Thank you, Maggy, Zoey, and Miss Ann for the pawsome Christmas card!
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and also a New Year full of miracles
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
-- Walt Whitman
Abbey Christmas
Clammy hands? Trouble sleeping? Counting down the hours until Christmas day? Like many of the library staff, you might be suffering withdrawal from medical history docu-drama and all-round national treasure Downton Abbey. That’s right, folks, medical history. Those of you who’ve managed to tear themselves away from Cousin Matthew’s puppy-dog eyes will surely have noticed the show’s preoccupation with all things sickly. The first series saw Lady Crawley’s miscarriage, Mrs Patmore’s cataract surgery, Bates’ ill-corrected limp and Isobel pressurising Dr Clarkson into performing pericardiocentesis on a dropsy patient. (Editor's note: we're drawing a veil over Mr Pamuk and his untimely ending at the erm, hands, of Lady Mary). But it was in the second series, set during the great war, that the medical storylines really started stacking up, with everything from gas-blindness to the poisons register getting a mention. With nine whole months to survive between Sunday’s Christmas special and the promised third series, Downton addicts will be casting around for something to feed their habit. And what better place to start than the Wellcome library?
Downton’s transformation into a convalescent home is evocatively suggested in two albums of photographs. In the series Lady Sybil trains as a VAD (voluntary aid detachment) nurse to tend to injured servicemen. Our albums come from slightly less privileged stock: Grace Mitchell was the daughter of tenant farmers in Theydon bois, Essex, and worked as a nurse during and after the war, in England and France and at casualty clearing stations in Cologne. Dorothy Waller was from a medical family - her brother Wathen was serving as a Surgeon-Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Both Grace and Dorothy took photographs during their time at the 3rd southern general hospital, which included Oxford town hall and the Oxford examination schools. Pictured is Grace with patients in Oxford.
Downton’s shell-shocked Valet Mr Lang’s condition is brought to life in a 1917 film War Neuroses: Netley Hospital which has been digitized and is available on the Wellcome Film youtube channel. The library also holds a collection of reprints of articles by Charles Samuel Myers, who coined the term “shell-shock” as well as diaries and notes made by Charles McMoran Wilson, when he was a medical officer on the Western front, which led to the publication of his The Anatomy of Courage in 1945.
The series climaxed with a perilous outbreak of Spanish flu, with Lady Grantham, faithful butler Carson, and Lavinia Swire all struck down. The 1918 medical officer of health report for Kingsclere, close to Highclere castle where Downton is filmed, reveals how closely art imitates life - the influenza outbreak there ‘increased with the cold damp September till in October and November it was of alarming frequency causing 31 deaths.’ A further 5 deaths were attributed to the resulting pneumonia, against a total of 122 for the year. A public service film and a documentary with archival footage also record the outbreak.
If all of that’s piqued your interest but you’re still too lethargic to leave the house, why spend some of your Christmas book tokens on one of these:
Dismembering the male: men's bodies, Britain, and the Great War by Joanna Bourke
War, disability and rehabilitation in Britain: "soul of a nation" by Julie Anderson
A war of nerves by Ben Shephard
Spike Island: the memory of a military hospital by Philip Hoare
Women in the war zone by Anne Powell
As for “Patrick Crawley”’s amnesia and Matthew’s miraculously cured paralysis? We’re as stumped on those as you are…
Images:
A neo-Gothic building used as a hospital, with an ambulance in the drive. Watercolour by Walter E. Spradbery, Wellcome images 47357i
Photograph from the album of Grace Mitchell, Wellcome images 675224i
Compiled by Wellcome library staff and written by Jo Maddocks
Glenn Reynolds: The Ever Inflating Higher Education Bubble
Glenn Reynolds talks about The Ever Inflating Higher Education Bubble.
Froot Bat Friday
No treats. It's almost Christmas, The Mom. Don't you think Santa Claws would approve of you being good and giving me treats? I think he would. I see some coal in someMom's future.
Good quote about a problem with public school
Grouping kids by age for instruction makes about as much pedagogical sense as grouping them by height!
