépare pas ! »
De retour à la maison, les disciples l’interrogeaient de nouveau sur cette
question.
Il leur répond : « Celui qui renvoie sa femme pour en épouser une autre est
coupable d’adultère envers elle.
Si une femme a renvoyé son mari et en épouse un autre, elle est coupable
d’adultère. »
On présentait à Jésus des enfants pour les lui faire toucher ; mais les
disciples les écartèrent vivement.
Voyant cela, Jésus se fâcha et leur dit : « Laissez les enfants venir à
moi. Ne les empêchez pas, car le royaume de Dieu est à ceux qui leur
ressemblent.
Amen, je vous le dis : celui qui n’accueille pas le royaume de Dieu à la
manière d’un enfant n’y entrera pas. »
Il les embrassait et les bénissait en leur imposant les mains.
==============================================================================

Devant cette épineuse question de la séparation d’union de deux êtres : homme et femme, Je vois que la même question de deux mille ans se pose toujours aujourd’hui. Jésus considère le remariage comme un acte d’adultère. Ce serait trop facile pour nous humain, de montrer du doigt des humains faibles d’un tel acte. Jésus nous indique bien d’un idéal et pourtant Lui, le miséricordieux qu’il est, serait toujours présent à nous tendre la main dans la mesure de notre conscience.

Devant cette multitude grandissante de divorces, Il me demande d’ avoir de la compassion, d’ être le dispenseur d’amour. Seul Dieu  qui connait la profondeur des consciences serait apte à juger. La rupture d’un mariage n’est pas un petit incident de parcours, il est pour bien de cas des moments traumatisants. Devons nous rajouter de la douleur aux couples désunis en les condamnant ? Tout au contraire, je serai encore plus chrétien quand je porterai de la compassion et  d’amour à mes frères qui se trouvent en détresse. Je vivrai le Jésus compatissant et miséricordieux.

Je trouve fort intéressant que le texte de l’Evangile s’enchaine avec la présentation des enfants à Jésus. N’est ce pas que les enfants sont les fruits de l’union des couples ? J’ai le sentiment que les enfants que Jésus regarde avec une si grande compassion sont trop souvent les victimes des divorces et des familles prisées.

Quels sont les caractéristiques de l’enfant qu’il nous faut pour entrer dans le royaume de Dieu ? Je considère un enfant comme une éponge, dans notre tendre enfance, nous avions la très grande capacité d’absorber en toute humilité tout les biens autour sans cupidité, d’avoir une entière confiance dans nos ainés et surtout d’être émerveillé.

Augmente en moi, Seigneur, un cœur compatissant sans jugement de mes frères. Donne-moi Seigneur Jésus Christ, de rester humble comme un enfant, de croire en Toi, notre pourvoyeur de tout et surtout de rester émerveillé de Ton amour pour humanité et moi.

Compassion for humankind – and other ethical reference points for good leadership and management in business and organizations

I pick that excerpt  below from a business web site and I thought to myself: indeed why can’t we talk of compassion in business and management?

“No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.” (Robert Burton, 1577-1640, English writer and clergyman, from The Anatomy of Melancholy, written 1621-51.)

Love is a strange word to use in the context of business and management, but it shouldn’t be.

Love is a normal concept in fields where compassion is second-nature; for example in healthcare and teaching.

For those who maybe find the concept of ‘love’ too emotive or sentimental, the word ‘spirituality’ is a useful alternative. Spirituality is a perspective in its own right, and it also represents ideas central to love as applied to business and organisations, ie., the quality of human existence, personal values and beliefs, our relationships with others, our connection to the natural world, and beyond.

Some people see love and spirituality as separate things; others see love and spirituality as the same thing. Either view is fine.

In business and organisations ‘love’ and/or ‘spirituality’ mean genuine compassion for humankind, with all that this implies. We are not talking about romance or sex. Nor are we referring to god or religion, because while love and spirituality have to a degree been adopted by various religious organisations and beliefs, here love and spirituality do not imply or require a religious component or affiliation at all. Far from it. Anyone can love other people. And everyone is in their own way spiritual.

Given that love (or spirituality, whatever your preference) particularly encompasses compassion and consideration for other people, it follows that spoiling the world somewhere, or spoiling the world for future generations, is not acceptable and is not a loving thing to do.

Love in business and work means making decisions and conducting oneself in a way that cares for people and the world we live in.

So why is love (or spirituality) such a neglected concept in business?

China National day was celebrated yesterday. With a pinch of the heart, I felt sad for not watching the grandiose celebration on CCTV yesterday.  Is my attachment with the country of my birth teasing me?  This morning I browse through the web to inform me of the celebrations. Over 2 thousand articles there of, are found by google. I selected some of the articles: those who are published by the Chinese organ Xinhua and China Daily, AFP and Reuters, and lastly those published from the Washington Post and the Indian Press. Unfortunately I am not able to read the Russian news correspondent which would have been interesting, in relation to the Sino Russian relationship.

I picked up a comment on the Washington Post which I found telling:

Hainan, China: Why is the media so obsessed with highlighting the military part of the celebration? I just finished watching the evening celebrations and there was zero military, just singing, dancing and fireworks galore. The daytime parade also had thousands of dancers and to be frank, watching it one could easily have missed the parade of military segments. It’s nothing more than when the military bands play in the Rose Parade or flybys by jets during the Fourth of July. The country is trying to have some fun and to celebrate. There was a significant emphasis on peace in symbols during the festivities. Western coverage was extremely biased, even using words like “gaudy” to describe the floats, which I thought were great! Why not an article on how they coordinated the whole thing, simply amazing.

Indeed, as a person for peace, I concur fully with the comments above.

May China for one and other mega powers stop to show their mega military might during their national day celebrations.

I found the time line published by Financial Times to be very useful for a quick high lights of 60 years.

I am reading these days on the  Mixed Blooded Tang Dynasty , the China Golden Age!

Last week I was having some serious talks with a friend about the future of Mauritius. Do we in Mauritius have a long term plan or a road map we are following? I for one have heard nothing on this score and my friend who is an economist said the same to me.

Are we on a ship heading the nowhere destination? Is there some guys thinking of Mauritius by year 2020 or even further?

As far as I recall in my younger days, the people governing the affairs of the country used to have a 5 year plan which is reviewed every year: a sort of revolving 5 year plan. Are we living from hand to mouth, the nasty unsought present? I understood that there was a Ministry of Planning in the previous governments. Who is today looking or imagining our future? We know too well that the legislative term of a government is only five years. I am of opinion that  we need to have a longer term vision for the Mauritian children of tomorrow. Is not it wise to build now and in the near future the destiny of our children and grand children?

I went through the Mauritian Government web site to find out. I saw only two future looking strategic plans: the Draft Long term Energy Strategy 2009-2025; and the draft education and human resources strategy plan 2008-2020. I note that the two documents are still in draft form. Would that mean that no roll out plans are finalized?

It would thus appear that we have a governing body that is of the past and present with no heed of the future? Is there a strategic plan for each ministry? I feel uncomfortable with a situation when the country is not clear where it is heading, unless the leaders know and  they do not feel comfortable to let the public know.

For years I have been training on the necessity to know as an individual : where do you come from?; what are you doing now? and where are you heading too?  I was told that success are granted to persons who give themselves a sense of direction and a mission and refuse to live like a drift wood on the river.