text:
Today is August 31st. (I'm sure by the time I hit publish, it will be September 1st…) And as much as August is my enemy, it sucks that it's ending.
Sorry for the less-than-joyful nature of this post. I won't be offended if you run away screaming now. I know I'm annoying. I also know I'm freaking out. I also know that I've been a terrible blogger… I can't keep up… with anything. I'm sorry.
School started today. (Or yesterday… it's already after midnight…) My daughter began 3rd grade and she's got the same (wonderful) teacher my son had. My son began middle school, grade 6. I was nervous as hell for him… and I could tell he was nervous, too. But of course, they both did great. I never doubted it, I was just anxious for my son. I think it's because he's my first baby and he's such a big kid now. I want to stare at immensely adorable pictures of him from when he was two. Also, I hate change… and he's not especially fond of it either.
But the real crisis in my brain right now is something else. I've got to double down on my job search. Of course, doubling nothing gets you… nothing. I truly do not know where to begin (again).
I haven't been sleeping well. I haven't been eating much. And as I mentioned up there, I've struggled to keep up here… writing, reading. I suck. But I just can't seem to do much of anything. And fuck, it's hard to get up at 7am when I'm rarely asleep before 3am. At least John is taking the boy to school… which starts an hour earlier than my daughter's school.
I love being just Mom. After the layoff, the plan was for me to take a few months off to be just Mom. But it's been way longer than a few months. And the "just" part has to end… I need to be Mom and… something else.
I haven't a fucking clue what 'something else' is. I have never had a specific career… What do you do for a living? I have no fucking idea. I've never known what wanted to be when I grew up. I suppose I'm grown up now (and not happy about it) and I still don't know what I want to be.
I've written about this before… a couple of times. And although it's been nearly a year since those posts, I am in the same place. Oh, except that my one connection is gone. And my head is probably more messed up. Okay, not probably. It is.
If I knew what I wanted to be at any point before or during my college years or in the few years following, I could have done it. I could have been whatever I wanted (not like, a rock star or a movie star, but you know… within reason). I've always been very intelligent. Like, nerd-level intelligent. Not Dr. Sheldon Cooper, but you know, really smart. My sister D hated that I was this way without even trying. She is really smart, too, but she studied a lot. I didn't. What a bitch I am, right?!
Of course, she always knew what she wanted to do with her life. Since she was about 14. So she's in a great career place. And I'm nowhere. Because I still don't know. And even if I did, it's too late for me now.
Popular suggestions:
Further my education in a field that interests me.
I have no idea what that field would be and I cannot afford further education which is half the reason I've never done this.
Find a work-from-home job.
I would love to! LOVE. Love. love. Tell me where to find one… because I've been hunting for over two years and I have found… squat.
How about a job at a school – it might offer more time with the kids.
I'd like this, too. I could never be a teacher… and I obviously do not have that education/background. But some other school job? Sure! Sign me up! But everyone wants a job like this. They are extremely hard to come by. Unless maybe you "know someone".
I was great at my last job. Fuck, I've been great at every job I've ever had. It's who I am. Every manager, every boss I've ever had has loved me. I don't do things half-assed. I won't. I don't think I can.
[Despite the wisdom of the great Homer Simpson:
"If you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way."]
So. How does one find a job without knowing what sort of job to look for? Even if I wanted to find something similar to what I was doing pre-layoff, I don't know what to search for. My last position was a conglomerate of different things — accounting things, payroll tax things, reporting and reconciling things, and lots more. But I am not an accountant or a financial analyst or any other professional with an actual title/career. So I search for……?
I am supposed to be doing this now. Literally now… at this moment. And any other free moment. I should be trying to find something. I should be searching for an agency, a recruiter, a job. Something.
But I fall apart. Just thinking about it is making me sick. Anxious, nauseous… head pounding, eyes leaking (yeah, that's code for sobbing).
And I am completely useless. Incapacitated. And pathetic. I have no idea what I'm going to do… but I should already be doing it.


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subset: commoncrawl


text:
cbr 16 / spring 2009
cbr 16 / spring 2009
Four poems by Sarah Busse
This Bed
The Dreamer
Two Postcards to Sylvia
A Wish for the Bride and Groom
Tuned Droves
Eric Baus
Reviewed by Bob Wake
Four poems by Sarah Busse
This Bed
The milk paint cannot be stripped from the wood,
rusts deeper into the grain with every year
as blood will stain a sheet, or fall, a hill.
This bed is all land, fertile and farmed, square
as an Iowa field and heavy with its burdens.
Not our first bed, that narrow dorm cot,
nor second, the handy frame you hammered for me.
This bed I dreamed my girlhood in becomes
our third, charmed and lucky, high
off the floor, a house's secrets stowed between its legs:
a solid, home-carved trestlework, a fastness
made for a farmer's bride two hundred years ago.
I think it filled her two-room house.
The Dreamer
We sailed around the world.
We sailed to land in Rome—
Now why would a pagan like me
Harbor a dream of Rome?
The next time it was your house.
(Again it was us two.)
And all the songbirds maimed—
I don't remember more.
If I could have run away,
If I could have run, I'd run.
But I couldn't, no, I couldn't—
In a dream you never can.
A daughter's cry awoke me,
Another call to love.
And as I tried to answer her
My legs still wouldn't move.
If I could have run to her
If I could have run, I'd run.
But I couldn't, and I cannot—
From a dream you never can.
Two Postcards to Sylvia
I rise quietly to work in the still-dark dawn.
Like you. I do not love easily or well. Ardor
is a different matter.
Years ago in a dream the grass spoke to me,
saying You must find an
other way. Minus extremity's rigid torque.
I am walking that way now, though I know
the moon desires her own devoted, grown
to reflect the shattered brilliance of the eye's round.
I tell you this shard of a dream to hold myself
by your ear, to keep from falling to the mud:
You, a white giant frozen
mid-stride into momentary flares of a storm.
Me, a tree-frog climbing, sticky-toed and soft,
up your marble thigh, along an arm. You were
not perfected. No, terribly not perfected.
Interrupted, there in the freezing mud.
Glaring into light that soaks us both.
A Wish for the Bride and Groom
The spring wind is a wedding guest
Strewing flowers across the grass,
Preparing the way for the bride and groom,
The lovely two who shall come to pass.
May all those I have loved, or ever
Wished to love, be at peace,
And your lives fill with grace
As this kind wind billows the sail
To carry us gently home.
Sarah Busse is the co-editor of Verse Wisconsin. She has two chapbooks out, Quiver (Red Dragonfly Press, 2009) and Given These Magics (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She lives in Madison with her husband and two children.


text: I love Mexican food and there is no other words to describe this salad but fantastic! The salad part is just like any other salad with lettuce, tomato, olives, cheese, and avocado. The stars of this main dish are the meat and the dressing so don't change a thing when you make this because they are perfect as they are. This is an easy to prepare so you will win all around. The most time-consuming is chopping the onions, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes and cilantro. It does make a lot. I mean that I served 10 people and had 2 servings as leftovers. The leftovers are still good the next day if you don't add the dressing to the top. I do like it with some heat so I put really hot jalapeno peppers with seeds and all in there. You adjust the heat to your taste. I love serving this with some crunchy tortilla chips and homemade Pico de gallo. Yummy! Make this for your next get together, serve it on your deck or patio or take it to your friends to enjoy. They will thank you!


text:
A General Theory of Globalization & Modern Terrorism with Special Reference to September 11
Subroto Roy
This was a keynote address to the Council of Asian Liberals & Democrats meeting on November 16 2001, Manila, Philippines, and was published in Singapore in 2002, Alan Smith, James Gomez & Uwe Johannen (Eds.) September 11 & Political Freedom: Asian Perspectives. It was republished in the West on January 26 2004 on the University of Buckingham website, when the author was Wincott Visiting Professor of Economics there. It came to be followed a few months later by a public lecture at the University, titled "Science, Religion, Art and the Necessity of Freedom: Reason's Response to Islamism" which has also been published here.
1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens
2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest
3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom
4. Asia's Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets
5. September 11: the Collapse of the Global Conversation
6. Envoi
Synopsis: The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place — as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in the face of a resurgence of ancient savageries. One aim of this essay is to show this would be too hasty an assessment; another is to provide a general theory of "globalization", a notion which often has seemed lost for meaning.
1. Globalization Through a Wide-Angle Lens
The perpetrators of September 11 subjectively acted in the name of Islam. It would have surprised them to know of the great respect with which the religious experience of Prophet Muhammad (572-632 AD) had been treated in the English language by Carlyle in 1842:
"The great Mystery of Existence… glared in upon (Muhammad), with its terrors, with its splendours; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, 'Here am I!'. Such sincerity… has in very truth something of divine. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature's own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as nothing else; all else is wind in comparison." 1
Carlyle told the story of Muhammad once not abiding by his own severe faith when he wept for an early disciple saying "You see a friend weeping over his friend"; and of how, when the young beautiful Ayesha tried to make him compare her favourably to his deceased wife and first disciple the widow Khadija, Muhammad had denied her:
"She believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had but one friend and she was that!"
Carlyle suggested the simple humanity and humility of Muhammad's life and example, and even an intersection between Islamic belief and modern science ("a Voice direct from Nature's own Heart"). He quoted Goethe: "If this be Islam, do we not all live in Islam?", suggesting there might be something of universal import in Muhammad's message well beyond specifically Muslim ontological beliefs.
