Da Haider hat mai Kaernterlied g’stolen

Der Haider hat mein Kärntnerlied g’stolen
A few days ago I fell, by chance, on a television reportage about Haider and the anniversary of his dead.
Haider followers are all wearing the traditional Dirnl, if female, and Kärntneranzug, if male. Being from Carinthia and having lived outside the country for more than 20 years, these dressing, which I found ridiculous back then, now makes me feel a bit nostalgic. At my latest visit in my home town (Bruno town) I was nearly decided to buy one of these Dirndls. It looks somehow cude. But when I saw Mrs Haider and Haider followers in all these dresses, I was glad I did not have time to follow this impulsive wish.
Another thing, often when riding my bicycle, feeling the wind and enjoying the sunshine, I want to sing. Often then, Kaerntnerlieder come to my mind. That’s how it is, what was planted early remains. But now I am worried, I do not feel free to sing them. I feel as if I was a Haider follower-or people might take for one. That’s what the message was on the Swiss TV , the Haider followers keep on HIS tradition, they sing HIS songs. But it is our home songs. How can we get them back?

Of rats and men

In biology the rat is a convenient model to study all kinds of biological features, and reactions to treatments, such as metabolism, learning, social behavior.

Interestingly, sexual behavior of male rats clearly showed decreasing sexual interest when kept for prolonged periods of time with the same female. Sexual activity came back to normal when the male was provided with a new female partner. Surprisingly, this was  independent of the attributes of the female.

Everything is wrapped up.

Why do we use plastic to put small things into big wrappings; things that are worth less than their wrapping. The top is: dog shit is wrapped in plastic too.
To save energy, why do we use plastic, it is not renewable, made from petrol.
Every ounce of water is wrapped in plastic. We wrap every spoon of sugar, of confiture, honey, coffee (who is really recycling the Nespresso capsules?).
We wrap meals. If it is not wrapped, we at least serve our drinks and food in plastic. Disposable. Even in grand a Hyatt Hotel you cannot get a coffee or orange juice in a glass, but in plastic or paper. A bar keeper prefers offering the drinks in plastic. Question of personnel: nobody was hired for filling the dishwasher.
What a shame. How can we educate/inform people?
In airplanes. Everything you do not eat is thrown away. Even thing not unwrapped from their perfect wrappings, like cheese, butter, yogurt.
I used to take things home, but this is not possible anymore, because of the security requirements. I could drink my 100 mililiter orange juice, wrapped in a sealed plastic cup later, while waiting for a connecting flight, etc.
One could feed homeless people with what comes back from airplanes. Of 200 people, females will not eat everything. That means that maybe 50 to 100 cheeses are thrown away, 100 breads, 100 yogurts. There might be more than 100 homeless in Frankfurt, but there are more airplanes with the same problem.
One reason might be that it needs less personnel to distribute the boxes than presenting a basket of rolls, cheese, etc. and a jars with orange juice, milk, or water, to every passenger. There is one airline doing that, Baboo, with great success.
Supermarkets. Compare the number of ailes with fresh unpacked goods to the number of ailes with processed packaged food. It is a very small percentage. And even the vegetables and fruits are wrapped into plastic.
People have lost the sense of quality, but instead relate their favorite food to the favored brand, recognizable by its wrapping (Starbooks caffee, what is so good about?). Even meals get their brand flavor: Betty Bossy lunch pack…
There are two wasteful things in this our life style: 1) waste of non-renewable energy with the plastic, saran, and paper wrapping, 2) waste of food. It is pre-packed in units that do not suit everybody. What cannot be eaten is thrown away, because only originally sealed food is kept for a later use.
Another development and change in customs that made more robust packaging necessary is the generation of liquid forms of goods that used to be solid. We always had liquid shampoo, but solid soap and washing powder. Soap came in a little sheet of paper, or even nothing. Now it is difficult to find soap. We use shower gels, hand washing foam or liquid soap, and liquid washing powder.
This produces waste that we did not have before.
In developed countries and rich societies it might weigh on the ecological conscience. However, in poor countries the waste created by this way of wrapping leaves the waste. Poverty today is not poor people pegging, being dressed in old dirty garments, poverty today is lingering in a sea of plastic bottles, plastic bags…There are no signs “this mile cleaned by…”