– Dr. Deborah Ruf, founder of Educational Options
Hat tip: The Libertarian Homeschooler
Kim Jong-Il's Death - The Korean's Thoughts
If you remember where you were when you heard a piece of news, that's a big news. The Korean was reading a newspaper in his living room back in Korea, when he learned from the front page that Kim Il-Sung died. He was on a conference call at work in New York when someone on the call broke the news that Michael Jackson died. And this time, the Korean was walking up the stairs at a hotel near San Luis Obispo, California, when the Korean Wife read her text messages and said, "Hey, Kim Jong-Il died."
The Korean has not been near a computer for quite some time, but he did voraciously read all the news, from within Korea and without. (4G phone = awesome.) Given the significance of the news, the Korean will devote the next several posts over the next several days on North Korea. Specifically, the posts will discuss the Korean's own thoughts, Mr. Joo Seong-Ha's thoughts, things about North Korea that most commentators are missing right now, and any other North Korean question that the Korean has received in the last few days.
* * *
When the Arab Spring happened, many North Korean observers were eager to extend the analogy to North Korea. In most cases, the analogies failed. North Korea is more isolated, more benighted and more tightly controlled than any of the Arab countries. Even the most repressive Arab dictatorship that fell -- that is, Libya under Qaddafi -- may well be a liberal democracy compared to North Korea.
However, there is one crucial lesson from the Arab Spring that does apply to North Korea. The lesson is this: an apparently stable dictatorship may fall suddenly, unpredictably and uncontrollably. Previous to the Arab Spring, there appeared to be no hope for democracy in Arab nations. For decades, despite constant oppression that appeared intolerable for outside observers, Arab nations persisted in dictatorship. Very smart people -- for example, influential Harvard professor Samuel Huntington -- believed that Islamic cultural traditions prevented Arab nations from having a democracy. And they looked like geniuses, until they did not.
The same applies to North Korea. Freedom's lack of progress in North Korea has frustrated many observers into falsely believing that North Koreans are too brainwashed and the Kim Dynasty too strong. Not so. Looking back, there were many signs that the Arab Spring was imminent -- we just did not know what to look for. Similarly, there are many signs that the fall of North Korea is not far away. You just have to know what to look for. And with Kim Jong-Il's death, there are even more signs that North Korea is not for much longer.
What are those signs? Here are five examples:
- North Korea is trying out a collective rule for the first time in history. Throughout its existence, North Korea has always been led by a single ruler. Now, for the first time in its history, North Korea is being ruled by a committee. A rule by committee always contains within it a seed for an internal struggle. The seed is especially likely to germinate if a crucial actor within it -- that is, Kim Jong-Un -- is too inexperienced to maneuver adroitly.
- Deification of Kim Jong-Un is not working. Ever since Kim Jong-Un surfaced into public awareness, the reports from North Korea have been unanimous: North Korean people do not respect him. Kim Jong-Un was born out of wedlock, by Kim Jong-Il's mistress who was a Korean-Japanese dancer. Kim Jong-Un is only 28 years old. North Koreans quietly deride the attempts at Kim Jong-Un's deification. In fact, failure of charismatic leadership in North Korea began with Kim Jong-Il, who made up for his lack of charisma with political oppression far more brutal than Kim Il-Sung's. At the third generation, the charismatic capital of the Kim family dynasty is now completely empty. Even at the elite level, the relationship between Kim Jong-Un and the elites is transactional rather than personal or ideological.
- Vast majority of North Koreans does not depend on the regime for their livelihood. Since the 1990s, North Korea has ceased to be a communist economy with collective production and distribution. Instead, as far as economy is concerned, North Korea is deeply capitalistic. People's livelihood depends on the market, not on the rations handed by the Labor Party. Kim Jong-Il regime correctly saw this, and attempted to reverse this trend by closing the markets and engaging in a currency reform. The currency reform was an unmitigated disaster, and the markets reopened in just three months. At this point, North Korea can never return to being a communist economy. And greater the market forces are, the weaker the forces of the regime.
- North Korea is more porous than ever. It is, of course, true that North Korea is severely isolated. But the isolation must not be overstated. Because of the factor (3) above, North Korea now has a group of people at the top of the economic ladder who actually enjoy a semi-decent living standards. There are more than 800,000 cell phones operating in North Korea now, and that is before we begin counting the Chinese phones in North Korea that can be used to call South Korea directly. Young people in Pyongyang openly flaunt their iPads. South Korean pop culture, which has captured the imagination of the world, has also hit North Korea. The pirated DVD sets of the latest Korean dramas are widely available in North Korea. Further, there are more North Korean defectors than ever living in South Korea -- 20,000 of them, representing practically every major city in North Korea. Because border patrols can be easily bribed, these defectors regularly communicate with the families back in North Korea via telephone or letters. All this means that ordinary North Koreans have absolutely no illusions about the failure of their own country to provide for them.