In general, the life or words of a spiritual leader of mankind like Muhammad, Christ, or Buddha, as indeed of discoverers of the physical world like Darwin or Einstein, or explorers of secular human nature like Aristotle, Adam Smith or Karl Marx, may be laid claim to by all of us whether we are explicit adherents, disciples or admirers or not. No private property rights may be attached upon their legacies, but rather these remain open to be discussed freely and reasonably by everyone.
A second example is more proximate. It is of M. K. Gandhi the Indian sitting in South Africa reflecting on the Christian ideas of Thoreau the American and Tolstoy the Russian, synthesizing these with Hindu-Jain notions of "ahimsa" or "non-hatred" into a technique of political action to be applied eventually to end British rule in India; then transferred a decade after Gandhi's assassination to the U. S. Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King Jr, and later, after King's assassination, back to Nelson Mandela languishing in prison, who ends apartheid and brings in its place a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in South Africa.2
Construing globalization to mean merely Westernization of the East has been a commonplace error, leading to a narrow cramped perspective and reflecting ignorance of both East and West. There are countless examples of the Easternization of the West including the exportation of Judaism and Christianity, and of Indian and Arab mathematics and astronomy in the Middle Ages. There have been and will be countless cross-fertilizations between East and West, let aside the subtle influences of Africa and other cultures and continents on art, music, dance, sports and beliefs around the world. In general, whenever an idea, practice, institution or artifact transmits itself from its origin elsewhere, we have a little piece of globalization taking place. The speed and volume of such transmissions may have vastly increased in recent decades thanks to the growth of modern transport and communications but that is not to say some of the most important transmissions have not already taken place or may not yet take place. Ours like every generation may be biased in favour of its own importance.
2. Suicide, Terrorism & Political Protest
Global transmissions can be as soft and salubrious as Americans learning to enjoy football which is not American football. But they can be grim and desperate too — like the transfer of "suicide bombing" techniques from Sri Lanka's civil war to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; or the idea of schoolboys firing automatic weapons germinating from A Clockwork Orange to actuality thirty years later in an American or a German school.
In fact the Thoreau-Tolstoy-Gandhi techniques of civil disobedience or a hunger-strike inflicting pain or sacrifice on oneself to show an adversary his folly, slide naturally to a limit of suicide as political protest — as when the Buddhist Superior Thich Quang Duc, protesting religious persecution by Diem's regime in South Vietnam, immolated himself on June 2 1963, soon to be followed by other Buddhist monks and nuns, leading to the end of the Diem regime and start of the American war in Vietnam. Six years and half a world away, Jan Palach, on January 19 1969, immolated himself in Wenceslas Square protesting the apathy of his countrymen to the Soviet invasion that had ended the Prague Spring. Suicide as political protest still abides by the Socratic injunction that it would be better to suffer wrong than to wrong others.3
Terrorism by suicide killing crosses that line — over into a world of utilitarian calculation on the part of the perpetrator that his or her suicide as political protest would be inadequate, and must be accompanied by causing death among the perceived adversary as well.
Gandhi, King and Mandela each had conservative, accommodative currents on one side, as well as radical dissident or parallel terrorist offshoots on the other, and we will return to ask why no non-violent political movement seems identifiable of which September 11 was the violent terrorist offshoot.
Where political protest is absent from the motivation, and killing the adversary becomes the aim with suicide merely the means, as with Japan's kamikaze pilots, we have passed into a realm of international war between organized authorities in contrast with mere terrorism against some organized authority. A suicide-killer may of course subjectively believe himself/herself to be making a political protest though his/her principals may see him/her as an instrument of war.
Also, if it is correct to distinguish between kamikaze pilots and the perpetrators of September 11 by absence and presence of political protest in their motivation, terrorism typically arises as rebellion against some organized authority, and is to be contrasted precisely with war between organized authorities. "State terrorism" can then only refer to an organized authority being repressive to the point of using its power to cause terror, physical or mental, upon a people or individuals under its control. "State-sponsored" terrorism would be something else again, where an organized authority assists a terroristic rebellion against some other organized authority, amounting effectively to an undeclared international war.4
3. Science, Religion, Art, and the Necessity of Freedom
The question arises whether anything in human nature or society may be identified to help analyse, explain or predict the myriad transmissions of globalization taking place, whether salubrious or not. If such a theory claims to be "general", it will need to be wide enough to try to explain the motivation for modern terrorism and September 11 2001 in particular.
We could start with the observable fact there is and has been only one human species, no matter how infinitely variegated its specimens across space and time. All have a capacity to reason as well as a capacity to feel a range of emotions in their experience of the world, something we share to an extent with other forms of life as well. And every human society, in trying to ascertain what is good for itself, finds need to reason together about how its members may be best able to survive, grow, reproduce and flourish. This process of common reasoning and reflection vitally requires freedom of inquiry and expression of different points of view. The lone voice in dissent needs to be heard or at least not suppressed just in case it is the right voice counselling against a course which might lead to catastrophe for all. To reason together implies a true or right answer exists to be found, and the enterprise of truth-seeking thus requires freedom as a logical necessity. It takes guts to be a lone dissenter, and all societies have typically praised and encouraged the virtues of courage and integrity, and poured shame on cowardice, treachery or sycophancy. Similarly, since society is a going concern, justice and fairplay in the working of its institutions is praised and sought after while corruption, fraud or other venality is condemned and punished.
A flourishing society may be viewed as one advancing in its scientific knowledge, its artistic achievements, and its religious or philosophical consciousness. Each of these dimensions needs to be in appropriate balance in relation to the others during the process of social and economic growth, and each has a necessity for its own aspect of freedom.
Science is our public knowledge regardless of culture or nationality gained of ourselves as members of the world and the Universe, and has been the most important common adversary of all religions. Who or what is homo sapiens relative to other living species? What is the difference between plants and animals? What constitutes a living organism? What is the structure of a benzene ring or a carbon atom or any atom or subatomic particle? What is light, sound, gravity? What can we say about black holes or white dwarfs? When did life begin on Earth and when is it likely to end? Are we alone in the Universe in being the only form of self-conscious life? Such questions have been asked and attempted to be answered in their own way by all peoples of the world, whether they are primitive tribes in hidden forests or sophisticated rocket scientists in hidden laboratories. Our best common understanding of them constitutes the state of scientific knowledge at a given time.
At the bar of reason, all religions lose to science wherever they try to compete on science's home grounds, namely, the natural or physical world. If a religious belief happens to imply a material object can be in two places at the same time, that something can be made out of nothing, that the Sun and planets go around the Earth, that if you offer a sacrifice the rains will be on time, then it is destined to be falsified by experience. Science has done a lot of its work in the last few centuries, while the religions pre-date this expansion so their physical premises may have remained those of the science understood in their time. In all questions where religions try to take on the laws of scientific understanding head on, they do and must lose, and numerous factual claims made by all religions will disappear in the fierce and unforgiving heat of the crucible of scientific reasoning and evidence.
With the enormous growth of science, some scientists have gone to the limit of declaring no religious belief can possibly survive — that we are after all made up of dust and atoms alone, that there is no real difference between a mechanical talking doll and a gurgling baby who has just discovered her hands and feet.
Yet reasonable religious belief, action and experience does exist and may need to make its presence felt. Religion may not battle science and expect to win on science's home ground but can and does win where science has nothing and can have nothing to say. It has been reasonable everywhere for men or women faced with death or personal tragedy to turn to religion for strength, courage or comfort. Such would be a point where religion offers something to life on which science has nothing of interest to say. These include the ultimate questions of life or death or the "Mystery of Existence" itself, in Carlyle's term.
In fact the ultra-scientific prejudice fails ultimately to be reasonable enough, and is open to a joint and decisive counter-attack by both the religious believer and the artist. Modern science has well established that our small planet orbits an unexceptional member of an unexceptional galaxy. Copernicus by this started the era of modern science and began the end of the grip on Western culture of astrology, which was based on a geocentric Ptolomaic worldview (many Asian cultures like India and perhaps China still remain in that grip).
Yet the pre-modern geocentrism contained a subtle truth which has formed the foundation of both art and religion: to the best of scientific knowledge to this day, Earth is the centre of the Universe inasmuch as it is only here that reason and intelligence and consciousness have come to exist, that there is such a thing as the power to think and the power to love.5
We are, as far as anyone knows, quite alone in having the ability to understand ourselves and to be conscious of our own existence. The great galaxies, black holes and white dwarfs are all very impressive, but none of them is aware of its own existence or capable of the thought or love of any human baby or for that matter the commonest street dog.
What responsibility arises for human beings because of the existence of this consciousness? That is the common and reasonable question addressed by both religion and art, on which science is and must remain silent. We may come to know through science that life has existed for x million years and is likely to be extinguished in y million more years, but we do not know why it arose at all, or what responsibility devolves on those beings, namely ourselves, who have consciousness and reason to comprehend their own existence in the Universe.
D. H. Lawrence meant to raise this when he said the novel was a greater invention than Galileo's telescope. Great painters, composers, or other artists can be imagined saying something similar. Art is the expression of life, and human cultures, like plants, may be fresh and vigourous with life or decadent and doomed to death. The society which both recognizes and comprehends its own artistic traditions through reasonable evaluation while encouraging new shoots of artistic creativity, will be one with a vibrant cultural life; the society incapable of evaluating its own art self- critically enough will be likely also to kill new creativity from within itself, and become vulnerable to a merger or takeover.
