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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name="Author" content="Douglas Pepper Lang"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.5 [en]C-DIAL (Win95; U) [Netscape]"> <title>Weekly World View</title> </head> <body background="backround.gif"> <center><b><font color="#000099">From the Desk of Douglas Pepper Lang, President, HTIC</font></b></center> <img SRC="dpl.jpg" ALT="Why's this guy smiling?" height=195 width=167> <br> <hr WIDTH="100%"> <br>Dateline June 17th, 1999 Washington, DC. USA <br> <p><b> I am reminded of a lazy school day, more than 25 years ago, in a now defunct high school in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania where the teacher, one Robert Larzalere (where is he now, eh?) proclaimed "check any war, you'll find its origins in the peace settlement of the previous war." At that time, Vietnam was winding down and we were headed for a long period of soul searching over involvement in foreign conflicts.</b> <p><b> No such soul searching was in play this time around as NATO went to Belgrade with ultimatums and prompted a military conflict over <i>Kosovo</i>. Soul searching in India as they fight over a sliver of land called <i>Kashmir</i>; or at the border of <i>Eritrea and Ethiopia </i>or between the two <i>Koreas </i>(of late fighting over territorial boundaries and fishing rights)?</b> <p><b> The KLA claims to control various portions of Kosovo, carrying out vendettas, while the Russians, ever slighted by NATO, hold the Pristina Airport (<i>just reported that U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Cohen brokered a deal to keep them in Kosovo, not under NATA command</i>), borrowing water from British Kfor troops! India declares that it is prepared to go back into northern Kashmir, at the Pakistan border, while South Korea sinks North Korean ships in the Yellow Sea in the most dangerous conflict since the Korean War.</b> <p><b> What is going on? Just as we think we have successfully deluded ourselves that the world is becoming more peaceful, the bubble bursts. Could it be that human nature keeps rearing its ugly head, or are we hopelessly naive? Perhaps, yes. To expect the KLA, (who turned the tide in Kosovo, by risking their lives on the ground, while we fought a sanitized war in the sky) to ignore the opportunity to sieze power, regardless of Rambulet, was naive. To expect Korea to be docile as unresolved conflict gnaws at their guts and the same for conflicts in the Indian Sub-Continent and Africa, lacks a view removed from the moment.</b> <p><b>From a distance, this disconnect between peoples, employees and management, corporations, and countries is firmly lodged in our being consumed by our <i>Fears and Desires. </i>To be aware that a problem exists is half the challenge; doing something about is the other. Saying that you will reject the urge to be controlled by fear or desire ignores the devious ways every moment in life is guided by one or the other of these impediments. Some say a wholesome dose of <i>fear levels you</i>, or gives you perspective. I prefer to believe it just as likely hampers and clouds your otherwise balanced decision-making process. Others say that <i>desire gives rise to ambition </i>and thereby goals and inevitably-accomplishment. Others, like philosopher Krishnamurti, would suggest the possibility that desire eminates from a longing within which is not material, but manefests itself as such, and creates conflict and to shed one's fears and desires is to be set truly free.</b> <p><b>Of course, all these assertions assume a certain level of control over one's own life, thereby devaluing and discounting fate and destiny and the invisible hand of God in daily life. "Free Will" versus "Destiny", one of the oldest arguments.....</b> <p><b>Until next week,</b> <p><b>Douglas Pepper Lang</b> <center>Previous week's letter (<a href="http://www.hightech-store.com/weeklyview1.html">click here</a>)</center> <hr WIDTH="100%"><b></b> <center> <p><a href="http://www.hightech-store.com/inthefuture.html"><img SRC="globe.gif" ALT="Another view of the future..." height=138 width=144></a> <br> <p><b><font color="#3333FF"><a href="http://www.hightech-store.com/index4.html">The High Technology Store</a></font></b> <br><b><font color="#3333FF"><a href="http://www.hightech-store.com/index4.html">(click here)</a></font></b></center> </body> </html>