The end of Israel.

One day, it seems likely, there will be no Israel. At least, not in its present form. Ironically, the reason for this will not be hostile Arab nations, but Israel itself.

I was struck, the other day, by the foolishness of Israeli forces killing human rights activists who just wished to deliver aid, through Israel's blockade. Israel, rather comically, and absurdly, one might note, tried to blame the activists, for their own deaths, saying that the activists had attacked their commandos. That is right: commandos. The Israelis had sent commandos to board their ship - and then had the gall to be surprised when the activists objected and tried to defend their ship from the incursion.

Most people would agree that the activists acted in a perfectly natural way, to defend their ship against boarding by hostile forces. If the Israelis had meant no harm...why board, and why use commandos?

What Israel forgets, or doesn't care about it, so much, is that the whole world is watching them - and much of the world was left unimpressed by their actions. It may even be that people who had no prior sympathy for Palestine, might acquire some through watching the actions of Israel.

Israel may not care about world opinion - but it should. It is only through a network of global support, that Israel continues to survive as a nation. I am not sure that, alone and entirely unsupported, as it might one day be, that Israel could survive in the Middle East, for long.

After World War II, almost every nation had sympathy for the Jews and what they went through - but that sympathy is being gradually eroded by the Israel that surviving Jews and their descendants have built. Modern Israel is too heavy handed, too, might I say, brutal, to win new friends or to hold on, indefinitely, to the ones it has.

Should Israel continue to be heavy-handed, the "sympathy capital" of the Holocaust, will be gradually eroded, until, one day, none of it remains. Then, Israel might stand alone, in its hostile quarter of the world...but not, I think, for long.

It was right that the world should have been sympathetic to the Jews after World War II - but now, as Israel wields its power in the world, in an often heavy handed, ill-thought out manner - it is also right that it should begin to lose that sympathy. It is only natural. Indeed, I am struck by the irony that a people once bullied, and terrorized, as they were in World War II should now, in some quarters, be seen, themselves as bullies and terrorizers, of others.

Israel feels that it must be this aggressive to survive. However, their situation is exquisitely ironic - because the more aggressive they are, the more resentful will their neighbours become and the more likely it will be that they will, one day, be extinguished. The very strategy which they feel is necessary for survival, is the very strategy that is hastening the day they will be extinguished.

Only if true peace comes in the Middle East, will Israel be secure from destruction. Yet, I don't see peace being what Israel is actually pursuing. Israel is, instead, seeking a kind of power or dominance over its neighbours. In some ways, they are seeking to use fear, to control their enemies. Again, I see the irony of those who once had much to fear, themselves turning to fear, as a weapon for survival.

I do not know enough about the Middle East, to comment definitively - but I know this: Israel's own actions, lose them more friends, than it wins them power over their enemies. They are eroding their international support base. They are damaging their own image, as historical victims, deserving of support.

In a way, I would not be surprised if some elements of Israel's enemies are rejoicing at Israel's actions: for it is undermining the Israeli state more effectively than most actions those enemies have themselves been able to take.

Israel needs to practice diplomacy, not muted war: they should be striving to master the well-chosen word, over the mailed fist. Sadly, however, I think they feel more secure in military power, than in peace-seeking diplomacy.

One day, I think, Israel will come to understand that its conduct, has led to its undoing. All Israel needs to do, to ensure its own ultimate end, is to just carry on precisely as it is, now. The Israelis will do the work, that their enemies have been unable to do. Given their stubborn-ness and tendency not to listen to international opinion, I think it is almost certain, that the Israelis will be their own undoing.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Why my computer works.

My computer works just fine...but it didn't for a long time. The reason it works, now, is ten years old and apt to make perceptive comments.

Two months ago, or so, Ainan remarked: "Do you know why your computer keeps crashing?" It did: several times a day...it just switched off.

"It is overheating, probably because of the weather, here." After all, we lived near the equator.

"If you open up your computer, and look inside, you will find that a lot of dust has collected on the heat sink and motherboard. This is insulating the cpu and causing it to overheat."

