or journal which
I started in August 2002.
The current web log is at http://www.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/old_site/index.html
and used to be http://members.ozemail.com.au/~lindafrd/index.html
(Translations http://babelfish.altavista.com/ )
Conversations on any of these issues are welcome. My email is at lindafrd@pcug.org.au
Thursday 6th May
It was great to get email from a counsellor in the UK who is discussing the effects of counselling on MS and had noticed the comments about stress as a trigger. The best scientific work that has been done is the Danish work from Aarhus University where they were doing a lot of different statistical work on the effects of the death of a child on the consequent health of parents. Not only was cardiac health affected, but this adult population had a much higher level of MS.
20th February. 2004
Thursday December 11th 2003
Wednesday November 19th 2003
Saturday November 1st 2003 (All Saints Day)
Monday September 8th 2003
Monday August 11th 2003
Saturday August 2nd
Sunday July 13th 2003
June 27th 2003
The Anglican church (of which I am a deacon) is tearing itself apart
again over issues of sexuality. Gay sexuality especially is a problem for
some. If those biblical scholars cut out the verses they find about it,
then the bible would still hold together. If they cut out the verses on
money, you would be left with some scattered bits of paper! Where is the
passion for peace and justice!
In the meantime I must report that the skinks have almost gone into hibernation last week (first week of April). I did see some today in the heat of the day, but they are keeping low. Additionally the White Cheeked Honey eater's migration has started too. They are going down to the coast. (I first noticed them during the last week of March.)
January 21st 2002
14 August 2002
14 August 2002
The work is in:
Neurology. 2004 Mar 9;62(5):726-9.
The risk of multiple sclerosis in bereaved parents: A nationwide cohort study in Denmark.
Li J, Johansen C, Bronnum-Hansen H, Stenager E, Koch-Henriksen N, Olsen J.
The April 2004 edition of the Annals of Neurology has an interesting lot of MS articles in it. I must get into the John Curtin School of Medical Research to read the editorial:
"Pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis: The eyes only see what the mind is prepared to comprehend" (p 455-457)
Bruce D Trapp
This sounds to me like the "Old Chinese saying" that 83 per cent of what we see is behind the eyes." (Or is that the modern research which has discovered that the occiptal region of the brain which interprets what we see has so many more connections with the rest of the brain than with the optic nerve.)
But perhaps it is more likely to refer to the recent Sydney research which has evidence which challenges the demyelination and auto immunity "paradigm" which seems to run MS research. (And the comment that I heard about this is that what scientists work on depends on getting the grants, and once started, they are locked into the work. Christopher Reeve has similar comments about medical research.)
These days there is a much broader discussion to be had on the question of What is Freedom? Doesn't it depend a lot on having the imagination to "think outside the square"? Anwar Ibrahim (from a Malaysian jail) described the recent Iraq war as a "failure of international imagination." Democracy depends on people actually thinking. And, thinking outside of the dominant ideas. (I stopped myself from using paradigm there!
Now there is a list that would be worth having. seminal books and ideas, or, at least, the books that have had an influence.... Looking for a book in my jumble of bookshelves showed me quite a few, as well as many books still to be read!
Perhaps I need to hibernate, like the skinks. They have definitely been gone since mid April. The adults were looking tired and dark. Their eyes were closing late in March. Some were still shedding skin, and the youngsters were definitely the last to disappear. Some came out of the ceiling a few weeks ago. I heard them first, and investigated and saw them come down. I don't know if they went back there. They will be in the fibreglass insulation unfortunately.
Kangaroos are venturing close to the house too. Grass and water is scarce. Many are being hit on the roads as well. I wonder if the road carnage will be a horrifying story in a century or so. We take it so much for granted these days.
Saturday 20th March 2004
A while ago we watched a kookaburra eating one of the one year old skinks.
There is a population explosion after all! And it is very good to see (and hear) the kookaburras around.
but...
and birds have been killed here by a neighbourhood cat. (stray?, I don't think so.)
Still on skinks: another lot of tiny ones appeared. It would seem that there is more than one adult female around now. The ones we have seen since they were babies would be at least three years old, if not four. Obviously now adult. This might explain the second lot of young born last year. I counted ten babies this morning, maybe there weren't six in the second lot from the younger female.
I am listening to JS Bach's St John Passion, and absolutely blown away by this music. And I am singing in it on Passion Sunday! It is very hard work in rehearsal, it is amazing to pull it apart and ask the question "why put that note there?" (to which there usually isn't an answer: the tenors simply have to sing it!)