Science, religion and art each vitally requires freedom in order to thrive. In art, the function of reason arises in critical evaluation of literature, paintings, cinema, drama, music, dance, architecture and other aspects of aesthetics. Swimming against a full tide of majority opinion here often may be the right thing to do. The critic F. R. Leavis spoke of the importance of there being an educated public to maintain serious cultural standards; he meant that the freedom to be vigourously critical, often against shallow entrenched coterie opinions, may be the only safeguard preventing artistic or cultural standards from collapse. In science, the activity of reasoning whether in public with one another or privately within oneself, dispels scientific illusions (like astrology) and so enlarges the area occupied by a common empirical understanding. Freedom is logically necessary here to keep potential avenues towards the truth open; it extends also to protecting through tolerance those factual beliefs which may be manifestly false — it may be a crime to steal or commit murder but it is not a crime to hold erroneous factual beliefs about the world as such (e.g. astrology is wrong because Copernicus is right, but it would be illiberal to jail people for believing in astrology.) Such a need for freedom of belief and experience, as well as the tolerance of dissent, becomes most obvious in religion, where the stupendous task facing all human beings is of attempting to unravel the "Mystery of Existence". The scope of these ontological questions, unanswered and unanswerable by science, is so vast it would be only wise to allow the widest search for answers to take place, across all possible sources and religious faiths, wherever the possibility of an insight into any of these subtle truths may arise. Perhaps that is why some solitary thinkers have sought to experience all the great religions in their own lifetimes, sometimes by deliberate conversion from one faith to the next.
A flourishing society, then, would be one which grows along the three planes of science, religion and art under conditions of freedom. And such a notion may be measured at different scales of social life. It starts with the family as the author of Anna Karenina knew in its famous opening sentence: "All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". It could then move to flourishing tribes, neighborhoods or local communities, to flourishing towns, provinces, or whole nations. At any of these levels, the flourishing society is one which inhales deeply the fresh air of natural science, and so sees its knowledge of the material world grow by leaps and bounds; it encourages religious and philosophical discussions and tolerance so does not fail to comprehend its own purpose of being; and it lives creatively and self-critically in trying to improve the expressiveness of its artistic achievements. Such a society would be self-confident enough to thrive in a world of global transmissions of ideas, practices, institutions and artifacts. Even if it was small in economic size or power relative to others, it would not be fearful of its own capacity to absorb what is valuable or to reject what is worthless from the rest of the world. To absorb what is valuable from outside is to supercede what may be less valuable at home; to reject what is worthless from outside is to appreciate what may be worthwhile at home. Both require faculties of critical and self-critical judgement, and the flourishing society will be one which possesses these qualities and exercises them with confidence.
4. Asia's Modern Dilemmas: Named Social Life or Anonymous Markets
Actual societies, whether small like families or large like nations, in East or West, now or in the past, typically display these qualities in relative balance, excess, or shortage.6 Broadly speaking, throughout the vast span of Asia, there has been unstinting admiration over the last two hundred years for the contribution of the modern West to art, architecture and the growth of scientific knowledge. Where it has come to be known and applied, there has been admiration for liberal Western political thought; while ancient Asian nations which hastily imported ideologies like fascism and communism have lived to regret it. Western political morality at its finest derives from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that rational beings recognise one another's autonomy and treat one another as ends in themselves, not as means towards each other's ends. 7 We see this in action today in for example the cordial relations between the USA and Canada, or between North America and Europe, or in recent attempts at European integration.
Asian nationalists in the 20th Century struggled to try to establish individual autonomous national identities, as the West had done in the 18th and 19th centuries. Asian nationalism represented an unwillingness to be treated as mere means towards the ends of Western nations, something we still see today when country B is used to counter A, then C used to counter B, then D used to counter C, etc in the old imperial manner of divide and rule This remains a serious problem of international relations but is something Asia can resolve independently by seeking to create for herself free societies which flourish in science, religion and the arts which would then be robust, self-confident and autonomous enough to decline to be used as means towards others' ends. Furthermore, Asian societies in some respects all resemble one another and pre-modern Western societies more than they do the contemporary West. These pre-modern societies were ones in which a person was identified by rights and obligations flowing from the place he or she came to occupy through inheritance or brave achievement, and centred around the loyalty of friendship and kinship, as well as fidelity of the household. The relationships between the sexes, between generations, between friends, all these across Asia today may still perhaps resemble one another and the pre-modern West more than they do some trends in the contemporary West. History and identity continue to predominate our cultures in Asia: everyone is someone's son or daughter, someone's brother or sister or friend or relative, everyone is from some place and is of some age; and every deed has a history to it which everyone knows about or wants to talk about.
In contrast, the modern Western financial economics which the present author teaches his students, describes a world of anonymous "efficient markets" with no memory; where anyone can thrive as long as he or she brings something of value to trade; where all information needed to determine prices tomorrow is contained in today's prices and events; where nothing from yesterday is necessary to determine anything in the future; where the actual direction of price-change is random and cannot be consistently foretold, so we cannot in general make any prediction which will lead to profit without risk. We are to imagine a large number of players in such a market, each with only a tiny bit of market-power itself, and none able to move the terms of trade on its own. Each of these players then, according to the textbooks, seizes every chance to improve his or her own position regardless of all else, he or she will "buy low" and "sell high" whatever and whenever possible, until price differences between identical assets vanish and no extra profit remains to be squeezed out from anything. Such briefly is the pure theory of the efficient market economy which one teaches as an economist. One tells one's students it is a good thing, and it is to be found, if anywhere in the best international financial markets, and that what globalization refers to is the whole world becoming like one big efficient marketplace.8
Yet, privately, Asia may have watched with dismay the near-collapse of family and social life which has sometimes accompanied the modern prosperity and technological advancement. The war in Vietnam brought obvious physical destruction to parts of Asia but may also have had more subtle corrosive long-term effects on the social fabric of the West. If there has been something liberal and humane about Western politics while Asian politics have been cruel and oppressive, there may also be something stable and chaste about traditional Asian family life while modern Western societies have sometimes seemed vapid and dissolute. Specifically, if it is fair to say there has been too little autonomy experienced by women and children in many Asian societies, it may be fair as well to observe a surfeit of choices may have arisen in some Western societies, greater than many women and children there may privately wish for. How does a society find its right balance on the question of the autonomy, modesty and protection of family life and other social relationships? The divorce courts of the ultra-modern world are places of deep misery for everyone except the lawyers involved in the trade, and as some Asian leaders have observed, something the globalization of Asia could well seek to avoid. Thus the dilemma faced by many Asians today may be how to absorb the efficiency of markets and sound governance of liberal political institutions, without the kind of private social collapse that seems to have occurred in many ultramodern societies, nor the kind of loss of political sovereignty against which Asian nationalists had struggled during the age of imperialism. We may now see how far this brief but general theory of globalization may be applied in explaining the bewildering events of September 11 2001.
5. September 11 : the Collapse of the Global Conversation
Words are also deeds while deeds may also convey meaning.9 The words and deeds of the perpetrators of September 11 2001, and of the nation-states organized against them since that date, are both components of a complex and subtle global conversation taking place as to the direction of our common future.
In earlier times, Gandhi, King and Mandela each led successful non-violent political protests of "non-white" peoples against "white" organized authorities. Their protests assumed a level of tolerance arising out of mutual respect between rebel and authority. None was a totalitarian revolutionary out to destroy his adversary in toto but rather each intended to preserve and nurture many aspects of the existing order. Each had first become the master of the (Christian?) political idiom of his adversary and was willing and able to employ this idiom to demonstrate the selfcontradiction of his opponent, who was typically faced with a charge of hypocrisy, of maintaining both x and its contrary ~x and so becoming devoid of meaning. Such political conversations of words and deeds required time and patience, and the movements of Gandhi, King and Mandela each took decades to fructify during the 20th Century. They had more conservative accommodative currents on one side, and more impatient radical terroristic offshoots on the other.
All such aspects seem absent from September 11 and its aftermath, which seems at first sight sui generis. No patient non-violent political protest movement can be identified of which September 11 was a violent terroristic offshoot or parallel. Tolerance has not merely vanished but been replaced by panic, mutual fear and hatred. Violence appears as the first and not last recourse of political discussion. The high speed of the modern world almost demands a winner to be declared instantly in conflicts with subtle and unobvious roots, and the only way to seem to win at speed is by perpetrating the largest or most dramatic amount of violence or cruelty. The world after September 11 2001 has seemed a very bewildering place — as if all liberal notions of universal reason, freedom, tolerance and the rule of law since the Enlightenment have been proven a lie overnight, deserving only to be flushed away in face of a resurgence of ancient savageries.
But this would be too hasty an assessment. The global conversation clearly collapsed very badly from the time of e.g. Carlyle's effort in 1842 to understand Islam's legacy to the point of September 11 2001 being carried out against the United States or Western civilisation in general in Islam's name. Even so, the universal liberal virtues of patience, tolerance and common reasoning can still find use here — in identifying possible deep, long-term historical factors which may have accumulated or congregated together to cause such a crime to take place.
One such historical factor has been technological and economic: the invention and immense use of the internal combustion engine throughout the 20th Century, coupled with discovery of petroleum beneath the sands of Arabia — all of which has made the material prosperity of the modern West depend, in the current state of technology, on this link not becoming ruptured. A second and independent factor has been the history of Christian Europe's alternating persecution and emancipation of the Jewish people, which leads in due course to the Balfour declaration of 1919 and, following the Nazi Holocaust, to the creation of modern Israel among the Arabic- speaking peoples. The history between Christianity and Judaism is one in which the Arabic-speaking peoples were largely passive bystanders. Indeed, they may have been almost passive bystanders in creation of their own nation-states as well — for a third historical factor must be the lack of robust development of modern political and economic institutions among them, with mechanisms of political expression and accountability often having remained backward perhaps more so than in many other parts of Asia.
