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The COVID-19 Vaccines & Beyond: What the Medical Industrial Complex is NOT Telling Us - Part 2

In Part 2 we present more extensive data, expert analyses and other information showing that the COVID vaccines are not only not safe and effective, but are actually dangerous and potentially extremely harmful, as the alleged “misinformation spreaders” have been warning about. We also summarize and provide information about the mechanisms of injury caused by the shots; a comparison with the response to adverse reactions to the 1976 Swine flu vaccine; and the effects of the vaccines on pregnant women, the military, and those over 65. This part also discusses why countless thousands of doctors all over the world adamantly oppose giving these shots to children.

The Physician’s Pledge: Promises at Dawn, Passages in Darkness


 “Do not go gentle into that good night”1
 - Dylan Thomas
 
 
 The old guards are fading as we take their place. Many of us are ourselves in golden years, with more of our lives behind than before us. But all around us, many lives much younger than ours are being violently and unjustly terminated on a daily basis. In our very homes and communities, “man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”2 As the morning of our life slowly fades and twilight shadows lengthen, this realization should stir us to “rage against the dying of the light”1 – not so much for ourselves, but on behalf of these countless thousands.
 
 Whether we accomplished little, or much in our lifetime, the promises we once made will ultimately be measured against our own passage. Many of these pledges were made in our springtime, when dawn was breaking on our seemingly endless day. Over our lifetime, we may have kept some oaths, and broken others—in matters large or small. Many of these are personal matters that do not involve the rest of us. But there is one pledge that we made in common, and that concerns all of us-- the Physician’s Oath.3
 
 At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:
 
 I SOLEMNLY PLEDGE to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
 
 I WILL GIVE to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due;
 
 I WILL PRACTISE my profession with conscience and dignity;
 
 THE HEALTH OF MY PATIENT will be my first consideration;
 
 I WILL RESPECT the secrets that are confided in me, 
 even after the patient has died;
 
 I WILL MAINTAIN by all the means in my power,
 the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
 
 MY COLLEAGUES will be my sisters and brothers;
 
 I WILL NOT PERMIT considerations of age, disease or disability, 
 creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, 
 sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor 
 to intervene between my duty and my patient;
 
 I WILL MAINTAIN the utmost respect for human life;
 
 I WILL NOT USE my medical knowledge to violate human rights 
 and civil liberties, even under threat;
 
 I MAKE THESE PROMISES solemnly, freely and upon my honour.
 
 
 The promises we made in this oath now confront us with urgency and timeliness. How much longer can we turn a blind eye or a deaf ear when scores are slaughtered daily? How much longer shall we remain silent? Is omission less evil than commission? The Honorable Mariott Brosius of Lancaster, Pennsylvania on “The Medical Profession and the State” reminds us: 4
 He should not be lulled to repose by the delusion that he does no harm who takes no part in public affairs. He should know that bad men need no better opportunity than when good men look on and do nothing. He should stand to his principles even if leaders go wrong.
 
 Darkness is creeping upon us, and we too must pass on. In the deafening silence, the song rings in our ears: “in the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset, at a moment in my life when the night is due. And the question I shall ask only I can answer. Was I brave and strong and true?”5 It is not too late to “conduct a pre-mortem on your life” to answer this question, unless you “would rather wait until someone else conducts the post-mortem on you.”6
 
 We have solemnly pledged “to consecrate” our lives “to the service of humanity,” and “maintain the utmost respect for human life.”3 Our patients are our brethren whose “health” – wellness and wholeness – should be our “first consideration.”3 We promised that we “WILL NOT PERMIT considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between (our) duty and (our) patient.”3 We must not break this promise.
 
 “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
 But I have promises to keep,
 And miles to go before I sleep,
 And miles to go before I sleep.” 7
 - Robert Frost

Preliminary elaboration on emergent properties of traditional Chinese medicine

Plant and animal derived secondary metabolites are the result of initiative and adaptability of natural evolution due to its adaptive stress responses. Based on countless attempts, rational thinking and thousands of years of clinical practice by ancient Chinese, the medicines were endowed with advantages for the treatment of diseases and keeping health balance through multiple components combination instead of single components, featured by a complex system with emergent properties. The emergence of traditional Chinese medicine is because of the integration of various components and its complex interactions. How to obtain the new multicomponent entities with the biological equivalent effect is an important and fundamental work for TCM-based new drug research and development. Currently, recognition of TCM emergence and development of related technical methods needs strengthened, and the understanding and research of TCM require a systematic integration of the holistic and reductive methods.

