A quote from "A short practice of surgery", Bailey and Love 1943 :
"Ther variety of foreign bodies which have found their way into the rectum is hardly less remarkable than the ingenuity displayed in their removal.
A turnip has been delivered PR by the use of obstetric forceps.
A stick firmly impacted has been withdrawn by inserting a gimlet into its lower end.
A tumbler, mouth downwards, has several times been extracted by filling the interior with a wet plaster of Paris bandage, leaving the end of the bandage extruding, and allowing the plaster to set. "
Surely there's also a chapter on removing foreign objects from the rectums of politicians. Cheap shot but it's so frustrating. This little jibe was prompted by an unpublished internal government report into welfare recipients concluding that 1/6 recipients "enjoyed" being on welfare and had no intention of getting a job. The minister who announced the report, Mal Brough, said ( and I paraphase ) "...well clearly it's not good to have a group labelled due to the behaviour of a minority within that group ("dole bludgers") but lets face it, that's what the community calls them...", or something like that.
I mean, if you really felt it was wrong to label in such a way, Mal, why didn't you say that 5/6 of welfare recipients are fine upstanding members of the community who met their contract with the government in receiving welfare. And surely the government has some responsibility in welfare recipients being unemployed in the first place. What a cop out Mal. Whose interests does that report serve. Not only that, quoting from an "unpublished" report! This is just unsubstantiated bigotted propaganda.
It's so frustrating.....
I heard about Mike Moore's lastest effort: Bowling for Columbine (2003) on RN tonight. Apparently it has been threatened with censorship by the local authorities. It considers the responsibility of America's society with respect to levels of violence and gun laws. Did I hear the whisper of freedom of speech??? Must have imagined it....
I haven't heard many, who aren't self-interested, arguing against Mike Moore's view of the world. One of the few I have heard was Terry Lane from RN, when reviewing the book Mike Moore's new book, "Stupid White Men". Terry raised the point that the world's evils are not wholly caused by the white man, even if a large proportion of them. I think Terry's point was, power has the potential to corrupt, no matter who wields it, and that simply labelling one group as the root of all evil doesn't actually address the real problem, or indeed effect a solution. The other point to be made was that not all white men are bad, many being a victim of other white men. So Terry's main objections were that Mike Moore didn't appear to acknowledge these points of "power corrupts" and "some isn't all", in the book. I guess it's hard to exemplify otherwise since it just so happens that white men wield a lot of the power, particularly in the US.
p.s. the same could probably be applied to white women too.
I'm a bit ill at the moment - fever, generalised myalgia, dry cough, headche diarrhoea. So just for fun I did a google search on these terms.
So what was the result? Congratulations, you have ebola! Must be the first case in Australia, I'm kidding ofcourse.
The Australian actress Ruth Cracknell died a couple of days ago. A great loss in so many ways but I'm not going to sing her praises as she deserves and as so many have. One of her most celebrated works was a series called "Mother and Son". Ruth plays a slowly dementing widow who is cared for by her son. This programme was well ahead of its time in considering the "burden" of dementia for the sufferer and their carers. While being quite acrid it displayed such pathos and comedy in many ways. And I wasn't surprised one bit when I heard (Radio National) that one of the executive producers was John O'Grady, an acute observer of society. John O'Grady or rather his pseudonym, Nino Culotta wrote a book called "They're a weird mob" in which he depicted a tale of an Italian's emigration to Australia.
Here's one good description of the book:
"The great success of John O'Grady's They're a Weird
Mob(1957), and other similar volumes, was a timely response to the national
policy of assimilation and 'naturalisation'. While the 'Nino Culotta'
novels celebrate the idiosyncratic and the humorous aspects of Australian
language and customs, they nevertheless declare it to be 'natural' and the
immigrant culture to be foreign and 'other' as they valorise the valiant
(and good-natured) attempt of the hero to 'make himself' Australian."
- http://adt.library.uq.edu.au/uploads/approved/adt-QU2000.0003/public/chapter6.PDF
Unfortunately when we were asked to read it in Grade 5, I don't think I had to insight to realise the perceptive cultural observations, as well as cringe, and their impact on my society. He captured an essence of Australian-ness in many ways.
Here's an excerpt
It's a classic. It's on the booklist for one Australian studies course in Hungary which only adds credence to its relevance.
Ciao Ruth..
Who would've thought it was so easy to be published. The weekend Australian published a short letter I emailed in to Letters to the Editor. Given that it will probably disappear soon, here is the letter:
"You really have to wonder whether John Howard and Peter Costello suffer from phantom back pain, given they're so spineless. If they do have back pain, it's obviously not enough to require a disability pension. To target the sick and disabled through the Budget in such a manner is shameless.
Oliver Daly
Atherton, Qld"
I can't say I was happy with the expression, so clunky. I can only improve.
