by: Guido Baechler, Chief Editor

Die Notre Dame brennt!

Am 15. April 2019 ereignete sich eine grosse Tragödie in Paris. Die Notre Dame brennt fast komplett aus. 890 Jahre Geschichte ausgelöscht. Auch wenn die Notre Dame nicht immer bei den Franzosen durch die religioösen Konflikte beliebt war, bleibt sie ein wichtiges Monument.

Noch während dem Brand wurden Gelder zum Wiederaufbau zugesprochen. So etwa 100 Millionen Euros von Francois-Henri Pinault dem der Luxusmodekonzern Kering gehört. Und die Familie Bettencourt, welche Louise Vuitton und L’Oreal gehört spendeten €200 Millionen.

Auch der US Konzern Apple stellte Hilfe in Aussicht und zwischenzeitlich sind innert 3 Tagen über 900 Millionen Euro zugesprochen worden. Das für eine alte Kathedrale???

Im Ernst, ich verstehe das Kulturgüter für die Menschen wichtig sind, aber das grenzt an Schwachsinn. Sind diese Milliardäre eigentlich alle von gutem Menschenverstand verlassen?

Wo sind diese Leute mit Ihrer Grosszügigkeit? Ich frage mich, ob es nur um das Füttern deren eigenes Ego geht. Mit diesen Spenden werden sie sicherlich in die Geschichtsbücher eingehen. Und ein Dankensschild ist sicherlich auch inbegriffen. Natürlich hilft  das auch dem öffentlichen Allgemeinbild über sie und ihre Konzerne. Das verstehe ich.
Aber was könnte man mit diesem Geld machen? Nehmen wir mal die Plastikmüllverschmutzung der Ozeane in den Augenwinkel. Eines der absolut grössten, wenn nicht das grösste Problem der Menschheit. Laut wissenschaftlichen Aufrechnungen und den technischen Möglichkeiten die wir bereits haben und die in Entwicklung sind, würde es schätzungsweise ca. US$ 500 Millionen kosten sämtliche Ozeane um bis zu 90% der Plastikbelastung zu befreien. Wäre das nicht sinnvoller? Mit weiteren US$ 500 Millionen könnte man den Grossteil der europäischen Landwirtschaft von der Fleischproduktion auf Hanfproduktion umwandeln. Da die Fleisch-und Milchindustrie mindestens 40% am CO2 Problem verantwortlich ist, könnte man auch da einen grossen Einfluss auf den Klimawandel machen. Und mit dem Anbau des Wunderkrauts Hanf kann man die Produktion von Plastik, Gummi und Textilien ersetzen. Also wirklich etwas sinnvolles machen.

Und mit dem heutigen Umwechslungskurs bliebe da noch ca. US$ 130 Millionen übrig. Diese könnte für den Aufbau der Notre Dame gebraucht werden. Der Rest, falls noch mehr benötigt wird, soll doch der stinkreiche Vatikan übernehmen.

Ein Umdenken der Menschheit ist gefordert. Wir müssen nicht die Welt retten, die Welt rettet sich selbst. Aber wir müssen die Menschheit retten und €900 Millionen in ein Gotteshaus zu investieren ist der falsche Weg.
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Oder was sagt ihr dazu?

​The Notre-Dame Cathedral is not the first priceless architectural masterpiece to face destruction. The Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was destroyed by earthquakes. In modern times, many architectural wonders s especially in Syria and Iraq have been ravished by war, most notably many churches and Mosques in Mosul. But in the west there has not been such outpouring of grief over a building as there has been with the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Countless photographs, news articles, and videos were posted all over social media as people collectively grieved the partial loss of Notre-Dame.

This is obviously for good reason. Perhaps nowhere in history has a building been ingrained in our lexicon. It is the epitome of romanticism in the most romantic city in the world. Victor Hugo immortalized the building in his classical novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame which was turned into a Disney movie to be enjoyed by countless generations.
Notre-Dame has an amazing history – a medieval Catholic cathedral that began construction in 1160 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was mostly completed a hundred years later, although it was continually modified for centuries. This is not the first time trouble has befallen the cathedral. In the 1790s, many of the religious images were destroyed during the French Revolution.
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As the smoke cleared around Notre-Dame, there is a collective sigh of relief that hundreds of firefighters were able to save some of the centuries-old Gothic landmark from complete collapse. These firefighters fought bravely, risking their lives to save Notre-Dame. However, there is still uncertainty over just how much irreplaceable history and culture is gone forever.  

The Swiss are in shock as life as they know it came to a screeching halt. The cause? Amazon.com is no longer delivering to Switzerland.  Only digital products like ebooks, songs, and apps will escape the cut. The online company has been acting like a small child since it’s refusing to pay the value-added tax (VAT) which previously it has been exempt from. 

