Difficulties of being Rich

Extracted from The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

Extracted by Girish Menon

This was a shocking idea to me. Of course the rich were human and had their woes, but I never thought of them as needy.I could begin to see it now. Their money had brought them material comforts and some level of protection from the inconveniences and impositions of more ordinary everyday life. But their money and the lifestyle of privilege also cut them off from the richness of ordinary everyday life, the more normal and healthy give and take of relationships and useful work, the best of the human experience. Often their wealth distorted their relationship with money and only widened the gap between their soulful life and their interactions around money. Sexual abuse, psychological abuse, addictions, alcoholism, abandonment and brutality are part of the dysfunctional world that hides behind walled communities, mansions and darkened car windows. Hurtful rejections, custody suits, legal battles for the purpose of attaining more and more money harden family members and shut them down from each other. The access to money and power at high levels can amplify these situations and make them even more lethal and unbearably cruel.
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The Toxic Myths of Scarcity

Myths and superstitions have power over us only to the extent that we believe them., but when we believe, we live completely under their spell and in that fiction. Scarcity is a lie, but it has been passed down as truth and with a powerful mythology that insists on itself, demands compliance and discourages doubt or questioning.

Toxic Myth # 1: There's Not Enough

There's not enough becomes the reason we do work that brings us down or the reason we do things to each other that we're not proud of. There's not enough generates a fear that drives us to make sure that we're not the the person, or our loved ones aren't the people, who get crushed, marginalised or left out

Once we define our world as deficient, the total of our life energy, everything we think, everything we say and everything we do - particularly with money - becomes an expression of an effort to overcome this sense of lack and the fear of losing to others or being left out. It becomes noble and responsible to make sure we take care of our own, whoever we deem them to be. If there's not enough for everyone, then taking care of yourself and your own, even at the others' expense, seems unfortunate but unavoidable and somehow valid. It's like the game of musical chairs. With one seat short of the number of people playing, your focus is on not losing and not being the one who ends up at the end of the scramble without a seat. We don't want to be the poor suckers without, so we compete to get more than the other guy, determined to stay ahead of some impending doom.

...As members of the global community, our fear based responses lead us at times - in the demand for foreign oil, for instance - to put our own material desires above the health, safety and well being of other people and other nations. In our own communities, we respond to the fear that there's not enough by creating systems that favor us or exclude others from access to basic resources such as clean water, good schools, adequate health care or safe housing. And in our families, there's not enough drives us to buy more than we need or even want of some things to value, favour or curry favour with people on the basis of their value to us in relation to money, rather than qualities of character.

Toxic Myth # 2: More is Better

More of anything is better than what we have. It's the logical response if you fear there's not enough,  but more is better drives a competitive culture of accumulation, acquisition and greed that only heightens fears and quickens the pace of the race. And none of it makes life more valuable. In truth, the rush for more distances us from  experiencing the deeper value of what we acquire or already have. When we eat too fast or too much, we cannot savour any single bite of food. When we are focussed constantly on the next thing - the next dress, the next car, the next job, the next vacation, the next home improvement - we hardly experience the gifts of that which we have now. In our relationship with money, more is better distances us from living more mindfully and richly with what we have.

More is better is a chase with no end and a race without winners. It's like a hamster wheel that we hop onto, get going, and then forget how to stop. Eventually, the chase for more becomes an addictive exercise, and as with any addiction, it's almost impossible to stop the process when you're in its grip. But no matter how far you go, or how fast, or how many other people you pass up, you can't win. In the mind-set of scarcity, even too much is not enough.

It doesn't make sense to someone who makes forty thousand dollars a year that someone who makes five million dollars a year would be arguing over their golden parachute package and need at least fifteen million dollars more. Some of the people with fortunes enough to last three lifetimes spend their days and nights worrying about losing money on the stock market, about being ripped off or conned or not having enough for their retirement. Any genuine fulfilment in their life of financial privilege can be completely eclipsed by these money fears and stresses. How could people who have millions of dollars think they need more? They think they need more because that is the prevailing myth. We all think that, so they think that too. Even those who have plenty cannot quit the chase. The chase of more is better no matter what our money circumstances demands our attention, saps our energy and erodes our opportunities for fulfilment. When we buy into the premise that more is better we can never arrive. People who follow that credo, consciously or unconsciously, which is all of us to some degree - are doomed to a life that is never fulfilled; we lose the capacity to reach a destination. So even those who have plenty, in this scarcity culture, cannot quit the chase.