THE RED BOOK

1 6 2 Y T H E R E D B O O K J A M E S T R I L L I N G Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), the Swiss psychologist and cultural theorist, was one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. For some people, his model of the human mind, including such concepts as archetypes, the animus/anima, and the collective unconscious, provides a basis for both individual psychotherapy and cultural interpretation on a grand scale. Others dismiss his work as fanciful. In such a polarized realm I would like to make my position clear from the start. I am not a Jungian. This is not a matter of psychoanalytic ideology – I am not a Freudian either – but of scholarly lineage. If similar literary, artistic or ritual motifs occur thousands of miles or thousands of years apart, most modern scholars are trained to see that as a beginning not an end, a question not an answer. Jung, in contrast, believed that certain symbols – not just the capacity for symbolic thought, but the symbols themselves – are somehow innate to human minds, forming a commonality that T h e R e d B o o k ( L i b e r N o v u s ) , by C. G. Jung, edited by Sonu Shamdasani, translated by Mark Kyburg, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani (Norton, 416 pages, $195) 1 6 3 R transcends all the specifics of artistic convention, language, religious belief, and historical circumstance. Similar forms in dissimilar contexts were, for him, neither more nor less than particularly striking instances of this commonality. Although I recognize and often envy the mingled sense of wonder and belonging that this approach can generate, I am firmly committed to the other camp. Jung is best understood as a thinker in the late-nineteenthcentury mold – a younger contemporary of Sir James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough (first published 1890). Like others of that time, Jung followed a universalizing impulse, seeking – and less typically, finding – a ‘‘grand unified theory’’ of the mind and its expressions. Science may eventually tell us whether he was right or wrong – if the answer matters by then: few people today care whether Frazer was right about the historical role of fertility worship. Meanwhile, Jung’s synchronic, mythopoeic vision of the mind continues to claim a small but strategic corner of twentiethcentury thought. In addition to a very extensive body of publications, Jung left a remarkable unpublished work. Half a century after his death, his descendants chose to publish it at last, in lavish facsimile. We have good reason to thank them. The Red Book (its ‘‘o≈cial’’ title was Liber Novus, or The New Book) is the record of a psychological and spiritual crisis – what he later called his ‘‘confrontation with the unconscious’’ – and shows in detail how a psychological pioneer handled the tumult of his own mind. It also showcases Jung’s talent as a visual artist. The crisis began when Jung was thirty-eight years old and a successful, innovative psychiatrist in Zurich. It happened in October of the year 1913 as I was leaving alone for a journey, that during the day I was suddenly overcome in broad daylight by a vision: I saw a terrible flood that covered all the northern and low-lying lands between the North Sea and the Alps. It reached from England up to Russia, and from the coast of the North Sea right up to the Alps. I saw yellow waves, swimming rubble, and the death of countless thousands. The vision lasted for two hours, it confused me and made meill.Iwasnotabletointerpretit.Twoweekspassedthenthe 1 6 4 T R I L L I N G Y vision returned, still more violent than before, and an inner voice spoke. ‘‘Look at it, it is completely real, and it will come to pass. You cannot doubt this.’’ I wrestled again for two hours with this vision, but it held me fast. It left me exhausted and confused. And I thought my mind had gone crazy. From then on the anxiety toward the terrible event that stood directly before us kept coming back. Once I also...

Mental health in post-genocide Rwanda

The children who experienced the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda are now in their mid to late 20s. It is almost impossible to comprehend the scale of the terror and destruction of Rwanda's societal infrastructure between 6 April and 16 July 1994. While the world remained inactive, Rwanda, a small impoverished central African state, experienced the murder of about 1 million of its citizens; it also saw the terrorising, humiliation and rape of countless thousands. Although women and children were directly targeted, some actively engaged in atrocities. About 300 000 children were murdered, a significant number at the hands of other children. The level of terror differed across the country and escape was frequently by luck alone. A UNICEF (2004) study of 3000 children revealed that 80% had experienced death in the family, 70% had witnessed a killing or injury, 35% saw other children killing or injuring other children, 61% were threatened with being killed and 90% believed they would die (Human Rights Watch, 2003). Of the 250 000 women raped, 30% were between 13 and 35 years of age, 67% developed HIV/AIDS and 20 000 births resulted (Donovan, 2002).

Climate and heat-related emergencies in Chicago, Illinois (2003–2006)

Extreme heat events are responsible for more deaths in the United States than floods, hurricanes and tornados combined. Yet, highly publicized events, such as the 2003 heat wave in Europe which caused in excess of 35,000 deaths, and the Chicago heat wave of 1995 that produced over 500 deaths, draw attention away from the countless thousands who, each year, fall victim to nonfatal health emergencies and illnesses directly attributed to heat. The health impact of heat waves and excessive heat are well known. Cities worldwide are seeking to better understand heat-related illnesses with respect to the specifics of climate, social demographics and spatial distributions. This information can support better preparation for heat-related emergency situations with regards to planning for response capacity and placement of emergency resources and personnel. This study deals specifically with the relationship between climate and heat-related dispatches (HRD, emergency 911 calls) in Chicago, Illinois, between 2003 and 2006. It is part of a larger, more in-depth, study that includes urban morphology and social factors that impact heat-related emergency dispatch calls in Chicago. The highest occurrences of HRD are located in the central business district, but are generally scattered across the city. Though temperature can be a very good predictor of high HRD, heat index is a better indicator. We determined temperature and heat index thresholds for high HRD. We were also able to identify a lag in HRD as well as other situations that triggered higher (or lower) HRD than would typically be generated for the temperature and humidity levels, such as early afternoon rainfall and special events.

