ART SUNDAY - JOAQUÍN SOROLLA

“What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough.” – Eugene Delacroix

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, (born February 27, 1863, Valencia, Spain—died August 10, 1923, Cercedilla), was a Spanish painter whose style was a variant of Impressionism and whose best works, painted in the open air, vividly portray the sunny seacoast of Valencia. Sorolla was from a poor family and was orphaned at age two. He displayed an early talent and was admitted to the Academy of San Carlos in Valencia at age 15. After further studies in Rome and Paris, he returned to Valencia.

Initially, he painted historical and social realist works, one of which, “Otra Margarita” (1892), was his earliest success. He received the greatest recognition, however, for his genre paintings and landscapes. Using heavily impastoed pigments, he combined an Impressionist manner with narrative and anecdotal themes. Summer, the sea and the life of fishermen are themes that figure prominently in his oeuvre.

In 1909 he made a successful debut in the USA in a solo exhibition at the Hispanic Society in New York City. The resulting critical acclaim won him a commission to paint President William Howard Taft in 1909. Upon his return to Spain, he purchased a beach house in Valencia, on the Mediterranean shore. For the rest of his career, he drew his inspiration from the dazzling light on the waters by his home, and his beach scenes are marked by sharp contrasts of light and shade, brilliant colours, and vigorous brushstrokes.

The painting above is characteristic of his work and is his 1910 “Girl on the Beach”. The scene is a dazzling summer’s day with transparent light with the beautiful azures and greens of the sea portrayed with bold strokes of colour. The girl is painted tenderly, yet with deft, rapid brushstrokes that give the painting a freshness and immediate appeal. The noon light is rendered beautifully with reflected sunlight on the girl’s sunburnt face, illuminating it as though with a spotlight. Her delicately rendered left hand is captured in an eloquent gesture, while the right one is almost in silhouette and lacking detail. The dress captures all the subtleties of light and its flapping mirrors the hair, which is also blown back. Counterbalancing the figure is a boat in which a fisherman is fussing over his nets. The reds in this background image are balanced by a mauve-brown shadow on the lower right, and the girl’s figure is the fulcrum on which the whole composition hinges. It is a beautiful painting full of summer sunshine, the saltiness of the sea and the brisk breeze of the seaside. The careless barefoot steps of childhood are contrasted with the toil of adulthood and the painting has a beautiful nostalgic air that is quite captivating.

BEETHOVEN FOR RELAXATION

“When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” - François de La Rochefoucauld

Another busy day, but on the home front today. Lots to do, many chores to complete, shopping and then I got a headache that wouldn’t go away. I don’t often get headaches, and if I do, an analgesic tablet will be enough to deal with them. Not so today. It lingered for hours and the analgesics didn’t touch it. It is quite a nuisance and I can understand how disruptive it must be for people who get them often.

Nevertheless it was good to be enjoying a dinner for two tonight, with some wine, nice food, music and then watch some TV. It relaxed me and even if the headache is still there, I battled it and hope that a good night’s sleep will finally cure it. I usually find that some soothing music is good for my headaches.

Here is a wonderful such relaxing piece, the second movement from Beethoven’s Septet in E flat op. 20 – Adagio Cantabile, played by The Gaudier Ensemble. It was first performed in 1800 and published in 1802. It is scored for clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, and contrabass. It is in six movements and resembles a serenade. Beautiful!

YELL FOR CADEL AND SCREAM FOR SUSHI

“Sport is a preserver of health.” – Hippocrates

I had a very busy day today, with both desk work as well as a couple of appointments off-campus. One of the bonuses was that I was in the vicinity of Federation Square at lunchtime, when Cadel Evans was being feted for his Tour de France win. In today’s celebration, Evans rode along St Kilda Rd from the National Gallery of Victoria to Federation Square, where he took to the stage to address the populace. Tens of thousands of people lined the route to honour Evans’ achievement and give him a reception usually reserved for AFL footballers and Olympic Games heroes. The feeling was upbeat and euphoric and it was good to see Evans being very friendly with the crowd and showing humility and good-humoured amusement by the massive reception reserved for him.

There were several politicians present, including our Lord Mayor and the Victorian Premier, this being a prime PR opportunity for them, rubbing shoulders with the hero of the moment. Cadel is Australia’s first Tour de France winner, and at 34 years is the oldest rider to win the Tour de France since 1923. It was quite fortuitous to be there and take part in this event, one of several anonymous thousands united in a celebratory moment and celebrating a historic sporting victory.

My mind turned to the other type of crowd rioting in England. Or should I say the throng? In both cases, they were large masses of people joining together with more or less a common purpose or goal. In the one case, they were orderly, celebratory, respectful of each other and the only destructive effect they had was perhaps a few items of rubbish left behind after they dispersed. In the other case, there was a violent rabble that was motivated by anger, barbarism, misplaced angst, greed and hate. In their wake they left fire, destruction and death. We are still lucky here in Australia that we can gather together and behave as civilised human beings do. Even in sporting events, crowds in other countries riot and people kill and maim each other with the excuse of supporting different football sides.

On the way back I stopped and bought some sushi for lunch. Sushi is of course nowadays well-known and popular around the world. It is a Japanese delicacy consisting of cooked rice with vinegar (shari) combined with a variety of other ingredients (neta). Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari. The most common neta is seafood. However, its popularity in many countries and its adaptability and ensured that all sorts of exotic fillings are available.

Sushi originated in the 4th century BC in Southeast Asia. Salted fish, fermented with rice, was an important source of protein and could be preserved without spoiling for a relatively long time. The cleaned and gutted fish were kept in rice so that the natural fermentation of the rice helped preserve the fish. This type of sushi is called nare-zushi, and was taken out of storage after a couple of months of fermentation, and then only the fish was consumed while the rice was discarded.

Over time, this preserved dish spread throughout China, and later, around the 8th century AD, in the Heian period, it was introduced into Japan. Since Japanese preferred to eat rice together with fish, the sushi, called seisei-zushi, became popular at the end of Muromachi period. This type of sushi was consumed while the fish was still partly raw and the rice had not lost its flavour. In this way, sushi became more of a way of preparing food rather than a way to preserve food.

Later in Edo era, Japanese began making haya-zushi, which was created as a way to eat both rice and fish; this dish was unique to Japanese culture. Instead of being only used for fermentation, rice was mixed with vinegar and combined not only with fish but also with various vegetables and dried preserved foods. Today, each region of Japan still preserves its own unique taste by utilising local products in making different kinds of sushi that have been passed on for generations.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when Tokyo was still called Edo, the food service industry was mostly dominated by mobile food stalls, from which nigiri-zushi originated. Edomae, which literally means “in front of Tokyo bay”, was where the fresh fish and tasty seaweed for the nigiri-zushi were obtained. As a result, it was also called edomae-zushi, and it became popular among the people in Edo after Yohei Hanaya, a creative sushi chief, improved it to a simple but delicious food. Then, after the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, nigiri-zushi spread throughout Japan as the skilled edomae-zushi chefs from Edo, who had lost their jobs, moved all over Japan.

