Torturing flies, cruelty and making sense of it all

When my eldest son was around seven we had a visitor who dropped off her son to play with him.  As we had a large garden and an old caravan in its middle, with a forest to one side it seemed an idyllic place for children.  I could look out the kitchen window and watch my sons playing in the fields opposite.  It felt as if we were providing our three sons with freedom childhood used to allow decades ago.  It didn’t turn out exactly like that.

This boy was two years older than my eldest and had an odd world weary look about him.  As if he had already seen too much in his nine years.  But for my eldest son, who had been hounded by two inquisitive younger brothers, it must have seemed something of relief to have an older playmate at last.   They both disappeared into the caravan and seemed totally immersed in playing together.  After a couple of hours, my visitor returned and picked up our young guest.  My eldest son seemed quieter than normal and after some questioning he revealed that they had spent most of the time pulling the wings off flies!  When bored with this, flies had been pierced with drawing pins, gassed under glasses with air freshener and others drowned slowly.  I was horrified and asked him how he could do such things?  He claimed he had been a passive observer watching as his older playmate invented more gruesome methods of killing his prey.  I found myself livid beyond reason, after all they were only flies but it felt as if into an idyllic setting corruption and cruelty had crept unseen.  My son was upset at my reaction and his claim to be a passive participant was greeted with me likening him to SS guards who stood by watching others gassed the Jews.  Now, I have to confess that comparing his fly killing activities to genocide was hardly fair.  But I was disappointed in him and was overreacting as is my want at times.  Poor little chap stood listening gravely, eyes huge, as he took my comments on board.  How children suffer from parents’ stupidity!  He swore he would never be involved in such activities again and his shock at my reaction was obvious.  I do fear at times that my children may need, in the future, to invest in expensive counselling and therapy as a result of my poor parenting skills.

It was all rather unfair as after all, he was a rather kind hearted little chap who took great care of his younger brothers.  He’d appointed himself their guard and protector, probably realizing I was rather flawed in that area.  On an earlier trip to London by train he had acted as a railway platform edge monitor.  I found him, aged six, with both arms outstretched, his back to the railway lines, desperate to ensure his active younger brothers would not throw themselves off the platform into the path of an oncoming train.  On another occasion when he was four I managed to lose him and his brothers in a huge shopping mall.  After a frantic search, the crowd cleared from an area before me and I spotted him standing bravely alone, with both arms wrapped around his crying younger brothers.  Combined with this rather stoic dependable nature was an insatiable hunger for input.  He read anything and everything he could get his hands on and asked ceaseless questions of everyone.  A dear friend, Pari, re-christened  him “Whyman” after she took care of him for an afternoon and returned later exhausted by the never ending  interrogation he put her under.  He seemed to observe the world avidly around him trying to work things out and make sense of it all.  Sometimes it just didn’t make sense.

The only other children in our neighbourhood were the bin man’s two boys.  These lads were rather wild with a tendency to steal toys, slit our garden hammocks from end to end, throw stones, push small children out of trees and a perverse liking for putting dead animals on our kitchen windowsill!  As the years went by, they progressed to scratching the cars with stones, braking neighbour’s windows, intimidating the elderly in the street and then ultimately to drugs and real crime.  My eldest son observed their growing cruelty with alarm, after all, he had two vulnerable younger brothers to look out for.  But, I like to think that on some level, he managed to make some sense of it all, my poor parenting skills, unexpected cruelty in others and our own vulnerability to it all.  That, what we do, on a small tiny moral level, has consequences for who we become.  Like tiny unsure steps taken in a chosen direction, our kindness or our cruelty will shape not just our destination but our very communities.

The Amazing World we Live in

There’s something about the world we live in that is so jaw droppingly amazing you find yourself wondering how fantastic it all is.  From the tiny subatomic particles to the stars and galaxies it is pretty impressive.  How sad it is then that our educational system too often manages to take this world and its beauty and make it plain boring.  Packaging up facts to be memorised until it reaches blackboard scrapping dimensions.  Learning should have never have been left in the hands of the few.  It is far too precious and the methods of learning too varied for such restrictive hands.  Mind you, finance could have something to do with it.  I remember being involved with writing a computer aided package for educational purposes and being shocked how far behind the games industry our output was.  Then it was pointed out the vast sums being spent in the gaming industry and how miniscule the amounts used in educational packages.  You get for what you pay, as they say.  I was sent this link (see below) this week and found myself loving the way it takes you from the small to the massive.  Allowing you to get a glimpse of this wonderful world and its weirdness.  Click on start and then the planet looking icon above.  Then just slide the bar (located AT THE BOTTOM of this link) to the left or right;  Be sure to slide the bar both ways to see the very small and the very large.

