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Medico MusingsIdeas from a distant time zone 11月11日 Hawaii 4-0HAWAII 4-0
Our best friends got married in Hawaii on the rim of Haleakala at sunrise, and being as Miki and I were not only the witnesses, best man and bridesmaid, but also the entire wedding party, we rejoin them every five years to celebrate the event. This year they will have survived twenty years of marital bliss, so the four of us have again embarked on yet another island adventure, this time on the Kona coast of the Big Island.
For those of you who have never been there, the reason they call it the “Big Island” is that if you put all the other Hawaiian islands side by side, they still wouldn’t occupy half the land mass of Hawaii. This means that driving from one place to another takes many hours, and if you plan on returning to where you started from, count on spending most of the day in the car. Still, I loved Kona with its sunny days, coffee plantations growing on volcanic hillsides, and sparkling sand beaches lapped by incredibly warm waves. Thanks to one of the locals from the nearby surf shop, we found a secluded sand beach where the trees grew right to the edge of the water, providing shade for those who didn’t feel like cooking in the warm mid-day sun. The cove protects the reef growing every imaginable kind and color corral fantasies from deep purple to bright yellow, teeming with a variety of tropical fish. Over many years of snorkeling and diving, it was the most spectacular spot I’ve ever found. I was really sorry I didn’t have an underwater camera to record what I witnessed, so your imaginations will have to make do.
A week on a Hawaiian vacation disappears in a wink, and our time there flew by faster then the clouds blown about by the warm trade winds. For those of you interested in details, I refer you to my friend Michael’s site at www.travelingcurmudgeon.com for a more expansive (though somewhat biased) view of our trip. For the rest of you, here are a few photos from Paradise.
Be well, J. 10月4日 RidingThere is no question that Southern California is a car culture. Visitors who come here for the first time are often amazed (and frustrated) that it’s almost impossible to get around the city without access to an automobile. Until I moved here, I managed to survive quite nicely without owning a motor vehicle. My favorite poet has escaped from the auto-centered life style to Paris, a city that provides excellent means of mass transit, and where he now resides without that California icon, the car. However, before departing from here, he penned the following poem, capturing the flavor of that favorite youthful pastime, going out for a spin.
riding
a little red hatchback gleams like a scarab in the desert burning through the Alemeda corridor down the freeway-wide surface streets with Gothic-steel factories pluming white into the white afternoon sky, white that the falling sun will soon ignite into stained glass yellows and oranges. but for now the car cuts through the enfolding haze then out of the industrial and into the lower-rung commercial with liquor stores and blacks and Mexicans crowding the bus stops marginalized, problematized, by money or lack thereof. it is late summer afternoon on the western side of LA County where the asphalt meets the ocean and the red hatchback dodges smoothly through thickening rush-hour traffic like a ruby sifting through gravel flashing under the California sun.
p. ferenczi 9月25日 End of SummerSummer has officially ended, though you would never know that by looking at the triple digit temperatures outside. Perhaps once the weather gets cooler, I'll be more motivated to post here more frequently, or will at least be less distracted by the opportunities of a beautiful day. Due to a rapidly diminishing number of requests, here is a poem I feel is appropritae for the passing of another season. Be well, and enjoy the weekend.
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver 8月21日 ItalicsMy favorite poet and his wife are back in Paris, so I once again have enough time to get back to what has become a rather neglected blog here at Medico Musings. I tried to check in on several of you during this hiatus, but have not had enough time to leave any meaningful comments. My apologies!
I doubt most of you get off on typography, but it's an arcane topic that has a curious draw for me. Not long ago, PBS ran a special on this topic, and more recently, the following news item caught my attention. (I'll allow you to form your own opinion on how this reflects on my personality or character.)
Extra-Slanty Italics Introduced for Extremely Important Words
7月16日 The Chocolate TestThere are a lot of serious issues facing the world these days, and I'm sure all of you could rattle off a dozen without even trying. All the more reason to take a break for a moment, and (courtesy of my friend Layne) reflect on something less profound, but nonetheless serious for anyone asked to contamplate...
