Radio Australia Today Editorial
Archive for February, 2009
Super Foods. Here’s the list.
20 February 2009
Yesterday on the Breakfast Club we discussed so-called the super foods.
We used, as a reference, the book “Food & Nutrition for Dummies”.
I must say I find some of the findings questionable, and some omissions so big you could drive the Starship Enterprise through the gap.
But here goes:
Breast Milk: More nutritious than cow’s milk. More easily-digestible, high energy fats and carbs
Chocolate: cocoa is a strong source of energy, fibre, protein, carbs, B vitamins and minerals. Counting against this is the fact that chocolate is high in cocoa butter (a saturated fat)
Berries: antioxidant properties and cholesterol busting, especially blueberries.
Legumes: contains soluble dietary fibres that mop up fats and lower cholesterol
Nuts: rich in protein, fibre, Vitamin E, folic acid, linoleic acid and minerals. Although high in fats, they may lower cholesterol, especially the bad cholesterol
Tomatoes: lots of vitamins A and C and potassium, and contain the antioxidant lycopene, which is good for cell repair. There have been instances of lower cancer rates in people who eat lots of tomato.
Wholegrains: A Harvard study indicated that men who ate at least one serving of wholegrain cereal a day were 27% less liely to die from heart attack or stroke than those who didn’t.
White Tea: this is the new Green tea. Flavenoids abound (these lower cholesterol and may reduce some kinds of cancer)
Coffee: the guide says that previous links between coffee and heart disease/stroke/pancreatic cancer/cystic breasts etc etc, has been negated by new research. The caffeine could PREVENT cardio problems, if taken in moderation. Of course, if you can get to sleep at night.
Fish: rich in iodine
Alcohol: relaxes the muscles and expands blood vessels. Also makes you love everybody and smile when you trip over.
Now, as a vegan, I would have to disagree about the fish and yoghurt bits. Giving these up has led me to feel the best I ever have. My cholesterol is great. I have no medical issues and more energy than I know what to do with. I would add a few other foods, as a personal catalogue of superfoods, many of which are staples which originated from Japan in a pre-western era:
Rice
Tofu
Tempeh
Tahini (seame seed paste)
Miso
Seaweed
Your thoughts?
– Phil
Yoghurt: contains bacteria that produce lactic acid, which is a preservative
Hugh Jackman to do the Oscars
19 February 2009
You can search this planet (and, I suspect, several other planets) and not find a single person who dislikes Aussie actor Hugh Jackman.
He’s a guy who has spent a lot of years in Los Angeles and still hasn’t adopted a fake American accent. He’s dealt with studio chiefs but is still playful. His acting has been critically acclaimed yet is not up himself.
So the announcement yesterday that he will be hosting next week’s Academy Awards was met with goodwill. This wasn’t the case for all the previous hosts.
Maybe it’s because Hugh came from that levelling ground of Perth in Western Australia. Hugh is typical Aussie in that he doesn’t take to airs and graces. I have no idea why Aussies are like this. Maybe there’s the distance thing, the fact that we as a country are so isolated from the rest of the world that we feel that we have to all get on together. Egalitarianism rules. You can see the country’s richest people walking down the street and they’ll give you a g’day and a wink.
Whatever the reason, Hugh is a typically easy-going Aussie. His career has been an interesting one. He won his first award for playing the role of Joe Gillis in the Australian stage production of Sunset Boulevard (my wife was asked to play opposite him, but it didn’t happen in the end. If I think about too much I could freak about how we came THAT close to becoming friends with Hugh. Arrgh). He then won a Tony award for playing Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz. He was asked to host the Tony Awards, and won an Emmy for the hosting job. My, how one thing really does lead to another in this industry.
Just to complete the shelf of awards, last year he was voted the Sexiest Man Alive.
You really have to ask what more can Hugh Jackman achieve. He is terribly talented, rich, acclaimed and happy. I’m sure he must have his low moments, but it is a nod to him that if he does have such bad times, he keeps them out of the public eye. No rehabs, spats with photographers or drunken nights in gutters.
What a guy.
– Phil
Chrysler asks: Please Sir, I want some more.
18 February 2009
Question: how do you know when things are dire for sections of the American motoring industry?
Answer: When this last bastion of American free enterprise asks for government help. Again. And again.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Bush administration organised a lot of billions for GM and Chrysler; money, I should add, that the government doesn’t have.
The two companies have had to put their new business plans to the Obama administration before the money will be signed over. This could happen any minute. But even before the first 13 billion is put through, Chrysler has put in another pre-emptive strike, asking for another 5 billion. The company says it needs the money to ensure its survival.
I seem to remember the same argument was put to the government some months ago about the first bail-out.
Clearly things are not happy in the land of Dodge. Their accountants must have realised that sales are not going to miraculously pick up. This recession will be staying until at least the end of the year, and when people are being laid off or having pay reduced, the last thing they will do is to go out and buy cars, let alone cars that are not particularly fuel efficient. One of our financial analysts, Juliana Roadley for Commsec has told the Breakfast Club repeatedly that Chrysler, GM and Ford have had plenty of time over the years to get their offerings much more fuel efficient, but they haven’t done so. They have continued to put out cars that have not embraced hybrid technologies, let alone hydrogen cell or electric.
You could think that the current low oil prices have ended the fuel crisis that caused such woe in 2007-08. But you’d be a fool to think this way. The reason the oil prices are low is that production is low because of the recession. Take it from me that the moment the recession lifts, oil prices will go up again.