More is better misguides us in a deeper way. It leads us to define ourselves by financial success and external achievements. We judge others based on what they have and how much they have, and miss the immeasurable inner gifts they bring to life. all the great spiritual teachings tell us to look inside to find the wholeness we crave, but the scarcity chase allows no time or psychic space for that kind of introspection. In the pursuit of more we overlook the fullness and completeness that are already within us waiting to be discovered. Our drive to enlarge our net worth turns us away from discovering and deepening our self worth.

The belief that we need to possess, and possess more than the other person or company or nation, is the driving force for much of the violence and war, corruption and exploitation on earth. In the condition of scarcity, we believe we must have more - more oil, more land, more military might, more market share, more profits....more money. In the campaign to gain, we often pursue our goals at all costs, even at the risk of destroying whole cultures and peoples.

.... Do we need or even really want all the clothing, cars, groceries and gadgets we bring home from our shopping trips; or are we acting on impulse, responding to the call of the consumer culture and the steady, calculated seduction by fashion, food and consumer product advertising?...

Toxic Myth #3: That's Just The Way It Is

The third toxic myth is that that's just the way it is, and there's no way out. There's not enough to go around, more is definitely better, and the people who have more are always people who are other than us. It's not fair, but we'd better play the game because that's just the way it is and it's a hopeless, helpless, unequal, unfair world where you can never get out of this trap.

That's just the way it is is just another myth, but it's probably the one with the most grip, because you can always make a case for it. When something has always been a certain way and tradition, assumptions or habits make it resistant to change, then it seems logical, just commonsensical, that the way it is is the way it will stay. This is when and where the blindness, the numbness, the trance and underneath it all the the resignation of scarcity sets in. Resignation makes us feel hopeless, helpless and cynical. Resignation also keeps us in line, even at the end of the line, where a lack of money becomes an excuse for holding back from commitment and contributing what we do have - time, energy and creativity - to making a difference. Resignation keeps us from questioning how much we'll compromise ourselves or exploit others for the money available to us in a job or career, a personal relationship or a business opportunity.

That's just the way it is justifies the greed, prejudice and inaction that scarcity fosters in our relationship with money and the rest of the human race. For generations, it protected the early American slave trade (The Indian caste system) from which the privileged majority built farms, towns, business empires and family fortunes many of which survive today. For more generations it protected and emboldened institutionalised racism, sex discrimination and social and economic discrimination against other ethnic and religious minorities. It has throughout history, and still today, enabled dishonest business and political leaders to exploit others for their own financial gain.

Globally, the myth of that's just the way it is makes it so that those with the most money wield the most power and feel encouraged and entitled to do so. For instance, the United States with 4 % of the world's population produces 25% of the pollution that contributes to global warming......  Meanwhile, developing countries adopting Western economic models are replicating patterns that, even in political democracies, place inordinate power in the hands of the wealthy few, design social institutions and systems that favour them and fail to adequately address the inherent inequities and consequences that undermine health, education and safety for all.

We say we feel bad about these and other inequities in the world, but the problems seem so deeply rooted as to be insurmountable and we resign ourselves to that's just the way it is, declaring ourselves helpless to change things. In that resignation, we abandon our own human potential, and the possibility of contributing to a thriving, equitable and healthy world.

That's just the way it is presents one of the toughest pieces of transforming our relationship with money, because if you can't let go of the chase and shake off the helplessness and cynicism it eventually generates then you're stuck. If you are not willing to question that, then it is hard to dislodge the thinking that got you stuck. We have to be willing to let go of that's just the way it is, even if just for a moment, to consider the possibility that there isn't a way it is or way it isn't. There is the way we choose to act and what we choose to make of circumstances.