Giving Up Chocolate I was walking down the street when I was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless woman who asked me for a couple of dollars for dinner. I took out my wallet, got out ten dollars and asked, 'If I give you this money, will you buy chocolate with it instead of dinner?' 'No, I had to stop eating chocolate years ago', the homeless woman told me. 'Will you use it to go shopping instead of buying food?' I asked. 'No, I don't waste time shopping,' the homeless woman said. 'I need to spend all my time trying to stay alive.' 'Will you spend this on a beauty salon instead of food?' I asked. 'Are you NUTS!' replied the homeless woman. I haven't had my hair done in 20 years!' 'Well, I said, 'I'm not going to give you the money. Instead, I'm going to take you out for dinner with my husband and me tonight.' The homeless Woman was shocked. 'Won't your husband be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty disgusting.' I said, 'That's okay. It's important for him to see what a woman looks like after she has given up shopping, hair appointments, and chocolate.' 7月3日 July 4thI'm excited. Today is a short workday because tomorrow is the 4th of July. My favorite poet and his wife just arrived from Paris, so she will now have a chance to observe first-hand our national holiday. After all, it was her country that gave us the gift of the Statue of Liberty. I started writing this blog over four years ago, when I posted the following piece, which seems as appropriate to me now as it did back then, so I will inflict it on you once more. Hope you all have the opportunity to celebrate an event well worth remembering - Independence Day!
FREEDOM
When you look in Webster’s Dictionary for the definition of “free” and “freedom” you will find the meanings as a series of negatives: “not under the control of some other person or arbitrary power; able to think and act without compulsion or arbitrary restriction; not under the control of a foreign government; not held, as in chains; not kept from motion; not confined to the usual rules or patterns; not restricted by anything except its own limitations and nature…” This reminds me of the tag line in a Wall Street Journal article talking about the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union, in which a Moscow resident remarks, “We are free – now what?” I was born in a time when freedom was elusive to absent in a large part of our globe, in a country where a knock on the door or the unexpected ringing of the phone brought terror based on very justified fears, and the only freedom one dared dream about was being allowed to exist in obscurity by staying under the radar of the ever watchful secret police and their countless informants, some of whom could have been, or in fact were, people you knew well. To those who grew up in the luxury of free society, these feelings are beyond the boundaries of experience, and cannot be truly imagined, much less viscerally acknowledged. To those who lived through them, they can never be forgotten. Perhaps the most frightening aspect to those of us who were not always blessed with the freedoms the rest of us take as our birthright is the knowledge of how easily and rapidly freedom can be lost. My birthplace had the traditional freedoms of a Western society throughout all my parents’ lives until shortly before the time of my birth. Throughout history, the loss of freedom has occurred as often from within as without. The desire to have power over others is a primal drive, and well recognized by the men who framed our Constitution. The system of checks and balances they designed, brilliant in its conception, can only endure as long as there exists a populace dedicated to the principles the document embodies. We are about to celebrate our Independence Day with a cacophonous collision of fireworks scattering falling liquid gold, emerald, and scarlet streamers across skies hazy from countless barbecues, as speeches are made and parades march under unfurled banners. For those who have served, as well as those whose family members sacrificed limb and lives, the price of our freedoms are forever etched in hearts and minds. For those brought up in a tradition of service, the memory remains that the price of freedom is dear. The paradox of freedom is that those who desire it the most must also be willing to subjugate some of their personal