And I am waiting for Lauren to come to collect my mother's old pottery kiln. I have been putting bits and pieces together including the old log books, and it is good to go over the old times between the sixties and eighties.
It is especially good to be passing on precious stuff to someone who is really excited by clay.
On Friday 19th March I stood with the Women in Black, then drank coffee with friends, including Jeni Allenby, and discovered the agony of the Palestinian archive's loss when she took an exhibit to the USA last year. I knew it had been "lost" at Los Angeles airport, but it was taken away by security, and probably then destroyed. Since this is done under the "homeland security" provisions, there is no recourse, insurance won't pay, the lost items simply can't be found. What kind of police state is developing there (and here?)
Following that I watched "Fog of War", the documentary on Robert McNamara. I learnt some things that I didn't know. I was shocked to hear of things that as a demonstrator in the seventies, I knew, but he only learnt in 1992!
I also hope that Australians do go to see this and not hear a word about Australia's support of the USA. I am probably about to become a Veteran's Affairs pensioner because Fred was on the Perth for two tours of duty in Vietnam. It is a war which scarred us too! But it seems that none of the USA's allies supported it. (read the sarcasm!)
Admittedly, Fred did have a passport that would have allowed him into Hanoi! He was still using his British passport then! but it wouldn't have been very sensible for an Aussie sailor to go there! <g>
I am working on an LentenCalendar. Have a look at
http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/Lenten_Calendar/day_seven.html
It is quite a task keeping up with the fact that the sun rises every morning and a new day has come!
Yes, that is exactly what I said in Advent!
Friday, 5th March 2004
There are skinks in the house, baby ones that try to eat my finger, and have "teeth" as sharp as young puppies, and I have a problem.
I don't speak the language of the land.
That language is Wiradjuri or Ngungawal. And the language of the settlers that I speak is an imperial language at that!
Once, my ancestors spoke a language which I am told had many words to describe the sea. They were fishing folk off the coasts of Scotland, speaking Gaelic.
My grandfather, (born in London, raised by English grandparents, but taken in hand by Scottish aunts as well!) had a Scottish accent, and did speak a bit of Gaelic.
There are many other languages in my family's history, various celtic and european ones, but now they are all subsumed into the one lingua franca (but not french!) that is the language of my mother tongue.
I enjoy much about English, and it is the language of much of my own background. But.....
It has to do so much nowadays. And that doesn't include being the language of the land. Not the land on which I live.
Those languages are dying or already gone. I live in a land that has been settled by an alien people.
We don't know either the land or the language.
It seems to me, that there are maybe three kinds of language; "indigenous"; "settler" and "imperial"
"Imperial" is imposed and has power.
Settler" is a language of a community; but a community which has moved onto the land from elsewhere, and is probably more a language of town and city, even if it has to do the work of the countryside as well.
"Indigenous" is the language of a people who are formed by the land and whose language is formed by the land, or whose language forms the land, or the way in which it is seen.
I am reminded also of watching Nana Tonga in Queanbeyan at a barbecue. Some island music was playing and Nana got up and danced; on her own, in the middle of the yard. In that dance you could see the sea; the currents; the corals and the fish. All vibrant and alive in this elderly woman's hands and body and face.
Is a land, a language, a people, danced into being?
If I copy the sound that I hear of aboriginal language, then the skinks hear me and take notice. I am sure it is different... not being able to do it properly means that I cannot yet belong.
Jackie French dances along the waterways on her Araluen place and asks how long, how many generations, does it take until we belong; until we (settlers) are indigenous?
How long does it take to learn the language of the land. and if it is a language that has not only "died" but been lost, then will it ever happen?
We are looking at a future (and a past) where the land has been formed by the people; formed mechanistically; not in perception and imagination.
And we will forever then be separated from the wholeness of the land; unable to communicate at any depth.
Australian languages are disappearing. We lose more than the community; we lose a whole way of communicating with this land.
Will we ever know what we have lost?
24th February 2004
On Tuesday, the wind blew the front door open. I don't know for how long. I looked around, worried about snakes inside the house... Then the cat came inside. She looked around, went and had some food and I did something else.
Not long after, Sooty was excited, and there was a deep hiss! Behind the couch, in front of the window, an adult skink!
The cat was unceremoniously dumped in the bedroom. The skink was bribed with watermelon.