- North Korean economy is weaker than ever. The price of rice in North Korea nearly doubled in the last two years, although there is no indication that the living standards in North Korea improved twofold as well. Although rice is harvested in autumn, the price has not fallen in the recent months. Last time this happened in the 1990s, North Korea went through a mass starvation in which a million people starved to death. North Koreans remember this, and likely will not wait to starve this time.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.
Photo-Finish Friday -- Christmas In Belize
This photo was taken a few winters ago when my Charmer and I were living in Belize. Man, I miss that weather! 
Leah J. Utas is the force behind Photo-Finish Friday.
Hope everyone has the greatest of holidays!
Another variation on Bye Bye Miss American Pie
I'm always impressed by people who can craft words like this:
Tiffany & Co. to the rescue
For the first time in years, our Christmas shopping was done with a week to spare. Fortunately we did the bulk of it on the Internet. While I have the enviable reputation of repeatedly getting the parking place closest to the door of any mall the day before Christmas, it doesn't help fight the crowds inside stampeding for the last wrong sized ugly sweater or the last scented Christmas candle that smells more like a Bethlehem stable than a pine tree.
As I cruised the Internet this afternoon, I found most of the online stores where I shopped have switched from, "Order now and get delivery by Christmas," to "Order your gift card online and have it in time for Christmas." In other words, if you haven't bought it yet, there is no way you will have it by Christmas. Sorry guys.
Oh wait a minute, the cutoff for ordering online and delivery by Christmas from Tiffany & Co. is 3:00 p.m., December 23, and they don't even charge for shipping. So, gentlemen there is still time to avoid the traffic, shop at one of the most prestigious stores in the world, and have your gift delivered for free in time for Christmas. She'll say, "Oh honey you shouldn't have," while you'll be thinking, "You're right I shouldn't have, but at least it was free delivery."
The Hobbit - waiting another year
Our family greatly enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Peter Jackson will be releasing The Hobbit next year. It will be a long twelve months:
The Ron Paul Portfolio
As reported by the Wall Street Journal:Most members of Congress, like many Americans, hold some real estate, a few bonds or bond mutual funds, some individual stocks and a bundle of stock funds. Give or take a few percentage points, a typical Congressional portfolio might have 10% in cash, 10% in bonds or bond funds, 20% in real estate, and 60% in stocks or stock funds.
But Ron Paul’s portfolio isn’t merely different. It’s shockingly different.
Yes, about 21% of Rep. Paul’s holdings are in real estate and roughly 14% in cash. But he owns no bonds or bond funds and has only 0.1% in stock funds. Furthermore, the stock funds that Rep. Paul does own are all “short,” or make bets against, U.S. stocks. One is a “double inverse” fund that, on a daily basis, goes up twice as much as its stock benchmark goes down.
The remainder of Rep. Paul’s portfolio – fully 64% of his assets – is entirely in gold and silver mining stocks....
At our request, William Bernstein, an investment manager at Efficient Portfolio Advisors in Eastford, Conn., reviewed Rep. Paul’s portfolio as set out in the annual disclosure statement. Mr. Bernstein says he has never seen such an extreme bet on economic catastrophe. ”This portfolio is a half-step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and nine-millimeter rounds,” he says.
A different Top Ten
Trust coffee drinkin' Jesus to put the whole end of year top ten thing into perspective.
Hat tip to the disciple.
Click the pic for a better look.
Jury Nulification - in the New York Times
Paul Butler has a nice column in the New York Times: Jurors Need to Know That They Can Say No. He starts with:
----------
IF you are ever on a jury in a marijuana case, I recommend that you vote “not guilty” — even if you think the defendant actually smoked pot, or sold it to another consenting adult. As a juror, you have this power under the Bill of Rights; if you exercise it, you become part of a proud tradition of American jurors who helped make our laws fairer.
The information I have just provided — about a constitutional doctrine called “jury nullification” — is absolutely true. But if federal prosecutors in New York get their way, telling the truth to potential jurors could result in a six-month prison sentence.
