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People and Events
A look-in at the future

by Nan
For quite some time now a question that has bothered me is: ‘Where will it all stop? When will so called progress cry halt?" And the answer is of course ‘’Never!". So long as men live and their spirit is alive, progress will continue. Greater inventions will be made, discoveries recorded, innovations tried out and thus technology will ever move forwards.

There were the disbelievers in 1969 who swore the moon landing was a fabrication. "Never can man land on the moon" they said. Within the space of 30 years a probe was supposed to land on Mars. The space race was somewhat shelved, when the two superpowers stopped competing because one dropped out of the race. Otherwise they may have even been landing a man on Mars.

Technology

Who would have dreamt of teleconferencing, voice recognition by computers and all the facilities we have now, a mere ten years ago. It is precisely because men dare to dream that these stupendous amenities were given to the world, with inbuilt advantages and room for abuse. So with resignation to ever evolving progress and development and advance of technology, I take interest in reading futuristic prognoses. Let me pass some of what I have gathered to you in this first Sunday of the new year and new century.

I wont talk of technological progress being a complete greenhorn in this area. But one thing I can say. Unless we take care and do not fall prey to all the promises of Internet and e-this and e-that, we will end up couch potatoes. It is seriously possible in the developed world, particularly the western world which worships technology and thrives on innovation. Everything is offered them via Internet. You do your shopping, banking, playing the stockmarket, visiting the library, writing you letters, paying bills and ordering food through Internet. You can fall in love and date and propose via Internet. Even sex of a kinky kind is possible to the couch potato, so no wonder the fear that people will forget the out-of-doors and be walled in their one room with Internet - their connection to others and the outside world. Never, oh never should such a fate befall us.

"The sweeping technological changes of the last quarter century have altered our world unimaginably. There is far, far more to come and not just in building the ultimate telephone. Technology has contributed to the world’s unprecedented, but poorly distributed wealth, to remarkable and sometimes frightening changes in social mores, in the home and at work. The Next Big Thing, however, looks not at the future of work but at the future of art, of leisure, of the good life, as well as at the future of the human body that will get to live it, and the money that pays for it all."

So I’ll retail to you some of the promises in the areas mentioned in the quotation given above that are comprehensible to me.

Sick In 2020

Firstly health. Since less and less children are dying and more and more live upto ripe old age, the health problems of the new millennium increasingly will shift to chronic diseases of adulthood. Scientists working on The Global Burden of Disease and Injury, analyzing current trends in health, have come up with some startling forecasts for 2020. The number one health threat to the world’s population will be heart disease. Following very closely will be depression and other psychiatric illnesses. Then come traffic accidents, followed by cerebrovascular disease or strokes as this terrible condition is commonly named. Here’s another shocker. War and interpersonal violence will be a greater global health problem than cancer.

The couch potatoes will get fatter and obese, an increasing health hazard in America.

HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis will continue to stalk the world, particularly Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. This will lead to life expectancy in countries such as Zimbabwe lowering itself to under 40. Thus the disparity between life expectancy in these AIDS and TB devastated countries and say the US, will be around 50 years.

Smoking will have to be battled even more vigorously. Tobacco is projected to cause 300 million premature deaths by 2049.

Old Age in 2020

The question of longevity is very prominent in discussions of the future. It is said that the great revolution at the turn of this millennium is longevity. In 1900, life expectancy at birth in the States was less than 50. Today it is more than 75. People over 80 constitute the fastest growing population group. This is even more so in Japan and we too are definitely aware of it in Sri Lanka. So children born now can very well expect to live to be 100, while those born ten years into the 21st century may live to 120. So at that time when you promise to be true for life, to keep the marriage vows forever, it means for about 80 to 90 years! Longevity does not necessarily mean quality life. Hence more people will ask for doctor assisted suicide and non introduction of artificial means of keeping them alive. Imagine being born in one century and living well into the next!

Flying in 2020

Oh-my-goodness! You will be flying in a three storeyed airplane with restaurants and casinos and cyber cafes and health clubs. So leg space wont be a problem and there’ll be much more roaming space than a mere aisle, often blocked by a food and drink cart.

What You Eat and Drink in 2020

Food is going to have less disparity in quality since both rich and poor will go for organic stuff. Also availability will be across the board. Both haves and have-nots will have access to offerings of the rarest, the tastiest, the most exotic from the food equivalent of amazon.com. Just like books, nothing will be shelved or held in one place or store, but will be available to all who Internet.

One writer predicts that public vegetable gardens would flourish around the world, where for a small fee we could have experts tending our plots and we gathering what we need each day.

Wine will be THE drink of the century, they say. Drinking habits are hard to foresee or foretell, so there isn’t much definiteness about drink intake. Interestingly Winston Churchill was supposed to often finish off a bottle of Champagne in the morning and a bottle of cognac before bed. Imagine, a whole bottle of brandy in one fell swoop!

