Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for August, 2008
Cancer. How to Beat the Epidemic
22 August 2008
Everywhere I turn at the moment, I meet someone who has cancer.
My sister had it. My nephew has it. Close friends have it.
You really have to ask why it is becoming so prevalent these days.
One person who says he knows is French-American cancer doctor David Servan-Schreiber. While testing out a brain scan machine one day, the machine showed that he had a cancer in his brain the size of a walnut. You don’t need to tell you that it was a shock to him. He was used to dealing with people who hadcancer. Now he was on the other side of the fence. The discovery started him on a campaign to find out what caused his cancer, and what he found out was hardly news to people in the cancer field, but will be a big surprise to the general population.
Here’s what he found:
1/.. Sugar. Cancer feeds on it. He says 100 years ago we had only 5 kilos of sugar per person. No need for me to tell you that we have a lot more than that these days.
2/.. Factory Farming. Animals no longer feed just on grass. They are fed supplements and soy and other products that are not natural for their systems. He says this denies them the nutrients they need that are cancer preventative. This is passed on to people who eat the meat.
3/.. Chemicals. Pesticides have been used a lot since the second world war to stop bug attacks on crops. Preservatives are added to food. Colourings. Flavourings. MSG. But Organic food does away with the chemicals. Organic food is produced using the concept of ‘companion planting’ where the plant is grown with other plants that pests don’t like. Organics taste better, and they aren’t soaked in chemicals.
4/.. Cut out the dairy. He says cheese and milk and eggs are produced in many places in a way that they are no longer the sources of health and goodness that they were when our parents were children.
5/.. Slow down. Meditate. Do yoga. The evidence, he says is that cancer patients who do this live two or three times longer than those who don’t.
Dr Servan-Schreiber still has the cancer he developed sixteen years ago, but he is healthy. He changed his life and has defied all the prognoses of his impending doom. There has to be something in it. Think about that next time you go out for that fast food or donut.
– Phil
Olympics. The Bolt Strikes Twice
21 August 2008
Sorry. That’s not my headline. It comes from our news website. But I had to refer to it because it works on so many levels.
It refers of course to Usain Bolt winning gold in two sprint events in Beijing.
Bolt. Lightning. Striking Twice. Get it?
It reminds me of an Australian sprinter from about 12 years ago, who was officially the fastest white man on earth. That was pretty cool, until you realised there were about 6000 black men who were faster.
One of my colleagues just made the comment that she can’t get excited about 100 metre sprints, because “it’s just men running fast”. The marathon, she says, that is an event. Those men and women barely survive the event. They are in horrible pain, but keep pushing themselves. The final 200 metres is probably the closest they will ever get to death. What about the gymnastics, where people have to use every muscle in their body, and combine it with art for a two minute routine.
I does make you think that a little sprint is a walk in the park. It’s not though. Apparently, Bolt’s system is full of lactic acid after the race. He is hurting, and will hurt for some hours. It is extreme sport. It forces the athlete to do the short, sharp snap which bodies are not made to do. It may even shorten your life somewhat.
And this is the thing that is mad about sport. You may be fit, but you are doing terrible things to your body. Yesterday there was a TV ad from Phil Kearns, former Australian rugby player, who was advertising arthritis medication or something. He starts by saying he played in dozens of international tests, so his knees are shot, but this medication helps..
Yes, I’ll stay in radio thank you very much. I like being able-bodied. Pain don’t work too much for me.
And I don’t think a gold medal would help too much when I can’t get up in the morning.
– Phil
The Olympics of Theatre
20 August 2008
I’ve gotta tell you.
Last Sunday I was in Sydney to watch my wife play a lead role in a Tony Award winning musical.
It’s been a bit hard for her lately because she’s been rehearsing the role when doing one of the principal characters in another major musical. Basically she’s had not a minute to herself for the last two months. She’s either been on stage with her regular gig, or in rehearsals for the new show. In the middle of all this she got a back injury too. So not only has she been been overworking, she’s been overworking in pain.
So last Sunday was the night that all this work and agony culminated. The audience came in (an audience filled with other, well-respected stage and film actors) and the lights went down. I was in my seat four rows from the front as my love came on stage.