Special Issue on Pacific Health

The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined a healthy island as an island that is committed to, and involved in, a process of achieving a better health and quality of life for its people and healthier physical and social environments in the context of sustainable environment. The main challenges facing island health include the increasing burden of noncommunicable diseases as well as the continuing, and sometimes reemerging, burden of communicable diseases. Human resources for heath in remote areas are always a problem, but it is even more difficult to develop and retain health workers on islands. Some remote island villages, be it in the Pacific region or elsewhere, have only the bare necessities for survival; no electricity, no proper toilets or clean drinking water. In India, for example, the Indian government brings electric power, education, and health services to rural villages. Together with UNICEF, the Indian government is attempting to bring basic health care to isolated island villages, such as those situated along the Brahmaputra River or in the Andaman archipelagoes. But the challenge of small populations, remoteness and an island environment make this difficult. Indonesia and the Philippines have the largest number of islands, countless thousands of them, and providing public health services in these remote island villages is difficult and challenging because of geography, culture, economics, and politics. In the Pacific islands, the “healthy island” concept provides a theoretical underpinning for efforts in health promotion and health protection in island countries. WHO began its healthy island initiatives in 1995. Healthy island initiatives are linked to community commitment and take various forms in several Pacific islands countries. Some initiatives focus on control of specific diseases or health problems, for example, malaria control in the Solomon Islands, environmental health and health promotion initiatives in Fiji, or on water supply and sanitation in Tonga. All these pose a challenge to the coordination of health programs and interventions and the strengthening of public health in these island countries. Binns et al, 1 in their article, discussed the issues and challenges of island health and its impact on public health and illustrated the scope of the problem of island health and how health services in islands required an integrated approach to public health and clinical services. The roles of schools of public health are highlighted in promoting healthy islands. There is a need to develop competency in knowledge and skills and in inculcating a right and positive attitude for island health with the hope of delivering island health leadership in health care. Furthermore, there is a need for intersectoral collaborations, and cooperation is a matter of necessity among Pacific island nations. 2

Seeing the forest through the gene‐trees

The human genome is a dense forest of biological information for us to find our way through. In the past, we could view it as a forest, comfortably assuming the nature of its unseen trees. But new technologies have generated masses of genomic data that raise unexpected challenges to a prevailing view that grew from a theory that melded Darwinian selection and Mendelian genetic causation. Both rested on direct, largely deterministic, and highly simplified concepts of the relationship between genes and what they do. Darwin believed that natural selection was a fine-tuning mechanism that screened competing individuals to detect even the smallest difference among them. The causal elements weren’t known, but one could assume their existence, as Darwin did, and study the organisms they produced. If selection were universal, then biological functions must have adaptive explanations. Meanwhile, the inheritance that Mendel documented was probabilistic, but in a very limited and rigid way, with fixed probabilities and a few genetically determined outcome states. The discovery of Mendelian determinism led to an extremely effective genetic research program that discovered the nature, location, and arrangement of genes and their protein-coding function, whose legacy we are reaping today. Although Darwin’s and Mendel’s work developed independently and seemed to be addressing separate questions, by the 1930s these had been connected into a single, simple genetic understanding of life. However, the new data are revealing how complex life’s genetic underpinnings actually are. Within each cell, more than six billion nucleotides of DNA encode countless thousands of functional elements. Each of our hundreds of types of cells uses these elements differently, in different contexts; each element can vary among individuals and even among cells, because mutations occur in them during life. The challenge to understand this complexity is daunting, and some rethinking is in order. The data are revealing deep but subtle unity of genetic and evolutionary causation. Some of these similarities are summarized in Figure 1. For example, most alleles (variants at a given position in the genome) have low frequency in the population, a relatively local geographic distribution, and small effects on phenotypes, while common, geographically widespread, large-effect alleles are rarer. If we digest this new knowledge, findings that have been seen as mysterious are easily explained. But sometimes what we can detect contributes less, and what we can’t detect contributes more to our understanding of life than has generally been thought.

White and Fitted: Perpetuating Modernisms

Introduction White is everywhere and nowhere because of its ubiquitous association with space and light and its non-color status. Domestic design and particularly its wet areas are confined to white in modernist design; those whites are accompanied by straight lines and snugly rationalized fittings. Modernism as white and fitted is something that Mark Wigley addresses comprehensively in his book, White Walls: Designer Dresses.2 This article probes further the connections between white, modernism, and rationalism in design, placing an emphasis upon power relations in a designed society. Consequently, ”white” in this article is philosophically related to social privilege, and “fitted” not only means immovable furnishings but also a lack of flexibility in society and living. These issues are teased out against the background of an apparent return to color and flexibility in a postmodern era, when there has been a move away from totalitarianism toward inclusivity in society. Therefore, the thrust of this article is not just about color and design in the decor/ decorative sense but also about how personal politics, subjectivities, and design are connected. Michel Foucault’s lectures at the College de France inspire a political reading of white and fitted design. This article is particularly concerned with modernism in the form of a power structure that never really went away, and with how this modernism affected and perhaps still affects the “ordinary” person in the sense that Michel de Certeau writes about the ordinary man: “To the ordinary man. To a common hero, an ubiquitous character, walking in countless thousands of streets.”3 For this article, ordinariness is located in the home and specifically in the many unremarkable kitchens in stretches of suburbia. De Certeau’s thinking on the everyday and the habitual is used in this article to complement/support Foucault’s ideas on capillaries of power.4 So there are at least two basic positions within “white and fitted”; crudely, this is the position person/ user/consumer/individual, and the position of the design decision maker/producer/retailer/supplier. In a more complex breakdown, these positions are held by people within mechanisms and systems of power operations. Consequently, the personal kitchen appliance and furniture or fittings that accompany the appliance(s) offer an “interior” view, and

