The Editor
The Guardian
I was electrified to read that the French ground to ground nuclear weapon rejoices in the name of "Plateau d'Albion" (Letters, January 26th). Does that not roughly translate as "Flatten England"? Maybe Blair's plan to renew Trident is not as stupid as it looks.
Dr Richard Lawson
http://www.greenhealth.org.uk
Friday, January 27, 2006
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Avian flu on BBC Breakfast TV
Viewed myself on BBC Breakfast this morning, looking alarmingly wrinkly and careworn, putting out the simple message that poultry workers should be vaccinated against seasonal flu in order to prevent the emergence of pandemic flu. On the same programme Prof John Oxford says that it is inevitably coming (allowing policy makers to infer - why spend money in trying to prevent it?), and the vet on the programme gets things a bit muddled.
But am in good cheer, because yesterday a patient tells me that they are vaccinating poultry workers in Turkey. It is up to us (we, the people) to make sure that the programme is as thorough as possible.
The irony is that an outbreak of avian flu would be quite beneficial from an ecological point of view. It will reduce the size of the human population a bit, and may crash the global economy, which means less manufacturing and transport activity, which means less CO2 outputs. However, from a human point of view, it would be better to arrive at these ends through non-disastrous means. And as a doctor, I am not looking forward to trying to cope with H5N1 pandemic flu, as it will mean a lot of very hard and indeed dangerous work.
So I continue to campaign for the WHO to implement its own policy of seeing that poultry workers should be vaccinated against seasonal flu in order to prevent the emergence of pandemic flu.
In an hour, off to London on the train for an H5N1 seminar at the London School of Tropical medicine.
But am in good cheer, because yesterday a patient tells me that they are vaccinating poultry workers in Turkey. It is up to us (we, the people) to make sure that the programme is as thorough as possible.
The irony is that an outbreak of avian flu would be quite beneficial from an ecological point of view. It will reduce the size of the human population a bit, and may crash the global economy, which means less manufacturing and transport activity, which means less CO2 outputs. However, from a human point of view, it would be better to arrive at these ends through non-disastrous means. And as a doctor, I am not looking forward to trying to cope with H5N1 pandemic flu, as it will mean a lot of very hard and indeed dangerous work.
So I continue to campaign for the WHO to implement its own policy of seeing that poultry workers should be vaccinated against seasonal flu in order to prevent the emergence of pandemic flu.
In an hour, off to London on the train for an H5N1 seminar at the London School of Tropical medicine.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Happiness in a Nutshell
I notice that a debate on happiness is starting up.
As a quality it is not easy to give a precise definitions, but it is a state of mind associated with a sense of completeness - a lack of desire, all needs met. No hunger, no fear, no frustration, no wants. There is a sense of contentment and completeness.
It has two aspects - the environmental and the psycho-spiritual. If the environment cannot supply enough food, water, shelter, warmth and there is waste material in the drinking water, happiness is difficult or impossible.
If the psychological settings or expectations of the individual (or society) are out of kilter, happiness is also difficult or impossible. Perfectionism is the commonest source of this unhappiness, since it leads to a constant gap between reality and expectations. The essence of philosophy should be to produce a state of mind where there is balance betwen tolerance of tolerable imperfections in the environment and intolerance of unnecessary imperfections which are a source of unhappiness to self or others. The spiritual part of psycho-spiritual comes in since the philosopher has to account for and relate to, the inescapable fact of death. Much unhappiness and waste of life arises from fear of death.
So the purpose of life is to learn how to live happily in such a way that everyone else can (at least in theory) live happily - including future generations. We are social beings, and cannot live happily in isolation. The euphoria of a heroin or crack addict is not happiness, since it entails, after the period of contentment, a period of equally acute desire for more.
Of interest to us is the fact that consumerism depends on creating unfulfilled desire by advertising, which says "Buy this, have that , desire the other, and you will be happy."
As a quality it is not easy to give a precise definitions, but it is a state of mind associated with a sense of completeness - a lack of desire, all needs met. No hunger, no fear, no frustration, no wants. There is a sense of contentment and completeness.
It has two aspects - the environmental and the psycho-spiritual. If the environment cannot supply enough food, water, shelter, warmth and there is waste material in the drinking water, happiness is difficult or impossible.
If the psychological settings or expectations of the individual (or society) are out of kilter, happiness is also difficult or impossible. Perfectionism is the commonest source of this unhappiness, since it leads to a constant gap between reality and expectations. The essence of philosophy should be to produce a state of mind where there is balance betwen tolerance of tolerable imperfections in the environment and intolerance of unnecessary imperfections which are a source of unhappiness to self or others. The spiritual part of psycho-spiritual comes in since the philosopher has to account for and relate to, the inescapable fact of death. Much unhappiness and waste of life arises from fear of death.
So the purpose of life is to learn how to live happily in such a way that everyone else can (at least in theory) live happily - including future generations. We are social beings, and cannot live happily in isolation. The euphoria of a heroin or crack addict is not happiness, since it entails, after the period of contentment, a period of equally acute desire for more.
Of interest to us is the fact that consumerism depends on creating unfulfilled desire by advertising, which says "Buy this, have that , desire the other, and you will be happy."
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