The company is now recommending Swiss shoppers use other Amazon sites in Europe like Amazon.de, Amazon.fr or Amazon.co.uk. The impact of the move is estimated to be CHF 65 million compared to an estimated 575 million Swiss francs in deliveries from amazon.de, for example. However, it’s more a matter of choice as Amazon.com has items that cannot be found on Amazon.de. Those products include hard-to-find books, records and antique items.
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Amazon has had more than 12 months to find a solution for changes to the Swiss VAT system but has been unable to do so. A spokesperson for the Swiss tax authorities said that by stopping deliveries to the Swiss market from the US, Amazon would not be dodging VAT as this would be payable when deliveries were made to Switzerland from its EU sites.

Jack Welch is often described as one of the best leaders of the 20th century. Under his leadership he grew General Electrics (GE) an astounding 4,000 % and during his tenor, he took home 500 million dollars. One might say it's money well deserved for someone who grew a company exponentially.

But I’m going to suggest something that most leadership gurus probably think is blasphemy. I’m going to suggest Jack Welch really shouldn’t be help up as a great business leader. Eighteen years after his retirement as CEO, General Electric is deep in dept, selling off assets left, right and center, and recently, the company has sunk to new lows and is struggling to stay afloat. What would have been unthinkable during Jack Welch’s time is actually a possibility – there's talk of delisting General Electrics altogether. In fact, the 125-year-old company might go into bankruptcy.
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Jim Collins, author of the book 'Good to Great', defines a great leader as someone who is completely selfless, building up systems to ensure that the company lasts past his or her tenor. Unfortunately Jack Welch’s systems are already crumbling.

If there is one thing that Jack Welch can be faulted for it is reaching too far, stretching beyond the company’s means. Jack Welch reminds me of the fable that Stephen Covey wrote about in his famous book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”– the goose and the golden egg. In the fable, the boy finds a goose who lays a golden egg each day. He wants to increase production of golden eggs so he kills the goose. Jack Welch increased the company’s stock value exponentially, but in doing so did he end up killing the goose?
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In 2011 GE ranked among the top 14 most profitable companies but since then it has severely underperformed in the market. In 2017, GE has reported losses of about $6.2 billion. As of October 2018, John L. Flannery was replaced by H. Lawrence Culp Jr as CEO in hopes of turning things around. 

The Munich Security conference is an important meeting between the most important countries in the world where the leaders discuss threats to the western world. Each year, ever since 1963, it brings together about 350 senior figures from more than 70 countries around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges.
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This year’s events have been anything but cordial. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she was, effectively, done with counting on the Americans siting the Americans withdraw from Syria as a huge mistake. Merkel drew hug applause for her remarks – not surprising since she was on her home turf. American Vice President Mike Pence, on the other hand, stood up to scold his allies for sticking with a multilateral Iranian agreement. He was rewarded with stone-cold silence. This exchange represents the growing gap between the European and American relationship. Open contempt for American policies would have once been unthinkable. In fact, A new Pew Research Center poll, published in the report, suggests that Germans believe Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping handle world affairs better than Trump does.

'If you’ve been following woman’s rights issues on social media then you’re probably aware of the #FreeTheNipple campaign that first started to trend in 2014 when director Lina Esco released her American feature film 'Free the Nipple.'

The film is about a group of young women who take to the streets of New York and Los Angeles, protesting inequality and the right to go topless. However, surprisingly, after she shot the film, Lina Exco found it difficult to find distribution which motivated her to take the campaign to social media where it went viral and was picked up by a number of celebrities.  

In the documentary, two protesters are arrested for indecent exposure outside of a campaign appearance for Senator Bernie Sanders. They appeared topless except for pieces of tape over their nipples, and had the words "Free the Nipple", "Equality", and "Feel the Bern" written on their breasts. LAPD officers asked them to cover themselves up. When they refused they were arrested and thrown into jail. They were held for 25 hours without being charged with a crime. After being released, the protestors filed a federal lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department.

Most people remember Miley Cyrus as the first female celebrity to gain world wide fame for the movement but just recently Jennifer Aniston has spoken to several news outlets explaining she was actually the first celebrity to spread the movement in the early nineties. 
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In her famous television show, Friends, her character, Rachael, is often shown wearing a tight shirt with her nipples sticking through the thin fabric. This has lead some fans to speculate she wanted her nipples on display. Jennifer Aniston, for her part, is not ashamed of her poking nipples and believes it promotes feminism. 

The $1.1 Billion Juno Probe project developed by NASA has just sent back to Earth incredible photographs of Jupiter and it’s ‘Giant Red Spot’ which was shot with an optical camera known as the JunoCam. The spacecraft has been documenting the giant gas plant like never before, recording the planet with sophisticated radars, radiation detectors, and magnetic and gravitational field recorders to give us a better understanding of Jupiter. Scientists hope to learn more about the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen and a better estimate of Jupiter’s core mass which will hopefully help us discover how Jupiter was formed and it’s role in the Solar System.