Now, neither of us had seen inside the computer, so this was just Ainan having a good guess at what might be happening. So, I opened up the computer...and yep: there it was...loads and loads of dust piled up around the components.

Quietly, I brushed it off. When I finished, I switched the computer back on.

Guess what? It hasn't crashed since.

Thanks Ainan. That's what sons are for - being more tech savvy than their parents.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Daniel Tammet and the art of exaggeration.

Daniel Tammet is an unusual young man. He is an autistic savant with particular gifts in number, language and memory for same. However, I am struck by the exaggeration that creeps, at times, into his marketing.

Today, on Yahoo, there was a link to a video on Daniel Tammet. The write up beneath the video said Tammet could "memorize 22,000 digits in a single sitting."

No. He can't. In fact, if you have ever read interviews with him, he has spoken of the "weeks" he spent in "sessions" memorizing "great chunks" of pi. This is not the work of a single sitting, but the work of quite some time, spread over quite some time. Nevertheless, it is impressive...so why the need to exaggerate it, until it becomes something legendary?

Daniel Tammet has a good memory. That is not in dispute. Few people have a memory as retentive as his. However, he does not have a perfect memory. Nor is it able to absorb vast information in one instant - as the Yahoo site would have us believe. Were it, in fact, so that he could memorize 22,000 digits of pi in one sitting, then it defies belief that he should stop at that, which is not, after all, a world record. He would have gone on to best the world record, were the memorization of pi so easy for him. He did not, because he could not. There were limits to his memory, to his diligence, to his patience, to his ability - in fact, that limit was 22,514 digits. That, for him, was enough. It took some effort, over a not inconsequential time - and he must have thought, after that time, that it was effort enough.

Kim Peek, on the other hand, could, perhaps, have memorized 22,000 digits of pi in one sitting. He, after all, could memorize entire books at a rapid reading. So, I am not saying that there are not people who could, possibly, ingest such a huge list of numbers in a short time. History has known, perhaps, a few of them. However, Daniel Tammet, from his own words, is not one of them. However, I do note that he tends to change his words and timescales, sometimes, when speaking of his feats. He is sometimes contradicted by his own written works. Make of that what you will. Perhaps he just doesn't remember what he wrote before!

So, please, those who are writing of Daniel Tammet, stick to the unusual facts. They are more than unusual enough. There is no need to go beyond them, and turn them into something both fictional and legendary. There is no need to make a comic book character out of Daniel Tammet's life. He is distinctive enough, without such fictionalizing.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Public transport in Malaysia and subsidy reductions.

Below is a letter I sent to the editor of a newspaper in Malaysia. Now, I have had two other letters to the editor published in the past few months, so I thought that it would be no problem to publish this one. However, they have decided not to publish it. I am left to wonder what elements of my proposal or suggestion they thought worthy of censoring. There are other writers to the letters pages here, who are published regularly. They are, however, local (both the ones I know are, in fact, Indian). It is possible that they don't wish to publish my work, too often, because I am a foreigner. Or perhaps, my ideas this time, impinge too much on what should be policy in Malaysia. Whatever the case, I think the letter I have written is of importance, for Malaysians, for the fact is that real incomes here, are quite low and the coming subsidy changes will affect many here, badly.

I agree, however, that the subsidies need to be phased out, for the sake of the nation's finances. However, I suggest, below, a painless way to do so with reference to the fuel subsidies. Without my proposal being taken up, it would be very hard on many people, to suddenly forego the fuel subsidy.

Please read the letter below, then link to it, from your own sites and tell your friends about it. That is the only way I can get these views out since the news organizations here, don't want these views known - otherwise they would publish it.

Thank you, in advance, for your help in spreading the word.


Don't forget public transport

Malaysia is a nation in love with the car. The question is: is this love affair one of passionate choice, or one enforced by circumstances? Would Malaysians still love the car, if they had an alternative?