The Amazing World We live In

angels whose feet walk upon this earth even as their souls are soaring through the high heavens

Our news is so often dominated by celebrities whose lives are followed by masses hungry for their latest intrigue or disaster.  Or alternatively, by our politicians, who disappoint us with their greed and corruption.  In a world where the bankers have stolen breathtaking amounts of money and even our clergy fight to free themselves from the stain of child abuse it is often hard to find news that lifts the soul.  But this week a death notice strangely left me moved.  On Page 26 of the newspaper there was a small article at the very bottom about a certain Don Ritchie from Australia who had died at the age of eighty six.  Not a celebrity, nor politician, nor clergyman, he didn’t raise money for charity, nor was he famous.  He lived near the sheer cliffs of Sydney Harbour and during five decades he managed to save between 160 lives.  People, who having lost all hope, had come to end it all by jumping off the cliffs.  Ritchie would spot would be suicides, from his home nearby, and walk to the cliff edge and smile and ask “Can I help you in some way?”  A modest man who courted neither celebrity nor praise, he helped by engaging with the desperate and often invited them back to his home for tea and a chat.  His quiet approach worked and because of Ritchie so many were saved and so many returned to thank the quiet man for his help.  As one survivor described him, “An angel who walks amongst us”.  So in this world where so much crap grabs the headlines and good men are rarely found, I’d like you to remember one Don Ritchie.

Killing students with pranks

I remember teaching in the chemistry lab in college, don’t ask why or how I ended up teaching a subject I know nothing about.  It is one of the perversities of my life that I always end up doing stuff that I am in no way trained to do.  Anyway, the class was about using a centrifuge and understanding how it worked and following basic safety rules.  So in a class about twenty I brought up students in pairs and explained how the centrifuge worked.  Showing them all the switches, how to lift the lid and put in samples in small tubes, balance them, then close the lid, lock it and turn it on.  When they turned it off I pointed out they needed to wait until the spinning had stopped completely before opening the device.  After nine pairs I was becoming bored with the same spiel.  Repeating the exact same words and actions again and again!  However, I had noticed that all the students were most nervous when opening the lid after the centrifuge had been spinning.  So for the last pair I waited until they reached in to open the lid and then screamed at the top of my voice.  The poor guy nearest to me nearly passed out.  He slumped against the bench and turned very pale.  I know, I know it was unforgiveable.  There was a shocked silence in the class and disbelief at what I had done.  There is no excuse for what I did, none.   I could have easily given someone a heart attack.  I don’t know what is wrong with me when I get bored there is a Jekyll and Hyde factor that takes over.  I have long said, to whoever will listen, I am not a fit person to be with young people.

There’ s a memory of being at school myself, so completely bored with the class that I remember thinking that an earthquake or alien invasion would really be preferable to this.  To this day whenever I see a line of school kids in uniform there is an uncontrollable emotion of delight that I no longer have to endure a class of any sort combined with a cruel thought of “suckers”!

Amusing Flotsam

At the 1994 annual awards dinner given by the American Association for Forensic Science, AAFS President Don Harper Mills astounded his audience in San Diego with the legal complications of a bizarre death. Here is the story.
“On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound of the head. The decedent had jumped from the top of a ten- story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this.”
”Ordinarily,” Dr. Mills continued, “a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. “The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.
“When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her – therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
“The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.
There was an exquisite twist. “Further investigation revealed that the son [Ronald Opus] had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.
“The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.”

I love this story but of course it is one of those internet bogus things.  The talk was indeed given at the  American Association for Forensic Science by AAFS President Don Harper Mills but he had made it up to illustrate the complexities that can occur in forensic law.  It is a sad affair that some of the most dominant things circulated on the internet and read so widely and shared so avidly are complete rubbish.  At times I feel guilty that I too am adding to the flotsam that circulates like plastic rubbish in the oceans.  But the story is a funny one and so, as you know it is untrue, perhaps no harm is done!