Remembering Robert Rhoades

Todd A. Crane is Assistant Professor with the Tech-nology and Agrarian Development chair group,Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Nether-landsOn March 25, Robert Rhoades, a founding mem-ber of the Culture and Agriculture section of AAA,succumbed to pancreatic cancer in Athens, Georgia,where he had worked as a professor of anthropologysince 1991. Even beyond his immediate family andfriends, his passing has been felt deeply—crossingcommunities of anthropologists, indigenous rightsactivists, technical agricultural researchers, and devel-opment practitioners—reflecting the scope of hisinfluence, both as a researcher and as a person.I first met Bob in 1998, on a campus visit to UGAthe spring before starting my Ph.D. with him. As aneager and aspiring anthropologist interested in localknowledge, sustainable development, and small-holder agriculture, I asked him if he would recom-mend some summer reading, something to get meprimed for the grueling program of intellectualgrowth, which is graduate school. He just gave apuzzled but thoughtful look and said ‘‘Go readsome Wendell Berry.’’ Wendell Berry? The middleAmerican agrarian philosopher/poet/activist? Whatdoes he have to do with becoming an anthropologist?What am I getting myself into with this Bob Rhoadesfellow?I dutifully added Berry’s ‘‘The Unsettling ofAmerica: Culture and Agriculture’’ to my summerreading list. Berry is an eloquent and moving writer,but at the time I don’t think I fully appreciated what heshould mean to a budding anthropologist, why Bobrecommended him. Twelve years have gone by sincemy initial reading of the book, not to mention count-less thousands of pages of academic texts, all the whileunder the Bob’s guidance in one way or another. Inrevisiting my beat up copy of ‘‘Unsettling of America’’since Bob’s passing, I have rediscovered the essence ofwhat I learned from him, both as a professor and as aperson, and now fully understand why I received theunexpected assignment.My point is that food is a cultural product; it can-not be produced by technology alone. Thoseagriculturists who think of the problems of foodproduction solely in terms of technological inno-vation are oversimplifying both the practicalitiesof production and the network of meanings andvalues necessary to define, nurture, and preservethe practical motivations. That the discipline ofagriculture should have been so divorced fromother disciplines has its immediate cause in thecompartmental structure of the universities, inwhich complementary, mutually sustaining andenriching disciplines are divided, according to‘professions,’ into fragmented, one-eyed special-ties. [Berry 1995:43]Wendell Berry is not an anthropologist, a social sci-entist, or a scientist at all. I now believe that it isprecisely because Berry is an agrarian philosopher,poet, and activist, that Bob recommended this workas an introduction to anthropological education.Looking back, it was an exhortation to think beyonddiscipline and beyond science entirely, to thinkcritically—as a citizen of the world and as an in-dependent moral actor—about the significance ofmeaning in livelihoods, the modes of interaction be-tween technological change and social change, thedifferent ways that the social processes in agrariancommunities, science, business, and governmentdrive those changes, and most importantly how wechoose to position ourselves, personally and profes-sionally, in relation to these questions. It is onlythrough this reflection that we can meaningfully sit-uate our practice as scientists. Knowing that theacademic training and socialization would arrivesoon enough (and would be more than thorough inits saturation), the recommendation of Wendell Berrywas Bob’s way of suggesting that the anthropologicalproject, and the scientific project in general, needs tobe grounded in a compassionate, normative vision

"We Were an Oddity": A Look at the Back-to-the-Land Movement in Appalachia

n 1975, attendance at the annual Mountain State Folk Festival in Glen- ville, West Virginia, swelled above five thousand. Young folk enthusiasts joined the ranks of old-time musicians and local residents to celebrate Appalachian traditions. Most festival promoters would have been beside themselves with joy knowing that their event attracted such a sizeable crowd. But something about the new people who attended the Mountain State Festival bothered long-time attendees. Festival promoter Mack Samples was not only concerned about the growing size of the event, which he feared would outgrow the small town, but he was also worried about the effects that the newcomers would have on mountain culture. Not only were they showcasing new styles of music, but also, much to the shock of old-time musicians, female festival attendees were playing the fiddle! Even more problematic to Samples, however, was that these people were not merely attending the festival. They were coming to to live. 1 Appalachia is 'in' and has been for five years or more, wrote David A. Peyton in 1975. The arts, crafts, the Appalachian life style are a lure to those from outside the region. During the 1960s and 1970s, countless thousands of Americans moved into the hills and hollers of to live out their dreams of a simpler existence. Many aimed for self-sufficiency, believing that simple living and old-time practices had the potential to heal a broken America. As Peyton explains, the settlers who came to felt that certain aspects of the region's culture and environment would be conducive to realizing their Arcadian dreams: Thousands of them are lured to annually. Many buy inexpensive hillside farms and vow to build lives based on the Appalachian values and traditions they have found at folk festivals. 2 Of course, festivals were by no means the only regional features attracting would-be back-to-the-landers. A number of pathways led them into the southern highlands. Once they arrived, their desire to achieve self-sufficiency was met with more than a few raised eyebrows from mountain residents. What many residents knew that the newcomers did not

