2013-01-31;  7:55am, Thursday.  Dark still, but a Chinook is moving in for a few days and that means westerly winds, mild temps and some sun!  Napi of the Blackfoot is sending us his/her/its blessings.

Diary:  Audio file upgrading, birthday wishes and blackberry news.

~~A method is emerging in the process of upgrading my 2010 audio files.  I phone my brother for his birthday, followed by comments on the new BlackBerry 10 launch.~~

Much work yesterday on my audio files from 2010.  I have a template now and a manual procedure for proceeding with this upgrade.  The first four or five talk recordings were made on tape, which makes it necessary to glue the two tape sides together and fill the switch gap as well as I can.
	Uploading the one hour long audio files is slow at night and I may try to change the timing on that activity.  I also have a settled method of including and referring to handout material.  So, with due diligence the whole audio upgrade project is coming together.

Today is my brother’s birthday and he becomes seventy (70) this year.  From that year on you get into different territory, which I call the process of letting go of your physical, body-based identity.  It is the stage of preparing for and becoming conscious of, the more permanent and enduring identity that we humans are and have.
	Congratulations dear brother and many more years in good health and happiness for you and your family.  Your road has not always been easy, but you were true to yourself and made the best of the challenges as they came along and not without blessings I would say!  Cheers and Hip, Hip, Hurray!

The BlackBerry launch came of ok yesterday and the reception was a grade B-plus to A-minus in my estimation.  The name RIM for ‘Research in Motion’ - an awkward name at best - has been replaced by ‘BlackBerry’, a move that everybody understands.  
	Coming Tuesday will have the Z-model - touch screen - in the stores, with the keyboard version to follow in March.  Good luck to the guys who build a totally new product from the ground up in hardware and software.  That is an outstanding accomplishment in my book and so say others as well.  Hats off to the old ‘RIM’ off the hat!

I just - 8:45am - finished talking to my Bro, wishing him the best.  He is looking forward to some family visits between now and the coming weekend.  The glasses for a birthday drink were standing ready while we talked, - just standing you say? What a pity -!  Cheers!

Writings:   Searching to understand human violence.

~~Moving beyond the mere disapproval of violence, I suggest a narrative for understanding and coping with this difficult, destructive and yet pervasive behaviour in the human species.~~

I want to continue with yesterday’s observations regarding human violence.  In order to gain a better understanding of that behaviour we must first of all accept the fact that humans can be very violent and often have been so in the past.  To just subject that behaviour to disapproving judgement may classify it, but won’t change it.  I have a saying that applies to this kind of judgement.  It is this: ‘Judgement starts, where understanding ends.’

First of all, trying to understand a certain kind of behaviour does not imply approval of that behaviour, but many people do not make that distinction.  They must feel that attempting to describe and understand undesirable acts is the same as making excuses for those acts; ‘understanding is excusing’ is the short circuit here.  Simple yes, but too simple and misleading, if not worse as in pretext for avoiding dealing with the problem or benefiting from it.

In order to come to some kind of understanding regarding the roots of violence in the human species, we should have a look at the mammalian species that is closest to use, the great apes.  They have been studied extensively resulting in observed behaviours that range from being very gentle to very violent.  The latter was in evidence of plain ape on ape murder in the zoo of  Arnhem in the Netherlands around 1995.  Tribal type gang violence has also been witnessed among competing ape bands.
	I assume that this proneness to violence is rooted in the make up of mammals as such and becomes modified in different mammalian species, such as Homo Erectus, Neander and Sapiens.  My view is that modern humans have acquired the most advanced ability to modify and override impulses to violent behaviour, but that we do have our limits.  We need to understanding these control processes and their limits and I am sure that there are studies of these topics.

Based on what I know from life experience, reading and observing human behaviour it is possible to construct a narrated model as follows.  Human traditions address human violence in their teachings, such as don’t steal, don’t commit murder and other rules.  These traditions set up rules and support authority to maintain them, so that the human community can function without too many disruption.  And there are still plenty of those, also in our modern society.
	Rules help and are effective, but they have their limits.  Too many rules and only rules result in a stagnation of development and leave underlying problems unresolved.  A culture based on rules only eventually will face unregulated change, such as a revolution.  Such changes are costly and can be prevented by implementing coping behaviours and processes that accommodate some change - necessary and sufficient change that is.
	Unaddressed concerns and repressed conflicts will with time accumulate enough emotive energies to motivate violence, which at that late stage becomes very difficult and certainly very costly to either stop or to let it run its course.  This is all without considering the ethics of such a lack of action and prevention, which is now possible for the willing.

We humans should know better and learn to institute coping skills and behaviours along with the rule based structures, so that we can accommodate legitimate concerns and make the necessary changes to prevent or at least minimise violent means of making change.
9:33am and 10:05am edited~