I can predict a point here relevant to Sri Lanka. Men will continue taking too much of drinks will detriment to the health and wellbeing of their wives and children. Men will progressively get weaker and shove the greater burden on the women of the country. The signs are there to see: men being supported by mothers, wives, mistresses, sisters or daughters. The highest national income earners are women as of now in the lower rungs - migrant labour, garment industry workers and the plantation sector.

Fashions in 2020

The fashion phenomenon of the 21st century is going to be ‘reactive’ materials that can respond to your body and to a changing environment. So a warm winter coat snuggled into in Heathrow will change colour, texture and warmth-giving when one lands in steamy Katunayake. I am not imagining this but writing what I have read. Clothes off the peg will be made to fit you perfectly using electric pulses. A fragrance, say a herbal whiff, could very well come off whet you wear since its microfibres have been impregnated with the smell and the wearer is thus supposed to be stress free.

This reminds me of an Australian friend and her friend who stayed with me a couple of days last year.

The friend’s friend was an aromatherapist. She gifted me a jar which I was supposed to go ecstatic over, its fragrance being so subtly exquisite. Too subtle for my nose, used as it is to walking along the roads and travelling in buses. She massaged my feet, again using some delicately fragranced stuff end I was supposed to walk on air. Plodding continued.

Technology is already into clothing. Nike computer images feet to give them a better fit and a kind of T-shirt comes with bacteria-inhibiting fabrics to keep the shirt super-hash all day.

Sri Lanka in 2020

Does Sri Lanka lumber along, or do we catch up and move forward economically and life-qualitywise? We cannot but be impacted by all the advances the developed world will slip into easily. We are globalized, a dot in the global village, which increasingly will become more interconnected. We definitely have to be outward looking and thinking. But we must also dip into the last century and even beyond to maintain, and if totally decimated, cultivate the social and cultural mores of a less frenzied time when morality, honesty and sincerity were of prime importance; when money was not a demigod and power THE god it is today.

Let’s hope for a good year in the new century. I think it will have to be good, otherwise Sri Lankans will get on the streets, and you know what that means - people power!

On that note of warning, Nan stops her first conversation with her readers in the year 2000 and wishes each and everyone a fine new year, full of promise, peaceful and hope-fulfilling.

Lankan teenage girl killed in Toronto

by Kirthie Abeyesekera
On October 9, "Thanksgiving Saturday" a Canadian woman took a stroll in the woods in east Toronto where she met a Sri Lankan man. In a bewildered state of mind, he asked her if she knew where the police search was on.

Anne Adelson knew nothing of a police search. It so happened it was the day the skull of Sharmini Anandavel was unearthed from a ravine. The 15-year-old, Sri Lanka- born hightschool student had left home last June saying she was going for a job interview. She never came hack. Police are still looking for her killer.

The girl’s father, Eloornayagam Anandavel, had himself wandered on the police trail, when he had encountered Adelson. ‘The Toronto Star carried a touching, half-page account written by Adelson of her moving adventure in the woods that day — an experience that would "affect me deeply and reshape my perceptions of the world."

Within, hours of the ‘Star’ story, Adelson spoke with The. Sunday Island’ about the impact a casual meeting in the forest had on her. She said she had later, taken flowers to the family stricken by grief at a senseless tragedy.

Anne Adelson, a passionate peace activist, is in the Forefront of Canada’s ‘Culture of Peace movement, and is on the National Committee for the International Year for the Culture of Peace -2000.

"He asked my name," Adelson wrote in the Star. "Anne, I said, and he smiled shyly and told me his name was almost the same, Anan. Then we embraced, and I told him I would think about him and his family and pray for them." Writing further, Adelson says:

"Stories like Sharmini’s are painful to read, but we in Canada, are fortunate to live in a country where the disappearance of a teenage girl makes headline news. There are so many parts of the world today where the death and disappearances of children is a sad part of life, unacknowledged and unremarked by news reports. And, there is a poignant irony when a fate like Sharmini’s hits a family that consciously left a war-torn country to build a better life for their children."

Adelson wrote of the suffering of the world which is constantly brought to our attention through the mass media, but because we do not have the capacity to absorb it, we inure ourselves to it. She says, "We need to know (about the sufferings of others), we need to care and most importantly, we need to act to change the world." She observes that "just as the pain of Sharmini’s tragedy is simultaneously an intensely specific experience, and the whole world’s pain, so, working against violence where we find ourselves and where we can make a difference is, working for the healing of the world."

Talking with Adelson was a delightful experience for me. She was born and raised in South Africa during the detested ‘Apartheid’ regime when the African National Congress was banned and even the name, ‘Nelson Mandela’ was taboo. A portrait of South Africa’s first black president hangs in Adelson’s Toronto home. Early in life, she became sensitive to the suffering of people. The daughter of a jeweller, her home-maker mother was a social worker.

"We were not a very politicized family," Adelson told me. "But from the time I could think for myself, I could not accept Apartheid and what it did to human beings." Rebel from her early days, Adelson, of white parentage, took part in student activities and demonstrations against the minority whites who were trampling the black majority with a heavy heel. Adelson speaks of the then, South Africa, as "a peculiar place where everyone was classified by race".