desires to see it achieved. The world is a complex, complicated, and often frightening place. I can understand the desire to hide in the cocoon of daily life, of carpools and groceries, of work and play, and ignore the whole messy, confusing affair. Let the professionals, the politicians, the generals worry about what’s happening, and concentrate on our own turf. Unfortunately, this road, by which we abdicate responsibility to others, leads to the other end of George Bernard Shaw’s cynical observation, “the replacement of the incompetent many by the corrupt few.” The man was right – the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. So we must remain vigilant, not only of our enemies, but of those to whom we entrust our daily freedoms. We must not, can not allow our fears of the known or unknown to seduce us into turning those freedoms over to a perceived strong select few who claim to know what is good for us, and promise us security in exchange for giving up power over our own lives. Too many through history have done this. Too many suffered and died as a result of their mistake. Freedom cannot be defined by the absence of bad things – slavery, fear, subjugation. It needs to be defined by positives, by action. But what can we do, you plaintively ask? We can educate ourselves to the issue affecting our lives. We can educate our children so they understand the history of this great nation, both the good and the bad. We can be willing to serve to sustain the causes in which we believe, and at the same time allow for, and demand intelligent discourse from those whose belief is different than our own, as well as from those we have chosen to lead us. We can attempt to instill in our children the values and ideals on which all free societies are founded, and which our Constitution helped codify. We can teach them that there is a difference between patriotism and nationalism, that loving your country is not the same as blind acceptance or support of any governmental policy. We can resist the temptation to demonize those who oppose us while we are struggling to hold true to the core principles of our beliefs. We can and should encourage, demand that everyone give of themselves in the form of some national service for a period of their life. It’s the only way we can be exposed in a one on one setting to those whose ideas, opinions and backgrounds are different than our own. We must demand accountability not only from our leadership, but also from the press and the media, not to sink to the lowest denominator, but to help raise the level of discourse in all walks of life from mud slinging to enlightening. And finally, we must teach and practice respect for the persons and property of our citizens, along with this planet, and those with whom we share it. 6月26日 Sands of TimeEven before the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon crowded all the other events of the world off our news radar, the following poem struck a chord with me, and maybe it will do the same for you. Hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.
Not Needed
The thing about growing older is that nobody says your name for weeks. Nothing happens if you don’t get out of bed, don’t take the air, don’t shop for bread or shoes. No one will stop to ask, “Where is so-and-so?” or observe footprints never left in the snow, the snow unshoveled, the class untaught.
You are home pouring coffee, working silently at your table, uncubicled. You notice things. The hydrangeas are enormous. A cobweb hangs over the lamp. You are your own museum piece, dusting yourself, listening for birdsong, breath and heartbeat, standing still enough to watch motes loiter in a sunny window, to hear the rain falling like a silver miracle.
Donna Pucciani 6月19日 Sex and GenderI've really been remiss of late in posting here. I'm not making apologies, just stating facts. The obvious truth is that I've been doing other stuff that had greater priority, but that doesn't mean I have forgotten my blogging friends whose sites I've always enjoy visiting. For those of you who drop by here from time to time, I felt it only fair to give you something to look at besides a piece I wrote almost a month ago. I therefore asked my friend Mike (www.travelingcurmudgeon.com ) for permission to post a bit from his most recent stuff that I found interesting and hopefully, you will do the same. Be well.