Earlier this year, prosecutors charged Julian P. Heicklen, a retired chemistry professor, with jury tampering because he stood outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan providing information about jury nullification to passers-by. Given that I have been recommending nullification for nonviolent drug cases since 1995 — in such forums as The Yale Law Journal, “60 Minutes” and YouTube — I guess I, too, have committed a crime.
The prosecutors who charged Mr. Heicklen said that “advocacy of jury nullification, directed as it is to jurors, would be both criminal and without constitutional protections no matter where it occurred.” The prosecutors in this case are wrong. The First Amendment exists to protect speech like this — honest information that the government prefers citizens not know.
----------
As members of a jury we have the responsibility to listen to the evidence and make a decision on if the defendent is guilty of the crime. But we also have a responsibility to decide if the law is a good law. This jury can nullify the law. Paul Butler explains how over time judges have tried to discourage citizens from realizing this.
Hat tip: The Libertarian Homeschooler
Forthcoming attractions
January 1st in the archives is a time not only for new resolutions and new projects, but for new raw material: at the start of each year, a batch of material that has been closed for Data Protection reasons is opened for readers to work upon. The precise contents of this year's batch, of course, are still secret for a little over a week. We can, however, give at least the bare-bones information from the archive catalogue about these forthcoming attractions. They include:
The full list is as follows. Only a little while to go....
MS.8155; Christo P. Popoff; 1957; letter to Dr. C. Allen of the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich, London. Popoff writes about a case of schizophrenia and enquires about the effectiveness of Largactil in stabilising patients suffering from this condition.
PP/CMW/D.9/1; Moran's Notes; 1950-1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/2; 1951 Recommendations; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/2/1; London Teaching Hospitals and Regions 'For meetings, 7/2/52 & 6/3/52'; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/2/2; Index to 1951 recommendations; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3; 'Notes 1951'; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3/1; Birmingham I, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3/2; Wales, Leeds, Sheffield; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3/3; North East, North West Metropolitan Region; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3/4; South East, South West Metropolitan Region; 1951.
PP/CMW/D.13/3/5; Specialities, London Regions and Teaching Hospitals; 1951.
PP/DWW/F/1; Adult Clinical material; 1920s; A few cases of adult patients found in a small concertina file of predominantly child patient notes from the 1920s (now in PP/DWW/E.2/1) and separated out here.
PP/HUN/C/1/23; Cysticercosis; 1932-1943.
SA/BMF/A.2/109; Hacker, Henry Pollard; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/110; Winton, Frank Robert; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/111; Wooldridge, Walter Reginald; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/112; Morgan, Walter Thomas James; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/113; Eggleton, Philip; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/114; Marrian, Guy Frederick; 1927.
SA/BMF/A.2/115; Fee, Archibald Roderick; 1927.
SA/BRA/C.1/3/2; Brain Research Association response to the 1979 Protection of Animals (Scientific Purposes) Bill and the 1979 Laboratory Animals Protection Bill (Includes papers from the Committee for the Reform of Animal Experimentation, The Physiological Society, the Research Defence Society, The Royal Society, and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare); 1980-1981.
SA/QNI/J.3/35; The Queen's Roll: 8301-8550; Oct 1926-Jul 1927.
SA/QNI/J.4/1; The Queen's Roll on cards; 1907-1927; 3055-8499.
Image: 19th century wood engraving from the Wellcome Library's Iconographic Collections.
Reminder - send in a post for the next Carnival of Homeschooling
Note: Please send your submissions to the carnival via email!
Blog Carnvial is partially broken. It is accepting submissions, but not forwarding them. It would be easier if you just submitted your post directly via email. Go here for the instructions on sending in a submission.
Thanks.
Please send in a post about homeschooling for the next Carnival of Homeschooling.
Next week's carnival will be held at Corn and Oil.
Next week's carnival will be held at Corn and Oil.
This will be the 3132th edition.
As always, entries to the Carnival of Homeschooling are due Monday evening at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time.
Merry Christmas!
The Wellcome Library closes today for the festive period at 6pm and re-opens at 10am on Tuesday 3rd January 2012.
We would just like to take this opportunity to wish all Library readers and followers of the Library Blog, a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Image: A snowballing scene with boys playing in the snow. On the reverse of the picture is an advertisement for Onnen's German Fever and Ague Mixture. 1890s (EPH 348)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