Everything is wrapped up.
Why do we use plastic to put small things into big wrappings; things that are worth less than their wrapping. The top is: dog shit is wrapped in plastic too.
To save energy, why do we use plastic, it is not renewable, made from petrol.
Every ounce of water is wrapped in plastic. We wrap every spoon of sugar, of confiture, honey, coffee (who is really recycling the Nespresso capsules?).
We wrap meals. If it is not wrapped, we at least serve our drinks and food in plastic. Disposable. Even in grand a Hyatt Hotel you cannot get a coffee or orange juice in a glass, but in plastic or paper. A bar keeper prefers offering the drinks in plastic. Question of personnel: nobody was hired for filling the dishwasher.
What a shame. How can we educate/inform people?
In airplanes. Everything you do not eat is thrown away. Even thing not unwrapped from their perfect wrappings, like cheese, butter, yogurt.
I used to take things home, but this is not possible anymore, because of the security requirements. I could drink my 100 mililiter orange juice, wrapped in a sealed plastic cup later, while waiting for a connecting flight, etc.
One could feed homeless people with what comes back from airplanes. Of 200 people, females will not eat everything. That means that maybe 50 to 100 cheeses are thrown away, 100 breads, 100 yogurts. There might be more than 100 homeless in Frankfurt, but there are more airplanes with the same problem.
One reason might be that it needs less personnel to distribute the boxes than presenting a basket of rolls, cheese, etc. and a jars with orange juice, milk, or water, to every passenger. There is one airline doing that, Baboo, with great success.
Supermarkets. Compare the number of ailes with fresh unpacked goods to the number of ailes with processed packaged food. It is a very small percentage. And even the vegetables and fruits are wrapped into plastic.
People have lost the sense of quality, but instead relate their favorite food to the favored brand, recognizable by its wrapping (Starbooks caffee, what is so good about?). Even meals get their brand flavor: Betty Bossy lunch pack…
There are two wasteful things in this our life style: 1) waste of non-renewable energy with the plastic, saran, and paper wrapping, 2) waste of food. It is pre-packed in units that do not suit everybody. What cannot be eaten is thrown away, because only originally sealed food is kept for a later use.
Another development and change in customs that made more robust packaging necessary is the generation of liquid forms of goods that used to be solid. We always had liquid shampoo, but solid soap and washing powder. Soap came in a little sheet of paper, or even nothing. Now it is difficult to find soap. We use shower gels, hand washing foam or liquid soap, and liquid washing powder.
This produces waste that we did not have before.
In developed countries and rich societies it might weigh on the ecological conscience. However, in poor countries the waste created by this way of wrapping leaves the waste. Poverty today is not poor people pegging, being dressed in old dirty garments, poverty today is lingering in a sea of plastic bottles, plastic bags…There are no signs “this mile cleaned by…”

Die Physiker?

In 1961, in the middle of the cold war, Friedrich Durrenmatt wrote the play Die Physiker. It was an intriguing plot at that time, when everybody was worried and everybody talked about global war threads. Today, this is not our daily fear, at least we do not talk about it any more.

Health is an important global issue.

Improving global health by various research-driven implementations will certainly lead to success.

However, the speed of progress in the medical sciences is lacking behind the speed of other advances for mastering global challenges.

When I was a molecular biology student many years ago, the fundamental questions- unanswered at that time- were not so different from the questions still asked today. We did not ask which was the sequence of the letters in the human genome. Although it is useful to know, it is more like a tool, not an answer to a question.

Quite differently in the world of science and technology, things have been achieved in the meantime (since the time I was student). We wanted a tunnel to link England and France, it is reality, two hours train ride. We wanted (or not) to communicate from anywhere, we have it.

Not so in medical science. We want to know how we can ban the new influenca virus every year; we barely have the full answer. AIDS made its appearance in the 80s. We can treat it, but still do not understand much. This, although it is a relatively easy disease, namely caused by a single causative agent.

One hampering fact on the road to progress in medical science is the people and their education. Research is driven by two classes of people: scientist, educated as biochemists, molecular biologists, geneticists, etc., and physicians, trained as doctors and in a second education some post-doctoral training in a research lab. The first group is mostly highly specialized and well trained profound experts, the second are often well trained doctors, but their lab-experience counts only a few years, is often problem based and not methodological. They learn to apply the knowledge and technologies that are available in the particular laboratory and the particular field. More like we all use computers without knowing much about informatics.

Most medical departments therefore have medical doctors with some research experience in important positions rather than scientist. Scientist are heading departments in universities without a link to medical research.

This said, it seems obvious to me that a training program for scientists who work in medical research is necessary. Every education leaves an imprinting that will drive more or less future decisions and motivations. Many universities have developed MD-PhD programs to give their MDs the touch of research experience, whether they use it or not, it is helpful for their career.

A similar training ground has to be set up for the those who want to move into the opposite direction. Few universities are eager to do so. Mostly with the argument is that scientist do not need to become doctors and treat people. That is true, but they need to have a better understanding of the human body as an organisms, which is a neglect inherent to the way in which science operates, reductionistically. Science has to remain reductionistic, but the view of the scientist and his/her intuition needs as much knowledge and understanding of the field as possible.

Medicine has to remain the science of how to diagnose and how to best treat the patient.

Medical science is the science of understanding the cause and progress of the disease, based on knowledge therof we can develop useful drugs.

Our societies in the Western world tend to believe that medical doctors are more inclined to drive medical science. This is inherent to our fear of disease and death. The medical doctor is the last resort. This is true. But the conclusion is irrational since it confuses medicine and medical science.