The important seasonings served with sushi are soy sauce, and wasabi (Japanese hot horseradish sauce). Soy sauce is used as a dipping sauce. Wasabi is put in nigiri-zushi or is mixed with soy sauce for dipping. The most important side ingredient of sushi is ginger. Pickled ginger is called gari and is served with sushi. Gari is eaten between bites of sushi to refresh the mouth for each new taste.

In the 1980s, in the wake of increased health consciousness, sushi, one of the healthiest meals around, has got more attention; consequently, sushi bars have opened throughout the Western world. With the introduction of sushi machines, which combine the mass production of sushi with the delicate skills used by sushi chefs, making and selling sushi has become more accessible to countries all over the world.

I like most kinds of sushi, but particularly so the smoked salmon and fish roe, the teriyaki chicken, the vegetarian variety featuring avocado, and of course the widely popular California roll. Although I find wasabi much too hot for me, I do enjoy the soy sauce and preserved ginger. It is a healthful and tasty meal and perfect for lunch.

THE UK RIOTS

“The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

riot |ˈrīət| noun
1 A violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd: Riots broke out in the capital | [as modifier ]: Riot police.
• An uproar: The film's sex scenes caused a riot in Cannes.
• An outburst of uncontrolled feelings: Α riot of emotions raged through Frances.
• archaic Uncontrolled revelry; rowdy behavior.
2 [ in sing. ] an impressively large or varied display of something: The garden was a riot of colour.
3 [ in sing. ] informal A highly amusing or entertaining person or thing: Everyone thought she was a riot.
verb [ no obj. ]
Take part in a violent public disturbance: Students rioted in Paris | (as noun rioting) : A night of rioting.
• Behave in an unrestrained way: Another set of emotions rioted through him.
• archaic Act in a dissipated way: An unrepentant prodigal son, rioting off to far countries.
PHRASES
run riot Behave in a violent and unrestrained way. • (of a mental faculty or emotion) function or be expressed without restraint: Her imagination ran riot. • proliferate or spread uncontrollably: Traditional prejudices were allowed to run riot.
DERIVATIVES
rioter noun
ORIGIN Middle English (originally in the sense ‘dissolute living’): From Old French riote ‘debate,’ from rioter ‘to quarrel,’ of unknown ultimate origin.

After that introduction it is not totally unexpected that today I shall write of the UK riots. As was the case with the whole world, we too watched in shock as the violence erupted on August 7th and left death, injury, senseless destruction, arson, horror, looting, chaos and lawlessness in their wake. Two nights of rioting in London’s Tottenham neighbourhood erupted following protests over the shooting death by police of a local man, Mark Duggan. Police were arresting him when the shooting occurred. Over 170 people were arrested over the two nights of rioting, and fires gutted several stores, buildings, and cars. The disorder spread to other neighbourhoods as well, and then to other cities around the nation.

In the face of unending rioting that has spread to other cities, London deployed 16,000 police in the largest show of force in the city’s history. British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short a holiday in Italy to return home to deal with the widening crisis. Army units are standing by to help restore order. Hundreds of people have been arrested, and over 100 police officers have been injured. What may have begun as a protest over the death of a civilian quickly became a massive show of violence and brutality with looting, destruction of property, rioting for the sake of vandalism and the joy of annihilation.

Anthony Daniels, a retired British prison doctor and psychiatrist, has characterised British youths as “the most unpleasant and potentially violent young people in the world.” Families are terrorised by their own knife-wielding, arrogant and irascible children. The youth of Britain seem to have a sense of entitlement, the only difference between the rich and the poor being that the rich can buy whatever they want, while the poor need to “wheedle, cajole, swindle and steal it.” This seems to be at the core of the disturbances and the looting that was carried out on a large scale.

Rioting and looting are two different things: A riot results from a sense of indignation and an overwhelming feeling of injustice that in many people arouses an intense violent response. Looting is based on envy, greed, consumerism gone awry and a sense that society owes you something that you are unable to afford or couldn’t be bothered working for. Looters are opportunists and will leap at any chance that allows them to act in a manner that advantages their perverted sense of “equality”.

In both cases, crowds breed unrest and both looting and rioting seem to find perfect conditions in which to occur whenever there is crowding together of rabble. The passions are inflamed and the courage that one coward is deficient in is topped up by the traces of courage of many. It is with this borrowed bravado and the shared blind fury that violent acts are committed, with the rush of hormones that accompanies shed blood and the smell of burning that kindles more hostility.

Add to that our culture of rank consumerism and the equation of money with success and status and one has a perfect motive for looting. The have-nots will hanker after what the haves enjoy on a daily basis and they will do their utmost to obtain it by fair means or foul. The glorification of violence in our TV shows, movies, video games and literature provides a perfect education for our young people who have as their role models gangsters, murderers and action heroes involved in violent acts. The success of criminals and their fabulous lifestyles supported by the proceeds of crime and impunity from the legal system and justice is another incitement to crime and violence.

At courthouses in the UK, chaotic scenes have been enacted with several courts sitting through the night to process scores of alleged looters and vandals, including an 11-year-old boy. The defendants included Natasha Reid, a 24-year-old university graduate who admitted stealing a TV from a looted electronics store in north London. Her lawyer said she had turned herself in because she could not sleep because of guilt. Also due to appear in court were several people charged with using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to incite violence. Technology to the aid of terror, not the first time we have seen that happen…

Numerous questions arise about our society, our values, our youth, our education system. We need to re-examine the way we entertain ourselves, the way that we worship our idols. Is the loss of our spirituality to be partly blamed? The disruption of family life? The dilution of our morals and the deterioration of our ethical standards? The lack of the rigour of the military life as there is no compulsory national service? All of these? I don’t know what the answers are, but it seems we are heading towards disaster…

POETRY WEDNESDAY - REFUSAL

“Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.” – Boethius

The creative writing group hosted by Magpie Tales has set a challenge based on the image above, which is Edward Hopper’s “Summer Evening, 1947”. Edward Hopper is one of the USA’s best-loved artists. Hopper was born in Nyack, New York, in 1882. He studied at the New York School of Illustrating, and at the more prestigious New York School of Art. Here he studied under American realist Robert Henri. After his studies at the NY School of Art, Edward Hopper went on to study in Paris. This was 1906, at a key time in the development of modern art. It took a long time for Hopper to experience commercial success. He struggled for years, surviving as an illustrator. His first success as a painter came in 1924 when he sold out a show at the Rehn Gallery in New York. This is the year he painted “The House by the Railroad”, one of his most famous works. He died in 1967, his studio near Washington Square in New York City, having achieved recognition and great financial success.

In this painting a young couple in summer dress are conversing on a porch under the harsh artificial light of an incandescent bulb. There is tension in the scene and despite the fairly neutral body language what is being discussed looks as though it is not too pleasant. The image is unsettling with its grouping of figures on the right against the darkness of the late night and the bright light with its stern shadows. The house looks dark and deserted and the drawn curtains on the door are somehow forbidding, even though the window is less hostile. My first impression when I first saw the painting was: “They’re breaking up”. The second thought was: “She’s pregnant and he won’t like it when he hears it…” Yet another thought in quick succession was more optimistic: “He’s about to propose. Casually, perhaps, but that’s the way they are…”

The poem below goes with none of these first thoughts.