The end of World War I saw not only Balfour's declaration but also Kitchener, Allenby and T. E. Lawrence literally designing or inventing new nationstates from areas on a desert-map:
"Our aim was an Arab Government, with foundations large and native enough to employ the enthusiasm and self-sacrifice of the rebellion, translated into terms of peace. We had to … carry that ninety percent of the population who had been too solid to rebel, and on whose solidity the new State must rest…. In ten words, (Allenby) gave his approval to my having impertinently imposed Arab Governments… upon the chaos of victory…"
"(The secret Arab societies) were pro-Arab only, willing to fight for nothing but Arab independence; and they could see no advantage in supporting the Allies rather than the Turks, since they did not believe our assurances that we would leave them free. Indeed, many of them preferred an Arabia united by Turkey in miserable subjection, to an Arabia divided up and slothful under the easier control of several European powers in spheres of influence." 10
Beginning with the Allied-induced Arab revolt against the Turks, the classic imperial doctrine of "balance of powers" or "divide and rule" has seemed to continue to be applied in rather more subtle diplomatic form up until the present: with post-Mossadeq Iran against any incipient Arab nationalism, then with Iraq against post-Revolutionary Iran, then against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991. It is only during and after the Gulf War that Osama Bin Laden, as a totalitarian revolutionary, arose as an adversary of the West.
Throughout these decades, little or no spontaneous cosmopolitan political conversation seems to have occurred from which a mature, sustained indigenous Arab or other Muslim nationalism may have arisen as the basis for nation-states, as had done e.g. with Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Vietnamese nationalism.11
From 1919 to 1945, the global conversation became preoccupied with other matters, and from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, with yet other matters again. While the three long-term factors unfolded themselves through these turbulent decades, the natural vibrant free conversation vitally necessary for the political life of any people continued for the Arabic-speaking peoples to remain mostly stifled, dormant, inchoate or abortive. Expectedly enough, whatever little current it had turned inward to the insular austere roots of a faith of the desert:
"The Beduin of the desert…found himself indubitably free…. In his life he had air and winds, sun and light, open spaces and a great emptiness. There was no human effort, no fecundity in Nature: just the heaven above and the unspotted earth beneath. There unconsciously he became near God…. The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God. He could not conceive anything which was or was not God, Who alone was great…. This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought. It was easily felt as an influence, and those who went into the desert long enough to forget its open spaces and its emptiness were inevitably thrust upon God as the only refuge and rhythm of being…. This faith of the desert was impossible in the towns…" 12
But this attempt to return inevitably became something reactionary in the late 20th Century. Finding the Beduin and the original deserts of Arabia transformed over the intervening decades, it could only try to recreate itself among the Pashtoon in the barrenness of Afghanistan, and led to the bizarre scenes of the Taliban attempting to destroy televisions and cassette-tapes in the name of Islam.
6. Envoi
The crimes of September 11 2001 were ones of perverse terroristic political protest, akin on a global scale to the adolescent youth in angry frustration who kills his schoolmates and his teachers with an automatic weapon. But they were not something inexplicable or sui generis. They represented a final collapse of the centuries-old cosmopolitan conversation with Islam, while at the same time it was an incoherent cry of a stifled people trying to return to the austere faith of the desert. Words are also deeds, and deeds may also be language. What September 11 has demonstrated is that even while the information we have about one another and ourselves has increased exponentially in recent years, our mutual comprehension of one another and ourselves may well have grossly deteriorated in quality.
Reversing such atrophy in our self-knowledge and mutual comprehension requires, in the opinion of the present author, the encouragement of all societies of all sizes to flourish in their scientific knowledge, their religious and philosophical consciousness and self-discovery, and their artistic expressiveness under conditions of freedom. Ultra-modern societies like some in North America or Europe may then perhaps become more reflective during their pursuit of material advancement and prosperity, while ancient societies like those in Asia or elsewhere may perhaps become less fearful of their capacity to engage in the transition between tradition and modernity, indeed, may even affect the direction or speed of change in a positive manner.
To use a metaphor of Otto Neurath, we are as if sailors on a ship, who, even while sailing on the water, have to change the old planks of the ship with new planks one by one. In due course of time, all the planks get changed one at a time, but at no time has there not been a ship existing in the process — at no time need we have lost our history or our identity.
© Subroto Roy, November 16 2001; January 26 2004
1 Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, London 1842.
2 In fact, "Gandhi's correspondence with Tolstoy… only started after passive resistance had begun, and he only read Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience when he was in prison for that very offence". Judith M. Brown, Gandhi's Rise to Power,Indian Politics 1915-1922, Cambridge University Press 1972.
3 Cf. The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, 1961, Gorgias 474b, 483a, b.Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Thinking, pp. 181-182, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971
4 Applying this to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the precise question would be
how far the present Palestinian authority may be objectively considered the organized authority of a nation-state: if it is, then Palestinian suicide-killings are acts of war; if it is not, they are acts of terrorism. The rhetoric on each side
5 Finding water or even primitive life elsewhere will not change this.
6 For example, the relatively new nation-states created upon the ancient societies of the Indian subcontinent to which the present author belongs, apparently display a surfeit of religiosity combined with a shortage of rational scientific growth, including the sciences of governance and economics. Despite the examples of solitary thinkers from Kabir and Nanak to Gandhi, the political and economic benefits of social tolerance still seem badly understood in the subcontinent. Equally, the mechanism of holding those in power accountable for their actions or omissions in the public domain has often remained extremely backward. A mature grasp of the division between the private and public spheres may also have been absent in Asia; the distinction between private and public property is often fuzzy or opaque; the phenomena of corruption and pollution are then easily explained as mirror-images of one another: corruption is the transmutation of something valuable from the public domain into private property; pollution is the expulsion of private waste into the public domain. Each is likely to be found with the other.
7 Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, ed. H. J. Paton, Oxford
8 The contrast between "named" and "anonymous" societies occurred to the
author on the basis of the theoretical work of Professor Frank Hahn of Cambridge University, Cf. Equilibrium and Macroeconomics, MIT 1984.
9 This was emphasized by the late Cambridge philosopher Renford Bambrough, "Thought, word and deed", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol.
LIV, 1980, pp. 105-117.
10 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A Triumph, 1926, Doubleday 1935, pp. 649, 659; pp. 46-47
11 The most may have been Attaturk's Turkey, M. A. Jinnah's creation of a Pakistan separate from India, and Algeria's independence from France — all distant from the fulcrum of Arabia. In case of Pakistan, it was Hitler's invasion of Poland that led the British, in something of a panic, to begin on September 3 1939 to treat Jinnah's Muslim League on par with Gandhi 's Indian National Congress. The 1937 provincial election results had shown little support for Pakistan in the areas which today constitute that country. Cf. F. Robinson, "Origins" in Foundations of Pakistan's Political Economy: Towards an Agenda for the 1990s, edited by William E. James & Subroto Roy, Hawaii MS 1989, Sage 1992, Karachi OUP 1993.
12 Seven Pillars of Wisdom, pp. 40-41


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Another excellent post from Planetjan. The videos are excellent, the commentary is superb. Don't take your teachers for granted! Click on "reblogged from Planetjan" to read the entire post and see the two great videos.
Thanks to Michelle, my former student teacher who is now gainfully employed, for sharing this. Today was a very long day and even though I've heard versions of this, with the graphics and the voiceover, it was just what I needed after another day of "making a difference."
"How was it coming back after break," some idiot asked. Well, actually, it was like getting slapped in the face with a cold fish. It didn't help that no sooner had school started than Student #32 was dropped off on my doorstep. He's from Korea and doesn't know a word of English. I didn't have a desk for him and ended up rearranging the entire classroom to handle what is beginning to resemble a small city of rather small people.
Here's the difference I've made in the three days I've been back.
1) Said student from Korea can now say, "Teacher!" I've…
View original post 284 more words


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A former submarine commander who faked his death to end an extramarital affair should be honorably discharged from the Navy, a panel of officers recommended Friday after a daylong hearing in which the officer said he accepted 'full and total accountability' for his behavior.
Cmdr. Michael P. Ward II, a married 43-year-old, sent his mistress in Virginia an email in July posing as a fictitious co-worker named Bob and saying Ward had died unexpectedly.
Ward was relieved of his duties aboard the USS Pittsburgh in August a week after he'd taken command and has received a letter of reprimand for adultery and other military violations.
After testimony from Ward's former superior officers, colleagues and shipmates, Ward, in his dress blues, acknowledged to the panel that he had had an affair and sent the bogus email to the woman in an effort to end it.
'The reason I did it was to sever the relationship,' he said, 'but the choice was ridiculous.'
He apologized to the Navy and the sailors who served under him.
The three-officer board of inquiry recommended Ward retain his rank upon being discharged. Its decision goes to the secretary of the Navy for approval within 90 days.
During the hearing, at Naval Submarine Base New London, the government countered that Ward discredited the Navy and that his removal put a strain on the fleet because officers had to be shuffled around to cover his removal.
'Commander Ward's actions show a complete lack of honesty, character and integrity,' said Navy Lt. Griffin Farris, acting as prosecutor at the hearing.
Ward said he accepted responsibility for his actions and would regret them all his life, adding that he was grateful to his wife for standing by him.