However, medical science is lacking the input from the medical practitioner. Few of them are bilingual and can fulfill the goals of both professions. Therefore the curriculum of scientist working in medical sciences has to change. Basic medical knowledge will have to be integrated in the fundamental education. Scientist have to become bilingual and seek to the input from their clinical colleagues.  

To drive this thought, we have set up a course of basic medical science for scientists. It will be taught in modules and should bring to the mind of the scientist the basic physiology, pharmacology, and pathology. It will be taught in modules, beginning with female reproductive health. It should also bring the notion of global health problems to the attention of the scientist. It is therefore organized with and at the headquarters of the WHO.

http://www.gfmer.ch/Translational_medicine/TM_advertisement_2008.htm

The course will be an on-line learning course and a one week on-site lecture, clinical networking, project elaborating course.

We intend to expand this course in the coming years for 2 more modules: cardio-vascular health, gastro-intestinal-urogenital health.

What can help Tibet?

Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008

What could help Tibet?

Easter, the feast of peace. The pope would have his annual address to nations and political groups at war. Does not have much to say any more. Did he ever? In the middle ages he was a war going party himself. Maybe, we just want to believe that “some time ago” his words were still listened and had an impact.

Today the Dalai Lama would propose the Chinese government to visit and discuss the situation. The reply of the Chinese government was that they would arrest him. Slam, the door is closed. This is very unusual for Chinese. They usually play on gaining time.

What is happening in Tibet, I cannot really imagine. Too little information and too little my knowledge about this country. However, my grief is real.  I visited Tibet in the summer of 1985. China was just opened for individual tourists and Tibet as well. For us China was a wonderful magic country. We entered from Hongkong, still belonging to the Western World at that time, crossed from the British to the Chinese border by walking a few hundred meters, then travelled towards the South West, with a few words of Chinese in my mind and many more Chinese signs ready to show in my pocket. It was not a different country, but a different world. I have been to China again in the last few years and I did not recognize and could not feel the country I once visited.

Arriving in Lhasa in August 1985, after several weeks in China, we seemed to be again on another planet, so enormous was the difference between those two countries. Ever since Tibet remained in my memory like a shrine, a substantiation of human respect for nature. The combination of the majestic Himalaya Mountains and the Buddhist culture made this liturgical mix. Himalaya would not be the same without the cultures around, and the culture developed under the influence of those mountains.

It might sound funny or arrogant, but just any Western, or Chinese-new-Western-culture, would look in the Himalaya as ridiculous as a mountain village in the Rockies, pretending to be a Swiss village.

Why do the Chinese put so much effort in repressing this culture? I read they made very stupid mistakes to homogenize all parts of their huge country, even forcing Tibetans to grow rice. My experience with Chinese is that they are very intelligent, thinking ahead and carefully weighing pro and contras. Here they do not. There seems to be an URANGST, German word for a deep fear, inherited by generations. Today’s prime minister was governor of Tibet and became famous for the crash in 1989?  That cannot be all, but could be. When travelling in Tibet in 1985 we often observed disputes between the Tibetans and Chinese. We did not understand anything, but the mutual dislike was obvious.

The binding down of Tibetan culture was coherent with the ideas of the Cultural Revolution, ironically, but at least. It is not with China’s politic of opening and free competition today, which is a striking contrast to homogenization. The youngest political prisoner in China, the designated successor of the Dalai Lama, makes me feel so sad. How can a country that tries to develop towards a Western civilization be so cruel? We all read about Chinese cultural cruelty in the past, during the times of the emperors and the time of the Cultural Revolution. I know that human rights are constantly disregarded in China, and becoming a prisoner is a bit of a hazard, but how can it be demonstrated so obviously?

It is very evidently a psychological problem. We should have a psychological revolution in China. China would need a therapeutic psychoanalysis.

What can we do? Inform Chinese? Try to make them think what we think, if they are informed, but have another view of the situation? One problem of China is its size. Whenever I tell Chinese people: “In Switzerland we do this like that”, etc. Their answer is:”China is big. We cannot have it your way”. SO GET SMALL.  Crack this monster of a country into its original linguistic and cultural (if they still remember) entities. It would be easier to govern. You can permit more individualism in smaller countries with less inhabits.

However, the average Chinese, having tasted the economic spring, is aware that this is a fruit of the billions and billions of people in their country, cheep working power AND important consumers, driving their economy. So the average Chinese is proud being Chinese. Like the average US citizen. This said, the suppression of Tibet might be a demonstration to set an example to the other minorities, possibly thinking of becoming independent or autonomous.

Or, China hitting Tibet is nothing different from what we learned about the European immigrants suppressing and killing American Indians. Would not that mean that in essence, it is the forces of progress that are confronted with cultures reaching out for homeostasis, which still have other values than economic growth.  

Hallo Welt!

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