The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican has always been a great favourite of mine, including as it does that immortal and cautionary line "I Thank God, I am not as other men are.....". I was therefore much entertained to see the following item carried in another local English-language publication last month. I quote (sic):
Many tourists would not realise but Bali has a very hectic social life with many annual dinner dances and balls and scores of charity functions. However Bali is different from the rest of the world. People go along to have fun just to be seen with the in set. While Bali boasts a very vibrant social life, there are no social climbers or elitist groups. Each year it is quite amazing how many millions of Rupiah is wrung from the expatriate community to support genuine needy charities".
Really? If it is so, Bali is indeed very different from the rest of the world! Far be it from me to make any comment about social climbers or elitist groups, real or imagined, you can judge that for yourselves, but having once worked for a major operational charity saving life at sea I have long been aware of the mixed motives that can inspire the charitable impulse. And, even if such motives are not always wholly admirable, does it actually matter if the end is a worthy one, not to mention a good nightout? It does occur tho', that with the proliferation of yayasans in Bali of one sort or another, rather more scrutiny on the part of the generous Bali expatriate as to how much of the money goes where it should and how much gets swallowed up in "costs & admin" might be in order. Self-righteousness and self-aggrandisement are the two biggest signals to look out for. 'Nuff said.
Sweet News on Chox
This one's for you Rasmini.......
Good news for chocoholics everywhere. It's now official, chocolate is good for you. A report from the University of California at Davis has found chocolate contains flavonoids that are antioxidants, which help maintain a healthy heart and good circulation, as well as reducing blood clotting, a leading cause of heart attack and strokes.
Researchers collected blood samples from volunteers who ate 25 grams (0.9 ozs) of chocolate with a high flavonoid content and other volunteers who ate bread. After six hours they took blood samples from both groups to measure their platelet aggregation. Volunteers who ate the chocolate had lower levels of platelet activity, while there was no change with the group that ate the bread. "These results support earlier research showing cocoa acts like low dose aspirin that reduces blood clotting; that chocolate may contribute to a healthy, well-balanced diet", said researcher Carl Keen.
I don't want to be a spoilsport but before you go out and gorge yourself on the most sinful choccy cake you can find or scoff down a gross of chocolate bars, just remember they are talking about cocoa and not the refined sugar, emulsifiers, saturated fats and other rubbish that gets shoved into these delights, not to mention the cholesterol content or caffeine.
All the same, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of any good cake maker to devise an all-natural chocolate cake that is about as evil as anyone could possibly wish. As a choco-bouter myself that is good news. (Hint: the South American herb Stevia is 300 times as sweet as sugar and is good for you).
Mad Cows in Asia
Some months ago in an earlier column I remarked that given the combination of commercial ethics of the agro/chem industry and standards of bureaucratic probity common to the region, that it would not be long before Mad Cow Disease surfaced in Asia. Alas, all too soon I have been proved right.
Earlier this month the first case of an animal infected with the disease was found
in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan. The presumed cause was the importation of animal feed from Europe that had supposedly been banned. Japanese health authorities have claimed that the high standards of cleanliness at Japanese cattle ranches and the importation of feed from the US, Canada and Australia, all believed to be free of the disease, would save the country from exposure. Bearing in mind that 1.3 million cattle are slaughtered in Japan each year and all of 100 cows yearly are tested for the disease, I would say that is hopeful at best.
Given that these same bureaucrats, or others like them, were countenancing the sale of HIV infected blood for years, while claiming AIDS was a nasty Western affliction that couldn't happen in Japan, it's nice to know that the Japanese public can sleep easy. Now we learn that the Japanese delegation to the European Commission is pressing Brussels to block the publication of an EC evaluation of the risk of Mad Cow Disease in Japan. The report had concluded that on a scale of one to four the risk factor in Japan was a three.
Now I'm prepared to consider the possibility, however remote, that other Asian countries are not like Japan when it comes to these things, all the same - I'm glad I gave up eating my fellow-mammals a while back.
