Review Tuesday: 'The Pen & the Stethoscope'

Today’s ‘Review Tuesday’. Synchronicity. Wikipedia says it’s a concept first described by Carl Jung, i.e. the experience of two or more events apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, that are observed to occur together in a meaningful manner [1]. Its meaningfulness distinguishes it from mere simultaneity. Last Thursday my cyberfriend Wordsmith [2] sent me an email titled: ‘Something fine to read’. That ‘something’ is an essay by a favourite writer of his – William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) [3] – on being a physician and a writer [4]. Williams’s essential premise is that doctors, being keen observers of all aspects of the human condition, are disposed to being writers and poets. The synchronicity? I received Wordsmith’s email as I was finishing The Pen & the Stethoscope. Published in 2010, it’s a 211-page collection of 15 short stories written by 15 doctors – including four Australians. Its nine non-fiction and six fiction stories vary in topic and writing quality – and thus their ability to attract and hold my interest. My picks are those by the three best-known medical writers: Atul Gawande, Peter Goldsworthy and Oliver Sacks. I don’t doubt doctors, at least good ones, are skillful observers of humans. But I don’t know if, as Williams suggests, doctors’ vocational skills give them the front-running in the writing stakes. For it’s one thing to collect material to write about, and quite another to craft it into beautiful writing. For all this, on balance I’m pleased I read The Pen & the Stethoscope.

Bravo, Stevo

I have some Canadian friends: there’s Mark, Maya, Marina and Mateus (who’ve visited me in Mole Creek [1]), Dieter (Maya’s father, who’s currently here [2]) and my cyberfriends Chrows25 [3] and Wordsmith [4] (whom I’m yet to meet in person). I wonder if they know that last Monday and Tuesday in the Canadian Parliamentary Buildings in Ottawa, their country hosted the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism’s [5] second annual conference [6]. I don’t know what they think of their current prime minister Stephen Harper [7], but I reckon the speech he gave to the conference [8, 9] was honest and honourable. He said that ‘when Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand’. He added that though Israel is not beyond fair criticism, Canada must oppose demonisation, double standards and de-legitimisation ‘Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows us, and the ideology of the anti-Israel mob tell us all too well, that those who threaten the existence of the Jewish people are in the longer term a threat to all of us’. He added that Canada did not secure a UN Security Council seat [10] due to its failure to ‘go along with this anti-Israel rhetoric’. How brave of Canada to put principle above self-interest. Bravo, Mr Harper. And bravo Canada. I salute you.

Hansard and OpenAustralia

Wikipedia says William Cobbett [1], a noted radical and publisher, began publishing Parliamentary Debates in 1802. From 1809 Cobbett’s printer was Thomas Curson Hansard [2]. In 1812 Cobbett sold the Debates to Hansard. From 1829 the name Hansard appeared on the title page of each issue. Thus Hansard became the traditional name for the printed transcripts of parliamentary debates in all countries with a Westminster system of government [3]. As a lad I subscribed to Hansard for both Australian houses of parliament. It was heavily subsidised – down to maybe A$2 per year. But inevitably, with governments’s love for ‘user pays’, the subsidy vanished. So I cancelled my subscription and lived in ignorance of detailed parliamentary proceedings. Even when parliament became broadcast on radio and then TV, I was too busy to bother. But my interest in parliamentary debates on certain topics (e.g. medical matters, the Middle East), and speeches and question answers by certain members of parliament (e.g. my local MP) continued. So I was pleased when last Friday this Age item [4] led me to OpenAustralia [5, 6]. It’s an open-source website run by a non-partisan charity – the OpenAustralia Foundation [7]. It aims to make it easy for citizens to keep tabs on their parliament. As my Canadian cyberfriend Wordsmith blogged recently [8], I’m interested in open and accountable government – which I reckon’s essential in a true democracy. So I wish OpenAustralia every success. I think Thomas Hansard would too.

Wordsmith, electric cars and Better Place

I have a new friend. In the blogosphere. His blog’s Wordsmith. He’s Canadian. And he’s an interesting chap. Two of his latest four blog posts are about cars. Excluding F1, my latest one was on 5 February. So today I’m fixing that situation: This item in yesterday’s Age said Better Place’s third (after Israel and Denmark) large-scale charging network for electric cars will be in Australia, with a national roll-out by late 2012. Better Place predicts by 2020 10-20% of our national fleet will be electric, and by 2035 almost 100%. I don’t know, and can’t find out, if Better Place will generate its own electricity, or if it’ll use grid power. The latter raises the question as to whether a plug-in electric car using coal-fired electricity pollutes more or less than a fossil fuel powered car. Or even a fossil fuel (non plug-in) electric hybrid. Speaking of which I was disappointed to see here, also in yesterday’s Age, that only 1.1% of new cars in Australia in 2010 will be hybrids – little altered from 1% in 2009. And this 1.1% won’t rise much until petrol reaches A$2 a litre. Of course it’d rise sharply if our federal government showed some real concern about climate change and global warming, and introduced incentives to buy hybrid or electric cars. I doubt it’ll occur; but you never know. Meantime Better Place shouldn’t hurry to meet the late 2012 national roll-out target date. Charging stations sitting idle due to few customers could be its worst nightmare. Ho hum.