EvenFourLines

"If any person in any place were to teach even four lines...
...Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream
So is all conditioned existence to be seen" [from the Diamond Sutra]

The Sun Rises In The Evening

It’s paradoxical but one of the main producers of gluten-free products is a country built on pasta. Yep, Italy produces a huge range of excellent gluten-free food; that is, except for the beer. Couldn’t drink it. So was I excited when O’Brien’s Brewery opened in 2007. They now supply Australia and the world with the […]

Succotash,…Venison, Roast Duck, Roast Goose

The USA gets a bad rap in the rest of the world.  But I unashamedly love America. I lived there for two years with my wife and three young children. Although their politics and health care might be problematic, and their ultimate freedom can be described in a Clint Eastwood way as ‘The Good, The […]

The Manipulation Of Significant Symbols

It seemed at best an innocuous Tweet, at worst boring, directing the reader to an link called ‘Who Says What to Whom on Twitter’. The only reason I opened it was the sender, Dr Ves Dimov. Now Dr Dimov, who tweets as @Allergy and @DrVes, is an allergist, immunologist, internist and Assistant Professor at the […]

Mental Illness Is A Metaphor

When I was a young man, working through a medical course in the 1960s, there were 10,000 psychiatric beds in the State of Victoria. That is, in a population of about 3 million. Now our population has doubled and the number of psychiatric beds has fallen by about 80%. We spent weeks and weeks’ as […]

There Is No Limit To This Moment

I would like to thank Fritjof Capra. Like millions of others since 1975, I own a copy of The Tao Of Physics. I have the 1982 Flamingo paperback edition, pages dog-eared and yellowed, cluttered with scribbles and highlights, re-read often. The subtitle of this book summarizes its attractiveness: ‘An exploration of the parallels between modern […]

Point Your iPad At The Sky

Michael Leunig is an official ‘Australian Living Treasure’. He is best known for his minimalist, laconic cartoons, often without captions, which do seem to capture many of our insecurities. Sometimes they don’t work. Often they do and we are enthralled. Although opinions vary, I feel one of his best depicts a father and his young […]

No Definitely Good News At All

Eric Blair is a gentle name, and it’s hard to believe that an Eric Blair was, inter alia, a policeman, a tramp, a wounded soldier, and a (sort-of) revolutionary. This bio might fit a name such as Che Guevara or George Patton, but an Eric Blair? However, Eric had another life, and using the nom-de-plume […]