These early sensations took deep root within her. She was also greatly influenced by the biography of Martin Luther King Jr., written by his widow, Coretta Scott-King, an active member of the ‘Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.’

Adelson left South Africa in 1978 with her husband and three daughters. Her eldest, Sandy, a 23-year-old law student, serves on the Toronto Police Services Board - handpicked as its civilian member. The younger daughter, Vicky, is studying linguistics in Swansea, Wales, while Susie, the youngest, is a high-schooler.

Adelson who conducts ‘Peace Studies’ at the McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, is also active in ‘Canadian Voice of Women for Peace’ — a global movement which is on the United Nations’ agenda. The women’s peace movement mounted a recent survey on the physical and psychological scars left on children as a result of internal wars in some countries that included Sri Lanka, Gaza and Croatia.

"We wanted to pursue projects to rehabilitate children affected by war, and to see if health intervention could advance the attainment or preservation of peace," says Joanna Santa Barbara, assistant professor of psychology, specializing in child and family psychiatry at the McMaster University.

"Peace is what the human spirit yearns for," says Adelson who lists some areas that need to be explored to set the foundation for peaceful co-existence among people. For instance, she says, there a great need for dialogue among expatriates in Canada who have come from war-torn countries, carrying their home-battles with them. Canada is a peaceloving and peaceful country where warring expats can find a common forum to resolve their differences, instead of fanning the flames at home. "Like-minded people should get together for the cause of peace," she observes.

The Canadian Chapter of the Peace Movement draws inspiration from the United Nations. An arm of the UN — the United Nations educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has focused on the ‘need to transform the deep cultural roots of violence and war.‘ Its founding constitution states that "since war begins in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." The UN General Assembly has called for the promotion of a culture of peace as an integral approach to preventing violence and armed conflict, and has designated the year 2000 as the ‘International Year for the Culture of Peace."

Adelson underscores the media-role in the peace movement. She sees the need for a regular ‘Peace Page’ in the daily press to which international proponents of peace could make editorial contributions.

In her ‘Star’ article, Adelson quoted Einstein who said: "We need to widen our circle of compassion to include all people; living beings and the earth. It sounds simple; but I believe that if we could use the fundamental human capacities, this way, we would change the world".

"How can we be peace promoters?" Is the question we should ask ourselves, says Adelson.

Regaining Lost Freedom

by D. T. Devendra
It was 878 years ago that the first foreign power ruled over Lanka. For 50 years the Cholians held sway over us and ruled our kind as a province of Chola until their power was crushed here by the Great Vijayabahu whose name is associated, too, with the Sacred Peak in the shadow of which we are meeting today to rejoice in a victory we have won from the struggles of our heroes. The Pandyans and the Vijayanagara Empire in turn ruled us some time even as the Cholians had. But this does not belittle us. It is the story of every nation on earth.

Although the Portuguese arrived in Lanka in 1505, it was not till May 29th 1597 that they could claim dominion law a part of it. This was after the death of Dharmapala. In 1658 the Hollanders superseded them and in their turn they yielded place to the British in 1796. Not until 1815, could it be said, had any foreign power held full sway over this fair land. In that year the last of the native Kingdoms lost its independent existence.

So on this day we regain a freedom which we had lost 350 years and 8 months ago.

I ask you particularly to address yourselves to three matters to which you may not have given thought. Firstly, this people, the British (to whom Mr. Sandys, the Govt. Agent belongs) gave us a unified Lanka. Secondly the same people, whom in the stress of temper we have been censuring for a hundred years, gave us of their language and way of life which, more than any other single factor, enabled this attainment of today. To them, therefore, as much as to our own sons who have striven to this end, we should offer grateful thanks. Thirdly, we must be consciously appreciative of the circumstances created by Japan which, leading to the last Great War, enabled Asian countries to reach the ideal of freedom to which Lanka has come today.

Of yore is from such as you, students, that grew strong the Ten Paladins of our incomparable Gemunu. Let Posterity say that our Lanka had brought into being not ten but a lakh of Paladins.

Environmental pollution is the main cause of cancer

Dr. J. B. Kelegama
President, Sri Lanka Cancer Society

Cancer, as everyone knows, is a dreadful disease. About 10 million people the world over, are diagnosed for cancer a year, and about 6 million people die from the disease every year. According to current trends, about 20 million people will suffer from cancer by the year 2020 and of this 70 per cent will be in the developing countries. Cancer is mainly environmental in origin; cleaner the environment, lower the incidence of cancer. Environment means total life experience - what you eat and drink, where you live and work, the air you breathe and the radiation you absorb. Generally about one third of all cancers is caused by smoking, another third by the food and drink consumed and the balance third by a variety of causes, the main one being environmental pollution by carcinogenic chemicals.