Learning from History

Politicians and journalists habitually mine history for watershed moments or decisions to use as metaphors for why wars are necessary or avoidable. Pearl Harbor was invoked repeatedly after 9/11; the failure at Munich to stop Hitler was provided as a reason to intervene in Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power. We can debate the uses and abuses of history in this practice, but it continues unabated.1 Curiously, when it comes to alternatives to open conflict, we tend to engage in historical abstinence. Nevertheless, we have much to learn from history as to why we need dissent and dissidents, particularly since authoritarian rulers take greater care in paying attention to history and have adapted their tactics and strategies accordingly in dealing with them. Moreover, in incorporating these lessons into our foreign and security policy, we might go far to avoid conflict while promoting our values and interests abroad, all the while advancing meaningful political and social change in support of democracy. By paying attention to the powerful role dissent and dissidents played in the collapse of authoritarian communism, we can learn much about how to engage (and how not to engage) with authoritarian governments such as China and Iran. By reflecting on the evolution of our own historical protection of free expression and the cultivation of dissent in advanced democracies, we can learn much about how a liberal culture and independent civil society is a necessary prerequisite for consolidated democracies and a measure of current democratic health.China is a litmus test, and 76-year-old Bao Tong is a case in point. He holds the distinction of being the most senior government leader charged and imprisoned following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. A trusted official, he had the audacity to suggest to his communist colleagues that they should perhaps listen to the dissidents. When visited by a recent CBC journalist David Gutnick during the period of mild relaxation of censorship offered by the Beijing Olympics, he was not surprised, and clearly understood his role as the token dissident on display during the games.2 However, his voice will only be heard outside China; access to him is carefully arranged and allowed only to foreign correspondents. During the interview, Bao talked about China's two faces - the face it wants to show the world and was proudly on display in Beijing, and its darker authoritarian face that continues to severely restrict free expression and overt political opposition. In many respects, Bao is no dangerous radical from a communist perspective: he believes that China could continue to modernize within the strictures of communism, and that by establishing and cultivating basic human rights might evolve into a republic, not an empire. He remains a believer in communism as a means of helping the masses, in this case the peasants and the urban poor, and is critical of the excesses of capitalist development and the rampant urbanization that is rapidly changing China. However, he advocates another revolution on their behalf, and in this sense it is no wonder he presents such a danger to the current authorities and their entrenched interests.China's government has learned well that a little dissent is a dangerous thing and works assiduously to keep a lid on it with a sophisticated approach to censorship that includes both legal regulation and technical control. ISPs regularly filter access to specific websites, and blogging sites have filtering systems that prevent users from discussing taboo topics, such as the Falun Gong movement, Taiwanese independence, or autonomy for Tibet. Countless state agencies and thousands of public and private employees are involved directly and indirectly. Still, Chinese bloggers operate as unofficial netizens and watchdogs, drawing attention to all forms of official corruption, particularly because significant public protests are largely outlawed.Today's pragmatic and internationally savvy authoritarian rulers - be they in Iran or Saudi Arabia, China or Zimbabwe - cannot be unaware of the role played by dissidents in central and eastern Europe during the 1970s and 1980s. …

Krazy! The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games + Art by Bruce Grenville