It is timely to ask these questions, for soon the fuel subsidies that have made car ownership and usage so affordable in Malaysia, may be at an end. The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) has proposed that this and other subsidies, would be better spent on education. Were this change enacted, many Malaysians would soon face a stark reality: they would be unable to afford the petrol for their cars.

It is a probable truth that car ownership in Malaysia is so prevalent for two reasons: the first is that public transport is so relatively underdeveloped – and the second is that subsidies have made the per kilometre cost of driving modest, by global standards.

However, should the price of petrol rise to normal global prices, many fewer Malaysians would be able to afford such casual use of cars, as is now customary. They would be stuck in their own driveways, reluctant to drive on all but the most important journeys. Thus, we can see that the admirable intention to support education, through shifting the subsidies to it, would create an undesirable problem: many people wouldn’t be able to afford to travel.

There is a clear solution to this dilemma. As the subsidy on fuel is diminished, investment in public transport should rise. Thus, as cars became more expensive to run, public transport would become more widespread, more available, and more effective. People would still be able to travel but in a bus or on a train, and not in their own car.

The benefits for Malaysia would be considerable. The present car-clogged streets would run smoothly, as the number of cars on the roads, fell. Malaysia’s environmental impact would be reduced, too, since public transport is immensely greener than any car could be. Malaysia would become a more pleasant place to live – and all because people would have a choice that they don’t presently have: to travel other than by car.

I am a foreigner. Thus, I, along with, I suppose, more widely travelled Malaysians, see Malaysia with eyes informed by how other places, all over the world, are. I see a country of great potential that is, however, hampering itself and stymieing its own development. An effective transport system is key to a country that actually works, as an integrated nation. Malaysia is not really at that stage, yet. The reason is simple and clear: there is too much reliance on cars and so there are too many cars. Thus, the car becomes less useful than it should be, since traffic jams are so common. Ironically, fewer cars, would make each car much more effective. What Malaysia needs, as much as any improvements it might need in the education system, is a better public transport system. One of my first thoughts, on seeing Kuala Lumpur, was “Where are all the buses?” Every other major city I have lived in, has plentiful buses. It seemed strange to see a major city essentially without them. That has to change, if Malaysia is to reach its full potential.

The first use of any subsidy money saved, should be to establish a comprehensive bus network in all major cities of Malaysia – and between those cities. The buses should be affordable to all, regular, reliable, clean and safe. They should also be family and child friendly and be accessible by the elderly and infirm. It is important that everyone should be able to use them.

In the longer term, the train network should be expanded, first with more trains, to relieve overcrowding and increase capacity – and secondly with more lines, to connect more places to the network.

Were Malaysia to do this, no-one would suffer from a lack of means to travel, once cars become too expensive, for many.

If Malaysia is ever to be a fully developed nation it needs an effective public transport system, since all developed nations I am aware of, have very good ones. Malaysia should set about developing one, too. That would be a life-changing – and nation changing – use of subsidies saved. Who knows, perhaps one day, Malaysians will come to love their buses and trains, as much as they do their cars, today.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Problem parents.

Sometimes, parents are the problem, not the child. I see this quite regularly, in the kinds of searches people make. Sometimes, the searches indicate that the parent is the problem, in the parent-child relationship.

One particular recent case comes to mind. Someone from Bangkok - presumably a parent - arrived on my site with the following search terms: "Baby problem too talkative".

I thought those words were so sad. You see, there is no such thing as a baby that is "too talkative" - only parents who are too ungiving, of their time, their effort, their patience. A baby talks because it wants to communicate. If it talks a lot it means two things: it is thinking a lot and it wants to communicate much of it. This is not a bad thing - and it flabbergasts me that there are parents who think it is. If the baby wants to talk and is able to talk, it is a sign that much that is good is going on in the baby's mind.

It seems that that particular parent in Bangkok, wanted a child that required no effort on their part. They wanted a child to be a silent, undemanding object. They were perturbed that their child, in fact, was talkative and wished to engage with them. How sad it is that the parent didn't wish to return the engagement and seemed to find it a burden - a burden big enough to go searching for relief from it, on the internet.