Because Jupiter is a gas planet, it is constant changing and therefore it has been interesting to see the type of data collected, expanding our understanding of our Solar System. For example, Jupiter’s’ icy moon Europa is one of the most fascinating aspects of the exploration. One of the four moons orbiting Jupiter, it is the sixth largest moon in the Solar System.
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First explored in 1973 and 1974, the two Voyager probes were able to provide the most detailed photographs of the moon’s icy surface. The photographs caused many scientists to speculate about the possibility of a liquid ocean – and even life – underneath.  If life or evidence of life was discovered on the icy moon, it wouldn't be on the surface but instead it would be hidden in the depths of the oceans, where it is warmer and the pull of a nearby planet's gravity keeps water liquid. 

​Every January we make new resolutions to get fitter, to eat healthier, to make more money, but then somewhere around the middle of January we start to see cracks in our new amour and then by the end of the month our will power has crumbled and we’re back to the same old routine as before. Why is that? It’s because we focus too much on the big picture. Too much on the outcome instead of the small things that are easy to change but make all the difference. In other words we should be focusing on habits instead of resolutions.
 
What Are Habits?

The hardest thing for most people, when it comes to building habits, is sticking to it long enough for it to become ingrained.

Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform each and every day.  When you think about it, your life is essentially the sum of your old habits.

What you repeatedly do – what do you eat for lunch each day, who do you talk to the most, what you spend time thinking about and doing each day – ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and your personality.
 
Ways to Form Better Habits

So how do you build new habits? Every habit you have — good or bad — follows the same pattern. Reminder which triggers the behavior, then the action you take, and reward. When you understand the patterns of a habit it’s easier to stick to new habit and get rid of the bad ones.

Do not focus on results as you’re forming the habit and make the habit as tiny as possible. Don’t go hard on yourself and whatever you think you should do, cut it in half. Want to work on that novel four times a week? Try two instead. I know that sounds like nothing – and that’s the point. Your habit should be easy to do and maintain. Don’t think of yourself as a failure if you don’t reach some unattainable goal.

As there is yet another disastrous tsunami  that killed hundred of people in Indonesia splashed all over the news, it's a good time to look back at another natural disaster that has lingering effects. The Fukushima accident was the first truly epic natural disaster to be recorded and beamed into millions of homes in real time. We were able to watch from the comfort of our own homes as thousands of people were being killed on television. It’s horrible to think about but what is even more horrible is how the authorities tried to downplay the effect of the nuclear radiation and the after effects it had on the Japanese population.

The earthquake and tsunami are estimated to have killed more than 15,000 people along Japan’s east coast and triggered the Fukushima accident, the damaging of the power plant a hundred miles north of Tokyo. The Japanese government did not respond to the crisis very well. They gave out no information about radiation levels and people had no idea if they were going to die. Even doctors were left in the dark as to the magnitude of the problem.
In its Health Risk Assessment of the nuclear disaster, the World Health Organization (WHO) note exposure levels too low to affect human health, with exception to a few communities in closest proximity to the power plant.  

In these communities it is those who were infants at the time of exposure who are at greatest risk of cancer. At the two closest communities the incidence of cancer in this demographic is projected to be between 4-7 percent higher than the acceptable baseline cancer rates. However, for the rest of Japan, the WHO has said that it has nothing to worry about.

However, seven years later, many Japanese people don’t believe the nuclear experts and believe the WHO is inept, incompetent, or worse covering up the actual damage to keep people from panicking. So who is in the right? Are the experts correct in their assessment or do the Japanese people have something to worry about?

In most nuclear accidents, the biggest concern is the risk of getting thyroid cancer from the release of radioactive iodine-131. Iodine-131 is terrible. While it has a half-life of only eight days, if breathed in or ingested, for instance, in milk from cows grazing on contaminated pastures, it concentrates in thyroid glands and can cause thyroid cancer that emerges within a few years. Because children are still growing and developing, they are especially at risk. The only prophylactic is to give exposed people tablets of non-radioactive iodine to flood their thyroid glands and prevent uptake of the radioactive version.

There was an epidemic of thyroid cancer after Chernobyl. Radioactive iodine was also released during the Fukushima accident, though only about a tenth as much as at Chernobyl. Doctors tend to agreed that the actual uptake by people near the plant was small. This is because most of the fallout initially headed out to sea, because the authorities quickly removed potentially contaminated foodstuffs from sale and because iodine tablets were issued.
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Japanese nuclear authorities have confirmed that active intervention will be required for the next forty years to stabilise the site, there are on-going radioactive releases and water and waste management issues. To be fair the damage from the fallout is hard to project or predict. In 2016, a group called the "International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War" argues that 174,000 people have been unable to return to their homes and malformations have been found in trees, birds, and mammals. Although physiological abnormalities have been reported within the vicinity of the accident zone, the scientific community has largely rejected any such findings of genetic or mutagenic damage caused by radiation, instead showing it can be attributed to other ecological effects. Whatever the case is, the shadow of Fukushima still looms large and there is much to debate as to the real effect of the disaster.