With rapid industrialization and improvement of living standards, the environment is becoming more chemicalized and people are exposed to carcinogenic chemicals and ionizing radiation. Thus generally the environment tends to be more polluted in the more industrialized and richer countries. In the United Kingdom for instance, the death rate from cancer is about ten times that in Sri Lanka.

While the death rate from breast cancer is 2 to 5 for every 100,000 women in Sri Lanka, it is as high as 30 to 40 in the United States. When women in Asia, where the incidence of breast cancer is low, migrate to Western countries, their rate of breast cancer jumps to the Western rates within a generation.

Chemicalization of the Environment

It is estimated that about 70,000 chemicals have been introduced to our environment and about 1000 new ones are being added every year. Regulatory agencies cannot cope with such numbers and furthermore regulatory agencies in the major developed countries are dominated by the industries they were set up to control. Chemicals when treated singly may show little carcinogenicity but in combination they have synergistic effects far more powerful.

Further, chemicals undergo change over the years to become more toxic. There is also a delay between exposure to carcinogens and the development of cancer, and this may be even a generation. Apart from pollution by chemicals, the environment is also polluted by nuclear radiation caused by the plethora of nuclear power stations.

The primary cause of cancer is genetic mutation in a single cell. The mutation can be caused by chance or by exposure to environmental substances called mutagens-man made chemicals (from coal and petroleum), organic chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, food additives and also some natural substances. Mutation can also be caused by radiation; in fact radiation is the largest single mutagen. Most radiation is from nuclear plants and children living near nuclear plants have higher incidence of leukaemia.

There is increasing evidence that the marked increase in the cancer rates is linked with the increased chemical production over the last century. Annual production of synthetic carcinogenic and other industrial chemicals is reported to have increased from one billion pounds in 1940 to more than 500 billion pounds annually during the 1980s.

Perhaps the clearest correlation between chemicals and cancer rates involves the American farmers. In the 1940s American farmers used same 50 million pounds of insecticides; by the 1970s insecticides among them had risen to 600 million pounds and currently more than one billion pounds. For the last several decades, American farmers have experienced high rates of cancer including leukaemia, and brain and prostate cancer, all linked to exposure to pesticides and solvents.

Some 53 carcinogenic pesticides are registered for use on major crops such as apples, tomatoes and potatoes; consumption of common foods with residues of 28 of these pesticides have been associated with some 20,000 annual cancer deaths. Of the 34 pesticides commonly used for lawn care, 10 are known to induce cancer in rodents, infants and children. Pesticides such as Chlordane and Heptachlor used to treat homes for termites are known to be carcinogenic.

The Dirty Dozen

The 12 pesticides and other chemicals known as the "Dirty Dozen" are as follows:

                        "The Dirty Dozen"

Pesticides                                                 Use

1. Aldrin                                 on crops to control termites
2. Chlordane                         on crops, lawn and gardens
3. DDT                                 on crops and control of malaria
4. Dieldrin                                 on crops and to control termites and mice.
5. Endrin                                 on cotton, grains and to control mice
6. Heptachlor                         on crops and control of malaria
7. Mirex                                 to combat fire ants & termites and as fire retardant in plastics
8. Toxaphene                         on crops and control of ticks

Industrial Chemicals

9. PCBS                              in electric transformers, paint, additive and plastics
10. HCB                              in fireworkes, synthetic rubber, also as a pesticide

Unintended by-products                             Sources

11. Dioxins                     Chemical production, waste incineration, car emissions
12. Furans                     formed along with Dioxins but less potent

DDT is banned in the USA but is used in several developing countries mainly to control the malarial mosquito (which has become immune to it in many areas). DDT and other chlorine containing pesticides are sturdy molecules which can stay intact for decades. They evaporate into the atmosphere and are blown by the winds all over the globe. They condense and fall to the ground in cold weather, especially in the higher altitudes; some of the highest concentrations are found in polar bears, penguins and Invit people in northern Canada. Studies show that even small amounts of pesticides can disrupt the working of the human hormones, interfering with reproduction and functioning of the immune system.

Surveys showed that 35 per cent of the popular food in the US in 1992 had pesticide residues and 34 per cent in the UK in 1994. Since 1976, several human studies have shown a strong association between breast cancer and pesticides such as DDT, Chlordane and Dieldrin which concentrate in animal fats. Breast cancer deaths among Israeli women for example, fell by 30 per cent following regulations which reduced levels of DDT and other carcinogenic pesticides in dietary fat.

"Pesticides in food cause brain cancer and leukaemia among children; one study showed decreased physical stamina and diminished memory in Mexican children exposed to pesticides; another found learning and attention problems in children whose mothers had eaten contaminated fish in Lake Michigan, USA.

Cancer is also caused by nuclear radiation from nuclear weapons and nuclear power industries. Cancer cases increased sixfold in parts of Southern Iraq, after the 1990 -91 Gulf Crisis when the US and UK fired depleted uranium shells. Recent researches also seem to indicate that risks of cancer are increasing with the widespread use of cellular telephones; it is reported that radiation from such phones affect brain cells.Air pollution, caused mainly by motor vehicles, has reached highly dangerous levels in many Asian cities; fine particles of dust and toxic substances such as benzene are among the major causes of cancer.