Refusal

“I can’t, I really can’t, I tell you,”
He says quietly yet with great feeling.
She’s insulted, and looks away sullenly –
A woman scorned has a hellish disposition.

“You mean you don’t like me, don’t you?”
Her voice cold, her eyes, sharp cut glass.
“You never said you didn’t like me…”
She’s angry, but stares vacuously, controlling it.

“No, heck, no! I do like you, but…”
He stammers, blushes and his words stick
Deep in his throat, his breath shallow,
While his hands fidget ineptly.

“It’s Debbie, isn’t it?” She asks.
“I know it’s her, I’ve seen you two,
Laughing, whispering, you two, together.”
Her ire white-hot, warming even more the summer air.

“Patty, please, no it’s not what you think…”
His eyes are downcast, his feet shift uneasily,
He half sits on the balustrade, his left hand raised
To quieten his racing heart, an ineffectual gesture.

“Don’t lie to me, I hate liars, you know I do.”
She straightens her arms, behind her,
And her breasts jut out, provocatively.
“I am not pretty enough, not good enough…”

“Oh shucks, no! You’re beautiful, Patty,
You know you are, and Debbie and I are just friends,”
His eyes are moist and pleading now,
“You know that I’m not lying!”

“You’re hiding the truth and that’s worse.”
She says and looks down sourly.
“You’re a pretender, that’s who you are,
A teller of stories and a deceiver…”

He lowers his eyes and wipes a tear.
“You don’t know, you don’t understand.”
He looks away and manages to stammer:
“Patty, your brother Joe and I, we two, we’re…”

But the words are glutinous and stick to his tongue;
He looks at her terrified and with a quick movement
Runs away, disappearing into the night,
Leaving her bewildered, frozen in the ice of his refusal.

CLIMBING LADDERS AT WORK

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.” - Frank Lloyd Wright

I’ve had another very full and tiring day in Sydney for work again today. However, at the end of it there was a great deal of satisfaction as much had been achieved. It was good to watch the dynamic of the team once again today and I was satisfied to have contributed in a positive manner to the business of the day. Many things come about in a way that is unexpected, and quite a lot of unplanned activities can contribute greatly to a fortuitous result. So it was today and after an impromptu group discussion that I contributed to, it was gratifying to be told by a few people that what I had talked about was inspiring. It is good to be able to do that and not really plan it. But I guess that is my job, to lead and inspire people.

One of the activities that we had to engage in today was to do some succession planning. This was part of risk-minimisation strategy where we had to think about the people in our organisation and consider possible successors to each of our roles. This of course gets harder the closer one gets to the top of the ladder. One has to consider all sorts of variables, the benefits of internal versus external appointments, performance management and training, as well as grooming of the most promising candidates. One has to give opportunities to people and provide pathways for training, further education, and the chance to get some practice at tasks that are a level above them.

In the academic field the hierarchy is fairly well defined and an able person, beginning at the bottom may gradually work their way up. Over the years, as such a person picks up experience, more knowledge and skills, ability to deal effectively with difficult situations and people, he or she is able to climb the hierarchical ladder. Its lowermost rungs are close to each other and easy to climb. The closer one gets to the top, however, the further apart the rungs become and when one is about to go for the topmost rung, it is well out of reach. There is only one way to attain this topmost position and that is to grow wings and fly to it. A good work environment provides the opportunities for the employees to sprout those wings and attain the topmost position in the hierarchy.

It is always difficult to deal with situations where a good internal candidate applies for a promotion to higher level and one also has to consider some good external applicants. My preference has always been to encourage and give chances to the internal candidates, preferring their appointment over an external applicant who is equivalent in skills and experience to them. When one has an external candidate who is better than the internal one, and one makes that external appointment, a situation could develop that is quite messy and can lead to some people management issues. One has to be assured that the human resources department is able to counsel, manage and support the unsuccessful internal candidates…

Our new campus is just opposite the Central Railway Station in Sydney so it is so easy to reach with the airport train. One avoids the traffic, pays about a third of the fare of a taxi ride and is at the airport in about 12 minutes. It is such a pity that Melbourne Airport does not have a train service. Both Sydney and Brisbane are served admirably by their airport trains. There is great efficiency and sustainability in solutions like this, which not only are beneficial for air travellers, but also reduce the road traffic considerably.

POSTCARD FROM SYDNEY

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” – Socrates

I am in Sydney for two days for work. It has been a very intensive first day with a high-powered Executive Team meeting where we’ve had a pow-wow on our new campus in the centre of Sydney. It has been an interesting and highly-charged day with talks, presentations, team-building exercises and a general bonding session. Although we’ve spent all day locked up in a room, the hours just rushed by and there wasn’t much of a chance to feel bored or distracted. The day was a great success and we now all feel more comfortable with one another and there’s a very positive team feeling.

We’ve had a great dinner out and then four of us went out to a bar for a night cap. This was another chance for building a good relationship amongst us and having a relaxed time where we could discuss a few things off the record and in a “safe” environment without any holds barred. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we had a good time.  A couple of strangers approached us and sat with us, exchanged pleasantries, socialised. Alcohol, the great social leveller ensured that conversation flowed freely and uninhibitedly, jokes were shared and no expectations were put on the table. We all got up and went back to our hotel with some rest and relaxation scheduled before tomorrow’s session.

In the morning we are starting off the day with a working breakfast, only to proceed to another full of formal proceedings with more presentation, discussion and tossing around of new ideas. This will conclude our get-together and then a return home in the evening.

ART SUNDAY - FREDERICK McCUBBIN

“Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Frederick McCubbin is one of Australia’s most famous and significant painters. He was born in Melbourne, 25 February 1855 and died in Melbourne, 20 December 1917. McCubbin was a baker’s son, who soon joined the family business and drove a baker’s cart before being apprenticed to a coach-painter. He started his training in art and design from 1869 at the local Artisans’ School of Design in Carlton, and by 1872 entered the School of Design, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. It was not until the Munich-trained George Folingsby (1828–91) was appointed master of the Gallery Art School in 1882 that McCubbin received a thorough academic training in figure painting.

Folingsby evoked McCubbin’s interest in large-scale history pieces with a pronounced national flavour. From the colonial artist and Swiss émigré Abram-Louis Buvelot, McCubbin absorbed a more intimate, Barbizon-style vision of the Australian landscape. Julian Ashton directed his attention to subjects from contemporary life and introduced him to plein-air painting. In the mid-1880s McCubbin’s growing adherence to plein-air Realism was strengthened by the influence of Portuguese-born Arthur Loureiro (1853–1912) and, more dramatically, by the impact of Tom Roberts, recently returned from Europe in 1885.