sense of weightless, timeless grace. [Editorialnote: For more on Cluny, see the May 2005 issue ofWLT, pp. 55-60.] Alice-CatherineCarls UniversityofTennessee, Martin Donald Keene. Chronicles ofMy Life: An American inthe Heart of Japan. Akira Yamaguchi, ill.New York. Colum bia University Press. 2008. 196 pages, ill. + 8 plates. $27.95. isbn978-0-231 14440-7 One cannot discuss the evolution of Japanese studies in the United States without acknowledging the voluminous contributions of Don ald Keene. His sixty-year connection with Japan and itsliterati have given him a perspective on the country, itspeople, and their literature that may be unparalleled. He has, over many years, shared thatknowledge with countless thousands of people aswhat many have considered tobe the preeminent interpreterof Japa nese culture. InChroniclesof My Life, he again shares and teaches, speak ing in vignettes by turnswistful, forceful,and lyrical.As in his aca demic writing, Keene eschews the dense and turgid in favorof thecon versationally accessible. Indeed, this memoir feels like nothing so much as a leisurely stroll through a quiet gallery of familypaintings with an old friendwho pauses occasionally todescribe his relation to thiswork or that, in greater or lesser detail, but always with a judicious sense of just how much to say foreach. He informs without lecturing, much as he enlightened the Japanese audi ence forwhom thiswork was first written and serialized. Much as I enjoyed the overall narrative ofKeene's growth into the interpreter of Japan he became, I con fess that it was his descriptions of a bygone Kyoto thatstirred inme the greatest emotions, both of longing for something I can never experience and of gratitude for depicting the past of thecity with which Ihave the longest connection in Japan. There is nothing objective about Keene's writing, nor should we expect that in a memoir. This enlivens the con versation with a frankness thatwe might imagine inKeene's own lec tures, which he explains as moti vated not by an obsession with dry dates and schools but with a pre sentation of what, in the literature, was captivating, and why onemight wish to read a given work. In short, thepersonality of thewriter shines throughandwe see, inhis prose and the anecdotes itconstructs,his love for Japan. To be sure, Keene shares only a tiny fraction of the experiences thathelped shape his thinkingas a scholar, observer, and human being; yet the episodic structure is, itself, aptly reminiscent of the classical Japanese literaturethathe translated foran English-speaking population unaccustomed to its conventions. If the textappears to seek order in E the randomness of a life's events, E we might forgive Donald Keene that E conceit in light of thewonderfully E incomplete picture he paints of his E own "essentially happy life." It is E precisely thedesire such a skipping- E stone approach creates in the reader E that makes this slim volume a plea- E sure to read. E ErikR. Lofgren E BucknellUniversity E ^HHfeg^VkEENE iKRAZY! I THC DCURIOUS WOULD OFANIMC COMICS VIDCO ?AHES AJTT Krazy! The DeliriousWorld ofAnime E + Comics + Video Games + Art. Bruce E Grenvilleet al., ed. Berkeley. University E ofCaliforniaPress.2008. 275 pages, ill. 1 $34.95. isbn 978-0-520-25784-9 | Krazy! is the companion volume to E an exhibition at theVancouver Art E Gallery celebrating the innovations E and commonalities of art associated E with such relatively new media as E animation, video games, and com- E ics. While thebook's editor/author, E Bruce Grenville, also served as exec- E utive curator of the exhibition, the E selection and presentation of the E various fieldsof focus are delegated E to a committee of co-curators who E January-February 2009 i77 I I > ^ I ^ I I H I I are "highly regarded for their work in themedium" while exhibiting a "strong historical knowledge that could guide them when choosing work fortheexhibition." The commentary that introduc es each artist or work is excerpted by Grenville from interviews with his co-curators. This conversational approach reinforces the informal nature of the presentation, but the contrasts in language utilized by each presenter provide insights into the influencesand specificitiesof the medium for which they are known. Whereas comics critics/practitioners Art...

Africa: signs of hope?

The dawning of the 21st century generally brought new hope to African leaders and countless thousands of ordinary citizens of many countries on the continent. The first signs of a new turn of events shone through by the end of the last decade of the previous century. This was manifested by economic growth rates that started to pick up in a number of African states, by pro-democracy movements which in country after country succeeded in replacing authoritarian regimes, and by the winding down and termination of some of Africa’s most devastating wars. The results of this analysis confirm the above-mentioned positive political, economic and conflict trends in Africa. It is clearly a significant turn of events given the well-known political and economic predicament with which Africa is struggling. When this negative legacy and Cold War background of Africa is considered, the importance of present developments is clear to see. The identified heightened sense of purpose among the leaders and peoples of Africa and the changed mood and need among Africans to take charge of their own future that found expression in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) are indeed significant and bode well for the future of the continent. A word of warning here is, however, necessary. Our conduct with Africa must be very cautious and we must guard against over-optimism and the exaggerated belief that Africa is now on a trajectory of sustained development and peace. We cannot generalise about Africa – for that the continent is just too big and diverse from a geographical, cultural, economic and political point of view.

Nicotine, tobacco use, and the 55th Nebraska Symposium on Motivation.

Tobacco use is a worldwide health problem. As so well stated by Mackay and Ericksen (2002), “No other consumer product is as dangerous, or kills as many people. Tobacco kills more than AIDS, legal drugs, illegal drugs, road accidents, murder, and suicide combined” (p. 36). Imagine the lives saved, and the amount of pain, emotional suffering, and fiscal burden alleviated, if we could devise approaches that helped current tobacco users quit and remain abstinent, and prevented new smokers from emerging. Although these idealistic goals are worth pursuing, improving cessation rates by only a small fraction, or making small gains in preventing people from experimenting with tobacco, would nevertheless translate into significant improvement in the health and well-being of countless thousands worldwide as well as financial savings to employers, government institutions, and the heath care system. Even such small, incremental steps require a concerted and coordinated effort by basic scientists, clinical researchers and practitioners, and policy makers to discover the basis of tobacco dependence and apply that knowledge to the implementation of prevention policies and smoking cessation aids. This year's Nebraska Symposium on Motivation was devoted to research on the drug that is widely believed to form the basis of tobacco use and dependence, nicotine. For over 50 years, The Nebraska Symposium on Motivation has provided a forum for discussing the concept of motivation and its application to understanding behavior (Benjamin & Jones, 1979; Bevins & Bardo, 2004). Although researchers and theorists who have participated in The Symposium over the years have disagreed about the meaning and potential usefulness of this construct (e.g., Birch, 1961; Gallistel, 1975; Schneirla, 1959), one conclusion that emerges from this scientific dialog is that at least some of the processes captured within the definition of this construct likely mediate key aspects of behavior. In the area of drug addiction and dependence, there appears to be an increasing use of motivation and related constructs (e.g., incentive processes, cravings, drug seeking, etc.) when discussing drug use and dependence. For the 50th Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, Bevins and Bardo (2004) did a search on Medline that spanned from 1998 to 2002. That search used the term “motivation” with the word “alcohol”, “nicotine”, “amphetamine”, “heroin”, and “cocaine”. In this five-year period that search found 729 hits. We repeated this simple search for 2003 to July 2007 and found 1,247 hits. Notably, we went back and re-conducted the 1998 to 2002 search for just “motivation” and “nicotine” and found 141 hits in this 5 year window. In the subsequent 5 year window (up to July 2007) this number increased to 263—a near doubling. An increase was also seen for the co-occurrence of “motivation” and “smoking” (426 to 682) and for “motivation” and “tobacco” (170 to 343). This pattern indicates a need to critically discuss motivation as an explanatory construct, while empirically defining the processes underlying this construct in a manner that avoids tautologies. For The 55th Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, we gathered leading scientific experts on nicotine dependence and tobacco use on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. The diversity of their expertise (see list of contributors) reflects our bias that effective strategies for decreasing tobacco use and preventing initiation will require a translational approach in which genetic, neurobiological, individual, and cultural factors motivating tobacco use and nicotine dependence are considered. At The Symposium, the exchange of empirical and theoretical ideas and the discussion of these ideas were richer and more extensive than we could have imagined. We thank the contributors and all those who attended The Symposium for this. Further, we hope that the collection of chapters in The 55th Volume of the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation will continue to stimulate this exchange of ideas and discussion among its readers. Only through open communication and the scientific testing of ideas that emerge from this conversation will we be able to eventually eliminate the number one preventable cause of premature death—tobacco use and nicotine dependence.