Life without sex – it's better than you think

After I was diagnosed with a neurological condition, my partner left me and I decided to try celibacy. It has improved my friendships with women no end

• 
• • Anonymous
  • theguardian.com, Monday 9 June 2014 11.53 BST

Medieval monks took vows of celibacy – but it's rare for anyone to do the same today for non-religious reasons. Photograph: Archivo Iconografico, S.A./COR

I am celibate. I am a single, heterosexual, early-middle-aged male. I have all the appendages that nature intended and, although modesty forbids that I class myself as good-looking, attractive women still make me interesting offers of intimate entanglements – and, yes, some of them are even sober at the time. (Of course, being a Guardian reader also helps to make one irresistibly attractive to the opposite sex.)

So why am I celibate? More than a decade ago I was in a relationship when I discovered that I had a neurological condition that is likely, in time (I know not when), to deteriorate. That was the end of the relationship – a decision that my partner made and which, although I took it badly at the time, I now appreciate a lot better. After all, it is one thing to think that illness or death may happen to one or other of you half a century hence, another altogether when it may be only five years down the road.

Despite this, if you met me in the street you probably wouldn't even know that there was anything wrong with me. Certainly nothing off-putting to any potential mate. So why celibacy? At first, after the break-up, I could have gone one of two ways. I could have dived head-first into a flurry of empty, hedonistic sex in a quest for revenge against all women for my ex-partner's abandonment of me. I didn't; although it crossed my mind. Instead, at first, I took some time out to grieve for the loss of a relationship that had meant a lot to me and, to be honest, to feel bloody sorry for myself.

But what to do after that? After I had spent some time in thought, both consciously and sub-consciously, I slowly came to the conclusion that celibacy was the way forward. I know within that I could live a life of permanent isolation like an anchorite, yet I know also that I would not want to. Frankly, I love women. I love their company, the sound of their voices, the way that although they occupy the same physical space as us blokes yet they seem to inhabit it so totally differently. The thought of not sharing their company was, and is, unthinkable to me. I have always preferred sex within a relationship to one-night stands. I am not a puritan, but I prefer the greater intimacy that you can achieve through a shared exploration of each other's body and desires. Yet I could not, in conscience, enter into a relationship bringing the baggage of my illness; it would not be fair to do so. Neither to a partner or, conceivably, any potential children who might inherit my illness. (Before anybody suggests seeking "relief" with a prostitute – I am a Guardian reader, we don't do that sort of thing). Such was my final decision, and it is one that I have stuck to.

Do I miss sex? Yes, but not as much as I thought that I would. Arguably, sex is an addiction. Break the cycle and, over time, the physical and psychological "need" for sex lessens – you can do without it, hard as that may be to believe. Yes, you still think about it, but over time those thoughts lose their power. I have read assiduously about the various techniques employed by monks and other religious adherents of various faiths, and the supposed benefits that they derive from abstinence. I have, however, yet to be convinced that there is any spiritual or physical gain to be had.

However, being celibate has actually improved my relationships with women – at least those that I already know (getting to know new people of the opposite sex is still no easier, although you can be seen as a "challenge" by some, which can be … interesting). Once you remove the potential for sex from the relationship, and both parties are aware of that, it changes the dynamic of the friendship. You can both be relaxed in each other's company in a way that is not possible otherwise. Daft, but seemingly true. Look, for example, at the similarly close relationships that some women have with gay men.

So would I recommend celibacy to my fellow men? I appreciate that my circumstances are not normal – and anybody finding themselves in my position would have to make up their own mind on the matter. However, people consider celibacy for many and varied reasons; so if you are considering it, I would say that it is not something to fear and can indeed be a positive choice (and, let's face it, if you try it and don't like it then you can always change your mind). Even taking a break from sex, or at least taking a break from the obsessional quest for it, can often be incredibly rewarding.

Breaking the wall of secrecy on the sexual abuse of men by women

Our collective difficulty in understanding and addressing this taboo is tied up in our archaic conceptions of sexuality

• 
• • Ally Fogg
  • theguardian.com, Monday 9 June 2014 11.21 BST

‘How does it happen? Alcohol is implicated in a very large proportion of accounts.’ Photograph: joefoxphoto/Alamy

"You don't feel like a person any more. You feel like a thing. Like you're subhuman. It gets to you, and you stop thinking of yourself as human. You stop thinking you deserve to be happy, or that you deserve to have friends or to be loved.

"Eventually, you stop thinking you deserve to live. Maybe you act on those feelings, maybe you don't. I did. I was hospitalised four times before I finally got help and found a therapist who took me seriously and told me it wasn't my fault."