With Roberts and Arthur Streeton he founded the painting camp at Box Hill, in the suburbs of Melbourne, that became known as the Heidelberg School. The Realists’ concern with the integrity and significance of the subject shaped McCubbin’s fundamental attitudes to art. Unlike Roberts and Charles Conder (a fellow Heidelberg painter), McCubbin was only marginally influenced by the Aesthetic Movement, and he exhibited a token five works at the famous 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition in Melbourne in 1889.

As one of the founders of the Heidelberg school, McCubbin was a significant figure in the development of the Australian school of landscape and subject painting that emerged at the close of the nineteenth century. His work was directly influenced by the earlier traditions of Australian colonial art, late-Victorian subject pictures of a high moral tone. In later years McCubbin turned increasingly to landscape painting, portraying the lyrical and intimate beauty of the bush. The early influence of Corot gave way to that of J. M. W. Turner, as he turned from the quiet poetry of the shaded bush to the brilliant impressionistic effects of light and colour of his final manner.

McCubbin was a warm and gregarious personality and a gentle and intuitive teacher, who contributed greatly to the art world in Melbourne by his activities in various societies, through the conviviality of the McCubbin house which was always a focus for artists and students, and as a teacher of several generations of artists. He was a member of the Savage Club.

His 1887 painting “The Morning Train” above is a good example of McCubbin’s Heidelberg “Impressionistic” style. There is a painterly quality to the painting, with its layers of colour, scumbling of paint, light and dark, impasto and wash. The light and dark contrasts and the harsh morning light point out the difference between nature and machine, the bucolic and the metropolitan. McCubbin paints the train as it emerges between the cows and the farm sheds, its smoke blending with the clouds in the sky above, technology and progress overtaking and vanquishing nature. The colours are Australian and the landscape although recognisably that of a Downunder farm, still owes much to the French impressionists that the Heidelberg School was so influenced by.

A FEW RAINDROPS

“Into each life some rain must fall.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A full day again, although dull, cold, gray and wet. Did quite a few chores, but also managed to watch a movie in the afternoon and went out to dinner as well.

In keeping with the return of the Winter weather and the rain, here is Valentina Igoshina playing beautifully Frédéric Chopin’s ‘Raindrop’ Prelude in D Flat Major, Op. 28, No. 15.

This piece is replete with Chopin’s inner conflict and contemplation of his inner self. The composition was borne of the mind of Chopin in 1858 during his stay at the Valldemossa monastery. Amantine Dupin commented: “It casts the soul into a terrible dejection. Maurice and I had left [Chopin] in good health one morning to go shopping in Palma for things we needed at our ‘encampment’. The rain came in overflowing torrents. We made three leagues in six hours, only to return in the middle of a flood. We got back in absolute dark, shoeless, having been abandoned by our driver to cross unheard of perils. We hurried, knowing how our sick friend would worry. Indeed he had, but now was as though congealed in a kind of quiet desperation, and, weeping, he was playing his wonderful prelude. Seeing us come in, he got up with a cry, then said with a bewildered air and a strange tone, ‘Ah, I was sure that you were dead.’

When he recovered his spirits and saw the state we were in, he was ill, picturing the dangers we had been through, but he confessed to me that while waiting for us he had seen it all in a dream, and no longer distinguishing the dream from reality, he became calm and drowsy. While playing the piano, persuaded that he was dead himself, he saw himself drown in a lake. Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might—and he was right to—against the childishness of such aural imitations. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds. His composition of that night was surely filled with raindrops, resounding clearly on the tiles of the Charterhouse, but it had been transformed in his imagination and in his song into tears falling upon his heart from the sky.”

HAPPY EATING

“The reason fat people are happy is that their nerves are well protected.” - Luciano Pavarotti

Well, that was the end of our unseasonal Spring weather! This evening after a spectacular sunset through curtains of rain and shifting clouds we welcomed back Winter, which is here to give us a cold and wet weekend. All the more timely then is some research that seems to point out that comfort food seems to improve our mood. Apparently, we get an emotional high when we consume fatty foods…

Belgian researchers in the University of Leuven, led by Dr. Lukas Van Oudenhove have recently shown that fatty foods help eaters to cope with unpleasant and depressing events in their lives by decreasing the degree of sadness that the consumers of these foods felt. The results of this study were published online in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.  In this series of experiments, the researchers recruited 12 healthy non-obese people and performed functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, before and during the infusion of a fat preparation or alternatively a weakly salty solution into their stomachs (without telling the subjects which solution they were receiving). In addition, the participants were asked to listen to sad or neutral music or view pictures of sad or neutral faces.

Hearing sad music or looking at people with glum faces lowers the mood across the board. Before and during the imaging of the brain, the participants were asked to rate their hunger and mood. The researchers found that the participants that had received the fat were less than half as sad as the participants that received the saline infusion. The authors stated:

“We demonstrated, for what we believe to be the first time in humans, that a purely interoceptive, subliminal appetitive stimulus (intragastric fatty acid infusion in the fasted state) interacts with an exteroceptively generated negative emotional state, at both the behavioral and neural level. More specifically, fatty acid infusion attenuated both the behavioral and neural responses to sad emotion induction”.

That is, eating fat seems to make us less vulnerable to sad emotions, even if we don’t know that we are eating fatty foods. This is quite amazing, because it is not the actual pleasant taste and texture of the fatty food that seems to have this beneficial effect on our brain and emotions, but rather the chemical effect of the fat molecules themselves when they enter the stomach (and then via the blood, into the brain). The gut “talks” to the brain, or so it seems!

The exact mechanism of these results is not known but they do suggest that there is a normal, physiological response that regulates food intake, hunger, and our emotional state.  Future studies are planned, which will focus on working out the exact mechanism and may help in the treatment of obesity, eating disorders and even depression.

Now, some other research conducted at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York has been looking at the brains of dieters. Apparently, if you starve yourself the brain cells are forced to atrophy away and be cannibalised by surviving brain cells. This is a last ditch effort to survive and use body parts as a source of energy to ward off the effects of starvation.

Results published in the journal “Cell Metabolism”, show that the body responds to starvation by producing fatty acids, which, in turn, ramp up the hunger response in the brain increasing our impulse to eat. Experiments conducted on mice found that by blocking this mechanism of autophagy or self-cannibalisation, it was possible to prevent the feelings of hunger. Dr Rajat Singh, the lead researcher, said that:

“A pathway that is really important for every cell to turn over components in a kind of housekeeping process is also required to regulate appetite. Treatments aimed at the pathway might make you less hungry and burn more fat, a good way to maintain energy balance in a world where calories are cheap and plentiful.”

The moral of the story is eat what you enjoy and eat a balanced diet, but do not overeat. There is a place for fat in our diet, as there is a place for sugar and dairy, for fruits, vegetables, pulses, and cereals, for seafood and meat. However, quantity is the key to success. As my grandfather used to say:

“When you are sitting down at table to eat your meal, you should feel hungry. Then, eat only as much as will only just satisfy your hunger, no more. If you left the table and you were invited to eat again, there should be space enough in your stomach to eat again, but of course you should not do that, because you’re no longer hungry!”