I have seen, before, parents whose searches seem to imply that they want their children to conform. They want their children to be "easy to look after" - even if it means that the child cannot be a child. These are parents, whom I feel should never have become parents at all. They seem to want to deny the essence and reality of the child and have, in their place, a convenient accessory, that gives them the status of parents, without any of the bother, responsibility or effort.

Perhaps such parents should, instead, be seeking adoption agencies, for it is quite certain that they are unprepared for, and unable, to look after their child in the way one would hope. Indeed, perhaps such "parents" should have thought ahead, and adopted out their children at birth. There are many childless couples out there who would just love to have a "too talkative" baby to fill their days, with fresh thoughts on everything and anything - as such children are wont to do.

The saddest part of this particular incident with the parent in Bangkok is the long-term effect on the child. Now, the baby is "too talkative". However, if the parent persists in not engaging them, in snubbing their communicativeness - as one assumes they are doing, if they find the baby's efforts "too" much - then, over time, the baby will come to learn that talkativeness gains no response. They will come to learn that silence is required. In time, therefore, this wonderfully communicative baby, may fall silent and fall inward and become a child with much to say, but who never says it. They become the silent, watchful type who looks on the world with wise little eyes, but an unmoving tongue. Is that a happy outcome? Is it right to encase such an expressive child in entrained silence?

I don't think so. However, I fear that that is the likely future for that particular "too talkative" baby. Until, that is, they get much older, and find themselves in more accepting circumstances. Perhaps then, their silent tongue might free itself and grow active once more. Of course, it might be too late by then. Silence might have become an unbreakable habit and a once unusually communicative being, might have become an unusually uncommunicative one. I believe that such a change is possible: all that it takes is for their present toxic, ungiving social environment to persist long enough to train the child in a new way of communicating: that of relative quietness, in the face of the explict demands of the parents that he, or she, be so.

If you are the parent of a talkative baby, or a child; if their tongue never ceases to frame new thoughts, new observations, new questions, don't ever let yourself become impatient with the incessant stream - for that stream is destined to become a river of thought that the child will communicate to the world, when they grow up. Don't shut them off, now, so that they might never speak what is on their minds. Who knows, perhaps, in their ever-flowing words, there lies a future writer, or actor, or politician - or any other kind of verbally gifted adult. It would be such a pity to snuff out that future, by being impatient in the present.

So, never let yourself think that a child is "too" talkative. There is no such thing. There are only adults who are too unwilling to listen. Don't be one of them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The centre of the Universe.

I have observed that the centre of the Universe is four years old and quite short. His name is Tiarnan.

A couple of days ago, we were at the beach. This is quite easy to arrange given that Malaysia has an abundance of good beaches. Anyway, Tiarnan was playing twixt sand and sea when he ran forward, eagerly to his mother, clutching an empty green tea bottle.

"The sea gave it to me." he said, delightedly.

I felt at once the sweetness of his expression, that he should think the sea would personally give him anything at all. I understood, then, once more, what it was to be so young. At that age, the Universe has but one true centre - the self - and all the world is arranged just for us. So, it was, for Tiarnan, that day, that the sea reached out to him and gave him an empty bottle of green tea. How sweet.

It is funny and sad to think that as people grow up, they come to think of themselves as further and further from the centre of the Universe, until, eventually, many people see themselves as little inconsequential nothings, at the periphery of the Universe. Yet, it is not so. In a way, we are always the centre of our own personal universes, just like we were, as young children - even if the world teaches us that the centre is not as important as it once was.

I think it better, in a way, to think like a child. For the child values their position in the world, much more than many adults learn to. So, be the centre of your own universe and think, indeed, that the very sea would care enough about you, to give you something. Thinking such, makes the whole world seem rather more friendly - and what, precisely, could ever be wrong with that?

Of course, Tiarnan, the sea thinks of you all the time. Just as I do.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)