The first-person accounts posted on Reddit last week by survivors of sexual abuse have many familiar elements. They recount post-traumatic stress and emotional damage, the sexual dysfunction and difficulties forming relationships, and – most commonly – the disbelief and victim-blaming that greet attempts to report or share the details, even with trusted friends. The only difference with the hundreds of stories shared on one remarkable, often heartbreaking thread is that all were from men, recounting their abuse by women. Many told of childhood sexual abuse, others described sexual assaults, all the way up to forced penetrative sex, committed by women on teenage or adult males.

Of course Reddit is not a verified source. Anyone can register under any name, and many of the accounts were posted under so-called throwaway monikers. But before anyone dismisses the anecdotes out of hand, consider that whenever academic researchers have asked the question, they have found astonishingly high incidence of this crime.

In 2010, the largest survey of its type in the world – the US Centre for Disease Control'sNational Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey – found that the rates of men being forced to penetrate women over the previous year were identical to the rates of women reporting being raped: 1.1%. Lifetime prevalence of the crimes were 4.8% for men and 17.8% for women. Meanwhile, men reporting sex through coercion was 1.5% over the past year (6% lifetime) compared with 2% (13% lifetime) for women.

These findings were not wildly out of step with precedent. I collated much of the previous research in a blogpost. A consensus emerged that not only do a significant minority of men report having been forced or coerced into a sexual act in their lifetime, even higher numbers of women admit to having forced or coerced a man to do so. Our collective ignorance of these issues does not arise from lack of data, but from a wilfully constructed wall of secrecy.

How does it happen? Alcohol is implicated in a very large proportion of accounts, men passing out at parties and coming around to find themselves being molested, or being assaulted by a woman. Other accounts include threats, blackmail or even brute force and violence. Not all men are bigger, stronger or more assertive than all women. There is very little understanding that not only is sexual abuse of men by women potentially damaging to the victim, it is also a criminal offence, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Whenever I have written on this topic, I receive a new batch of comments, emails and messages from men saying, yes, this happened to me too. Inevitably, I have received many more offering ridicule, mockery and outright denial. The most powerful response to such attitudes came in a stunning, stomach-twisting monologue by the actor and writer Andrew Bailey, which went viral a couple of months ago. Anyone who has ever reacted to this issue with words such as "lucky bastard, wish that had happened to me" should perhaps get their pocket money stopped until they have sat down and watched this brilliant little film to the end.

Just raising this issue is difficult. By talking about it, I will be accused of undermining attempts to address the rape and sexual assault of women which is, by any measure, the more extensive and harmful social phenomenon and public health crisis. There are indeed poisonous souls who use "yeah, well women are just as bad" as a vapid and vacuous response to complaints about male violence against women, and that is shameful. Such fears, however, cannot justify leaving any victims ignored, maligned and misunderstood. The only correct response to learning about the prevalence of male victims is not to treat female victims as a lower priority, but all victims as a higher priority.

Our collective difficulty in understanding and addressing the sexual abuse of men by women is tied up in our archaic and damaging conceptions of both male and female sexuality. No, boys and men are not always gagging for sex with anyone, under any circumstances. No, women are not invariably coy, chaste flowers awaiting a Romeo to sweep them off their feet. I thoroughly agree with the campaigners who call for better education of our young people on what true sexual consent really looks like. We also need to take on board that such lessons are not only needed by young men.

The French are right: tear up public debt – most of it is illegitimate anyway

Debt audits show that austerity is politically motivated to favour social elites. Is a new working-class internationalism in the air?

• 
• • Razmig Keucheyan
  • theguardian.com, Monday 9 June 2014 17.17 BST

Contracts for Chilean student loans worth $500m go up in flames – the 'imaginative auditing' of the artist Francisco Tapia, commonly known as Papas Fritas (Fried Potatoes). Photograph: David von Blohn/REX

As history has shown, France is capable of the best and the worst, and often in short periods of time.

On the day following Marine Le Pen's Front National victory in the European elections, however, France made a decisive contribution to the reinvention of a radical politics for the 21st century. On that day, the committee for a citizen's audit on the public debt issued a 30-page report on French public debt, its origins and evolution in the past decades. The report was written by a group of experts in public finances under the coordination of Michel Husson, one of France's finest critical economists. Its conclusion is straightforward: 60% of French public debt is illegitimate.