Differences between sexes—not genders, which is a word belonging to linguists concerned with matching the form of modifiers to their nouns or verbs. It was commandeered for use in social discourse by prudes who didn’t want to say sex. But I like to say sex. There, I’ll say it again: sex—can be useful, annoying, highly pleasurable, inconvenient, infuriating. But not ignored. I’m all for equality of the sexes, or at least equal opportunity. But let’s not confuse equality with identity. Women are not the same as men. You may have noticed this if you’ve looked at both. Aside from anatomical and physiological distinctions, which I wholeheartedly applaud, there are other, more subtle differences. For instance, no woman is ever satisfied that anything is in the right place. If you live with one, you know what I mean. No matter how long the furniture has been where it is, you need to try a different arrangement every so often, just in case it might be better. And not just furniture; the same thing goes for appliances and anything even remotely moveable. If the microwave is in the corner, it needs to come out about two feet. If the spice rack is two feet out, it might be better in the corner. I don’t know why this is, but I’m pretty sure no man behaves this way. Women are sort of like this with paint, too. After some years (exactly how long is a mystery buried deep in the X chromosome) they decide it’s time for a home makeover, and the whole house needs to be repainted. We’re going through that now; my wife has picked out a whole bunch of new colors. Never mind that to my eye they look an awful lot like the old colors; male wisdom is knowing when to close your mouth and open your checkbook. Women don’t like the same movies as men, and they refuse to be fair about it. I’ll go to a chick flick with my wife from time to time, but no way is she going with me to a movie with car chases and stuff blowing up. Ladies don’t blow their noses, either. It’s something I’ve never understood, and if anyone can enlighten me, I would appreciate it. They hold a Kleenex up in the neighborhood below their eyes and make this dainty little pfft, pfft. There’s barely a sound, not enough wind to ruffle a duckling’s down, let alone accomplish its intended purpose. Jeanine agrees that it’s not very effective, so why bother at all? It’s really more of a blot than a blow, but then why pretend? I just don’t get it.
The other day I talked about sex and told you everything husbands need to know about their wives. (If you missed it, here it is again: shut up and sign the check.) I distinguished between sex and gender, so today I thought I’d address the notion of gender. The English language doesn’t have any; we don’t care about masculine or feminine with respect to inanimate objects. Maybe a few English speakers do, but they are a very small minority. In other languages it matters. Sometimes it’s helpful for understanding, like in German. With their horrendously convoluted sentences, it makes it easier to figure out what adjective goes with what noun. Sometimes gender is perfectly logical, if superfluous: “dress” is feminine in every language I know. So is “flower,” which seems appropriate to me, if not necessarily logical. Sometimes gender seems completely arbitrary. In German and the Romance languages, the word for “hand” is feminine, while the word for “foot” is masculine. Unless you are talking about an animal’s foot, which is feminine in all cases. Arms are masculine, at least in French, Italian, and Spanish, but legs are feminine. Come to think of it, maybe that makes sense…. “Bed” and “pillow” are both masculine in France, but feminine in Spain. In French, Spanish, or Italian what you sit on (“chair”) is feminine but what you stand on (“floor”) is masculine. Unless it’s an armchair, which is masculine in France, or a dance floor, which is feminine in Italy. In France, the sun is masculine and the moon feminine. In Germany, it’s the other way around. Imagine trying to translate a French poem about the sun chasing the moon across the sky. Germans would interpret the metaphor a bit differently from the French. But isn’t that always the way?
5月25日 Memorial DayWe need Memorial Day. Not for the “spectacular sales and savings” nor for opportunity to relax over a three day weekend - we need it to remind us that many have died and suffered for us. If we are to truly honor their memory, then we must attempt to learn something from the results and the consequences of our actions.
Anyone who has ever been involved in a shooting war knows that there is no glory or honor involved, regardless of the uniform that’s worn. There is only suffering, fear, disillusionment and death; the creation of nightmares to sear the souls and hollow the eyes of people who have witnessed things no one was ever meant to witness, and who are congratulated as “survivors.” The glorious dead remain dead, leaving behind widows and orphans who strive to find meaning in the void created by the loss of one they loved.
I give honor to those who have sacrificed themselves for an ideal of freedom, of liberty. I despise those who have manipulated and subverted the truth to create fear and loathing in honest citizens in order to gain power, riches and feeding of their own egos. I abhor the jingoist slogans, propaganda machines, the deliberate obfuscations by which young men and women are sent in harms way, and the callous treatment of those whose service we have demanded but whose damaged bodies and psyches are now considered too heavy a burden for our society to carry.