It looked like Tip, perhaps. I suspect it may have been the young male (?) that had been in the fight with Tip the day before.
But then, I can't tell males from females. It may certainly have been a four or five year old though.
Gradually it came towards the door, but there was an open space in front of the door. No way would it go over it!
I got closer and tried to pick it up. ...oops bad mistake! skinks are total muscle! It twisted and turned with mouth wide open, ready to bite.
I lost him, and he disappeared under the couch again.
Fred came home and helped, but exposing the floor under the couch, just precipitated a rushed move to under more furniture!
No way would the skink come out. It was tapped with a duster... duster was bitten and fought with! More enticing water melon (it had followed the redness, and ignored white pears), even meat, would not get more than a nose poked out.
Eventually, Fred had a brainwave! A piece of carpet was laid between the hiding hole and the door, mounded up to form a cave underneath.
It worked! He went into the "cave" and his retreat was cut off. The carpet was pushed up so the doorway was reachable (in the dark) and one skink scuttled free!
In the meantime, the cat had gone to sleep. But on my sheet in bed. <sigh>
Today, extreme heat, (38 degrees, very nearly the "century" in farenheit.) I fed some watermelon to "Tip", and he nearly drew blood! He wanted a finger, not the watermelon. Then later (at dusk) I saw him attached to another skink's hind leg. Biting firmly!
I suspected some funny business (mating) was going on. A short while later though, they were on top of the wall, head to head, both biting, and the other skink was caught in the chicken wire!
With some difficulty we released it, and it was immediately chased again by Tip, into the garden.
Was it a young female? or a male being tossed out of the family yard. (not enough food)... or was it that a snake was around. Tip especially was really aggressive. (and frightened?)....
February news is of skinks.
See photos of the new babies at Skinks1.html http://members.ozemail.com.au/~lindafrd/Skinks1.html
The four photos on this page are over 30Kbs each.
Saturday January 31st 2004
Tonight I have changed the whole format of the page so it is more accessible.
I do like using tables to format whole pages, but I am told they are difficult to read with Jaws and other text reading devices. I used the format that I have developed for the St Philip's parish web site (at http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/index.html)
I am well over the agony of December. In fact I have to read my own web log to remember it! And I am waiting for the mother skink to have another batch of youngsters. And unfortunately Clown wasn't well when she came back from the vet's and the blood clot attacked her again. We buried her near the apple trees that she was sleeping under during the weeks before.
I must also put my Christmas letter on this site too. (I did) It is at:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~lindafrd/Christmas_Letter_2003_web.pdf
But I forgot to put the year in the heading! It was written in December 2003 as the file name realises.
Now I will leave you with December. Soon it will go into the archive.
I have two reasons for not adding to this log lately. One good, one bad....
I am working on an Advent Calendar. It's first page is at
http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/Advent_Calendar/AdventOne.html
It is quite a task keeping up with the fact that the sun rises every morning and a new day has come!
This is especially true when I wake up with my headache still.... that is, if I have been asleep.
I am very keen on the drug that I take (Parnate) which normally wakes me up and helps the way my brain works.
However, it has a real sting in the tail and I found it last week.
I had a busy day which was to finish at the ordination in Goulburn.
I guess I was more stressed about that than I realise.
I had cheese for lunch. The week before that cheese was fine and I had had no reaction to it at all.
But, it had been sitting untouched in the fridge for a week. I forgot! (The tyramine had developed!)
A little later I looked at my pills and decided that I hadn't taken them that morning.
I still don't know if that is correct or not, but I took two pills just before we left home. I might have ended up taking four, I don't know.
...rushed around, packed the car, Fred was driving fortunately...
I sat down and breathed a sigh of relief as we moved off.
oops, I relaxed. and my head was caught in a vice.
We didn't go to Goulburn.
we went straight to Accident and Emergency in Queanbeyan.
I was greeted with: "you've come here because you have a headache?"
uh... "yes", I sheepishly say... and try to explain.
Fortunately this tyramine reaction started just as the car moved off and within twenty minutes we were in the hospital.
When my blood pressure was taken the top figure was over 200.
By the time I was really taking notice and writing things down it had gone down to 182/97
I was being given panadol (after having committed the sin in the car of taking aspirin!)
Intravenous maxolon when a vein was finally found... did the job. And three hours later I went home.
I made another mistake by not taking the Parnate for the next two days. A late night visit to a pharmacy brought the diagnosis of withdrawal symptoms!