In Taiwan, air pollution has contributed in a big way to making of cancer the number one killer. Bangkok has lung cancer rates three times higher than the rest of the country and air pollution levels fourteen times higher than international health standards in the region. One survey found that pollution is decreasing the life span of city residents from 80 about 70. Almost a third of the city’s traffic policemen suffer from lung diseases and a fifth from breathing problems.

Little publicity is given to the facts that industrial chemicals, particularly pesticides and nuclear radiation tend to cause cancer. This is because cancer care is big business and chemical and pharmaceutical firms earn their profits not on prevention but on the continued existence and growth of cancer. Cancer drug sales in the U.S. alone exceed $1 billion annually. Chemical and pharmaceutical firms and nuclear industries finance much of cancer research in the developed countries, and it is not surprising that research institutions like business firms do not want to give too much publicity to the facts that chemicals and radiation cause cancer. The fact remains however, that a substantial part of cancer deaths can be prevented by the elimination or controlled use of these chemicals and adoption of alternative methods such as biological control.

All research, explorations and studies reveal that cancer is exceptionally rare among native races and primitive people living in clean, natural environment. Albert Schweitzer, found no cases of cancer in Gabon when he arrived there in 1913. Explorers and researchers found no cancer among the Eskimos, Alaskans and primitive tribes in Africa, South America, India and the Arctic in the 1920s and 1930s. As late as 1956/57, Senegalese had no breast cancer; the same experience was shared by the Eskimos in the Canadian Eastern Arctic. Thus cancer is a disease of industrialization and the scientific age - the price we have to pay for modern civilization.

Smoking and Cancer

Tobacco kills over 3 million people a year now but is estimated to kill 10 million by 2030 - from tobacco related diseases such as cancer, heart and respiratory ailments. Governments of many countries are taking measures to discourage smoking such as raising taxes on cigarettes, prohibiting tobacco advertisements, disallowing smoking in public places, stopping or limiting tobacco sponsorship of sporting and cultural events and public education, while many people who have realized the health hazards of smoking are voluntarily giving up smoking.

In Delhi, the municipal administration banned smoking in public places from January 1997 under the Delhi Prohibition of Smoking and Non-smokers Health Act. In July 1999 the Kerala High Court made a landmark judgement banning smoking in public places by declaring "public smoking as illegal, unconstitutional and violative of article 21 of the Constitution". It held that smoking in public places "falls within the mischief of the penal provisions relating to public nuisance as contained in the Indian Penal Code and also the definition of air pollution as contained in the statutes dealing with the protection and the preservation of the environment in particular, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981." The Kerala government has started implementing this decision and everyday hundreds are being caught unawares by the police at bus stands, public roads and bars and are being fined a minimum of Rs. 200 by a Magistrate.

In America, while the tobacco companies succeeded in blocking federal legislation to restrict their marketing tactics and increasing the price of cigarettes by spending $43 million on lobbying and another $40 million on the advertising campaign against the bill, state governments have succeeded in making tobacco companies meet the cost of looking after those who are suffering from tobacco related diseases, particularly cancer.

Courts in several states such as Miami, Florida and California have all ruled that smoking causes diseases such as lung Cancer and that tobacco is addictive and ordered tobacco companies to pay billions of dollars damages to tobacco victims. There is one case before the courts in Sri Lanka now where a victim of tobacco smoking is claiming damages from the tobacco company.

Diet and Cancer

About half of all cancer deaths are caused by tumours in the lungs, heart, bowel and prostate. Apart from lung cancer, which is mainly caused by tobacco smoking, diet appears to be the crucial factor in most of the other cases; diet link is strongest in colon cancer. Animal studies have shown how elements in cooked meat are carcinogens in the mammary gland or colon of rodents. Meat and alcohol are associated with increased risk of breast cancer. Meat is likely to raise the odds of bowel cancer by producing carcinogens called heterocyclic amines and it also increases the amount and type of residue that enters the large bowel.

Alcohol is a risk factor for upper gastrointestinal cancer, liver cancer and breast cancers. Many research studies have shown that the regular consumption of certain kinds of food mainly vegetables and fruits and beverages tend to reduce the risk of cancer. The American Institute for Cancer Research, for instance, has identified a number of food items which contain anti-oxidants and other elements like bycopene, allylsulfides, sulphoraphane and omega 3 which can prevent and fight cancer. eg; Tomatoes, Garlic, Onions, Chillies, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Carrot, Turmeric, Rosemary, Soy Foods, Fatty Fish, Grapes, Avocadoes, Peanuts, Flax Oil, Olive Oil, Green Tea and Red Wine.

