But all of them would be easier to manage with calmer financial markets.

Some hold a rosy view of the simpler, supposedly more placid lives of tribal hunter gatherers relative to our own.

However, in the following twenty years after Ross' return, there is a general lull internationally in Antarctic exploration.

The historical irony is that an environment of crisis is forcing Europeans to make choices that they did not want to envisage, much less confront, in quieter times.

These baleen whales come here between May and December, for mating and giving birth, because the water in the gulf is quieter and warmer than in the open sea.

For a time that I find to be the most placid and uneventful hour of the day, four in the morning sure gets an awful lot of bad press across a lot of different media from a lot of big names.

This is Mr. Lopez, who has been in solitary confinement for 18 months, and he's providing input on the types of images that he believes would make him and his fellow inmates more serene, more calm, less apt to violence.

Intensive consultations this year have amply proven that in the future we ought perhaps to find a framework for our negotiations that is more stable, more representative, calmer and more conducive to a more dynamic, more effective intergovernmental negotiating process.

None of this would resolve Europe s fundamental problems, namely weak fiscal positions, poorly functioning financial sectors, and lack of competitiveness. But all of them would be easier to manage with calmer financial markets.