By all means - let us take this day to remember the sacrifices of those we have asked to serve us. Let us look long and hard at the causes for which we commit our military, that we define objectives that have a potential military solution, and make certain that every possible alternative to armed conflict has been utilized, for in all our long history, war has never provided the lasting solution to economic or ideological conflict. 5月15日 Summer ClassesAnother weekend is about to start, and time continues to fly by faster than the wind-blown clouds above. This is my second weekend in a row working, the price I had to pay for having the last weekend of the month off so I can attend the big educational/research meeting with my colleagues in Chicago. Hopefully, all of you are going to enjoy some leisure time and warmer climes. I don't often post things I receive as e-mail, but this is one I had not seen before, and struck me sufficiently funny to want to share it with you. Be well,
J.
Summer Classes for Men at
Class 14 The Stove/Oven--What It Is and How It Is Used. Live Demonstration. Tuesdays at 6:00 PM, location to be determined. Upon completion of any of the above courses, diplomas will be issued to the survivors. 5月8日 StuffWe have too much stuff. I remember a famous George Carlin routine, where he talks about "stuff". We have our stuff. And when we go somewhere, we pack some of our stuff with us - the things we really need. Then, when we get there, we re-pack a smaller, more essential amount of stuff, to take with us for that day....and so on. This is another piece from my favorite poet (Peter, for those of you who have inquired about his name) talking about this same theme. Enjoy your weekend, and be well.
J.
enforced economy
the road strips you down.
or rather,
the road lets you do it -
just hands you the knife.
you abandon 99%
before you start
and don't notice.
a bit more goes
after the first long day
with an obese pack,
the white rind shaved off.
with pack balanced,
you turn the blade on yourself,
begin whittling at the edges,
probing for bits of flab
to excise with a flick.
the blade ducks behind the eyes,
a selective lobotomy:
weak thoughts culled,
half-formed notions
sculpted completely.
what's left
is
the stone of you. 4月24日 The First StepA few years back (actually, more than a few, but that's part of any man's effort to ignore the pasage of time) my favorite poet spent a summer traveling around Europe. His travels resulted in an expansion of his vision of the world, a cornucopia of experiences to be treasured for a lifetime, and the writing of several works of poetry, some of which I will share with you in this, as well as future blogs. I admit to just a twinge of jealousy as I read of his journey, both for the adventures he lived, as well as for his talent in describing them. But then, the greatest gifts any child can give to a parent is to start off in his footsteps, than rapidly outdistance him with the passing of years. If any of you develop a wanderlust in reading his words, I make no apologies, and wish you bon voyage.
the first step
on the rim of this bowl
standing with toes out over the edge.
the opposite side winks across the distance of three months.
one step will begin the plunge.
two points and a trajectory -
what lies between?
probably:
opportunity, hunks of clay, waiting to be molded.
adversity, to be stumbled on like a landmine.
(but let us hope not an actual landmine)
adventure like a hot wire of chance charged with the current of risk,
or: the balancing of opportunity and adversity,
the only certain is the unknown:
a forest of moments
yet seed in the fertile future
waiting for the days and nights
to be born.
4月19日 Healing TouchTruth be told, we doctors don’t cure very many people. While we often take credit for the healing powers given to our bodies by nature, many maladies will get better with tincture of time, while others will progress to worse or fatal outcomes despite our best efforts. What a physician can do in almost all instances is help relieve pain, decrease anxiety, offer comfort and give some measure of hope. These skills are what many have described as the art of medicine. Sadly, as our scientific capabilities are increasing, I see many colleagues and most students losing the skills of the art of touching, communicating, and empathy that for centuries was the cornerstone (and at times, the only skill) of our profession. Therefore, the following poem should be part of every medical school’s curriculum.
The Laying On of Hands
Priests offered it in weekly benediction to bless after chants and motets, in Eucharist or Mass, to magnify a union or heal the sick. Doves were sometimes released.
Lovers do it too. The caress – careless or casual. The home from work, the comfort me, or the moment when hands become all scent and skin; the arch of the wrist, the smooth palm and pure white fingernail tip.