Anyone who has read a newspaper in recent years knows how important debt is to contemporary politics. As David Graeber among others has shown, we live in debtocracies, not democracies. Debt, rather than popular will, is the governing principle of our societies, through the devastating austerity policies implemented in the name of debt reduction. Debt was also a triggering cause of the most innovative social movements in recent years, the Occupy movement.

If it were shown that public debts were somehow illegitimate, that citizens had a right to demand a moratorium – and even the cancellation of part of these debts – the political implications would be huge. It is hard to think of an event that would transform social life as profoundly and rapidly as the emancipation of societies from the constraints of debt. And yet this is precisely what the French report aims to do.

The audit is part of a wider movement of popular debt audits in more than 18 countries.Ecuador and Brazil have had theirs, the former at the initiative of Rafael Correa's government, the latter organised by civil society. European social movements have also put in place debt audits, especially in countries hardly hit by the sovereign debt crisis, such as Greece and Spain. In Tunisia, the post-revolutionary government declared the debt taken out during Ben Ali's dictatorship an "odious" debt: one that served to enrich the clique in power, rather than improving the living conditions of the people.

The report on French debt contains several key findings. Primarily, the rise in the state's debt in the past decades cannot be explained by an increase in public spending. The neoliberal argument in favour of austerity policies claims that debt is due to unreasonable public spending levels; that societies in general, and popular classes in particular, live above their means.

This is plain false. In the past 30 years, from 1978 to 2012 more precisely, French public spending has in fact decreased by two GDP points. What, then, explains the rise in public debt? First, a fall in the tax revenues of the state. Massive tax reductions for the wealthy and big corporations have been carried out since 1980. In line with the neoliberal mantra, the purpose of these reductions was to favour investment and employment. Well, unemployment is at its highest today, whereas tax revenues have decreased by five points of GDP.

The second factor is the increase in interest rates, especially in the 1990s. This increase favoured creditors and speculators, to the detriment of debtors. Instead of borrowing on financial markets at prohibitive interest rates, had the state financed itself by appealing to household savings and banks, and borrowed at historically normal rates, the public debt would be inferior to current levels by 29 GDP points.

Tax reductions for the wealthy and interest rates increases are political decisions. What the audit shows is that public deficits do not just grow naturally out of the normal course of social life. They are deliberately inflicted on society by the dominant classes, to legitimise austerity policies that will allow the transfer of value from the working classes to the wealthy ones.

 A sit-in called by Occupy France at La Défense business district in Paris. Photograph: Afp/AFP/Getty Images

A stunning finding of the report is that no one actually knows who holds the French debt. To finance its debt, the French state, like any other state, issues bonds, which are bought by a set of authorised banks. These banks then sell the bonds on the global financial markets. Who owns these titles is one of the world's best kept secrets. The state pays interests to the holders, so technically it could know who owns them. Yet a legally organised ignorance forbids the disclosure of the identity of the bond holders.

This deliberate organisation of ignorance – agnotology – in neoliberal economies intentionally renders the state powerless, even when it could have the means to know and act. This is what permits tax evasion in its various forms – which last year cost about €50bn to European societies, and €17bn to France alone.

Hence, the audit on the debt concludes, some 60% of the French public debt is illegitimate.

An illegitimate debt is one that grew in the service of private interests, and not the well being of the people. Therefore the French people have a right to demand a moratorium on the payment of the debt, and the cancellation of at least part of it. There is precedent for this: in 2008 Ecuador declared 70% of its debt illegitimate.

The nascent global movement for debt audits may well contain the seeds of a new internationalism – an internationalism for today – in the working classes throughout the world. This is, among other things, a consequence of financialisation. Thus debt audits might provide a fertile ground for renewed forms of international mobilisations and solidarity.

This new internationalism could start with three easy steps.

1) Debt audits in all countries

The crucial point is to demonstrate, as the French audit did, that debt is a political construction, that it doesn't just happen to societies when they supposedly live above their means. This is what justifies calling it illegitimate, and may lead to cancellation procedures. Audits on private debts are also possible, as the Chilean artist Francisco Tapia has recently shown by auditing student loans in an imaginative way.