(photo courtesy of @drummeler)

AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND

“And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” – King James Bible, Deuteronomy 19:21

In the news earlier this week was the case of Ameneh Bahrami, an Iranian woman who was blinded in both eyes and disfigured after having acid hurled in her face by Majid Movahedi, a university classmate after she repeatedly spurned his offer of marriage. The event occurred in 2004 and a protracted court case began as an Iranian court considered the evidence and deliberated on the punishment according to the Sharia (Islamic Law) system of Qisas (“eye for an eye” retribution). Iran’s judiciary had finally given the green light to the meting out of retributive punishment for Mohavedi through the pouring of acid into his eyes last Sunday. This would have been the first blinding of a convict in the country, but human rights groups across the world called on Bahrami, who had asked for “eye for an eye” justice in court, to pardon him.

Majid Movahedi, now 30 years old, had been taken to Tehran’s judiciary hospital to be blinded with acid after being rendered unconscious, but his victim spared him at the last minute. The 34-year-old Bahrami decided to pardon him as Sharia law not only allows for qisas, it also advises for clemency to be considered, especially before and during the holy month of Ramadan, which started on Monday in Iran. The woman was quoted as saying that she felt good about showing the perpetrator mercy, but asked for financial compensation instead of blinding Movahedi, an option she had previously refused to consider.

Bahrami conceded that the international focus on the case was a factor she considered in pardoning her attacker. This ensued after the highly publicised case decision in November 2008, when a criminal court in Tehran ordered retribution on Movahedi after he admitted throwing acid at Bahrami, and entitled her to blind him with acid. In the final chapter of this horrific story, Bahrami has said: “It is best to pardon when you are in a position of power.” The perpetrator sobbed when he heard the news of his pardon and said Bahrami was “very generous”.

In reaction to the news, Amnesty International, which had urged Bahrami to pardon Movahedi, called on Iran to review its penal code. Amnesty representatives said: “…Deliberate blinding inflicted by a medical expert is a cruel punishment which amounts to torture, which is prohibited under international law. The Iranian authorities should review the penal code as a matter of urgency to ensure those who cause intentional serious physical harm, like acid attacks, receive an appropriate punishment – but that must never be a penalty which in itself constitutes torture.”

Bahrami has an electronics degree and worked in a medical engineering company before the attack. She moved to Spain with the help of the Iranian government where she has undergone a series of unsuccessful operations. She briefly recovered half the vision in her right eye in 2007 but an infection blinded her again. Bahrami has recently published a book in Germany, “Eye for an Eye”, based on her personal life and her suffering since she was blinded.

Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi said Mohavedi would remain in gaol until a court decided on the alternative punishment or settle on compensation. The unfortunate thing is that there have been several other acid attacks on women in Iran. Last week in a copy-cat attack, a young woman died after a man poured acid on her face for rejecting his marriage proposal. The attacker remains free.

retribution |ˌretrəˈbyo͞oSHən| noun
Punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved: Settlers drove the Navajo out of Arizona in retribution for their raids.
DERIVATIVES
retributive |riˈtribyətiv|adjective,
retributory |riˈtribyəˌtôrē|adjective
ORIGIN: Late Middle English (also in the sense ‘recompense for merit or a service’): From late Latin retributio(n-), from retribut- ‘assigned again,’ from the verb retribuere, from re- ‘back’ + tribuere ‘assign.’

POETRY WEDNESDAY - THE IRON SUNFLOWER

“Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I have recently become aware of a creative writing group hosted by Magpie Tales. I read a couple of poems that blogfriends have written and which have been inspired by a striking photograph by Skip Hunt. The photograph is of an old mill, which has fallen down from its lofty mount and decommissioned. I have tampered with the photograph somewhat (apologies to Skip!) and was inspired to write this:

The Iron Sunflower

The sun bakes the red earth
And sky above is blue as blue bottles can be
With light streaming through them.

Drought, and the only noise of midsummer noon,
Is the hum of the machine and the smell of diesel
As water is pumped from deep secret caverns, below.

The bluebottle fly buzzes lazily, imitating the pump,
Sated on her feast of rotten thirsty carcass,
With her eggs safely secreted therein.

The listless children drone in the schoolhouse,
Overcome by heat, repeating by rote the lesson in chorus
Reminiscent of a dirge of Greek tragedy.

The precious water, hard-won by efforts of man and machine
Is stored, as treasured things are, safely locked up,
In corrugated iron tank, not to be wasted on useless things – like flowers.

The head of one of past seasons’ large sunflowers
With a few black, shiny seeds hangs up deep in the dark recesses of the shed,
Strung up high, safe from rodents and birds, a sad souvenir of old times.

The sun bakes the earth and cracks it, breaks its spirit:
No touch of green, no sunflowers this year,
And the wind blows, only to lift great clouds of red dust.

Fallen by the wayside an old mill-head rusts away mirroring the dusty soil.
Its sails are petals of an iron sunflower – the only flower this year.
As the monotony of the pump numbs the ear,
And the stench of petrol deadens the nose,
The rusting iron flower is a reminder of gentler times,
When machines were driven by wind, and their creaks were musical
And the air carried only the faint smell of fresh sunflowers –
Water could be spared then for useless things…

SOCRATES ON BEING EDUCATED

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” - Socrates

To be well educated is a goal that many people aspire to, but especially so if they are parents and they wish to provide what is best for their children. It is quite interesting that most people when asked what a good education is, generally respond with answers that can be summed up as “the collection of a great number of facts in one’s head”… Learning seems to be equated with memorisation of bits and pieces of information. A “smart” person is one that people see as rattling off hundreds of facts (often trivial) and “factoids”. Which needless to say is rather sad!

Others may equate “education” with some lofty activity confined in an ivory tower and engaged in by gowned academics who invariably are balding and wear glasses (amazing also how many people equate wearing glasses with being “brainy”, but that’s another matter…). These university types are far removed from the real world and engage in research and teaching, commonly are absent-minded and disengaged from everyday cares and concerns. They are a fount of knowledge and ostensibly “well-educated”.

My dictionary defines the word “educate” as:
educate |ˈejəˌkāt| verb [ with obj. ]
Give intellectual, moral, and social instruction to (someone, especially a child), typically at a school or university: She was educated at a boarding school.
• Provide or pay for instruction for (one’s child), especially at a school.
• Give (someone) training in or information on a particular field: The need to educate people to conserve water | A plan to educate the young on the dangers of drug-taking.
ORIGIN: Late Middle English: From Latin educat- ‘led out,’ from the verb educare, related to educere ‘lead out’.

Many of us that work in education reflect frequently on the above definition and try to understand our role in the system whereby we provide the context within our students can learn. As an educator I have tried to limit my teaching role and rather provide an environment in which students can learn in a manner that is best suited for them personally. Frequently I find that I am learning as much as they are, while facilitating their learning. Education is an exercise in clear thinking and an enabling of the learners to do the right thing. Good teaching is a facilitation of learning and the best learning comes from self-discovery of one’s own ignorance, the more one learns.