And knocked them dead.
At the end she got a standing ovation, cheers and two curtain calls.
It was kinda the Olympics of the arts. Last night an Australian cyclist, Anna Meares, took a silver medal, after nearly breaking her back only seven months ago. In last night’s Olympic final, one of her competitors tried nudging her out of the race. But that’s where kharma kicked in, and the other cyclist fell over. Anna went on to get the medal.
My wife’s theatre experience makes you realise that Olympic performances are not confined to the Olympics. They are there in everyday life. When your child first walks, or speaks or writes. When you get that job. When you finally win the heart of the person you love. When you ride that bike the furthest you ever have. These are Olympic moments. This I say this as a Greek: you have our permission to share the “O” word around a bit.
Bring some Olympic joy into your life. You don’t have to be a sprinter to do it.
– Phil
Olympics. One Person’s Magic is Another’s Despair
15 August 2008
Now, I’m not normally a glass-half-empty person, but lately when an athlete wins something at the Games, I’ve found myself looking more and more at the poor person who just misses out.
I mean, these Games have been so tight, that many gold medals are being decided by a fingernail. History will decide that the person with the longer nails will be the Olympic gold medallist, while someone else who has worked just as hard for just as long will be the second place getter, and will not be the Olympic champion, not the person who will have their country’s anthem played for them on the podium.
Take yesterday’s final in the mens’ 100 metres freestyle. The world record holder, Eammon Sullivan (Australia) was red hot favourite to win this one. He had only broken the world record the day before, and he was fit and confident. But in the end he couldn’t do it, or at least he was a fingernail short of the French swimmer Alain Bernard, a man who is so huge in the upper body that he looks like he’s got wings on his back. Sullivan is much slighter, but swims like the devil.
This monring commentators were suggesting that Sullivan was tense as he took off from the starting blocks, his country’s expectations obviously weighing him down. Maybe. Or maybe he just didn’t swim as well on the day in a race when over one hundred metres, it comes down to a fingernail.
He did Australia proud. Remember that here in Australia two months ago, it was Eammon who? Today he wakes up an Olympic silver medallist and world record holder. Not a bad 2008.
Another story of winners and losers came from the 100 metres event pool yesterday, but in the women’s event. Four years ago Aussie swimmer Libby Trickett missed out on the final of her special event, the 100m. She was devastated. Yesterday she miseed out again, mistiming her semi-final swim (remember she’s the world record holder). Australian newspapers have photos of Trickett minutes after the failed semi, sitting poolside, at the very moment that she realises it has all drifted away from her,s bursting into tears, with the team psychologist sitting helplessly by her as she realises it’s all over.
Or is it? The news came through soon after this that the winner of the other semi. China’s Pang Jiaying, was disqualified for breaking early. Trickett gets a chance now to swim in the final. It’s from the outside lane, but she’s there at least.
Going back to my first point, you have to think of Pang. She was the fatest, and a silly little error at the very beginning of the race cost her everything. She probably would have won anyway.
So Libby gets the joy. Pang gets the nightmares for four years at least. Here in Australia we can feel happy for Libby, but we should remember the heartbreak of Pang Jiaying.
No-one said the Olympics is all joy.
– Phil
Vale Christie Allen
14 August 2008
It was 1980.
A spunky girl appeared on our televisions here in Australia and sang a pretty pop song called He’s My Number One. It did very well in the charts, probably not so much for the song, but for the spunky girl.
As Christie Allen did her little dance thing, she had teenage boys all over the country wishing they were her number one, me being one of them.
The last 28 years have gone by so fast. As the rest of us got older, Christie married, retired to the Australian country to go into what she hoped would be domestic bliss. Unfortunately she was soon diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a disease she fought for years.
Then we got the news this morning that Christie has succombed to the illness.
She will undoubtedly be remembered as wonderful wife and mother, but for the rest of us, Christie Allen was part of our young lives, a moment of joy that is now part of us all.
Christy Allen’s death leaves a little hole in our lives. We’ll miss you Christy, your leggings, your fabulous hair and your exhuberance.
– Phil
