December 31st, 2013

Nothing like escaping to another (underwater) world to avoid the miserable state play regarding education currently occurring in the media. 
However, diving on the wreck of the Rainbow Warrior today did provide crucial perspective about what is important. Politics, power games,  intrigue and credibility can be such constant energy sapping players in our lives.  Small minded debate served up by the media must be countered but it is not something which nourishes us. Rather it bears us ill.

In 1985 a  victim of such ills was Fernando Pereira, the Greenpeace photographer who died from the blast of the second limpet mine placed on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior by French Secret Service (DGSE) agents.  The French Government wanted to restrict the effect of protests surrounding the continued testing of nuclear weapons at Mururoa Atoll. Gee, why not do that testing in your own backyard, and not out in a colony far far away from Paris. People from the DGSE thought sinking a Greenpeace vessel moored in Auckland Harbour was a good strategy to deploy. I suspect groupthink was in play ~ no-one was able to have an opinion that differed from those in charge. No small voice of reason was allowed to survive, to suggest that this was not a good plan. It is a phenomena that has caused many disasters in this world...Cuban missile crisis in the Kennedy era, the Challenger Space Shuttle.... though not unique to Americans. 

May we start doing a better job of minding ourselves and  minding the planet. 

Happy New Year to one and all.

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