So doctors learned it, palpated sick limbs, gauged temperatures, pulses; probed chests, abdomens and necks to fathom symptoms, interrogate signs. But now machines seek better, deeper, further, filling the walls with images, bright and cold.
Danielle Hope
4月10日 PatagoniaIt has been a long time since I had the chance to post to this blog. Thanks to all of you who have inquired about my prolonged absence, have sent me good wishes, or requested to see me back here again. I'm happy to report that I'm no longer MIA, remain in good health, and have recently returned from the holiday of a lifetime, a trip of my dreams.
We spent the last two weeks of February in Patagonia, Southern Chile, in the company of my son and daughter-in-law. They flew over from Paris, met us in Santiago, then remained with us during our travels throughout the South. Flying the 2000 kms. from Santiago to Punta Arenas affords the traveler a vista of volcanoes, fjords, the majesty of the Andes and the grandeur of the numerous archipelagos that make up much of southern Chile. It's a five hour ride by van from the airport on the Straits of Magellan to the Torres del Paine, a national park of unparalleled beauty, still unspoiled in its magnificence by the presence of man. We hardly saw anyone during our whole time there, save for the guanacos roaming the hillsides and the giant condors soaring over the peaks. I won't attempt to describe what we saw, but have provided you with a few pale visions of the scenery that entranced us all in the accompanying album.
We hiked through many parts of the park, and thanks to our knowledgeable and friendly guides, learned quite a bit about the geology that created this incredible place, the variety of flora and fauna present in great abundance, as well as something of the indigenous people who settled this land, sadly now almost all but extinct through the ignoble actions of the Europeans who had taken over in recent centuries.
We also spent five days aboard the Skorpios III, a small, specially built Chilean ship ideal for the exploration of the southern ice fields of Patagonia that contain 1/4 of the all the fresh water on our globe. Again, I'll allow the photos to speak for themselves, as they provide a far better image than my words ever could. I will only comment on the incredibly warm and generous reception we received from all the Chileans we encountered throughout our travels, and the equally wonderful foods we were lucky to enjoy during the trip. Just to give you one of many examples that have stuck in my mind, let me briefly tell you of our last night in Punta Arenas. The Skorpios bought us back to Puerto Natales the morning prior to our return flight to Santiago, from which it's a two hour drive back to Punta Arenas. Our flight wasn't leaving until 10 PM that night, so we, along with our luggage, were deposited at a small local travel agency, giving us the chance to spend some more time exploring this historic city. We were told ahead of time the agency was closing at 7 PM, so we figured we would pick up our bags before than, and wait the rest of the time at the airport. The young woman who worked at the agency, unasked, not only provided us with her cell phone number agreeing to come back after hours and open up for us to reclaim our luggage, gave us an excellent (an inexpensive) local place to have dinner, but also arranged for her father and a friend to drive us to the airport at half the cost the airport van was going to charge us.
Between my work, the students I teach, and the demands of family and friends, I may not be able to post or visit as often as I would like, but want you to know that I have missed you all, and look forward to reestablishing contact with you again. In the meantime, I wish you a happy Easter weekend. Be well,
J. 1月24日 SabbaticalI'm planning on taking a sabbatical from my Space for a variety of reasons. While there is a great deal going on in the world, and I have never been accused of lacking opinions, I somehow don't feel compelled to share now, especially in light of other demands I currently have on my time. I'm also going to be away for a good part of February, but depending on the success of my travels, I may have thoughts or photos I wish to inflict on you upon my return. Lastly, I think all of us have noticed an increased awkwardness in navigating between sites following MSN's ill thought out "upgrade." I will consider moving my site to another venue in the future, but will post my new location here if I ever make the change. In the meantime, my thanks to all of you who have been regular or even occasional visitors to Medico Musings. I'll try to swing by periodicaly and leave comments with you as my time permits. There is always value in being part of a community, and I'm grateful for having been part of yours.
Be well,
J. |
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