Is it right to quote one's self?
This article, Wonderful life of Brian, was from The Australian acouple weeks ago but is well worth a look. It's a piece written by Phillip Adams, and talks of the death of a close friend of his, Brian. Acouple of paragraphs grabbed the concept of friendship by the scruff of the neck and shook its importance into stark clarity, and it was these passages that affected me most. I hope my comments don't tarnish these perfect sentiments.
"... There were times when the friendship, like a marriage, seemed to have gone on too long, when it was running out of energy or relevance, but then it would come back, as strong as ever."
- It's frustrating how friendships can do this. They carry on of their own volition at times and in many ways you have to allow things to take their course, for good or bad.
"Like all old friends, Brian and I talked in shorthand. A word, a phrase, was code for this anecdote or that experience. With his death all that shared memory, the shared culture, the shared experience of time itself, evaporated. It's not only the present and the future you're denied by the death of a friend – it's more the richness of the past. It's the loss of yesterday as much as the loss of tomorrow that constitutes grief."
- Having to relegate those moments to the past, with no hope of being able to share them or add to them. To take a slightly different context, it has felt to me that each good-bye is a small death. I don't like good-byes, a "see you soon" is far more preferable.
"A friend is someone with whom you may think aloud. As the 17th-century proverb puts it, there is no better looking glass than an old friend. So when that mirror in which you see yourself is broken, when you no longer have that person with whom you were able to think aloud, that death is your death."
Thanks Phillip.
Another RN program, this one Late Night Live with Phillip Adams.
It was entitled "Media Overload: global attention deficit disorder." and the transcript should be available tomorrow at the Late Night Live site. In a nutshell it was about the impact of the media, in particular its medium, upon society. You know, the kind of stuff sociologists and the like get their PhD's in so they can profess to be qualified to judge society and therefore score their big break on TV.
Anyway, the interesting point was the quote they used to introduce the program,
"the medium is the message". It was apparently coined by Marshall Mcluhan, in the 60s, contained in his book "Understanding media: The Extensions of Man".
From my understanding, the phrase intends to remind us that in using any media, it is not enough just to appreciate the content but we must realise and consider the context and impact that the medium has on the communication and understanding of the content. This is a middle of the road view compared to McLuhan's actual message as suggested in "Mcluhan's Message Clarified", who states that it is all media. In a way he is right but the important thing should surely be the content i.e. the original thought that the media carried.
As an aside, arguably there are concepts and thoughts that trascend all time. These are probably similar to what are called the "Great Ideas" by the Great Books of the Western World guys at the University of Chicago. Would that suggest that these concepts also have the same truth or meaning no matter what the medium?
Anyway, the impact of the media should not be forgotten seems to be the main message and whether or not a certain media is ultimately the best way to deliver a certain message. One of the most applicable media is the web ofcourse, where people spend so much time making the medium do what they want, that it ceases to become content driven. This is the challenge of the ultimate web log software, as I see. To be able to allow input of content purely for the communication of the content and not get caught up in the technical side.
I should read the Mcluhan book. Another one to add to the list.
Listening to Radio National, heard about a report recently published attacking American dissent within the US university system, particularly academics who criticise the S-11 response. While justifying the report's existence by saying that it has the right to reply against the dissenters, it publishes the institutions and names of academics who have dissented (Read the Transcript ) . I don't like to use the word hypocrisy, but it does seem rather short-sighted to produce a report attacking the very application of freedom of speech, while using this principle to support its own publication. There's probably more to say, but it's best if you just read links.
You can access the actual report in pdf format here:
Defending Civilisation: How our Universities are Failing America and What Can be Done About It
Alex, just in case you take up the challenge, "Where on earth are you?".
Any one else who knows where Alex is at the moment may answer as well.
Reminds me of that great computer game "Where on earth is Carmen Sandiego?", but is really quite unlike it.
To call Austalia from the United States:
011-CountryCode-AreaCode-PhoneNumber
Australian Country Code: 61
Area Code: Depends upon the State
To call mobiles no area code is required, just chop the front "0" off the number and use the rest as the phone number.
A useful website:
Global Sources Travel Guide - Telephone info
This year I have 5 eight week rotations to complete with only a week's holiday between each. This is how I spent my eight glorious days in Melbourne
25/5/02
1. Arrived at 12:40 am Melbourne airport and was picked up by my buddy Pete
2. Pete and I was SW2 - Attack of the Clones.
3. Hung out at Crown casino in front of the video screens showing various sports because they've got rid of the comfy chairs in that South-Western most area of the casino. It was 4:30 am by this stage so not much was open.
4. Breakfast on the 35th floor of the Sofitel. Pity there was only 10 metres visibility. A wonderfully crisp foggy Melbourne morning.
5. Arrived at my Grandparents place at about 9:30.
6. Collapsed into bed for a few hours