I will never take heroin! I don't want to ever go through withdrawal again.
Panadol (just paracetamol) became panadeine (a bit of codeine added) and the weird symptoms around my whole body concentrated into the headache.
After a couple of days of maximum panadeine I saw a doctor again. (the third one), and finally gave it up as a bad job!
Sleepless nights, because I couldn't put my head down; I was pacing about yelling at the moon, wondering how to live in this body.
It has now settled into an ache from which I can be distracted during the day, and last night a construction of pillows allowed some sleep.
Warm showers and baths are helping and I am down to just a couple of aspirin and keeping busy during the day.
and today! a massage as I get a cancellation.
maybe life will start to look brighter soon.
but now Clown (the cat) has returned from two days in the vet hospital, and is proving she is well.
another baby skink has been killed.
Shockingly hot, but an early morning start to escape the heat had us down by the creek in the early morning light. And there sunning itself on the grass bank was a water dragon! There is a family about half a kilometre downstream that I can see from the road. This one is the first we have seen here on the block. Last season I had seen something swim away as I walked past in the early evening. I had thought more about water rats than lizards. But it must have been this fellow.
We are down one baby skink. Taken by one of the cats and left on the mat as an offering. They are restricted to the house now unless we shepherd them very carefully. I did need to get Sooty away from the steps tonight to let one of the two year olds get home. And this morning, at the sink I watched as a youngster got up to the window sill and tested the cactus there! At least they are now spreading out again after a scare from the snake. These skinks radiate terror when that happens. As did a toad that I saw one night when I came home. It was not the cat that it was scared by. Something else was about. Hopefully my presence in the house gave the safety that it was seeking.
Thirty years ago I would be accused of anthropomorphism. Now I feel that charge makes us unable to appreciate the complexity and diversity of life.
But the terror is real. Even from the snake when the cat was excitedly chasing it!
Last summer I was really suprised one day when I was walking. I felt a strong message, or emotion, (it is hard to know what to call it) and looked down at my feet to see a single ant, guarding the unseen nest, mandibles raised, and staring at me until I turned and noticed it. I moved on as quietly and quickly as I could. The fierceness and courage of this tiny insect had made me turn to see it!
A few years ago a preying mantis had shocked me as well. It was on my hand, I was taking it over to the trees for some reason. I yelled out at a cat misbehaving or something. And this mantis turned and looked at me in amazement! Why did I make such a noise? Or perhaps that was shock. It certainly heard me and noticed, and turned to look at the source of the noise. It looked straight at me.
That changed the way I think about animals and insects.
I have added a "free give away" notice at the top to advertise my "MS Brochure". It is a sort of "remainder sale" of an idea that I last worked on in 1999, but I reckon is still useful for thinking about MS. (have look... ..Free booklet!... ideas about the complexity of MS. Short_Booklet.pdf (44Kbs)
and... collected column "Where Angels Fear to Tread" (37Kbs)
To read the PDF document with a screen reader please link to the Access Adobe website http://access.adobe.com/
Download the PDF reader at http://www.adobe.com/
I have also changed the news of the skinks in the heading. I was checking on the youngsters last week as it seemed there were only four. But they hide in the stone wall and don't sunbathe as much as the adults or nearly adult skinks!
It takes a lot of time to quietly watch and count. and then I lose count and have to start again! There are at least ten.
I am also listening now (1st November 2003) to the Science Show http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/
really interesting on autism, but also why is the human brain so large and the answer given is religion!
Apologies that this has been a long time coming.
I plead illness (a cold) and other work. (Especially on the St Philip's web site and the CAMRA photos.)
http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/index.html
and http://www.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Beggars_Opera_Photos.html
Spring has Sprung! and on Thursday, 4th of September, the first skink appeared. It was one of the large ones that we saw, and it went to ground as we spoke too loudly to the cats. On Friday I saw the first lot of migratory white cheeked honey eaters, and they came through again today. So we have indications of the season changing in addition to the blossoms and bulbs that surround us. (Burra blossoms are budding, but they are likely to be hit by a late hard frost! <sigh>)
Anna gave me this link to a BBC news item today. There is a longer commentary on Paul's MS site at http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/
The BBC link is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3136613.stm
The interesting thing is that Serotonin based anti depressants (SSRIs) actually help the hippocampus to grow more connections.
