Seasonal Greetings

Every week my cleaning lady laments how fast the time flies. It really does fly, no doubt about it. Doris Lessing said in one of her novels that this is an age-related thing, related also to the way our concept of time as the fourth dimension is linked to to the three dimensions of length, breadth and depth. You should read her thoughtful comments for yourself -- if my memory is reliable you'll find them in The Golden Notebook.

So I'll paste here the "Annual Report and Seasonal Greetings" that I fired off by email to family members and friends scattered around the world --

Seasonal Greetings and Annual Report, 2016

Greetings to my family, friends and neighbours! 

2016 has been the quietest year of my life yet, so I have very little news to report. I gave up driving early in the year, and once a week a ‘Personal Care Worker’ drives me to the neighborhood supermarket, on a hunt-and-gather expedition. Most of the rest of the week I spend in my comfortable apartment, surrounded by beloved books, many of which I’m rereading. My daughter Rebecca and her husband Richard call in to see me several times each week, and cook a tasty meal for me on one of these visits.  A lady from Abbottsford House (our neighbourhood community centre) comes weekly to cook another excellent meal. My sons David and Jonathan phone me several times every week, and visit me when they come to Ottawa. I hear from my grandchildren too, often enough to know we are plugged into each other’s circuits. 

 In emails I’ve mentioned the children’s story I began writing in 2014.  I’d forgotten all about this story until I was reminded by finding a mention of it in my beloved Wendy’s diary for 1962.  I made up this story to relieve the boredom our two toddlers, Rebecca and David, complained about on a long sea voyage back to Australia in1962 after a year in London.  Somewhere in the Indian Ocean, between the Red Sea and the Western Australian coast we ran out of children’s books to read to them. The kids mutinied when I suggested reading Winnie the Pooh to them yet again. They demanded that I make up a story.  Remembering the parrot that sat on the shoulder of Long John Silver in Robert Louis Stephenson’s adventure story Treasure Island, I made up a story with that parrot as the leading character.  I didn’t write it down in 1962, and when I began to write it in 2014, the characters came to life in my head and took over their story.  Soon I had a story of about 35,000 words, about the length of Treasure Island.  It’s been great fun to write this story.  Now I’ve found a publisher, who is helping me to identify an illustrator.  Unless there are unforeseen hitches, this book should be published in about 6 months. It’s suitable for children aged 8-12, and I’ve had favourable feedback from several children in this age group, who’ve read it. The story is being published by Friesen Press, will be out in 5-6 months; the main holdup is finding an illustrator — a story for 8-12 year old children must have pictures! I might have found an illustrator now, and if so publication time should be shortened.

In September I had my 90^th birthday. I was born in 1926, the same year as Fidel Castro, Marilyn Monroe, and our lady sovereign Queen Elizabeth II, among other distinguished people. We had several celebrations, including a spectacular one at the medical school when former students and colleagues said and wrote all sorts of kind things about me.  I have a PDF record of this event, a sort of ‘festschrift,’  and will be happy to send this to you if you’d like to see it. 

Have a very happy solstice, Diwali, Hannukah, Christmas, and/or seasonal festival of your choice!

Yours ever,

John

John M Last, OC, MD

oldwhitebeard@gmail.com (personal)

http://www.medicine.uottawa.ca/epid/eng/lastbio.html

Blog: lastswords.blogspot.com

Select a poltroon to lead ... and stand clear

The poltroon the American electors "selected" to lead them for the next four years hasn't taken office yet, but is already demonstrating his unfitness for the high office of president of the United States, and de facto leader of the so-called free world. 

The quotes around 'selected' indicate my incredulity that this has happened.  It would only be possible in the undemocratic nation that USA is. Hilary Clinton got 2 1/2 million votes more than Trump, but thanks to the undemocratic nature of the 'electoral college' system -- a classic example of gerrymandering at its worst --  Trump secured an overwhelming victory.

Trump has selected a cabinet that can only be described as far-right. Its highest priority seems to be to undo the very modest steps Obama took to make governance in the USA more even-handed. Some appointments, notable the next ambassador to Israel, bode ill for the wider world far beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I'm glad in a selfish way that at 90 years of age, I won't have much longer to lament the parlous plight the world faces. But I'm apprehensive about the instability Trump is inflicting on the world, even before he takes office.  

