canisgallicus

When the atomic bomb dubbed Fat Man detonated over Nagasaki 74 years ago, it destroyed the Urakami Cathedral, the locus of a vibrant Catholic community in the city. After the war ended, a US Marine stationed in Nagasaki took home a cross retrieved from the rubble of the church, eventually giving it to a small Ohio college. On Tuesday, a representative from the college returned the long-missing artifact to the since-rebuilt cathedral.

Source: A cross taken from a Nagasaki cathedral after the atomic bombing gets returned 74 years later – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Imagine leveraging machine learning to accomplish with 50 people what the pharmaceutical industry can barely do with an army of 5,000.

Source: How AI Will Make Drug Discovery Low-Cost, Ultra-Fast, and Personalized

(2020). Assessing the US government response to the coronavirus. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Vol. 76, No. 4, pp. 166-174.

Source: Assessing the US government response to the coronavirus

What can we do to cope?  We can start each day and end each day with a Gratitude List, as suggested by Ariana Huffington, Huffington Post.  It is grounding and never more than now, we need to engage with  life in a positive way realising that COVID-19 has no cure, and it will take probably a year or more to have a vaccine or sera.

A wise old Judge (Michael Comyn KC) once said and this was back in the 1950’s when there was no internet available to most people “Knowledge is no Load”.  What we need to achieve now is to ensure that the digital divide is eradicated and people are encouraged into lifelong learning as the opportunities are available.  If you have no computer at home; there always is the library.  The idea of a Universal Basic Income becomes essential as artificial intelligence, robots, technology, eHealth and so much more, are the future and there may be a reduction in work as we know it.  What is important is creativity and this can be fostered by people who may work but in a different way to others; they are imbibed with a gift or a talent and this is often rooted in the will to improve the lives of others through being creative in thinking and engaged with society through the internet and social media

This week Ireland finally has managed to achieve a new Government after months of negotiations between varying parties.  Fine Gael (Leo Varadkar); Finana Fail (Micheal Martin); the Greens (Eamon Ryan) are in power now.  The Cabinet selection resulted in disappointments for certain truly committed politicians and below is a copy of an email sent to some of them, politicians who I would regard as able and now become the untapped resources of intelligencce and political endeavour with a power to finally dispel corruption which has hindered Ireland which remains a young State, now in its centenary year.

Subject:	The Doctor Is In: Scott Atlas and the Efficacy of Lockdowns, Social Distancing, and Closings – YouTube. Halt LockDowns in line with common sense argument.
Date:	Wed, 1 Jul 2020 17:07:31 +0100
From:	Michelle Clarke <michelleclarke@upcmail.ie>
To:	John McGuinness <john.mcguinness@oireachtas.ie>, Eamon Ó Cuiv <eamon.ocuiv@oireachtas.ie>, Jim OCallaghan <jim.ocallaghan@oireachtas.ie>, Thomas Byrne <thomas.byrne@oireachtas.ie>

To those who should have been chosen for Cabinet positions.

Highly recommend this:  Too much negativity surrounds the world and Ireland, being a small open economy is particularly vulnerable to recession.  A little vision as Whitaker and Lemass had at another time after the near 30 years of recession/depression in Ireland when we exported our people in droves (no longer an option).

It will take about 45 minutes to listen to Dr Scott Atlas, Hoover Institution being interviewed by Peter Robinson above but what he says is profound and is about common sense with the reasoning of true cost benefit analysis.

I can’t stress the importance of listening to this interview from the Hoover Institution.  Deaths of Despair* (Sir Angus Deaton, Anne Case) needs to be considered.  Unemployment and I know about this from an earlier life, because it set me on a path of multimorbidities, have profound costs that empirical data will corroborate.  Dr Scott Atlas, you may have heard of him or you may not but if not, what he says makes common sense and especially now as we exit LockDown we must be able to take a view of the glass half full otherwise we will ensure a recession/depression most likely worse than the 1930’s.  Just one example: because retention is not a strong point for my brain … 35% and above of children taken to A&E in America (with severe injuries) are noticed and referred to A&E, in the school system.  Unemployment happens at the lower end of the salary scale and therefore to have no school puts children in serious jeopardy and this is a cost in its own right as distinct from having COVID-19.