'I want to apologize directly to my wife for the hurt and harm and humiliation I have caused her,' he said as she sat in the front row, her eyes red. 'I accept full and total accountability for my actions.'
Still, the Navy shouldn't throw away Ward's talent and training, said high-ranking officers with whom he has served.
They said he made an awful mistake and was a fast-rising, hardworking officer.
Before moving to Connecticut, Ward served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he used his nuclear expertise to provide daily briefings to the chairman as the Fukushima disaster unfolded following the earthquake in Japan.
Navy Capt. Lawrence Vincent, who worked with Ward in Washington, said he would serve with again and the handling of the affair struck him as out of character.
'With Mike Ward, it was a true shock,' Vincent said.
Ward was honest with his chain of command from the beginning, his lawyer said.
'This man probably would have been an admiral someday, and he's brought shame on himself, and he knows that,' said Navy Cmdr. Daniel Cimmino, representing Ward.
But a senior enlisted sailor from the USS Pittsburgh told the panel that Ward at first denied the accusations.
The sailor, Master Chief Chris Beauprez, said he received a call on the submarine from a sister of Ward's girlfriend, who told him what Ward had done.
Beauprez said he told Ward about the call and Ward denied the woman's allegations, then said he'd address the situation himself.
Beauprez testified that he had an implicit trust in what his commander said so he didn't take the matter any further.
Days later, he said, he heard Ward was being dismissed.
A fellow Navy officer who had gone through training with Ward, Cmdr. Anthony Moore, testified that he heard about the affair, including the detail that Ward had used the name Tony Moore in an online dating profile that he used to meet the woman, when news of it first surfaced.
'I was very surprised,' Moore, who's based on a submarine squadron in Washington state, told the board by telephone. 'And frankly, I was a little concerned for my reputation.'
Source – Mail on-line


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Cut down on salt, government says -- and calories
You should eat less salt, the government says. A lot less.
It won't be easy. Consumers will need help from food companies if they are going to meet the government's ambitious new goals, announced Monday, for half of Americans to reduce the amount of salt they eat by more than half. Most salt intake doesn't come from the shaker on the table; it's hidden in foods such as breads, chicken and pasta.
Many of the rest of us need to cut back on sodium, too, the government said. And we still need to just plain eat less, especially fats.
The new dietary guidelines, issued every five years by the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments, are telling people who are 51 and older, African-American or suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease to cut the amount of sodium they eat daily to little more than half a teaspoon.
That group includes about half of the population and those who are most at risk of having higher blood pressure due to the amount of salt they eat.
For everyone else, the government continues to recommend about a teaspoon a day _ 2,300 milligrams _ or about one-third less than the average person usually consumes.
A number of major food makers have announced plans during the past few years to cut sodium in their products as pressure from health advocates, consumers and regulators has built.
Kraft Foods Inc., ConAgra Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., Heinz Co., Campbell Soup Co. and Bumble Bee Foods Inc. are some of the companies that have committed to lowering sodium levels. But it's often a multiyear process to dial down the sodium, largely so consumers do not detect the changes in taste.
It's unclear if those incremental changes will be able to cut enough to satisfy the new guidelines. The Food and Drug Administration has said it will pressure companies to take voluntary action before it moves to regulate salt consumption.
Melissa Musicker, director of nutrition and health policy at the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the nation's largest food companies, says companies will reduce sodium as consumers increasingly demand it. She said that in past years consumers may have avoided products labeled low in sodium. Now, consumers are interested in them.
"They are specifically purchasing those products and they are enjoying them," she said. "Companies are in the business of giving consumers what they are looking for."
Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says the heightened interest in the dangers of too much sodium could help somewhat. But she believes the FDA will have to take action for the companies to reduce enough salt to matter.
"The companies are only going to do it if there's a really strong push," she said.
The salt industry is fighting back. Lori Roman, president of The Salt Institute, an association of salt producers including Morton and Cargill, said the guidelines make the government into the "food police" and are "made up out of thin air."
She said salt companies aren't worried about people's reactions, however.
"If they don't get it on one food they're going to get it in another food, or they will seek out the salt shaker," she said.
Some cities and states have already moved to try and ensure that doesn't happen. New York City has launched a campaign with the goal of cutting salt consumption by at least 20 percent in five years. That's modeled on a plan in Britain that set voluntary salt reduction targets for 85 categories of processed foods. At least 18 states and the District of Columbia have set portion limits for sodium in school meals and snacks beyond federal standards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Consumers still have some control. To reduce the risk of disease from high sodium intake, the guidelines say people should:
_ Read nutrition labels closely and buy items labeled low in sodium.
_ Use little or no salt when cooking or eating.
_ Eat more fresh or home-prepared foods and fewer processed foods, so they know exactly what they are eating.
_ Ask that salt not be added to foods at restaurants.
_ Gradually reduce sodium intake over time to get used to the taste.
Other recommendations in the guidelines are similar to previous years _ limit trans fats, reduce calorie intake from solid fats and added sugars, eat fewer refined grains and more whole grains, consume less than 300 mg per day of cholesterol. The guidelines also recommend eating less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fats _ full-fat cheese and fatty meats, for example.
The government promotes these guidelines to consumers by using a pyramid. It doesn't specify recommended amounts of foods but directs people to an Agriculture Department website that details the guidelines. That replaced an old pyramid with more detailed specifications after surveys showed that few people followed it.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said his department may come out with a new icon, but that won't be for a few more months. For now, the government wants consumers to focus on the guidelines themselves.
He says the recommendations _ coupled with efforts from industry and other government campaigns for healthful eating, such as first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative _ should bring about some change in the country's diet.
"I don't think it necessarily has to take a generation or two to see some progress," he said.
Associated Press writer Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.


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SAMJ: South African Medical Journal
versão On-line ISSN 2078-5135
versão impressa ISSN 0256-9574
SAMJ, S. Afr. med. j. vol.102 no.2 Pretoria Fev. 2012
Acute infective diarrhoea/gastroenteritis in infants
Acute-onset vomiting and diarrhoea is one of the most common illnesses of infancy and second only to respiratory illnesses as a cause of childhood deaths worldwide. Acute diarrhoea may lead to life-threatening dehydration and electrolyte disturbances. Caused by acute infection with a variety of viruses, bacteria and parasites, the condition is easily recognised by caregivers and is usually managed at home. The intestinal infection is caused by contamination of food, water or hands. Existing guidelines for management of diarrhoea are often ignored in public and private practice, possibly because of a perception that the guidelines are too simple, or because the expectations of the need to give 'real' drug therapy to stop diarrhoea. The guidelines in this issue1 are therefore a timely reminder of the management of a common and potentially dangerous condition.
The main principles in the prevention of diarrhoea are: full and exclusive breastfeeding; rotavirus vaccination of all babies; proper hand-washing hygiene; safe water; and safe disposal of waste.
Vomiting is largely attributed to local factors and poor gastric emptying and should not be treated with antiemetic drugs. Cyclizine and prochlorperazine have not proved useful and may carry an increased risk of toxic side-effects in young infants.
Abdominal pain is usually spasmodic due to disordered motility and metoclopramide should be considered if severe, although its extrapyramidal effects in young children warrant caution.
Diarrhoea is the manifestation of secretion/absorption disturbance and disordered motility: a symptom of damage already done in the infected gut. Anti-diarrhoeal medication is not advised.
Antibiotic therapy is not indicated in the majority of cases caused by viral infection.
Dehydration should be prevented by giving small frequent liquid feeds with added clear fluids such as salt-and-sugar solution, diluted juices or mildly sweetened tea, even when the child is vomiting. Severely dehydrated and shocked patients require intravenous resuscitation.
Diarrhoea that persists for longer than 2 weeks is no longer 'gastro'. Persisting diarrhoea is associated with deterioration of nutritional status, and must be managed actively to enable digestive and nutritional recovery.
AIDS turnaround
Three papers2-4 provide messages of hope for the massive task of managing South Africa's huge HIV/AIDS pandemic.
In their editorial2 Pillay and colleagues reflect on the dark days of the South African government AIDS denialism and its negative international reception by medical scientists. Despite scepticism about South Africa being able to recover from the consequences of this major blunder, they paint a picture of a remarkable turnaround. South Africa now has the largest antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme in the world. On World AIDS Day 1 December 2009, President Zuma announced significant changes in the national AIDS prevention and treatment policies. Pregnant women would be eligible for ART at 14 weeks rather than 24 weeks, all HIV-positive children under 1 year of age would be eligible for ART irrespective of CD4 count, and TB/HIV co-infected patients and multidrug-resistant TB patients with CD4 counts of <350 cells/µl would be eligible for antiretrovirals. Progress has been made with provision of the muchexpanded services required, and South Africa has moved from pariah status to a country acclaimed for its progressive HIV policies.
A strengthening of the health system in the prevention of motherto-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV at primary healthcare facilities and district hospitals is reported by Grimwood and colleagues.3 Since the introduction of PMTCT strategies, vertical transmission of HIV has declined in low- and middle-income countries over 20 years from 20 - 40% to 2.8% in the best-case scenarios. Grimwood and colleagues analysed PMTCT outcomes at 58 primary- and secondarylevel antenatal facilities across seven high HIV burden sub-districts in three provinces. PMTCT outcomes improved substantially during a period in which new PMTCT guidelines were implemented at sites receiving support from nurse quality mentors and community-based adherence supporters.