Talking to Anna later, I wondered if this was the reason that it might take a couple of months for the drugs to work.
This contrasts with my own experience of an almost instantaneous result from my own drug which is an MAOI.
But then too, I wonder if the "depression" that I have is a result of injury to the brain stem from an MS plaque.
The research is published in the British Medical Journal this month (August 2003) http://bmj.com/current.shtml [327 [7410]
Other things that are happening: I preached yesterday and that sermon is up at the parish web site that I am setting up.
It is at http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/sermons/10August2003_LA.html
The amount of time this web site is taking is flabbergasting me! But then again, I'm rather addicted to writing the HTML!
I have been working on a new web site this week for my parish. It is now on the web at http://www.acay.com.au/~stphil/index.html
Lots of other things are taking my attention and energy as well. It is amazing sometimes just how busy a life can be without going to work!
and then again, I have learnt to knit again and finished a black woollen scarf tonight to wear at Women in Black! (if I ever get there!)
and, as far as web authoring is concerned, sigh, the more you know, the more you know you don't know!
Its been an exciting time finding my way around this web site again.
I feel like I know what to do now. I did my last ICDL test last week. I was using PowerPoint and really started to enjoy it!
"grinning"
I'm giving the cat a pill every 12 hours for thyroid problems. She
gets some margarine and a napkin (a towel loosely around her neck so the
front paws don't claw me! ...then a thumb down her throat and fingers from
the other hand pop the pill down!
mostly it works and she looks for more margarine or butter! We are
getting used to it.
What should I be commenting on? The ghastly outcome of Jeffrey John's
election to the episcopate?
(Was he forced to withdraw? How can Anglicans say anything to the world
when we do these things? But then other Anglicans believe just the opposite.
"sigh") I will be adding more to the essays and letters in my queer section;
I can see that. Maybe this is when I should be doing some independent scholarship.
What I want to look at doesn't fit easily into any field of study. And
there are some wonderful comments in the parish newsletter from Rob.
I feel like all of that study on HTML has disappeared! But I guess
I did learn something! There are so many little errors creeping in on this
page. ah well!
A lot of my energy has gone into Women in Black and fiddling with the
photos from the new camera. What exciting opportunities come with it. Women
in Black photos are soon to be up on the PCUG page.
http://www.tip.net.au/~lindafrd/Women_in_Black_photos.html
http://www.tip.net.au/%7Elindafrd/photos/Photo_index.html
This revamped page is a mixture of the old and the new. Hopefully by
the end of the year I will have changed the whole site. (and made this
page look more like my template!)
some links:
a new signature:
"If we have offended, so be it. He belongs to us as well as you."
http://www.sbillington.com/ABitAboutCorpusChristi.html
and Tony's page http://www.geocities.com/robertsontony/gay.html
on the other hand, have they really read that Leviticus verse? If so,
how many gay guys has Archbishop Jensen taken out of the city (of Sydney)
and stoned to death? don't laugh, it happens... but these paragons of western
virtue don't seem to know.
"He belongs to us as well as you!"
May 26th 2003
It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need,
and the Air Force has to hold a cake stall to buy a bomber. [Education
in Iraq is free.] ABC News Sunday 11 May 2003: Australia spent $750 million
invading Iraq. ABC News Saturday 24 May 2003: Australia is spending $100
million dollars on rebuilding Iraq.
and hello to visitors and friends. I have just had a look at the log
of visitors and am surprised by the use this site is still getting. I did
pass the web page creation course I was doing. It's now time to clean up
this site! I hope that will happen soon.
bye for now. Linda
April 25th
very early in the morning: I should be in bed sleeping! I am sooo tired
but still "hyper" from having done my exam in "Web Page Creation
and the Internet" this afternoon. I discovered on Tuesday that I really
do
learn by listening to things being explained. I should have been in touch
with teachers more often! But, then again I only know what questions to
ask when I am really pushed. Today I again had the experience of learning
by being tested.
Does anyone out there want a personal web page written up? I can do
it much better than this one now! But what goes into a web page depends
on the person who owns it, not the person who writes it!
What I do with this new knowledge is still a question for me, but I
am really pleased to have done the work.
sometime early in 2003: Finally I start to write again!
Paul has just posted his discussion of Epstein Bar virus at:
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/EpsteinBarrvirus.html
I am extremely interested in Epstein Barr because I had it as a child. I think I missed a lot of time when I was in fourth class, in Mr Knox's class
at Turner Primary School. Pity I missed it then. He was the choir master and a very special man. That would have been 1958 and I was nine years old.