My Two Minds

Interesting article in this month’s edition of the New Scientist (May 2012).  Entitled “My Two Minds” it highlights the advantage of being bilingual.  Being able to speak two languages is of course a million miles away from learning two languages.  I must confess to spending seven useless years learning French at secondary school.  Since it was a compulsory subject, in those days, everyone, no matter their aptitude, was required to study it.  However, such was my dire ability; I was granted the only exception in a school of five hundred pupils.  Following some discussion among staff it was decided that my inability to understand anything in French threatened to unfairly humiliate the teaching staff in the end of term exam and I was granted an exemption.  I was relieved beyond measure as I have long suffered from what I call a blackboard memory.  I can keep only a certain amount of stuff in my head and once overloaded must remove existing material to make room for new items.  So when asked to memorise table, chair and light in French it seemed my brain carefully removed the few French verbs that may have crept slowly and painstakingly onto the board of my limited brain.  Strangely, with anything mathematical I was okay.  Perhaps mathematical and scientific formula could be squeezed onto my limited blackboard with greater density?  Who knows and who cares?  This article however, seems to indicate that I should.

It turns out that being bilingual leads to better brain development.  Studies have shown that bilinguals out perform monolinguals in 15 verbal and non-verbal tests.  This brain development begins early and bilingual babies (babies exposed to two languages from birth) show increased neural development.  It is as if being exposed to two languages at even this early stage invigorates learning in a fundamental way.  The bilingual brain has two languages competing for attention and as a result our brain appoints a Fat Controller within the brain to decide which word to use and inhibiting the same word in the other language.  This process is remarkably similar to those cultivated in commercial brain training programs.

I can remember an example of this vividly in my own home.  At a large gathering of Greek and English friends my youngest son discovered a large tick had bitten him on the stomach and while its head was buried deep in his juicy flesh its derriere was happily wriggling in relish in plain sight.  In outraged anguish he howled his distress first in English with loads of expletives.  Then, a few seconds later, he repeated his howl in fluent Greek with an even richer stream of obscenities and curses.  Most would have settled for one or the other but being bilingual he obviously felt duty bound to explode fully in both.  The Fat Controller must have been on a tea break.

The ability to curse in Greek is an art form.  I remember passing a Greek kicking his broken motorbike and hearing him curse with growing volume, his bike, his boss, his wife, the Virgin Mary, Jesus and finally God.  It seemed that not until he had insulted the full house could his anger be fully spent.  The New Scientist article seemed to bear out cultural differences such as this.  Indeed, it appears that bilingual people act differently depending on what language they speak.  They seem to have two mental channels one for each language, like two different minds.  For example Japanese-English bilinguals when asked to complete a set of unfinished sentences in two separate sessions – first in one and then in the other language demonstrated very different endings depending on the language.  Given the sentence

“Real friends should …..” In Japanese was followed by

“… help each other out”

Whereas in English this became

“…be very frank”

It would appear that each language brings to mind the culture and experience it has sprung from.  Once, I over heard my eldest son on the phone to a Greek friend and remonstrated that his use of the F___ word seemed totally uncalled for.  Not a bit, he informed me, if you spoke Greek properly, you have to curse!  But expletives aside, the article finished by indicating those who are bilingual seem to suffer less from dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Even when occupation and education factors were taken into account!  It is difficult to learn a new language in latter life but apparently the benefits of doing so add considerably to our cognitive systems even at this late stage.  “Learn a language at any age to remain mentally stimulated. That’s a source of cognitive reserve” – exhorts the article.

Speaking as someone who learned French for seven years and failed to speak it, then lived in Greece for almost a decade and failed again, I have a huge Brechers Brook mental hurdle about languages.  An image of a limited blackboard appears closer to the truth than I care to admit.  By not managing to speak those languages, perhaps, I have served to further reduce the area of brain space/blackboard available to me upstairs.  The conclusion appears to be, don’t do as I did, do as I say, learn a language, any language for your brain’s sake.

The Path

I asked my son to make an inspiring video that I could use in a course I was teaching for women returning to science and engineering.  All of these women had stopped working in their fields to bring up children, look after parents, move abroad or because of serious health issues.  The course was designed to get them back into employment.  It was inspiring to have such wonderful groups of women all over the UK trying to get their career back.  When one got a job interview the word was spread via online conferences and momentum build up with others taking the plunge as well.  Towards the end of the course several got job offers and we all felt their triumph and shared their success.  In these days of economic trials things are even harder.  So here is the video for anyone who is interested.  At times it is tricky to read but I like it!