Despite the remarkable achievement of the scale-up of ART in South Africa, the estimated number of people requiring treatment in the next 2 years exceeds the capacity of the healthcare system if treatment continues to be initiated only by doctors. Cameron and colleagues4 found that, despites challenges, many primary care nurses working in the seven provinces surveyed have taken on the responsibility of sharing the task of initiating and maintaining HIV-positive patients on ART. To meet the targets of further ART treatment, urgent requirements are: addressing the shortage of nurses at primary care facilities; providing additional consulting rooms; further training in clinical skills and pharmacology; and expansion of clinical mentoring.
Text messages as a learning tool
A characteristic of people practising in professions is that they remain up to date in the theory and practice of their respective professions. However, in under-resourced settings access to continuing healthcare education may be difficult. Woods and colleagues5 delivered essential healthcare lessons from the Maternal Care book of the Perinatal Education Programme (PEP) to more than 2 500 midwives via cell phone text messages each week for a period of 6 months. Their positive findings point the way for a much wider use of this technology to provide all health professionals in South Africa with a simple and cost-effective way of keeping up to date.
1. Wittenberg DF. Management guidelines for acute infective diarrhoea/gastroenteritis in infants. S Afr Med J 2012:102:104-107. [ Links ]
2. Pillay Y, White C, McCormick N. How times have changed - HIV and AIDS in South Africa in 2011. S Afr Med J 2012;102:77-78. [ Links ]
3. Grimwood A, Fatti G, Mothibi E, Jackson D. Progress in preventing mother-to-child trrnasmission of HIV at primary healthcare facilities and district hospitals in three South African provinces. S Afr Med J 2012;102:81-83. [ Links ]
4. Cameron D, Gerber A, Mbatha M, Mutyabule J, Swart H. Nurse initiation and maintenance of patients on antiretroviral therapy: Are nurses in primary care clinics initiating ART after attending NIMART training? S Afr Med J 2012;102:98-100. [ Links ]
5. Woods D, Attwell A, Ross K, Theron G. Text messages as a learning tool for midwives. S Afr Med J 2012;102:100-101. [ Links ]


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UFC Champ Chris Weidman -- I Destroyed Anderson Silva In His Prime!!!
UFC Champ Chris Weidman I AM LEGEND I Destroyed Anderson Silva In His Prime!!!
Newly-crowned UFC champ Chris Weidman says he's unstoppable -- telling TMZ, he destroyed UFC's reigning middleweight king Anderson Silva when no one else could ... and he's ready to do it again in a few months.
There's a lot of speculation that Silva succumbed to Weidman over the weekend because he's getting old and has lost his edge -- but Weidman's not buying it, telling us Silva was as strong as ever in the Octagon ... he just wasn't strong enough.
Sounds like fighting words to us ... which is good because Weidman and Silva are already set to rematch very soon.
We also ask Weidman if he believes Silva should be remembered as one of the greatest ever ... and he has an interesting answer. Check the video.


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broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, garlic, olive oil, silverbeet
Ok, I admit the title is provocative!* But, for many people, (including me for many years) that's where the stalks, leaves and cores of things like cauliflower and broccoli end up. Looking at the fresh, beautifully ruffled, bright green of the leaves shown here, it seems obvious they should be eaten in something, the question has always been what…
When you think about it, it seems strange that in a common plant family such as Brassicas – whose vegetable members we eat as flowers, leaves, stems and roots – we seem to have quite fixed ideas about which parts of the plant to eat. Brassicas include vegetables from cauliflower and broccoli (flowers), to cabbage, kale and rocket (leaves), gai lan and choy sum (stalks and leaves), kohlrabi (stalk), to turnips, radish and daikon (roots). Not to mention mustard (seeds). And for the most part, all parts of all of them are edible. Note I say edible, not necessarily palatable! I'm not going to start digging up my kale roots to munch on…
But, as I've mentioned previously, the leaves of radishes (and turnips) can be delicious, and as I will show you, so can the stalks and leaves of other Brassicas. Now, the pale green inner leaves, and much of the core of cauliflower (and broccoli if you can find one with leaves) can easily be cooked along with the rest of the florets, and you may well already do this. However, some parts are quite a bit tougher, and really need long slow cooking to become delicious, not always an easy step to work into a stir fry! I find this applies to the outer leaves and stalks of cauliflower and broccoli, as well as outer leaves and core of cabbage, stems of silverbeet (different plant family, same idea), and probably a few others I can't think of at the moment.
Now you may wonder, why bother? Why bother cooking bits of vegetables you need to simmer for an hour (yes, sorry, I didn't mention that part yet…) to become tender. Well apart from the fact that, as you already know, I really hate wasting food, look at the amount I got from one cauliflower… Half a kilogram of delicious greens, forming the basis of a couple of meals, that were effectively free!
One problem you may encounter is only finding vegetables that are already heavily trimmed so you don't get any of those extras. All I can do is urge you to look for sources where you can get vegetables 'au naturel', and I'm pleased to say that more recently I've found even the big supermarkets are increasingly selling vegetables that way.
For this particular batch, as well as using the cauliflower leaves, I used up the stalks of the silverbeet leaves I had cooked in this pasta. Most of the resulting pesto was then used in a cauliflower risotto (also using some of the remaining cauliflower head) topped with chilli anchovy fried breadcrumbs made from this bread.
So do you use your vegetables root-to-tip? And if so tell me about your favourite uses.
*(and it's probably not technically a pesto either, but you get the idea)
Compost pesto
Adapted from Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal
- 500-700g surplus greens – can include stalk and leaves from cauliflower, broccoli stalks, cabbage outer leaves, silverbeet stems, turnip or beetroot leaves and stalks if too tough to steam or stir fry etc etc
- 4 -6 large cloves garlic
- 90 ml olive oil
- water to barely cover
- salt and pepper to taste
- parmesan to serve (optional)
Wash greens well (I soak in the salad spinner) then trim any damaged bits and cut off any particularly tough or stringy sections – I sometimes find the very bottom of cabbage stalks are a bit stringy for example. Chop roughly, ensuring you cut across stalks and stems so you won't have any long strings in the final pesto.
Put in a big pot with the peeled garlic and oil, and add enough water to almost cover. Bring just to a boil, then reduce heat and and simmer, partly covered, until soft enough to mash. Depending what sort of stalks you use, this could take up to an hour. The water should be largely evaporated by this stage, but if there is still a lot of water left, increase temperature and cook uncovered until it is mostly gone.
Using a potato masher, mash until a rough paste. You can use an immersion blender if you prefer a smoother texture. Season with salt and pepper. You can add some grated parmesan at this stage, or leave it plain and add when serving.
This mixture has so many uses: I've added to omelettes, piled on hot toast, tossed through cooked grains or pasta, and stirred into risotto. It lasts a week in the fridge.
One year ago: Almond cake with syrupy blood oranges
For the other side of the world
Six months ago: Robyn's pasties


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A few weeks ago I was a scheduled to present several lectures as part of a course offered by Veritas Theological Seminary in Santa Ana, California. The course title was Scientific Apologetics: The Age of the Earth. The course was split 50/50 between speakers from Solid Rock Lectures including myself, and two prominent employees of the young-earth creationist' organization, Answers in Genesis (AiG). However, just hours before I was to present I was informed that the seminary president had decided I would not be allowed to speak. I had spent the previous two days listening to 11 hours of presentations by the AiG speakers and was prepared to respond to that material in addition to pulling together the strands of thought begun by my colleagues earlier in the week.
Although I was prevented from speaking—why this happened is a topic for another time—I quickly wrote out some of my reflections on the course material presented by the Answers in Genesis speakers. I was able to distribute these reflections to the students in addition to some of the other reading assignments which I had already prepared.
After returning home I examined the reflections originally written hastily in the very early hours of the morning. Subsequently I have edited those thoughts for greater clarity. Below I present this edited version as a glimpse into the world of creation apologetics.
Does the evidence point to a young earth? Some reflections on creationist' apologetics. By Joel Duff
During the past week you have been presented with numerous evidences for and against a young earth. At one moment it may seem that the evidence points one way and another moment the evidence points in a different direction. I am sure that it must seem very confusing. So which is it and how shall we evaluate these positions?
An overwhelming majority of scientists including most Christians working in scientific fields have concluded that the science evidence conclusively points us to the great antiquity of the earth. However, Dr. Terry Mortenson and Dr. Andrew Snelling from Answers and Genesis reject this conclusion and in their talks steadfastly maintained the debate isn't about who has supporting facts. Rather it is about how we interpret those facts.
We agree with Dr. Mortenson and Dr. Snelling in principle that how we interpret facts is key to the conclusions we derive from them. However, simply pointing out that there can be multiple interpretations of facts does not make all interpretations equally valid. Some interpretations are not supported either by the facts being interpreted or supported by additional evidence brought to bear from other sources. Furthermore, while we may all have access to the same facts if many are being ignored or we are not incorporating all the evidence into our conclusions then we ought not think that our interpretations are trustworthy.
With respect to the evidence and how it should be interpreted regarding the age of the Earth I make the following observations about the presentations made by the Answers in Genesis team:
Casting Doubt is the First Line of Defense
First, in most cases the physical evidence presented by Dr. Snelling doesn't so much point to a young earth as it is used to show that the Earth may not be ancient. Suggesting the earth many not be ancient is not the same as building a positive case for a young earth. Ironically, Andrew demonstrated that the majority of dating methods suggest that the Earth is quite old. In many cases the dates may be older or younger than expected by conventional geologists but nonetheless much older than 6000 years. His goal was not to show that dates are young but to suggest that radiometric dating isn't reliable for producing specific dates.