So it wasn't the "classical" MS case of adolescent Epstein Barr.
BUT, on the other hand, my mother told me just before she died, that I had been tired ever since then. I didn't notice it, I thought that everyone had trouble getting up out of bed and doing the things that needed to be done. But now, since diagnosis, those little red pills (and the MS itself in some ways) do keep me going in a way that was totally unexpected.
So, my question does revolve around exhaustion and fatigue with E-B (Glandular Fever is how I knew it) and with MS as well. Is there a link to be found here?
Paul is interested in the possibility of it being molecular mimicry. That the E-B virus looks like myelin; the body fights the virus, and finds the myelin!
Its a great site! And the links to navigate around it are on the page.
Books: I'm reading Dark Victory, by Marian Wilkinson and David Marr, but
giving up because it is so disturbing. What happened with the Tampa (this
is Australian stuff about asylum seekers/refugees) is being done all over
again with the war on Iraq.
Music: practising Bach: Passion of John for Good Friday. its amazingly magnificent!
For lighter moments I am doing two folk songs at the folk song night (solos)
coming up. Garten Mother's Lullaby with Colin playing the really disturbed
piano accompaniment as the mists swirl through the song. And I am also working
on Down by the Sally Gardens and trying not to sound like Andreas Scholl!
...I handed in some work for my web page class but I can't understand the grade!
and I have a digital camera and have some new stuff on my sites.
Wednesday 19th February.
The human misery for Asylum Seekers in Australia continues.
A Radiologist,
Dr Wahedy, (on a Temporary Protection Visa and working in Murray Bridge Abattoir)
committed suicide in January.
A young mother in the Christmas Island Centre was finally taken to Perth,
where she died on January 19th. Her husband was with her, but an Australian
friend was not allowed to be with them. The treatment for severe headache
and very high blood pressure was initially Panadol! Hopefully a coroner's
inquest will be held but here family won't be there. On February 15th her
husband and three children (7, 5 and 3) were deported to Afghanistan. They do not even know if their village is still standing.
And a doctor imprisoned in Port Hedland is grieving the death of his young wife from breast cancer. His wife died in a far off country alone while her
husband waits for a refugee visa. They had a four yr. old daughter.
Perhaps many such stories might be happening in your suburb.
But the agony of detention, separation and loss of hope compounds the sadness.
Remember that the SIEV-X was full of women and children
hoping to join their menfolk; many of whom are Australian citizens.
B A X T E R WATCH :: Tearing down the fences of the Baxter IDC...
http://sievx.com/
http://sievx.com/testimony/2003/20030205SenateHansardCookExtract.html
Thursday 13th February 2003
Life is busy with politics these days; although MS fatigue/depression is messing me up as well. "Anti war" protests (with Women in Black at Parliament last week was a highlight!) and still action for refugees in Australian Detention Centres, especially Baxter.
But still life goes on (or doesn't). Little skinks have been born both on the stone wall by the
house, and the bank below it. I doubt if there are the full complement of
six this year. But then last year there were two lots of six, that is there
were TWELVE baby skinks in the wall. This lot now have a speciality of lying,
very photogenically, in the unused swallow's nest that is built on the wall
and Joe's carving. And, the rooster died, so we now have no poultry in the
chook shed at all. The rats have it all to themselves, but there isn't any
extra chook feed for them.
Like the majority of
Australians I am against any pre-emptive strike against Iraq and feel there
are many ways of dealing with the issues raised by governments like Iraq
and North Korea. (and should we add many, many other countries?) These countries
have been "ignored" for a long time now. Containment and inspection seems
to be a slogan to suggest an appropriate international response. On the other
hand, we should know the history of the supply of armaments (to Iraq at least);
let alone the history of the Korean Peninsular. "Those who do not know their
history are doomed to repeat it!"
My own suggestion on this issue comes from the ISS map that was put together from night time photos.
This map points out both various uninhabited areas of the earth, and other
areas which are not lit by electric light at nights. Then there are certain
areas of the earth that are absolutely bathed in light!
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Lights/
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/earth_lights.jpg
and a very large map (over 500 Kbs)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/earth_lights_lrg.jpg <
I leave it to you to
form your own conclusions, but mine are based on my recognition of the absolute
squandering of the earth's resources by a few of it's people, and then the
poverty of many. And while the causes of poverty may include the shocking
waste of resources in spending on armaments, this is done by both rich and
poor. Let us not blame the poor for doing what the rich also do! (and that
last remark was pointed at both North Korea, which is quite black on this
map, and the USA which is bathed in light.