Crows

Crows are known to be very intelligent birds. Scientists who study animal behaviour have demonstrated this by applying problem-solving tests, in which crows out-perform all other species and breeds. Observing their behaviour through the picture windows of our apartment, Wendy and I, and a visitor we had that afternoon, were astonished late one winter afternoon about 15 years ago, when a vast procession flew past.  It was a gathering much too large to fit the collective noun, a murder of crows, which fits a small group gathered in a tree, cawing away at one another, chattering about the latest crow gossip. No, what we saw that late winter afternoon, was more like a convention of all the crows in Eastern Ontario and West Quebec.

I've seen similar large gatherings a few more times since that first one which caught Wendy's and my attention, the latest today, when I saw squadrons of crows converging towards a destination just east of my apartment building, out of sight from my windows. I think they came down to roost in the big trees alongside the Canal. As on previous occasions I'd estimate the numbers must have been well into the tens of thousands, perhaps even more.  

I hope scientists who study animal behaviour will soon develop ways to communicate with crows and other intelligent species, like porpoises and whales. We have much to learn to them -- and they have much to learn from us!

Cloud Messenger

In many ways, my friend Karen Trollope Kumar is like another daughter. She is in the same age group as my kids, and over the decades of our friendship, as I've followed the course of her life, and the lives of her husband Pradeep and their children Sonia and Raman, I've felt sometimes as if I am part of her family and she, Pradeep, Sonia and Raman, are part of my family. It is a warm, loving, and privileged relationship that I treasure almost as much as I treasure the family ties that bind me to my children and grandchildren. 

Karen is a gifted writer, perhaps in part a genetic endowment (she is descended from Anthony Trollope); and my friendship with her originated in part through my admiration for her writing. As a Canadian medical student (at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia) Karen went to Lucknow, where she met a handsome young Indian physician. After a 4-year courtship, conducted like Wendy's and mine, largely in letters back and forth, Karen and Pradeep were married in India, in a traditional Hindu ceremony. After their marriage they practised for about 11 years in rural clinics in the Himalayan foothills. Throughout their years in India, Karen wrote to me often, beautifully written letters about their life and work.Then they came to Canada, and Karen joined the McMaster University family practice department. She wrote her MA and a PhD in medical anthropology, on her work in India. Then, encouraged by me and others, she wrote a lovely memoir, Cloud Messenger, about her life and work in India.  Throughout several drafts of this book, I've offered occasional advice and suggestions which Karen has generously acknowledged in the published book which has just been produced by Friesen Press. I'll be promoting this book, and doing my best to boost sales.

Fidel Castro 1926-2016

My distinguished contemporary Fidel Castro died last week. Cuba is rightly mourning his passing, but Cuban exiles in Miami, many allied with the corrupt criminal gang led by the arch criminal Battista, are rejoicing at the death of a man they regarded as a tyrant, and slavering for a renewal of their opportunity to pillage and rape their homeland. It's hard to get an impartial view of Cuba. American perspectives are warped by their paranoid hatred of communism. Amnesty International has published evidence of political repression, with suppression of dissident political views, but the situation would appear to be no worse than in many other non-democratic nations, and indeed better than many.

Fidel Castro transformed health and education in Cuba, elevated his small, isolated nation to a leading position in the rank order of health indicators and educational achievement not only in the region but also in the wider world. Moreover, he exported Cuban health workers throughout Latin America and parts of Africa, where they did much to improve health, set educational standards and helped establish public administration free of graft and corruption. Above all, Fidel Castro and his government stood up to the economic embargo and enormous might of the USA for half a century, so his David versus Goliath struggle evokes reluctant respect and admiration even from enemies. He had the respect and friendship of many social democratic nations in Europe, as well as here in Canada

Wendy and I had two splendid holidays in Cuba. It's a beautiful country with a graceful old capital city, Havana. This is rightly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  But it is dilapidated,  and widespread repairs and renovations are urgently needed. I've met and interacted with Cuban health workers and staff members of the excellent medical school and school of public health. They impress me greatly. It is most regrettable that Cuba has been the victim of the mindless American "anticommunist" paranoia. History would be very different if successive American administrations from Eisenhower onward had reached out a helping hand to Cuba, rather than doing their utmost to bring the regime down. On the other hand, it's refreshing to visit a nation free of American fast food outlets, golden arches, pizza huts and the like...