2) The disclosure of the identity of debt holders

A directory of creditors at national and international levels could be assembled. Not only would such a directory help fight tax evasion, it would also reveal that while the living conditions of the majority are worsening, a small group of individuals and financial institutions has consistently taken advantage of high levels of public indebtedness. Hence, it would reveal the political nature of debt.

3) The socialisation of the banking system

The state should cease to borrow on financial markets, instead financing itself through households and banks at reasonable and controllable interest rates. The banks themselves should be put under the supervision of citizens' committees, hence rendering the audit on the debt permanent. In short, debt should be democratised. This, of course, is the harder part, where elements of socialism are introduced at the very core of the system. Yet, to counter the tyranny of debt on every aspect of our lives, there is no alternative.

Kevin Pietersen: The England dressing room during the Ashes series was no fun - I'm glad to be out

By Kevin Pietersen

in The Telegraph 10:59PM BST 08 Jun 2014

I will have no anger, no negative thoughts whatsoever when England walk out without me at Lord’s on Thursday to play their first Test since the winter. I wish my friends in the England team well. I have moved on from the England and Wales Cricket Board’s decision to end my international career and have put things in perspective.

Fourteen years ago, I was an off-spinner from Pietermaritzburg who did not know where his life was going. I had a notion that I wanted to make a life in England but had no idea if I would succeed.

Now I have played 104 Tests, batted at all the best grounds in the world and been lucky enough to score hundreds everywhere. Could I play more Test cricket? Yes of course, but should I sit here thinking I should be playing on Thursday? No, because that is when jealousy and negative thoughts come into your head.

I am grateful for what I have had and moved on with my life. I have scored 13,500 international runs for England and it would be greedy to want more, so I am at peace with everything.

It took only a couple of conversations with my family to start thinking this way because of how much I really did not enjoy the winter. 

In fact, it has been a relief to be out of the dressing room because it was not a pleasant place in Australia. We were losing and in my opinion the environment was poor and I was not alone in thinking that. It is a view shared by a number of the players who have spoken their minds since coming back from the tour.

Now I have had time to reflect on the winter it is clear to me that back-to-back Ashes should never happen again. It was really hard for the England team to go to Australia and defend the Ashes just weeks after winning at home.

As soon as we arrived the Australian media turned the heat up on us. I have had that for years so it did not bother me. It was fun. But for other players you could sense it was a problem. The senior players were tired and it soon became a really long grind against an Australian side that had their backs up in their own country.

Australia knew they came close to winning here. The 3-0 defeat last summer was not a true reflection of that series in terms of the way they played their cricket and we played ours, so I knew it was going to be a tight return contest and we were not equipped to handle it.

Mitchell Johnson was sensational on those pitches and he was handled brilliantly by Michael Clarke. Even if he picked up a wicket in his third or fourth over of a spell, Clarke would take him off and save him for later in the day. It was brilliant captaincy. Johnson’s bowling was the best and most aggressive I have seen during my career, and I told him so at the end of the Test series when we shared a beer.

By then I thought that Andy Flower wanted me out. After the Sydney Test, a headline came out claiming Flower had said to the ECB it was either “him or me”. He denied saying that but the damage was done.

But my relationship with the other players was fine. We had an incredible tour on and off the field. I was helping all the bowlers out with their batting, and the night we lost 5-0 we were all having a drink in the bar together with our wives and girlfriends, which proves all was OK between us and still is.

I have no issue with the players, as many have said in interviews since the tour ended. I speak to Stuart Broad and I even organised for Graeme Swann to go on holiday to one of my friend’s hotels after he retired.

On a personal note, I did not score the runs I would have liked in Australia but I have played a certain way throughout my career and will continue to do so. There is method to my batting but I play on instinct as well and I would absolutely play that way again if we could go back in time.

In the first innings at Brisbane, I was caught at midwicket. As soon as the ball left Ryan Harris’s hand I thought ‘four’. I saw the angle and thought ‘bang it through midwicket’, but I got caught out. In the second innings, all I tried to do was help a short ball from Johnson to fine leg because it was too tight to pull, but I was caught again.

In Adelaide, I walked out to the crease and felt like I did not know which side of the bat I was holding. I felt that terrible and that is why I was walking at Peter Siddle and playing him on the full.