Here endeth the sermon.
But then I am preaching in a couple of weeks. That sermon (and my last one) ought to be placed here sometime!
It
is January 20th 2003
and the district in which I live is experiencing tremendous
bushfires. The devastation in the nearby city of Canberra is enormous . There
has been nothing quite like it before. Out at Burra (25 Kilometres away from
the city) we are on alert to defend the house, twigs and leaves and
bark (and a huge beetle) rained down on us on Friday and Saturday). The thick
smoke cloud blacked out the sun so that Saturday afternoon felt like a long
eclipse! It formed a cumulus cloud 20,000 feet in the air! The rain that
fell from it was charred leaves and twigs and even one live beetle. The fires
were at least ten or twenty miles away from us. But nothing is taken for
granted.
The local ABC radio station is at
http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/
There are a lot of links to other information there.
http://www.canberraconnect.act.gov.au/general/
is the ACT government site,
and especially for the bushfires:
http://www.esb.act.gov.au/media/bushfire.htm
Daily Telegraph: CANBERRA BUSHFIRES
map1.jpg (JPEG Image, 754x609 pixels)
map2.jpg (JPEG Image, 774x609 pixels)
[and I am using Netscape 7 now! Hallelujah!]
In August I wrote:
I have to work at the
passions in my life. I am in a time of transition. I need to say goodbye to
old foci, and look with new eyes elsewhere.
Should I say "watch
this space?"
December
13th 2002
Now I am enrolled in two courses: one for the International Computer
Driver's Licence; and another on "Internet searching and web page
creation."
I need to work on working on them, and not spending so much time
chaperoning the cats and feeding skinks and crimson rosellas! I am starting
to think and talk about the possibilities of going into business.... this
is a totally new idea for me. fixing up this web site is one of the tasks
to do first!
November 2nd (All Soul's Day)
It is shockingly hot and dry and still a
month to go until summer! Will any trees or skinks or birds survive this
summer?
I am trying to use Netscape 4.7 to
compose this page. (keep it simple!)
MS suggestions: Aspirin to help
keep cool, and to help sleep (COX-1 is increased by this complex medicine
that comes from the bark of Salix (willow)!
Tonic water (or Bitter Lemon) have
quinine in them. Use to minimize restless leg.
October 6th
Tonight I walked over a scorpion
in my stockinged feet!
I thought this was rather early. A
warm front had come through
MS Comments: Steve has asked me to
comment on Dan Milder’s treatment for secondary
progressive MS. There aren’t many treatments that give hope and this combination
of drugs includes one which is available under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (in Australia) for relapsing
remitting MS only. It also needs to go through the proper ways to test
it. This is very painful and frustrating.
Some September comments
Country Diary this month:
The Skinks [Egernia cunninghamia]
have returned:
Both of the Adults, at least seven two year
olds and seven from last years’ two batches.
White Cheeked Honey eaters are migrating
back.
Young Blue Wren Males are changing
colour.
8 October 2002
on Politics:
Is the Prime Minister
(John Howard) suffering Post Traumatic Syndrome from his own experience
in Washington on September 11th 2001?
I wonder if he received
any counselling. He was giving a press conference when they looked out
of the window and saw the Pentagon being hit. (My recollection)
on
Multiple Sclerosis:
Retroviruses and MS seem
to be the very interesting development in MS research.
Try a PubMed search for HERV and MS. There are only 21 papers, but they are interesting.
or
http://www.aegis.com/pubs/aidsline/1999/mar/A9931107.html
I heard about retroviruses in evolution on the local radio when a researcher was talking about species change in rock wallaby populations. it is all verrry interesting!
14 Aug 2002
14 August 2002
Religion/sprituality
I am an Anglican, so very interested
in Rowan Williams who is soon to become Archbishop of Canterbury. His comments
on how such a diverse church as this can stay together, and live
with one another are important.
Personal:
I have to work at the passions in my
life. I am in a time of transition. I need to say goodbye to old foci,
and look with new eyes elsewhere.
Should I say "watch this space?"
This web site is designed and maintained by Linda Anchell. Write to:lindafrd@pcug.org.au
Originally established in 1996 and extensively changed in 2003