This means that companies like the U.S. Big Three will get no respite. Once demand for cars picks up, and the accompanying fuel prices, it is likely that Amercians will be shopping for more fuel efficient cars. Unless the American makers have tailored their output to suit this demand, they will not sell enough cars to make themselves viable.
Barack Obama knows this. George W. Bush knew this. If the companies execs at the Big Three don’t know this, then they should be replaced by people who do. A lot of livelihoods depend on these companies learning, once more, how to cater to demand, present and future. Isn’t that what the American way of business is supposed to be based on?
– Phil
Rihanna and Chris Brown. It can happen to anyone.
17 February 2009
Rihanna is the idol of millions. She has the triumverate, being beautiful, talented and successful. Many people have the first two; most have neither. What makes her a household name is the third part, success bit. Success has brought her wealth and public love. It has also brought her a fair few detractors from people who see her music as inane.
Certainly she is no Pink. Pink is not afraid to step out of the MTV ‘zone’ and get all controversial. Her hugely political anti-George Bush song “Dear Mr President” showed not just bravery, but a willingness to to stick a finger up at someone who she thinks is not worthy.
Rihanna doesn’t do these kinds of songs. She entertains. And the safety of this position has brought her little pain.
So the news of her rumoured assault by boyfriend Chris Brown brings a few things back to earth.
Rihanna is just a young woman. Rich and famous, but still just a young woman. Her relationships suffer the same tensions as everyone else’s. More probably. The tensions of travel, performance, career decisions and relationships must be tough. It’s tough enough keeping a relationship working without the other encumbrances.
There was a movie a few years ago called A Star is Born, which told the story of a movie star and his wife. The wife was talented, and the movie star husband did all he could to help her career. Her career got started, and then inevitably eclipsed his. The story ended badly. It was a story that won academy awards and touched the public. You might think that the public would not be able to relate to a story of fame and the destructive nature of disappointment, but it did. It also exposed that things are not always jolly in the world of fame.
In these times when Australians are suffering after the worst bushfires ever, it might seem that Rihanna’s troubles are minor, but if you are Rihanna, the troubles are a landslide. This is not a time to compare woes. She has suffered public humiliation, possible boyfriend abuse (the court will decide this) and would undoubtedly be feeling the lows that anyone betrayed by a lover would feel.
Rihanna’s story tells us that we are all the same. Some of us have extraordinary careers, but we suffer the same. If only wealth could insure against the bad times.
It just doesn’t.
– Phil
Tibet: Murder in the Snow
16 February 2009
During last year’s Olympic torch relay, protests against the Chinese actions in Tibet severely embarrassed China and hogged the limelight away from the joy of the Olympics event.
From the start of the relay in Greece, it seemed that much of the world was on the side of the protestors, but by the time the torch had passed through much of the world, the continuing protests seemed to be testing the patience of more and more people. It was as if people were thinking that the point was made, now let the Chinese get on with the Games.
We at Radio Australia had heard stories of the brutality of the Chinese against the Tibetans for years. China considers Tibet, and Tibetans, their own. The Dalai Lama’s calls for Tibetans to have autonomy have been criticised by the Chinese, who accuse the spiritual leader a terrorist. The more shrill the counter-claims by Beijing, the less the world believes them.
Now comes the release of a movie that will almost certainly bring Chinese embarrassment to new levels. “Tibet: Murder in the Snow” tells the story of an unprovoked shooting death in 2006 of a Tibetan nun near a mountain climbers’ base camp at Nagagpa Pass on the Tibet-Nepal border. The nun was one of a line of Tibetans trying to get to Nepal to escape their homeland. The Chinese soldiers fired on the group, wounding one, and killing the 17 year old nun, Kelsang Namtso.
While the Chinese soldiers knew that hundreds of mountain-climbers might have seen the shooting, they did not know that one of the climbers videotaped the whole thing, including asoldier going up to the body and appearing to kick it.
The climber smuggled the video out of Tibet and posted it on a media site. It was soon syndicated across the world, making this particular atrocity world news for a day.
What the new film does is to show the whole video and interview the mountain climbers to get the whole context for the killing. It speaks to friends of the dead nun; it speaks to a Tibetan who was caught, and has him describing being tortured by soldiers. It also interviews a climber who did what most other climbers did after that killing: continue their climbing. He says that about 70% of climbers on that Pass had satellite phones, but no-one phoned through what they saw to the outside world. They had just witnessed a murder, but they kept it to themselves.
This climber decided not to keep it to himself. He wrote an eyewitness account in an email and sent it off. Since then he has been abused by his fellow western mountain-climbing fraternity, people who rely on the graces of China to be allowed to lead expeditions in those mountains. They attacked him for risking their livelihood.
I don’t know which chills me more, the killing, the kicking or the callousness of the mountain-climbers who obviously value their climbing above the life of a 17 year old nun.
When life gets to this, you have got to ask how humanity can stoop like this. I, for one, am glad that the story of all the horror of humanity has been told and these people have been exposed.
It could have been that these soldiers were acting without official sanction. Maybe, just maybe, they were rogues. Justice and an inverstigation will decide that, but as the documentary points out, this is not the first time such shootings had happened, it’s just the first time that they were videotaped.
Tibet: Murder in the Snow is good journalistic filmmaking. There are few conclusions jumped to; there are few dots joined. It just tells a story, and its a story that explains the on-going anger of the protestors at the torch relay. Now we can understand.
What we can never understand is the callousness of western mountain guides who just didn’t care, and got angry when someone did.
- Phil