A study of 48,000 men in 1995 by Harvard researchers found that those who ate 10 servings of tomato-rich foods every week cut their risk of prostate cancer by nearly half. Another study showed that Chinese women on high soy diets had only half the breast cancer incidence of women on low soy diets. Research studies in India by institutions such as Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, Central Food Technological and Research Institute, Mysore and National Institute for Nutrition, Hyderabad, have also shown that turmeric and garlic are effective against cancer. In a pilot study by the National Institute for Nutrition in Andra Pradesh, lesions that are a prelude to oral cancer disappeared in a third of the 25 people who were giventurmeric tablets. The study is too small to conclude that tumeric can tackle cancer, but it is a positive indicator.

Risks of Cancer can be reduced not only by consuming more of the vegetables, fruits and beverages which have anti-cancer qualities but also by cutting down the consumption of carcinogenic food and beverages, particularly popular fast food and drink and alcoholic beverages. In fact most of the foods and beverages are contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals through pesticides, fertilizers and preservatives that they can no longer be regarded as ‘safe’ but some are ‘safer’ than others.

World Congress of medicina alternativa 2000 at the BMICH

Excerpts from the speech made by the Chief Guest Dr. Leonard Steinberg M.D., F.R.C.P., Consultant Physician Harley Street, London, Delegates from 104 countries are attending. This Congress is held at the BMICH till 3rd January. Over 300 scientific papers are presented from 62 International Universities researching on Alternative Medicines.

MY VlSlON OF FUTURISTIC; MEDICINE

Oliver Wendell Holmes said; " If all the medicines in the World were dumped into the sea; it would be much better for humans, hut so much worse for the fishes".

I must confess that I am no major prophet and most prophecies (others have made) have often proved wrong, although their veracity depends on how the followers interpret our prophecies. Nostradamus, a major prophet of the Western world, predicted that the world would end on July of this year (1999). As we are all still here, I suspect that he was mistaken. However, some people have updated this doomsday to the 5th day of the 5th month, year 2000. Wait and see. As I try to predict the future of Medicine, I see everything not so clearly, but through a hazy mist. We have learned from bitter experience that every advance made has its benefits, also its drawbacks and not infrequently catastrophes, so that if we look to the future it pays us to look back and try to lean, from the past. The further back we look the more accurately we could guess the future.

Medicine does not exist in a vacuum, but is dependent on a matrix of many multi-factors. And when we speak about medicine and its advances we are really concerned not with medicine itself, but with societal health, which it is expected to produce. It is the health of the 21st century population, which concerns us, find not Medicine per se.

Generally speaking, the health of the world population has improved, but this is only partly because of Medicine, but mainly because of economic development which depends on political stability, rising food production, eliminating starvation, better hygiene and improved public health standards. Better education has also ensured a better health for society.

Starvation

Starvation is one of the greatest threats to futu re humanity, but at present food production has increased due to the green revolution. Lack of available clean drinking water for six billion plus human beings in the 3rd Millennium is a disaster waiting to happen in the near future. The poisoning of our enviromnent is a major cause of this. The drying up of oilfields within the next quarter century is a Nostradamic disaster, whose complications are unthinkable. It could well be the end of the "civilized,’ homo sapiens.

We now have the possibility of genetically modifying crops and this will enable food production to be increased, but there are dangers and limits only time will tell. The Kikuya people of Kenya say, that before you destroy anything you must be sure that you have something of equal value with which to replace it.

Sometimes it seems we have a cycle of fashion in Medicine, and a treatment is condemned, to be reintroduced as a modern discovery some years later (example: Acupuncture). We now know the dangers of the use of X-rays not only in therapy but also in investigations, Dangers, not only to the patient but also to the general population and the environment.

We must be on guard when new medical treatments are introduced, otherwise we may use them unwisely, perhaps dangerously. Never be the first to try a new remedy, nor the last to give up an old one, is a useful old adage. We should be very careful to study the natural history of disease and pass this knowledge over before the younger generation gets carried away with hi-tech new treatments. It seems that too often doctors prefer to pose as being important and powerful (macho) by using complex medications as their weapon, rather than using simple commonsense. The introduction of antibiotics was a great advance, but their indiscriminate use has led to drug-resistant bacteria and now many patients are becoming ill in hospitals where these resistant bacteria abound. For example postoperative hospital wound infections are frequent. In many parts of the developing world, treatment with antibiotics has to be curtailed because of the cost, hence the patient is not cured and more of the resistant strains of organisms are created e.g. modern tuberculosis and leprosy.

AIDS

AIDS is here, and is a worldwide problem and is increasing in certain parts of the world and, I understand, now very much so in the Indian subcontinent. Also I understand from Dr. Anton Jayasuriya that the incidence of AIDS in Sri Lanka is relatively lower than expected. This in a medical puzzle. The reason he has given is that the large quantities of chillies and spices you consume in Sri Lanka disinfects the mouth, also the anus. I am not sure whether Jayasuriya’s explanation is correct. He always has Alternative Theories of Medicine. He has already authored 53 books on Alternative Medicine. Perhaps, he should write a book on ALTERNATIVE SEX. This may entirely solve the AIDS problems worldwide.