Peter Gordon Harries

Peter Harries, who served as president and honorary secretary for the Society of Occupational Medicine and was made an honorary member in 2002, died peacefully on 26 September 2006, his...

Semi-quantitative assessment of tricuspid regurgitation on contrast-enhanced multidetector CT

It is perhaps an exaggeration to say cardiologists are frustrated radiologists, but as radiologists have now had the opportunity to observe the heart in detail for some years (whether they actually paid any attention to it or not) it would be pleasing if the converse were a little closer to the truth. In their paper Groves and colleagues manage to close a gap between cardiology, radiology and physiological measurement by demonstrating that multidetector helical computed tomography (CT) offers an introduction to functional cardiac imaging for the general radiologist. They describe an attractively simple technique for grading tricuspid regurgitation by visually estimating the degree of contrast reflux into the inferior vena cava (ICV) and hepatic veins. This estimate seems to correlate well with invasive measurement of right heart pressures. Although the phenomenon of IVC contrast reflux has been known for some time, this is the first study to convincingly provide a semi-quantitative assessment. Other than those radiologists with privileged access to cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or those rare individuals who have directed ultrasound probes north of the diaphragm, assessment of right ventricular function or pulmonary artery pressure was previously limited to primitive extrapolation of findings on the chest radiograph. Groves and colleagues show conclusively that the radiologist can link cross-sectional multidetector CT data with physiological phenomena occurring within the heart and pulmonary vessels. The niceties of tricuspid valve dysfunction may not immediately ring bells with the general radiologist, but these observations can prove an important indicator of elevated right heart pressure, and therefore go a long way to explain symptomatology. A criticism of this study may be that all the patients were being assessed for a single pathology, chronic thrombo-embolism. However, echocardiography tells us that the observation of reflux of blood from the right atrium into the IVC is valid for any cause of tricuspid regurgitation. It may point to unsuspected severe pulmonary hypertension, which can be primary or secondary due to parenchymal lung disease; the very patients who make poor echo subjects. Failure to register this phenomenon may lead the radiologist to miss the important diagnosis of incipient pulmonary hypertension in more exotic conditions such as scleroderma. This paper also affords a glimpse of the future of cardiac imaging using multidetector CT. Unlike echocardiography, which uses geometric assumptions, CT lends itself to accurate assessment of chamber morphology and also of physiological data including ejection fraction, regional wall motion and myocardial perfusion. In coronary artery disease CT offers the best assessment of coronary artery calcification and is also on the verge of delivering clinically useable non-invasive coronary angiography. This may herald a new turf war between radiologists and cardiologists. Radiologists suffering from cardiac ennui need to be reminded that a significant proportion of the countless thousands of patients undergoing thoracic CT will demonstrate important co-existing cardiac pathology. This paper shows that the radiologist using a deceptively simple scoring system can make a valid assessment of cardiopulmonary function, as well as anatomy. Until recently, this was only the province of specialist echocardiography or cardiac MRI. The authors rightly conclude that multidetector CT may assist radiologists to plug something of the “black hole” in cardiac imaging, which is sorely

The People’s Doctors: Samuel Thomson and the American Botanical Movement, 1790–1860

Samuel Thomson, born in New Hampshire in 1769 to an illiterate farming family, had no formal education, but he learned the elements of botanical medicine from a root doctor, who he met in his youth. Thomson sought to release patients from the harsh bleeding or purging regimens of regular physicians by offering inexpensive and gentle medicines from their own fields and gardens. He melded his followers into a militant corps of dedicated believers, using them to successfully lobby state legislatures to pass medical acts favorable to their cause.John S. Haller Jr. points out that Thomson began his studies by ministering to his own family. He started his professional career as an itinerant healer traveling a circuit among the small towns and villages of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Eventually, he transformed his medical practice into a successful business enterprise with agents selling several hundred thousand rights or franchises to his system. His popular New Guide to Health (1822) went through thirteen editions, including one in German, and countless thousands were reprinted without permission.Told here for the first time, Haller's history of Thomsonism recounts the division within this American medical sect in the last century. While many Thomsonians displayed a powerful, vested interest in anti-intellectualism, a growing number found respectability through the establishment of medical colleges and a certified profession of botanical doctors.The People's Doctors covers seventy years, from 1790, when Thomson began his practice on his own family, until 1860, when much of Thomson's medical domain had been captured by the more liberal Eclectics. Eighteen halftones illustrate this volume.