As soon as I was dismissed I walked out of the dressing room to the nets with Richard Halsall, the assistant coach, and spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to bat again. I felt that bad, the worst I have ever experienced in an Ashes series.

Why? I do not fully know. But my knee was hassling me a bit. I had an injection a few weeks before and during that innings it was hurting. In the dressing room everyone takes the mickey out of how I bend my knee during my stance because of how exaggerated the movement can be. But in Adelaide, because of the knee pain, I was standing a lot taller in the crease and that changed my game. I said to Halsall and spin coach Mushtaq Ahmed: “I can’t bat like that again.” I had to work hard to get myself back to playing normally again. In the second innings I made 53 and played very responsibly.

My dismissal in the second innings at Perth has received a lot of attention. I was caught at long on trying to hit Nathan Lyon for a second six. But if I see that ball again, I will still try to hit it for six. No problem. As he tossed it up I thought ‘six more there’. If you look at my career, that is how I play. People say it is irresponsible but it was not; it was successful.

Look at the innings that started it all off – the 158 against Australia in the 2005 Ashes at the Oval. I was hooking Brett Lee at 95mph into the stands. Any one of those shots could have gone straight up in the air and been caught. The 186 in Mumbai in 2012 is talked about as the best innings by a foreigner in India. I took risks during that hundred. I am England’s leading run scorer in all forms of cricket because of playing that way.

People say I should have ground it out. Should I? What would have been different?

What I have done during my career is ignore the ridiculous praise and the ridiculous criticism. I have stayed even and been mentally strong enough to keep believing in my methods and what I think is the best way for me to be successful.

It would have been easy for me to start defending a bit more. Would that have made me a better player? No. I am a risk-taker in cricket, in business and all parts of my life.

Coaching needs to focus more on natural talent

I have kept busy since my England career ended. I loved the Indian Premier League, even though results were disappointing for Delhi and now I am focused on Surrey and my business life.

I am extremely excited about establishing my cricket academy and foundation, which will launch in October in Dubai.

In total we have identified seven countries, including England, where we want to establish academies. The first is being built at the moment on a great plot in Dubai which will include a cricket field, pavilion and classrooms with the plan to coach kids between the ages of eight and 18.

My foundation will fund 13 disadvantaged kids and two chaperones from seven countries to come to my facility to be trained there for two weeks, guided by our coaching, taught the fitness and mental side of the game but to also have fun too. Then two years later I will pay for all the kids from the seven countries to come back and play a mini World Cup in Dubai against each other.

At the moment we are setting down how I want the kids to be coached and making sure we get that set up right.

My guiding principles are that I want to coach kids the way they play and not from a textbook. You want kids to grow up believing in their own natural talent and strengths.

I do not have a good technique at all. Sometimes I watch myself on television and I am embarrassed about my technique. I do not know how I score runs other than through self-confidence and belief in my ability.

Look at Lasith Malinga. How the hell does he get wickets bowling like that?

But his technique works for him. If he was a young England player he would probably have drifted out of the game. I have seen how coaching is now especially for kids. Ball on a cone, high elbow and hit through the ball.

In my opinion that is not the only way to coach and its holding back some natural talent. The game has changed and coaching has to change too.

Muslims must be honest about Qur’an

“We Muslims are caught in a conundrum. If the Arab general bin Qasim is our hero for enslaving non-Muslim women in India in the eighth century, how could Boko Haram be judged wrong for doing exactly the same in Nigeria today?”

May 21, 2014

Tarek Fatah
The Toronto Sun

In the aftermath of Islamic jihadis — the Boko Haram — enslaving Christian school girls in Nigeria, the Muslim intelligentsia, instead of doing some serious introspection, has chosen to exercise damage control.

Columns by my co-religionists have appeared in newspapers ranging from the Toronto Star to The Independent in London and on CNN.com, where they avoid any reference to Sharia laws that permit Muslims to take non-Muslim female prisoners of war as sex slaves.

The fact is Muslim armies throughout history have been permitted under Islamic law to make sex slaves of non-Muslim prisoners.

Here is chapter 33, verse 50 of the Qur’an:

“O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the prisoners of war whom Allah has assigned to thee.”