We—Solid Rock Lectures—believe that radiometric dating can and does yield reliable dates in the majority of situations and we have demonstrated that it is possible to test the criteria—or assumptions—of these methods even while recognizing their limitations. But the point here is that no non-Christian, upon examining the hundreds of thousands of radiometric dates produced, would come to the conclusion that the rocks can't be more than 4250 years old. Radiometric dating is not a positive evidence for a young earth. Dr. Snelling himself could not provide any reasonable explanation for how radiometric dating could be used as a positive evidence for a young earth. He had to resort to ad hoc hypotheses about changes in rates during the Flood to help force the dates into some conformity with a young Earth. In other words, he has to assume the truth of a young earth and then use that assumption to re-interpret the radiometric data. We will explore his presuppositionalist approach later in this article.
In effect, the strategy of young earth practitioners is to cast doubt on the validity of old earth evidence, but in most cases this does that doubt in an absolute age of the Earth should be equated as support for a young Earth. So where is the evidence for a young Earth? A number of evidences for a global flood were presented. In most of these cases those evidences consisted of possible fulfilled predictions of flood geology theory. However, in addition to some being based on serious misconceptions about the geological record and geological processes, we would submit that at best these evidences suggest only the possibility of a global flood but do not require a global flood. For example, widespread horizontal sand deposits could be interpreted as resulting from a global flood but the fact that similar sediments are formed today on continental shelves under non-global flood conditions tells us that such deposits are not smoking gun evidence that a global flood had to have occurred. Likewise, large collections of fossil bones could have occurred in a global flood but there are equally or more likely explanations that don't require a global flood for their origins.
The goal of the young earth approach in their use of evidences is to promote a possible alternative reading of the evidence that may make a young earth feasible. But their case is much like the defense attorneys case in the murder trial of New England Patriot's Aaron Hernandez. The defense, having little data that supported their client, was left to draw attention to a few minor pieces of evidence that suggested the possibility that Hernandez may not have been directly involved. In additional they tried to cast doubt on the other facts that clearly didn't point to his innocence. In the end, the weight of the combined evidence produced a cohesive and compelling case that left no reasonable doubt in the juror's minds that he did participate in the murder of Odin Lloyd. To grab a line from another famous trial, the creationist approach is to focus all the attention on one or two points and in Popperian fashion claim that "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit." Just create doubt and hope that doubt will lead the juror to consider their alternative interpretation.
Presuppositional Apologetics Drive Creationism
This brings me to my second observation. We have witnessed from Dr. Mortenson and Dr. Snelling a clear presuppositional apologetic. They have both made it clear that the starting point for "interpreting" the facts is first knowing the result. They already know the truth and most only find a way to interpret the evidence to support that truth. In my analogy above it is as if they have inside knowledge that Hernandez was absolutely innocent. While a straightforward examination of the data point strongly toward his guilt since they know the truth they can, in good conscience, argue on even the slimmest of evidence that he must be found innocent. They know the truth and so interpretation requires only finding a possible way to connect the dots.
For young earth creationists, the interpretation of Scripture leads them to conclude that the Earth must be young. This foundational interpretation of biblical evidence is combined with the additional inference that all death, fuzzily defined as applying to most animals (see: Plants and the Biblical Definition of Life), must post-date Adam. With those assumptions providing the absolute foundational truth they must stand upon, the only place that they can find to put all that evidence of the death of critters is in a global flood. The Bible says nothing about the origin of rock layers directly nor does it require that a global flood even have significantly altered the entire Earth's surface. But the flood geology of young earth creationists is asserted to be a necessary belief if one wants to claim to take the Bible literally.
With this set of presuppositions in hand they then turn to the physical evidence. Because God's creation must be consistent with his Word, a view with which we heartily agree, young earth creationists can boldly claim that all the evidence must point to a young Earth since it is in fact young. We must reiterate that it is crucial for you to recognize that when the young earth creationists approaches the data to interpret these data they already know the answer, as Terry Mortenson emphatically stated, because they have the infallible Word of God backing them up.
Ken Ham clearly stated the same principle in the debate with Bill Nye when asked if there was any evidence that could be produced that would make him rethink the age of the Earth. He answered simply: No. Ham was being very honest, there is NO evidence that could possibly point him to anything but what he already knows which is the Earth is young. Hence, no data can say otherwise! I think there is a huge assumption here about infallible assumptions but let us leave that aside for a discussion on another day.
Young earth creationists claim to "do science" and "love science" but as Andrew Snelling tests his ideas about radionuclides in asteroids what if the results don't come out as he predicted they would? Will he admit that the evidence can more easily be interpreted as supporting an old Earth? No, and I don't expect him to. He will by necessity, and without a second thought, reinterpret the data to fit a young earth by looking for any other explanation that fits his presuppositions no matter how much it may seem to be putting a square peg in a round hole. With this reinterpretation complete, creationists can claim that there is no, and will never be, any evidence that supports an old earth. There are times they may admit the data appear to support an old earth but they believe this is only because the data have not been looked at with the right "worldview glasses." A last resort is to admit the data are hard to interpret as supportive of a young earth but then say we simply don't know enough to understand how it supports a young earth but we will someday.
Please don't miss the importance of this point. The evidence is interpreted with the worldview glasses of a young earth on and therefore the evidence is fit into that worldview. In many ways we have witnessed this form of interpretation happening right here in this class and have witnessed how difficult it can be for the young earth creationists to draw up an comprehensive explanation for the physical features of the Earth that fits the data well. The radiometric dating is exceptionally difficult to fit and so we are left with "Well I wish I knew" or "God could have created various starting conditions" or "we were not there" as exasperated responses. We are provided with attempts to cast doubt and suspicion about radiometric dating but no plausible explanation for why most dating methods do provide consistent results.
In addition, floating forests, hydrological sorting, animals running around during the Flood laying eggs and then getting washed away are all attempts to explain the accepted "facts" of the fossil record within a young earth presupposition. In some cases the explanations are only barely plausible and in many cases we believe they are not even that! In many cases their explanations, while possible, are not explanations that are most obvious or likely. In the young earth mind they simply must be the explanation even if they are not likely.
To reiterate, at the end of the day, the young earth approach is more about creating doubt about the Old Earth view than it is producing a strong positive view of a young earth. But lets move on to an even more critical aspect of the YEC apologetic.
Circular Use of Evidence to Support an Evidentialist Approach of Doing Apologetics
The third observation I have builds on the second. All of the discussion of worldview and having the "right" beginning point to interpreting the data is a tacit admission that a straightforward examination of the data doesn't immediately point to a young earth. YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN A YOUNG EARTH BEFORE THE EVIDENCE WILL POINT YOU IN THAT DIRECTION. Philosophically I don't have a huge problem with this. After all, I identify as more of a Vantillian presuppositionalist myself when it comes to apologetics. But here is what I find disturbing about the approach of Answers in Genesis to the age question. Andrew Snelling and Terry Mortenson have taken a clear presuppositional view to filtering the data of general revelation. But Ken Ham's enterprise is built on an evidentialist apologetic approach to promoting the gospel message. What is the stated purpose of the Creation Museum and future Ark? To witness to the world that the claims of the Bible are true by showing the world that a global flood and a young earth are "feasible" or "possible." The evidence of a young earth is presented to convince the unbeliever that the Bible may be right after all, in all its teachings. It is hoped that once the unbeliever is struck by the truth that the Bible speaks on the topic of the age of the earth they will then come to see the truth of the salvific message of the Bible.
Do you see what is happening here? The unbeliever is told they don't have the right glasses to interpret the data but the Creation Museum is claiming the evidence from the world shows the Earth is young. But as we have seen the evidence only points to a young earth if you already know that the Earth is young. These are mixed messages. Ken Ham gives talks and states that there are "hundreds of evidences" that point to a young earth. This is factually incorrect. Most of those evidences do not point to a 6000 year old earth but at best only suggest the possibility that the Earth that is not billions of years old even when you have your young earth glasses on.
I find it troubling that Christians are being told, or at least strongly given the impression, that all the evidence points to a young earth and that this is something they can lean upon to strengthen their faith or even find faith. In fact, if AiG is correct in their original presupposition that the earth is young I will grant that all the evidence really should point to a young earth because it must. But, as an apologetic for why one should believe the Bible you can't use data that have been massaged to fit the Bible message to prove the Bible is correct. This is a circular apologetic that AiG in particular is especially prone to follow. Again, I would stress that I am not adverse to the use of presuppositional apologetics but it should not be used inappropriately.
So Does the Evidence Really Point to a Young Earth?
So again, we ask; does the evidence point to a young earth? I think that it does so ONLY if you first assume the Earth is young and even then it only points that way very very dimly, and only if you cherry pick your starting data. But as Christians, should we not expect more? Shouldn't we expect that if the Earth were young that it would be obvious? Shouldn't it be obvious even to the unbeliever even if they may want to believe the world is vastly older? Why have most people, including a large majority of Christians involved with the collection of the data being discussed, over the past several hundred years concluded that the Earth is more than 6000 years old? Because they are atheist? Because they hate God and want to deny Him as creator? No, because the most obvious interpretation of the vast majority of the evidence is that it points to an ancient earth. Many, and here I disagree with Dr. Mortenson's assessment of the history of deep time discovery, devout Christians over the past 300 years have struggled with the data that was in front of their eyes. They have worked with worldview glasses on that should have led them to believe the Earth is young but they have not been able to deny the evidence that so clearly pointed in a different direction. They discovered the evidence and they were not being bullied by others to change their minds. They lived in environments that promoted a young earth and thus had nothing to gain by expressing doubt but doubt they did because of how obvious the evidence was that the Earth was indeed ancient.