Heroic Medicine
A few months ago 69-year old retired prison guard Slim Watson was admitted to Duke University Medical Centre, North Carolina, with a rare hemophilia-like blood disease. Thirty-four days later he was dead, despite aggressive medical intervention of epic proportions at a cost of US$5.2 million, 95% of which was spent on drugs costing anything between $1,000 to $7,000 for a small vial. That's over $15,200 a day.
No story of medical ineptitude here, this was allopathic medicine at it's best. Of the $5.2 million spent Duke was able to recoup $2.5 million in insurance and the Watson family was not billed, leaving the hospital to find the remaining $2.7 million. There are no villains in this story. The Duke University Medical Centre is among the finest in the world, a great non-profit academic hospital treating both paying and indigent patients alike. The medical team did everything it could, only ceasing expensive drug treatment when it became clear Slim Watson was not going to recover. The hospital's admin stood by the doctors' decision even though it played havoc with their finances. I wonder how many other medical institutions would have acted in the same way? In privatised medicine? I don't think so.
Even by the standards of the high-tech, high cost US healthcare system this was an extraordinary episode. In 1950 the US spent $12.7 billion, or 4.4% of gross domestic product, on health care. In 2002 the cost will be $1.54 trillion - nearly 14% of GDP, a far greater percentage than that spent by any other developed country. And yet the US comes way down the list (31st I believe) when it comes to the standard of healthcare given to it's citizens.
Like NASA shooting for the stars, it is right and proper that medicine should aspire to new heights but shouldn't and couldn't a few more of those billions of dollars be spent on preventative care and health education? Such a change of emphasis would save an incalculable number of productive lives everywhere. In the undeveloped world a little money well applied would have a truly global effect.
Into the New Age.....?
" The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity......"
W.B.Yeats, The Second Coming, 1921.
If anything convinces me that we are now well into the so-called New Age it is the horrific terrorist attack on the US. The ether is full of calls to prayer and meditation or to bomb the towelheads back to Kingdom Come and American Moslems are attacked on the streets of San Francisco. It was ever thus.
But in a greater context we are at the transition from one form of consciousness to another, hardly a comfortable place to be. Whatever the ultimate destination, humankind is involved in nothing less than an Ascent of Consciousness and has over the past fifty millennia moved from the Magical, to the Mythical, from the Matriarchal to the Patriarchal.
The Patriarchy of the past 4,000 years has been an amazing Apollonian ascent bringing unimagined gifts and ethical advancement, which didn't come easy. But based on an externalised imposed authority it has alienated and enslaved both women and men. It has gone about as far as it can go and has turned toxic. Capable of destroying the planet it looked into the future and blinked.
We are now moving into a consciousness that re-incorporates the feminine principle, life-giving and destructive, but not at the expense or denial of the masculine - for that would be a return to tribalism and barbarism. But above all, it is a consciousness that grounds authority on an ethical basis internally, within the individual. Now you can see why it is going to take a few thousand years to work this thing through! People are much more comfortable looking for all the answers from an outside authority, be it government or guru. And where there are no simple answers there will be conflict and regression as new and old forces contend.
It is clear that we can no longer be dominated by the myths and spiritual instinct derived from certain desert tribes, whether 1,400 or 3,000 years ago. A new mythology is being called for and is emerging to accompany the Perennial Philosophy. The symbol for which has already been given us back in 1970's - our staggeringly beautiful planet set against the darkness of space.
Containing individual and collective catastrophe that assails us in too small a box is like blaming God. It leads to hate and reaction. To make any sense of such things at all we can only put Life into the biggest context of which we are capable at the time. That does not mean we grieve less or can thereby avoid the pain. That goes with the territory. Nor does it mean that heinous acts should not bring society's retribution in a way appropriate to the day and age.
While we live in "interesting times" I believe the end of our planet will come in astronomical terms not human ones and that we are, all of us without exception, involved in the most exciting experiment that can ever be. To that extent I remain a long term optimist.