When asked for a clarification, A Saudi cleric issued a fatwa permitting sex slavery. He said:

“Praise be to Allaah. Islam allows a man to have intercourse with his slave woman, whether he has a wife or wives or he is not married … Our Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also did that, as did the Sahaabah (his companions), the righteous and the scholars.”

In the eighth century, when Arab armies invaded India, they took thousands of Hindu POWs as slaves back to the Caliph Walid in Damascus, who distributed the women as gifts to the newly emerging Arab nobility.

The ninth-century Persian historian al-Baladhuri writes in his book The Origins of the Islamic State that when the Arab general Muhammad bin Qasim invaded India in the year 711AD, the non-Muslim prisoners taken were given a choice of death or slavery.

Sixty thousand captives were made slaves in the city of Rur, among whom were “thirty ladies of royal blood.” One-fifth of the slaves and booty were set apart for the caliph’s treasury and dispatched to Damascus, while the rest were scattered among the “army of Islam.”

The nineteenth century Indian Islamic scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali, whose translation of the Qur’an is considered the most authentic, had the courage to be honest when he put a footnote to the Quranic verse mentioned above:

“The point does not now arise as the whole conditions and incidents of war have been altered and slavery has been abolished by international agreement.”

But courage to face facts is rare among many Muslims today. I asked the writers of the Toronto Star and The Independent columns why they had not addressed the passages of the Qur’an that permit Muslims to take slaves. They did not answer.

I wrote to a woman who told Christiane Amanpour of CNN that “Boko Haram do not understand Islam.” I asked her why she had not addressed Sharia law that permits taking non-Muslim females as POWs. She too, did not respond.

We Muslims are caught in a conundrum. If the Arab general bin Qasim is our hero for enslaving non-Muslim women in India in the eighth century, how could Boko Haram be judged wrong for doing exactly the same in Nigeria today?

All we Muslims need do today is to echo Abdullah Yusuf Ali by saying, “what was permitted in the seventh century, is no longer applicable in the twenty-first.” But alas, neither honesty nor courage comes easy.

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds

By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent in The Telegraph

Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough described as "remarkable".

Although fasting diets have been criticised by nutritionists for being unhealthy, new research suggests starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection.

Scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy.

It could also help the elderly whose immune system becomes less effective as they age, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases.

The researchers say fasting "flips a regenerative switch" which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.

"It gives the 'OK' for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system," said Prof Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California.

"And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting.

“Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or ageing, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system."

Prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose and fat but also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells.

During each cycle of fasting, this depletion of white blood cells induces changes that trigger stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells.

In trials humans were asked to regularly fast for between two and four days over a six-month period.

Scientists found that prolonged fasting also reduced the enzyme PKA, which is linked to ageing and a hormone which increases cancer risk and tumour growth.

"We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system," added Prof Longo.

"When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged," Dr Longo said.

"What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?"

Fasting for 72 hours also protected cancer patients against the toxic impact of chemotherapy.

"While chemotherapy saves lives, it causes significant collateral damage to the immune system. The results of this study suggest that fasting may mitigate some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy," said co-author Tanya Dorff, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital.

"More clinical studies are needed, and any such dietary intervention should be undertaken only under the guidance of a physician.”

"We are investigating the possibility that these effects are applicable to many different systems and organs, not just the immune system," added Prof Longo.

However, some British experts were sceptical of the research.

Dr Graham Rook, emeritus professor of immunology at University College London, said the study sounded "improbable".

Chris Mason, Professor of Regenerative Medicine at UCL, said: “There is some interesting data here. It sees that fasting reduces the number and size of cells and then re-feeding at 72 hours saw a rebound.

“That could be potentially useful because that is not such a long time that it would be terribly harmful to someone with cancer.

“But I think the most sensible way forward would be to synthesize this effect with drugs. I am not sure fasting is the best idea. People are better eating on a regular basis.”

Dr Longo added: “There is no evidence at all that fasting would be dangerous while there is strong evidence that it is beneficial.

“I have received emails from hundreds of cancer patients who have combined chemo with fasting, many with the assistance of the oncologists.

“Thus far the great majority have reported doing very well and only a few have reported some side effects including fainting and a temporary increase in liver markers. Clearly we need to finish the clinical trials, but it looks very promising.”