The simplest explanation for layers of rock or vast distances of light, or millions of craters on the moon and Mars is that these must have taken a long time to have formed. No one is going to look at these things and immediately jump to the conclusion that they are young. Now, after they conclude they are very old they may find that this belief fits their secular worldview but their secular worldview isn't necessarily such an overriding force that the obvious nature of thing doesn't show forth itself. Creation should speak of God and does point to God and the fact that creation is most simply interpreted as being ancient should mean something. Common grace allows the non-Christian to discover many truths of God's creation. The average person with little background in science can see volcanoes and extrapolate in their minds how long it must have taken for them to form and thus come to the simple solution that they are old. Now, it could be true that the past was different from today but observations and testing of that hypothesis has shown that this is not likely and would not help to explain the observed evidence around us anyway. We should not be surprised that the world doesn't look out and see evidence of a young Earth.
Our concern for seminary students and those that will stand and speak for God is that they must be bold where they should be bold but cautious where they need to be cautious. They may believe, as Dr. Mortenson does, that the Earth MUST be young and therefore this data MUST be constrained to fit that worldview. But we must be careful to realize that the average person is going to be exposed to thousands of evidences in their lifetime that on the face of it or by simple common sense will lead them to conclude that the Earth may be older than 6000 years. By simply asserting that the "all the evidence points to a young Earth" and therefore you must believe, the new believer or non-Christian is placed in the position of seeing a disconnect between God's general revelation and this command to believe. Ironically, young earth creationists portray their view as the simple interpretation of Scripture but then turn around and deny the simple message of general revelation requiring instead a highly contorted set of assumptions and complicated theories to understand how the Earth could be young.
We need not make light of the obvious characteristics of the world which speak of great age as if we can just wave the magic wand of putting on the right Biblical glasses it will all be made clear. The fact is that it isn't at all made clear. Hundreds of years of history makes it very "clear" that the evidence for a young earth is far from obvious even when you start with the belief that the evidence must support a young earth. Why have so many great Christians "fallen away" from this truth as Dr. Mortenson pointed out? Maybe it wasn't that this was their one area of great weakness but rather it was because over and over again a close inspection of the physical and biblical evidence by Christians has revealed that neither absolutely demands that the Earth be young and thus the age of the Earth is left to exploration and testing.


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St. Herman of Alaska + December 13
In an obscure corner of what is now Alaska, on an Aleutian island called Spruce, a monk labored from the late 1700's until his repose in 1837. Braving subzero temperatures, plagues and storms, and ill treatment from people who resented and misunderstood him, St. Herman lived a life marked by astonishing ascetic labor that gave birth to a deep love and concern for all with whom he came in contact. Strangely, despite the miracles associated with him not only throughout his life but also, after his death, he was all but forgotten after he reposed.
"Thirty years will pass after my death, all those who live now on Spruce Island will be dead, you alone will remain alive, and you will be old and poor; then they will remember me," Father Herman said to his Aleut follower, Ignatius Aliaga. As with other prophecies of the saint, this one too was fulfilled, as in 1867, Bishop Peter of Alaska began a formal investigation into his life. It wasn't until 1894 that his story became known to the outside world, and then his glorification waited another 76 years, until August 9, 1970.
Born into a merchant family in the diocese of Moscow, St. Herman became a monk when he was still a teenager, first entering the Holy Trinity Sergius Hermitage near Petersburg, then later moving on to venerable Valaam Monastery. The saint grew to love Valaam with his entire being; monks there remembered him singing at the cliros in a pleasant tenor voice, while tears streamed from his eyes. For the rest of his life, St. Herman considered Valaam his spiritual home; indeed, he called his hermitage on Spruce Island "New Valaam." In a letter to Abbot Nazarius, he once wrote, "Your paternal kindness to my lowliness will not be erased from my heart, neither the terrible impenetrable Siberian wilds, nor its dark forests, nor will the great rivers wash away the memory; neither will rough seas extinguish these feelings. For in my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam and look always at it across the great ocean."
In the second half of the 1700s, explorers were expanding the boundaries of Russia, and Metropolitan Gabriel asked Valaam's Elder Nazarius to choose ten men to evangelize the Aleutians. Sadly, after five successful years of founding schools and churches, the head of the mission Archimandrite Ioasaph and his entire entourage drowned. One after another, others working on the mission left, until St. Herman remained alone.
One time, St. Herman was asked, "How do you, Fr. Herman, manage to live alone in the forest, don't you get bored?" He answered "No, I'm not alone there! There is God, and God is everywhere! There are holy angels! How can one be bored with them? With whom is it more pleasant and better to converse, angels or people? Angels, of course!"
In addition to conversing with the angels throughout his hours of prayer and worship, St. Herman worked tirelessly. He ate and slept very little and when he slept, he used a bed that was a board, resting his head on a pillow of bricks. All his life, he wore the same simple clothing—a sleeveless deerskin shirt, his cassock and monk's hat, a faded, patched mantle, and his shoes. In rain and storms, in the midst of winter snow or severe frost, he never changed his garments or added layers for warmth. His physical feats astonished those who knew him; one disciple saw him walking barefoot on a winter's night, hauling a log that would have been difficult for four men to carry. With his own hands he built his cell and chapel, hauled baskets of kelp from the ocean to fertilize his garden, and in the midst of the labor meticulously kept the monk's rule of services and prayers.
Tending his own garden and diligently observing his monastic rule didn't keep St. Herman from reaching out with great love and concern to his Aleutian neighbors. On feast days and Sundays, he would gather them in the chapel next to his cell, and lead them in holy services; the people loved to listen to his spiritual teaching, and would visit him at all hours of the day and night, staying until early morning to absorb his instruction. The local Russian governor Yanovsky recalled, "To my amazement he spoke so powerfully, so sensibly, and argued so convincingly that it now seems to me that no education or earthly wisdom could withstand his words. We conversed every day until midnight, and even later, about the love of God, about eternity, about the salvation of the soul, and about Christian life. His sweet speech poured forth from his lips in an unceasing stream."
Saint Herman especially loved the Aleutian children, for whom he would bake cookies, and he watched over those who were weak and powerless. He started a school for orphans, tended the sick during a plague that decimated the population, and defended the native Aleuts before the Russian fur traders who were exploiting them. The people began to tell each other of miracles they'd seen. Father Herman would tell someone of a future event and it would come to pass; animals, even bears, would eat from his hands; he placed an icon of the Mother of God in the sand and a tidal wave receded back into the ocean.
People flocked to the elder for counsel and help. Affectionately, the Aleuts began to call him their "North Star," referring to how his teaching guided and grounded them, or the even more intimate "Apa," which meant grandfather. Couples with troubled marriages would seek his advice. With meekness, he would reproach people for their lack of sobriety or their cruelty. He himself for years refused any titles of elevation within the church, preferring the simplest designation, "monk." His letters reflect his simplicity and tender disposition. "Our sins," he wrote, "do not in the least hinder our Christianity… Sin, to one who loves God, is nothing other than an arrow from the enemy in battle. The vain desires of this world separate us from our homeland; love of them and habit clothe our soul as if in a hideous garment. We who travel on the journey of this life and call on God to help us, ought to divest ourselves of this garment and clothe ourselves in new desires, in a new love of the age to come, and thereby receive knowledge of how near or how far we are from our heavenly homeland."
As the time of St. Herman's repose drew closer, he began to tell his disciples to prepare, giving them specific instructions about his burial and services. Everything he prophesied related to his death came to pass, exactly as he had foretold, and so it was that on December 13, 1837, he leaned his head on the chest of his disciple Gerasim and reposed. "Glory to Thee, O Lord," he pronounced with shining face, just before taking his last breath. In various Aleutian towns, people reported seeing a pillar of light, reaching from Spruce Island to the heavens. "St. Herman has left us," one villager reportedly said.
Fortunately for the Aleuts and all Alaskans, St. Herman hasn't ever left them. Miracles attributed to his intercessions have happened since his repose and are still happening today. Most Native Alaskans today are still Orthodox, and they honor his memory with prayers and pilgrimages. His relics rest in the Resurrection Church on Kodiak, and Orthodox faithful from all over the world come to venerate them and ask for his prayers.
O blessed Father Herman of Alaska,
North star of Christ's holy Church,
The light of your holy life and great deeds,
Guides those who follow the Orthodox Way.
Together we lift high the Holy Cross
You planted firmly in America.
Let all behold and glorify Jesus Christ,
Singing His Holy Resurrection.
Blessed ascetic of the northern wilds
And gracious intercessor for the whole world,
Teacher of the Orthodox Faith
And good instructor of piety,
Adornment of Alaska and joy of all America,
Holy Father Herman
Pray to Christ God that He save our souls.


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Today's News: Our Take - Oz Actor Tony Musante Dies at 77
TV Guide
Tony Musante, who played Nino Chibette on Oz, died Tuesday in New York City, The Los Angeles Times reports. He was 77.
Musante died from complications following heart surgery.
Remember other celebrities we lost this year
In addition to Oz, Musante starred as the titular detective on Toma, acted alongside Martin Sheen inThe Incident and starred opposite Meryl Streep in a 1976 theatrical production of 27 Wagons Full of Cotton. He also received an Emmy nomination for his guest-starring role in a 1975 episode ofMedical Story.
Musante is survived by his wife Jane Sparkes Musante, whom he married in 1962.
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