Cancer

Great advances were expected in cancer therapy in the 20th century but in spite of the media hype that a magic bullet to cure cancer will soon be developed research has not yet proved productive. The solution lies probably with drugs that contain the spread of a cancer, rather than a cure. The best solution to cancer is of course prevention, for example, to avoid (or ban) smoking.

There is now a new field of foetal medicine, especially of foetal surgery. This is indeed a great advance and has far reaching potential for the future. Children who would otherwise have died in utero could now survive, but at very great expense, which the Third World can ill afford. Genetic engineering, to my mind, also comes within this orbit. I know of some of its benefits. I see great dangers in that we could be quickly heading to the "Brave New World" of Aldous Huxley. Unfortunately, the first death from genetic engineering has just been reported, caused by the virus that carried the incoming gene. Ironically the treatment may become worse than the disease! Cloning humankind is now almost possible. So many dynasties of dictatorial cloned rulers are sure to spring like poisonous mushrooms worldwide. When dynasties take over the rule of democracies die.

Exercise

One of the problems among the affluent is lack of exercise and over- nutrition, i.e. obesity, combined with fast foods, which contain too much preservatives and colourings, excess salt, which are injurious to health. Everyday we are told that the food that was good for yesterday is now bad for us today. The best advice on nutrition is: The food that you do NOT eat, is the food, which makes you thin and keeps you healthy. This is particularly so in the studies on coronary artery disease. Very recent research, however tends to show that coronary thrombosis is due to an infection by a simple organism and that a high cholesterol diet, obesity and lack of exercise are secondary factors in the causation of this disorder. This is similar to the earlier story of peptic ulceration. In the past we were told this was a disease of high-pressure executives. We now know that it affects the so-called lower classes who are infected with the helicobacter pylori.

Talking about the aged, the science of gerontology has shown that the brain does not necessarily age, and that the death of brain cells and their non-replacement need not be a digester, if we keep the remaining neurons healthy and active. This eaM be done not only by regular mental exercise, but also by physical exercise - anything that increases the blood flow to the brain keeps the brain healthy - thus, anything that is good for the heart, like physical exercise, is good for the brain as well’ The best exercise to keeps your mind and body healthy is deep breathing. Whatever happens to you, don’t fail to keep breathing. This is my best advice for you!

Alternative Treatments

There is now a tendency for people to seek out alternative treatments learning from the past and also from developing countries. This has put pressure on the scientific medical profession to examine these traditional healing methods, and in many cases to adopt them. Thus many of us now use acupuncture homeopathy and other modalities of alternative therapies to complement scientific therapies.

Phytobiology is an important area for future pharmacological research. We must realise that pharmacy grew out of herbal medicine’ we must continue to investigate the plant world, for cures. For example, one of the most powerful drugs used in the treatment of cancer is Vincristine, which has been derived from the Madagascar blue periwinkle. In Kew Gardens in London there is a department for the investigation of herbal plants. Vincristine has been used for thousands of years by the ancient physicians of Sri Lanka, as the extract of MINI-MAL (Rosa Vinca) to cure blood disorders, Hahnemannian Homoeopathic materia medica also carries this remedy for the past 200 y¢ars. An extract of ginger called Zinaxin claims to work the same way as anti-inflammatory, non-steroidals, interfering with prostaglandin, which plays a big part in inflammation and pain. In the management of rheumatic disorders, patients are turning more and more to complementary medicine but few controlled trials have been done so far.

Yoga

We also see an increased interest in yoga, tai chi, and other Eastern philosophies filtering to the West, and I am sure these will complement health practices beneficially in the Third Millennium.

In the past I think we often had wise doctors, but this unfortunately has been replaced by doctors with academic knowledge who are more often technicians with lack of bedside manner and in my opinion medicine is not only a science but also an art, and that is what I feel many young doctors have to learn from practitioners of alternative medicine who often spend more time coupled with their patients, empathize arid learn what is really troubling their minds.

I well remember a lecture by Professor Heinz Wolf when he stated that certain doctors, when given data about a patient, reached the correct diagnosis more often than others, and this is particularly so if they are confronted with the patient. He postulated that perhaps some odour or expression from the patient was unconsciously recognized by the physician as sometbing he had recognized before in a patient with that particular disease, hence leading to the correct diagnosis. I know of many old doctors who say they can recognize the smell of cancer diabetes, tuberculosis, etc. and certainly I know many doctors who are more often correct in their diagnosis than others, not for any logical reasons, which they can give. Thus is called medical institution. Forty years ago Dr. Anton Jayasuriya was given a complex patient to diagnose when he came up for his postgraduate exam at The Royal London Hospital. He diagnosed correctly by asking the patient, what was your treatment? This is now called the JAYASURIYA SHORTCUT METHOD, to pass examinations. It is NOT a recommended standard medical procedure to diagnose anyone.