Thomas Huckle Weller, MD: Nobel Laureate and research pioneer in poliomyelitis, varicella-zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, rubella, and other infectious diseases

In 1954, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Drs John Enders, Thomas Weller, and Frederick Robbins for their watershed discovery that growth of poliomyelitis virus occurred in cultures of cells of extraneural origin, first reported in 1949. Their demonstration in 1949 that the Lansing type II strain of poliomyelitis could be grown in cultures of human embryonic tissue set into motion a race to develop a vaccine for the disease that had crippled countless thousands of individuals. The discovery and subsequent recognition were only the beginning of a prolific career for Thomas Huckle Weller, who made numerous contributions to the field of virology, including isolating the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) from cases of chickenpox and zoster, providing suggestive evidence that the same virus is responsible for both diseases; isolating the human cytomegalovirus (CMV) for the first time in tissue culture and suggesting the descriptive name now used for it; establishing Coxsackie viruses as the cause of epidemic pleurodynia: and first isolating rubella virus, the cause of German measles. This article presents a brief biography of Dr Thomas Huckle Weller, one of the field's most important figures, with primary focuses on his work on poliomyelitis, varicella-zoster virus, rubella virus, and cytomegalovirus. Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

PEOPLE

ASE: Attend, Socialize, EnjoyBob Kibble reflects on the enriching effects of the annual meeting Bob Kibble is a teacher trainer at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.I remember my first ASE meeting in Reading. Perhaps in 1978 or thereabouts. I had been teaching for a few years and thought I'd check out this local convention of science teachers. It was indeed a revelation that so many people had so much to say about teaching science. There was talk about N and F levels and the 'I level grill'. Someone had ordered something called a BBC machine (later revealed to me as the latest in hi-tech teaching). I remember it well. But it was a lonely affair for a recent recruit. People seemed to know each other and there was much friendly exchanging. However, nobody knew me and I knew nobody else. The professional revelations were accompanied by a personal isolation. A strange set of memories indeed for a new recruit, unskilled and clumsy in the social arena. Bob practising for the ASE singalong session this year. This year I went to the ASE Centenary meeting in Guildford, my sixteenth ASE annual meeting. Things have changed since the early days. Thursday started with a formal Cathedral service in celebration of 100 years of the ASE. I sat next to a lady from Oxford and behind my good friend Dave from Croydon. Things snowballed from there. I went to a workshop on the water cycle and was brought face to face with my own misconceptions about the life story of a water molecule. Got a freebie coloured bracelet as well. Thanks Margaret. A chap from Bournemouth gave me loads of ideas about how best to set up a shared lesson observation scheme as well as how to run a professional development workshop. Thanks Stuart. At a third session I joined Brenda from Cambridge and we spent an enjoyable hour discovering ways to approach the teaching of light and in particular Ibn al Haytham's revelations courtesy of a chap from Kingston.That afternoon I was invited to present a talk to teachers in Iceland and on Friday to teachers in Ireland. Fred and Frances from Southgate College showed great team spirit in the world's most chaotic quiz, then sang in harmony with Dave from Barnsley and Yoji from Japan amongst others.Kirsten from across the Atlantic shared her research on children and museums on Friday and later I discovered how much I didn't know about global warming from a chemist and a set of unreadable graphs in a computer lab. What a pleasure to see Tom and Seamus from Ireland again. The day closed with a barn dance fling where I managed to boogie on down with some teachers from Turkey. A final 'strip the willow' with Pete and Allison finished me off.Saturday started with breakfast with Ken from Greenwich offering me some part-time work. The exhibitions called and amongst others I hugged Sue from Cardiff, Barry and Leila from London, Pauline from Scotland and an unknown but very friendly lady from Holland. I met a lady from Scotland who lived in Iceland but who taught in Norway and of course Catherine was everywhere. I had tea with Jean from Edinburgh, Janet from London, Gordon from Aberdeen. I laughed with Mick from Sheffield and the same friendly lady from Holland. I ate posh food with Susie from Ayr and applauded big names from America and Australia. I shared a lump in my throat for John and for Wynne and nodded and smiled at countless people whose names I had forgotten but our paths had crossed sometime in the past.There are more than 20 000 members in the ASE and countless thousands of science teachers across the globe. The world is indeed expansive but for three days in Guildford it seemed that the very best speakers and the very cheeriest folk had magically converged on one place. If ever there were confirmation that science and science teaching were alive and well it was there and it was then. If you were there you will know exactly what I mean. If you weren't there then don't miss it next January in Liverpool. www.ase.org.uk