*  “Deaths of Despair”:  This is a short interview talking about suicide, addiction, unemployment and how people reach that level of being disconnected from society.  COVID-19 has not even considered this crisis in the making but the time has come to value the lives of people who suffer from Despair.  There will be many casualties over time.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXf-xcR8bdA

Recommend this link too:  COVID-19 and Lesson from Pandemics (Professor Niall Ferguson) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmmOiG8Odm8

Panorama BBC  1:  No screening for cancer because of COVID-19 priority; so many dying or having worse experiences with cancer as a result of hospitals being closed off and the cancellation of screening, or worse chemotherapy, drugs trials, radiology, being interrupted, is worth watching.  The figure could be as high as 35,000 deaths as a result of COVID-19 priority.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8493967/BBC-podcaster-Deborah-James-reveals-friend-31-died-cancer-soon-COVID.html

Private treatment under Professor John Crown, Oncology, St Vincent’s Private hospital. My mother paid throughout her life for my VHI cover.  Imagine if it had been through this COVID-19 ominous Pandemic period.  Professor Angus Deaton and Anne Case – Deaths of Despair and the End of Capitalism is recommended.  Poverty, unemployment, illness, violence in the home, hardship are bad cards to be dealt in life.  My treatment went smoothly and I wrote a book logging my experiences which may be interested to those looking at how COVID-19 had impeded their treatment.  Timing is so important.  Too many are not being screened now and nobody is talking about it.  Thank you Panorama because as always you aim to shock people with truth and facts, into a reality they wish to avoid.

My book:

Fortune Favours the Brave by Michelle Marcella Clarke

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortune-Favours-Michelle-Marcella-Clarke/dp/1912639610

From: <editor@irishhealth.com>

To: <michelle33@eircom.net>

Subject: Message posted

Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2003 11:10 AM

Michelle,

Thank you for your comment, which has now been reviewed by the Editor and has been posted on the relevant site discussion area.

— Original Message —

Reply to question on irishhealth.com page regarding Bullying  which does not just apply among children, in fact it is very much part of the human condition.

This I believe to be true.  I have known of people in the health service who have been bullied.  Also some of these have been in the medical professions.

People who bully ironically are the ones with low self-esteem.  They project onto others those characteristics they share, but don’t like in themselves.  Alas they seek the vulnerable targets.  What is more interesting is that they may not even be aware that they are bullies, the reaction may be from their subconscious. 

Ask some person like Tony Humphry’s to lecture people for an hour and make them aware as why they engage in bullying.

As a young secretary, I was facing the problem. It was a set up situation to establish the power element of I am ‘the boss’ and you are ‘the secretary’.  This is nearly 20 years ago now.

I was saved by a wise Chartered Accountant in his 60’s who told me ‘Young lady’, if you don’t make a stand now, this will continue’.  I took his advice and it worked very well in that company and I was most sad to leave.

I became re-acquainted with Bullying and others seeking to be in control when I became humbled through ill-health.  The only difference this time is that I had neither the health or ENERGY TO engage……and the only coping mechanism was to be a passive recipient.

As I recover, I know that bullying exists.  My way of dealing with it was and continues to be reading about it.  A small book that I found excellent is John Powell’s (Jesuit Priest) ‘Why am I afraid to tell you who I am……written 1950’s but sets down parameters…….

Now I will give an example (in extreme).  When I lived in Zimbabwe, I either heard or read about this.  The New Government in the 1980’s was left with the remnants of the British civil service.  Naturally, there was a change over in staff and of course the new staff had an acquired status position in line with their promotion and based on what they identified from the past administration.

However, the system did not quite work the same way.  Sometimes to get say one’s tax sorted out – you had to employ a few relatives from the rural areas to get tax due back.  Power / control – we are talking about being human and susceptible.

I read/heard of one case of a white woman probably for the first time having to deal with the new system attending a civil service office.  She like the rest had to queue.  The black Zimbabweans had spent their lives queueing.  However, this woman each time she reached the desk – the African woman dismissed her and kept telling her to go to the back…..

Eventually – the answer came.  You are white, you have done this to us all our lives.  Now you see what it is like.

This I would call redressing the power balance and is understandable.  However, the key point is that people learn.  The learning is key.

Bullying is more a characteristic and it is acknowledged that if you confront bullies – they retreat.  The characteristic is born out of their own insecurity.

What is important is that this characteristic can change IF PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO INVEST THE TIME IN SELF DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH.

To confront:  May be as simple as say to them – That is your projection.  This disempowers the bully.

A Gandhi quote:

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe,

deserve your love and affection.

Michelle quotes Nietzche

‘He who has the reason why can deal with any how’

You can view the article, along with all comments, by clicking the following link:

http://www.irishhealth.com/index.html?level=4&id=3729

Diagnosed with breast cancer (BreastScreening) 2017 so I wrote book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortune-Favours-Michelle-Marcella-Clarke/dp/1912639610

Morris West – The Shoes of the Fisherman

‘It costs so much to be a full human being and there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage, to pay the price… 

One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. 

One has to embrace the world like a lover. 

One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. 

One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. 

One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.

RAINER Rilke:

‘Love is… a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world to himself for another’s sake.  It is a great, an exorbitant demand upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.  Love consists in this, that two solitude’s protect and touch and greet each other’

 ‘Those who are willing to love, will eventually find love”  “Love will demand much courage, perseverance and self-discipline.

  Michelle Clarke – Reviewed:  September 05

2017 diagnosed with breast cancer.  Thanks to BreastCheck screening I am a survivor July 2020:  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortune-Favours-Michelle-Marcella-Clarke/dp/1912639610