I have often thought of education, teaching and learning through the analogy of a banquet. I as the educator am the cook and host. I provide on the banquet table a selection of healthful, fresh, nutritious and attractive dishes. I ensure that they are served at their best so as to tempt my guests. It is up to them to come in, look at the feast and fill their plate with a balanced, nutritious and well-serving meal…

It may be worthy to consider what Socrates answered when he was asked what a good education was. His response didn’t mention at all the accumulation of facts, but rather it hinged on behaviour. He regarded “well-educated people” as those who:
•    Actively control difficult situations rather than being controlled by them
•    Deal with and face all events with logic and courage
•    Are honest and fair in all of their dealings with other people
•    Face difficult situations, and interact with unpleasant people, in a well-intentioned and pleasant manner
•    Keep a check on their personal desires and control their self-indulgences
•    Are not overcome by their defeats and ill-luck; and finally (and perhaps most importantly),
•    Have not been spoilt by their successes and fame.

Greek philosopher Socrates was tried, convicted, and executed in Athens, Greece, in 399 B.C. In the case of Socrates, the legal proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses. The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, King Archon to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the youth

The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus. Socrates answered the charge. The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other. Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges.

The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C.E. Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document: “This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognise the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death.”

Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens gaol. The ruins of the gaol remain today.  The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system. The trial of Socrates, produced the first martyr for free speech. As I. F. Stone observed, just as Jesus Christ needed the cross to fulfil his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfil his (image above is “The Death of Socrates” by Jacques-Louis David - 1787).

I have blogged about this today as I had an interesting discussion yesterday with a fellow academic and his views differed from my own, and from Socrates’. He did have a bit of a swollen head and his self-importance prevented him from acknowledging something that was obvious to some observers of the conversation. What do you think? Do you agree with Socrates’ views of a well-educated person?

MOVIE MONDAY - SALT

“For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.” - Neil Jordan

Yesterday we enjoyed our Sunday very much as it was a beautiful day, fine and sunny, spring-like in its freshness and gentle warmth. We got lots done in the garden, went to the market and in the afternoon walked to the Parklands where it was a pleasure to see the wattles in bloom, enjoy the flowering plum-trees, the masses of violets and the blossoming natives. We got home three hours later, not having realised how quickly time passed. At home we washed up and then went out to an early dinner at our local pub. Then, back at home, we watched a movie on DVD. Unfortunately, this put a dampener on the day as it was quite a dud!

The movie was Phillip Noyce’s 2010 potboiler “Salt”, starring Angelina Jolie. There was such brouhaha when the movie first came out that we ignored it quite completely (as it turns out, wisely). However, once again we succumbed to the specials bin at our DVD store and decided to see what all the fuss was about. The plot was standard spy thriller guff and the scriptwriter followed just about every convention in order to make an “exciting” movie. Typical dick-flick with Angelina pouting away in order to drive home this point.

In short, the story revolves around Evelyn Salt who is a successful CIA agent respected by all, especially her boss, Ted Winter. She is married to a German arachnologist, the two being much in love. One day a Russian spy comes into the cover offices of the CIA and says he is a defector. He asks for Evelyn Salt and tells all that the President of Russia will be assassinated during his forthcoming visit to New York City to attend the funeral of the recently deceased USA Vice President. He further reveals that the name of the assassin is Evelyn Salt. Salt tries to contact her husband, but as she cannot do so, decides to go on the run and doesn’t stay to defend herself against the accusations. Her boss does not accept that she is a mole or a double agent, however, her subsequent actions shake his faith in her innocence. What follows is a conventional spy movie with lots of violence, attempts at twists and turns in the plot and some spectacular special effects.

Unfortunately, the movie is illogical, much too stereotypical and completely unbelievable. Jolie in the title role is fine enough, but somehow she does not convince the viewer. Admittedly she has a tough job making her character believable as it is too much of a cardboard cutout. There is scene after scene of action and murder, violence and car chases, thrills and spills. I kept thinking that the film was like a computer game. The plots and twists were annoying and unsatisfying and one could easily get lost in what we were meant to believe in terms of whose side Salt was on. Being neither Russian nor American we could almost not care, as neither side appeared to be worth belonging to…

Even the ending of the film was unsatisfying as it was too much of a set-up for a sequel. The whole thing was too formulaic and predictable, but at the same time annoying as it tried to pretend to be something else. Nothing worse than a potboiler trying to convince you it’s high art. We could see after watching the movie why it was so controversial. Those who watched it purely for its thrills and spills, the mindless violence and the stereotypical “us and them” cold war primary school mentality plot would enjoy it. The rest of us who want some depth, some motivation, some characterisation, some clever plot development, think this is a terrible film. Watch at your own risk.

ART SUNDAY - MARGARET OLLEY

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” - Henry Ward Beecher

The Australian painter Margaret Olley died last Tuesday, 26th July 2011. She is noted for her colourful still life paintings and intimate interiors.  She was a traditional painter, oblivious to changing fashions and movements of the art world. Olley chose to paint her surroundings, immersing herself in everyday subjects that reflected her interest in the personal and the intimate. Her love for painting is explicitly shown in every one of her works and her own personality and inner beauty is exemplified by her choice of subject and the way she depicted it.

Margaret Hannah Olley was born on 24th June 1923 in Lismore, New South Wales. After spending some of her childhood in remote Upper Tully, south of Cairns, Queensland, her family moved to Lower Tully where her sister Elaine and brother Ken were subsequently born. Living in a small country town, gave her rich experiences, like riding a pony to school. This helped o give her a sense of adventure and independence, which the young artist was able to use in the future. It was not until she attended Somerville House, a Brisbane girl’s boarding school, in 1935, that her talent for painting and drawing started receiving encouragement.  Olley’s art teacher at Somerville House persuaded Olley’s parents to send Margaret to art school.

In 1941, she started at Brisbane Central Technical College. The next year Olley moved to Sydney and enrolled at East Sydney Technical College, where her boarding school friend and fellow artist Margaret Cilento also attended. Olley graduated in 1945 with A-class honours. After graduating, Olley quickly became involved in the post-war Sydney art scene. In the late 1940s, she and Donald Friend became some of the first artists to spend time painting in the Hill End area of New South Wales.

William Dobell painted an Archibald Prize-winning portrait of Olley in 1948. This was also the year Olley had her first solo exhibition at Macquarie Galleries.  In 1949, Olley took her first international trip. She stayed in France and travelled extensively to parts of Spain, Brittany, Venice, Lisbon and London. When her father died in 1953, Olley returned to Brisbane where she designed sets for the Twelfth Night Theatre. 

Olley travelled through north Queensland with Donald Friend in the early 1950s, and following this trip she went to Papua New Guinea. She held an exhibition of her paintings of this period in the Macquarie Galleries in 1955 to mixed critical acclaim.  After the 1955 exhibition, Olley returned her focus to drawing. In 1959 she gave up alcohol, which marked the beginning of a decade of success with collectors. The colour in her work became more confident, and underpinned by stronger compositional design, although over the years a concern for the flat picture plane would become progressively supplanted by one for the form and weight of objects set within three-dimensional space.

Olley is also known for her friendships with important Australian artists including William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend and Jeffrey Smart. Olley is regarded as a generous benefactor having donated many works to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Olley’s generosity to the gallery was celebrated in its “Great Gifts, Great Patrons” exhibition in 1994. She donated works of Donald Friend, Arthur Boyd, Walter Sickert, Edgar Degas, Duncan Grant and Matthew Smith for this exhibition.

Margaret Olley held honorary doctorates from Macquarie, Sydney, Queensland and Newcastle universities. In 1991, Olley was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service as an artist and for the promotion of art. In 2006, she was awarded Australia’s highest civilian honour, the Companion of the Order, for service as one of Australia’s most distinguished artists, for philanthropy to the arts and for encouragement of young and emerging artists.

The painting above is titled “Pears and Clivias” and exemplifies Olley’s style admirably. Joyous colour, naturalistic style, a detailed canvas laden as though it were a Victorian drawing room. Exuberant colour and shapes fill the eyes with richness and above all it is a satisfying, highly decorative painting that refreshes and calms the viewer. Olley, who preferred to be known as a painter rather than an artist, saw beauty in humble items, reflecting this in her still life works such as this, of fruit bowls and flowers. NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon said of Olley: “We often talked about colour and what was her favourite colour. Her answer was swift and straightforward: ‘Green’, she would say ‘it’s the colour of rebirth’.”

Vale, Margaret Olley!

EN ARANJUEZ CON TU AMOR

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” - Charles R. Swindol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Swindoll

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999). The piece was written in 1939, and it is probably Rodrigo’s best-known work. Its success established the composer’s reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century.

The concerto is in three movements, fast, quick, slow, with the guitar taking pride of place and never having to counter the full orchestral forces. The second movement is a sublime recollection of melancholy and supreme heartbreak. Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the inspiration for the second movement. In her autobiography, however, Victoria eventually declared that it was both an evocation of the happy days of their honeymoon and a response to Rodrigo’s devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy. It was composed in 1939 in Paris.

Whenever I hear this piece of music I cannot get out of my mind that Rodrigo its composer was blind since the age of three. For me there is a palpable sense of loss in the music. Loss of the sense of sight is one interpretation. Loss of a child is another. Loss of a lover, yet another. Whatever the inspiration for its composer, the listener will interpret it in their own way biased by their own life experiences.

There have been many arrangements of this second movement, many of them vocal. Here is one sung by the countertenor Fernando Lima.

THE VALUE VS THE PRICE OF BREAKFAST

“Each murder is one too many.” - Jürgen Habermas

I’ve blogged before about the importance of breakfast as a meal in terms of good metabolism and maintenance of health. We all know this and there are numerous options for healthy breakfasts around. One would think that this message is now well-entrenched in the community, but then again perhaps not. Survey results that were recently published about the dietary habits of Australians proved the latter point.

Apparently one third of Australians skip breakfast altogether, and more than half eat their breakfast on the go. Retail workers and students were the worst offenders for missing the most important meal of the day. On the other hand, bankers, lawyers, financiers, accountants and media workers were more likely to say that they couldn’t last the day without a good breakfast. Women were more likely to skip breakfast, often substituting a healthy breakfast for just a cup of coffee. Also, it appears that the younger survey responders were more likely to miss breakfast, with less than half of those aged 18-24 regularly eating a good breakfast. On the other hand, 60% of those between 25-44 years ate breakfast.

Something that I can certainly attest to, is the huge number of people that have breakfast on the go. About 60% of Australians eat breakfast on the train, in the car, while getting ready for work or at their desks at work. The number of people eating breakfast on the train each morning is increasing, I think. This is not bad, at least it is not as bad as skipping breakfast. Having something substantial first thing in the day kick-starts the metabolism and provides a source of energy preventing us from getting very hungry later in the day. This way, people that eat good breakfasts are less likely to become overweight as the appetite is controlled through the day.

It is disappointing that younger people do not eat good breakfasts, especially these days when we are seeing an epidemic of childhood obesity. Younger people often stay up late, sleep in the next morning and consequently end up being in a rush, sacrificing breakfast. It is also unlikely that these same young people will pack a good, healthful and nutritious lunch from home, opting for take away food, fat-rich snacks throughout the day and junk food.

**********************

On the subject of breakfast, a youth in England went to extremes in order to have a good breakfast. Apparently, after a bet with his friends, 16-year-old Joshua Davies was promised a full cooked breakfast if he carried out his threat to murder 15-year-old Rebecca Aylward. Unfortunately, this is an abominable story and Davies has already been found guilty and is facing a life sentence for murdering the girl.

The two adolescents had been seeing one another but then broke up. Davies bet his friends that he would kill Aylward for a cooked breakfast. He planned the murder, considering deadly foxgloves to poison her, drowning her in a river and throwing her off a cliff. What actually happened was even more brutal. He lured Aylward to a rendezvous in the woods. She accepted, believing he was trying to re-establish their relationship. Tragically, the girl was killed by Davies, her head battered with a rock until she was dead…

This is a deplorable murder and hair-raising considering its context. The reason for it being largely a dare, a bet. The girl’s life was wasted in a brutal and coldly premeditated manner. The breakfast issue is proof of the trivialisation of the murderous act and the callous way in which the young murderer carried out the killing in order to “win the bet” and prove himself… The image of the young girl’s body found in the woods, face down in the rain, after the day of the murder is a horrific one. I cannot place myself in the shoes of the family who have to cope with this terrible end of their young daughter and who can only imagine the terror of her last moments, as she received blow after blow, six all together, from the young murderer’s hands. What is the world coming to?

WORLD HEPATITIS DAY 2011

“Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.” - William James

Today is World Hepatitis Day, which is an annual event providing an international focus for patient groups and people living with hepatitis B and C. On this day especially, interested groups can raise awareness and influence real change in disease prevention and access to testing and treatment for these killer diseases. The World Hepatitis Alliance first launched World Hepatitis Day in 2008. From that time, many events have taken place around the world, raising public awareness and media coverage.

Following the World Health Assembly in May 2010, it was agreed that World Hepatitis Day would be recognised annually on the 28th of July, honouring Nobel Laureate Professor Baruch Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus, who celebrates his birthday on that date. This year marks the first official world-wide commemoration of this important day, and is supported by the WHO.

There are about 500 million people worldwide that have either hepatitis B or hepatitis C. This represents 1 in 12 people, and was the basis for the 2008 World Hepatitis Day “Am I Number 12?” campaign. The diseases are caused by two different types of viruses, which however, target the liver in a similar way and can cause extensive liver damage. If left untreated and unmanaged, hepatitis B or C can lead to liver cirrhosis (extensive scarring) and other complications, including liver failure or even liver cancer. Every year 1.5 million people die from either hepatitis B or C.

Hepatitis B and C are spread by virus-contaminated blood and body fluids of a sufferer, which are introduced into the body of another person. This can happen when unscreened blood is transfused, during unhygienic tattooing and body piercing, intravenous drug use, unprotected intercourse, during childbirth (from infected mother to baby) and other procedures involving exchange of body fluids. Effective vaccines are available for Hepatitis B, but not for Hepatitis C. In all cases prevention of the infection by diminishing risk of contracting the virus is advisable.

People with Hepatitis B and C can develop lifelong infections and become carriers of the disease. This is quite dangerous, not only because their livers may become very damaged over time, but because the infected carriers can spread the virus to other people. It is generally these people with long-term infections and liver damage that require extensive treatment, good management and support.

Several treatments are available for people infected with Hepatitis virus B and they include drugs such as lamivudine, adefovir, tenofovir, telbivudine, entecavir and interferon. For Hepatitis C infection, treatments include various standard drugs (interferon and ribavirin) and newly approved drugs (boceprevir and telaprevir). In both cases, patients benefit from good diets, no alcohol intake and also avoidance of drugs that are broken down by the liver.

Complementary therapies are used by some people with hepatitis, in conjunction with their conventional medical treatments. Complementary therapists can provide useful advice regarding diet and lifestyle, relaxation and meditation techniques. Some herbal treatments are also given, such as milk thistle (containing silymarin, a liver protective substance). Laboratory studies suggest that silymarin may benefit the liver by protecting and promoting the growth of liver cells, fighting oxidation (a chemical process that can damage cells), and inhibiting inflammation. Ginseng is also said to beneficial, as are liquorice extract, schizandra and sophora root extract. TJ-108, a mixture of herbs used in Japanese traditional medicine is also being used with anecdotal success. However, No complementary treatment has been scientifically proven yet to successfully treat hepatitis C. A panel of medical and scientific experts concluded from evidence gathered, however, that “alternative and nontraditional medicines” should be researched more rigorously.

If you have Hepatitis B or C, follow the directions of your doctors and discuss with them openly any other treatments you are considering in conjunction with the conventional ones. This is especially important with some herbal remedies as it is well-known that some herbs can actually considerably damage an already compromised liver (e.g. kava and comfrey).

THE GRAVE

“A couch of thorns, or an embroidered bed, are matters of indifference to the dead.” - Theognis of Megara

Another busy day today. The frosty morning gave way to a beautiful sunny day. Promises of Spring everywhere as buds swell and bare branches start to show hints of green. Spring bulbs are blooming and the days are noticeably longer. Still a strange melancholy seems to be hanging in the air, justifying perhaps the ancient Roman belief that Spring was a gloomy season…

The Grave

Spring starts to stir around me once again,
And tendril tentacles of green extend,
In tentative efforts to ensnare me.
Oblivious to the awakening, I, in my dark hole,
Dig my grave below, ever-deeper.

Faint sounds of laughter, cries of joy
The noise of running steps, of dancing
Of maying games and contagious play resound.
Alone I dig, in my subterranean vault,
Wishing to reach the depths of Tartarus.

Youth dressed in purple garb leads the revelry,
All-powerful queen she orders, commands,
And all bow deeply in obeisance.
I know not of her rule, not ever being young;
So in ignorance I close myself up in my sepulchre.

My heart is pressed hard by the clammy clay,
Cold, heavy earth falls covering me
And marble slab with finality seals the tomb shut.
All I can see around me is blackest darkness
And in Erebus I am doomed to roam, one of the living dead.

Time passes, years merging with centuries,
As round the grave crops of poppies bloom and rebloom.
The marble slab of the tomb still sparkles
And invites two young lovers to sit and rest.
The text eroded on the marble,
Resembles ancient patterns graved,
And unknowing of the hidden catacomb,
The two lovers, laugh and kiss, mindless
Of the restless sleep and shifting sighs of the undead below.

CAREER ADVICE

“When people go to work, they shouldn’t have to leave their hearts at home.” - Betty Bender

I have been attending Career Adviser Seminars for the better part of today and will do so for most of tomorrow. It’s been quite an interesting experience talking directly to career advisers from high schools and giving them a good background in what courses are available for students at our College. There are career advisers from a very broad range of secondary school represented and there are also a very large number of exhibitors from various colleges, government organisations and universities. The main purpose of events such as these is to inform and update the counsellors in secondary schools who must have a good broad knowledge of the careers available to students and the courses that exist and are able to get the students into jobs that interest them and inspire them.

It is extremely important for everyone to choose a job that interests them. We spend so much of our life working that unless we work at something that is interesting, fulfilling, engaging and satisfying, we can quickly become miserable. It is usually the people who hate their job that produce the worst quality work and have the highest rates of absenteeism and sick leave. It is also these people that will tend to move around from job to job with great frequency, or even end up as chronically unemployed and unemployable.

I have always enjoyed my work and I believe someone gives their best performance at work if they are genuinely interested in what they are doing. This leads to engagement and a natural tendency for one to strive and excel in what they do day after day. I have certainly looked forward to getting to work every morning and no matter how full or how busy my workday is, at its end I can honestly say that I have enjoyed it, even though I may be tired. Sure enough there may be one or two unpleasant instances and incidents here and there, every now and then, but that is part and parcel of life, not just work.

Students that are beginning their studies at tertiary level nowadays are widely different to students when I was at University. We are finding more and more that we need to educate in a way that we produce graduates who are flexible, adaptable and able to keep up with the changing times. Graduates need to respond to the evolving demands of the workplace; people who can respond in the changing world quickly. Special, specialised and flexible workers who can bring a sense of curiosity, understanding, knowledge, experience, compassion and joyfulness to the work that they do. This is only possible when someone does what they love and they love what they do.

This is extremely important in a world which is becoming smaller and where globalisation is breaking down barriers, allowing people to not only move around and work on one continent today, another continent tomorrow; but also allows people to work remotely. Outsourcing and employing people that work on the other side of the world is something that is commonplace now and it appears that no industry is immune from this. We are able to automate more work with computers and software and to transmit that work anywhere in the world so that it can be done more efficiently or cheaply thanks to the technology. The smaller the world gets, the more essential it is for people to do what they love, because more and more jobs are going to be automated or outsourced in this brave new world.

One of the skills that I want our graduating students to have mastered is having learned how to learn. That will be really important if they want to be effective in the workplace as jobs will change faster and faster in the globalised world. The best way to learn how to learn is to love learning. Students remember their favourite teachers at University although they may not remember much anymore of what they taught. They remember the teachers because they certainly remember enjoying learning from them. Students appreciate how these special teachers taught, because what they did was to equip students with the ability to be a life-long learner who are enabled to adapt and stay special or specialised in a changing world.

There is great responsibility in being an educator. Teachers have the ability to reshape, influence, impact and control their students. They can guide, inspire, transform and shape the lives of their charges. On the negative side, educators can also brainwash, intimidate, prejudice and pressure students. As a teacher, one must remain objective, fair, transparent and helpful, while allowing the student to grow and explore and learn under their own personal conditions and desiderata. Learning to learn and loving what they learn is the best way to achieve a good education, and consequently, a satisfying career.