The same is true of patients feeling better after visiting a practitioner, not necessarily a scientific doctor. This may be a nurse or physiotherapist, or quack. Some people are credited with having a healing touch, not that it necessarily cures, but the patient feels better after contact with the practitioner. Many nurses are able to make patients feel more comfortable and alleviate them. This is something that we are losing with medical technology. The training of nurses now is to get promotions then they are taken away from any patient contact to do administration. I hope this trend will be reversed in the 21st century. And again, I am certain that complementary practitioners have this skill to empathize.

We are now seeing the increased tendency for patients to sue doctors, often for the most trivial reasons, and this is leading to the practice of defensive medicine, which is not in the best interest of the patient (or practitioner).

Wisdom

We are constantly being bombarded with new facts and it is not difficult to acquire new information, i.e. book knowledge, but as many ancient sages have pointed out - first we have knowledge, then, if we are lucky, understand this knowledge properly and act. And even more important — know when not to act. That, in my opinion, is what is lacking so frequently in medicine today. My hope for the 21st century is that we will acquire more wisdom.

Optimistically, I look forward to an increasing healthy population brought about, not so much by new drugs, but by better hygiene, better nutrition, and mature commonsense practices in Medicine. Success gives us knowledge, but failure often gives us wisdom. We must remain positive and optimistic about the future. In short let us keep an open mind about all methods of healing. We must not have the following thoughts:

"It cannot be done because I can’t do it" and
"It doesn’t exist because I don’t know about it".

Finally let us all work together in the Third Millennium to prove all the doomsday prophets wrong. Unity is strength. Let us integrate all our healing methods to produce a BETTER MEDICINE for tomorrow.

Whither Sri Lanka in year 2000

Now that the Christmas season has lulled the shock of the election results, it is time to review recent happenings and the portents for the future of this country.

According to official election announcements the P.A. candidate Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has been elected President. However, the conduct of the election and the reports, of the Poll Monitors create serious doubts as to whether this has been a free and fair election. There were actions both official and unofficial which warranted the attention of the acting Elections Commissioner - the flagrant abuse of state property and state power, the transport of ballot boxes, the printing and supply of the extra ballot papers, the activities of Samurdhi Niyamakas, the blatant stuffing of ballot boxes in Colombo and elsewhere and of course the uncontrolled violence and intimidation which started the night before the election. But the acting Election Commissioner only announced that it was "a free and fair election".

During the year 1999 democracy was slowly stifled in Sri Lanka. Starting with the Wayamba election the P.A. perfected its horrendous election strategy realising the popular discontent. The rejection of Polls Monitors was a clear indication of the P.A. plans. Local Polls Monitors were deprived of their funds and only the insistence of the other candidates and the courage of the Polls Monitors that made it possible to monitor the Presidential election.

Though the election was fixed by the President taking the other parties by surprise, the P.A. candidate had no Manifesto as in 1994. Mud-slinging and crude fabrications in the state media were utilised to counter the U.N.P. candidates pact with the people and the well-organised campaign which impressed even non-supporters of the U.N.P. reducing the P.A. to desperation. In fact it may be said that though the U.N.P. officially lost the Presidential Election it cleared its name and gained respect as a sincere, democratic party with a clear vision. The P.A. officially won the election and took over the dooshana-beeshana (corruption and terror) label which the U.N.P. discarded.

The highly emotive message to the country by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on the occasion of taking oaths was reminiscent of promises made in 1994, only this time her attention was totally focused on the LTTE. She said the days of LTTE terror were numbered - that is after five years as Minister of Defence during which time the government lost control of the East and the LTTE spread its tentacles in the South. It took a bomb attack on her person to realise the urgency for a peaceful solution. Alternatively, this extraordinary attention to the LTTE could be another method of diverting criticism of gross election violations and the demand for an early abolition of the Presidency.

If the President is sincere in her desire to eliminate terror, then she must begin with her party over whom we must assume she has control. In the last two months there has been a shocking destruction of life and property. The Police have been inactive or been transferred if active. MPs and Provincial Councillors have openly participated in these attacks but there was no active effort from Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga to curb P.A. terror. The bomb attack on Ranil Wickremesinghe at Eppawela, the assasination of Lucky Algama attracted little attention from the State media or the top ranks of the government. The outstanding military services of Algama were blackened by false allegations of conspiracy by those responsible for the military disasters in the North. While the President’s resolve to curb LTTE terror was repeated daily, there was hardly any mention of the man who successfully fought LTTE terror in the East.

What does the future hold for us? In the year 1999 the democratic process has been eroded at every election reaching a climax with the blatant abuse of power in the Presidential election. Of this election a foreign Polls Monitor has stated that "absolute power has become synonymous with the breaking of the law".

We now stand on the threshold of the new century flanked on one side by LTTE terror on the other side by PA terror, our daily lives shadowed by a dwindling economy and an orgy of corruption and crime as never before. In these circumstances the media bears a heavy responsibility to withstand the descent into dictatorship. The polls monitors have condemned the abuse of the state media during the Presidential election. The Minister concerned who also tried to suppress the independent electronic media, should quit before the general election if the government finds it necessary to obtain foreign aid with a free and fair election.

There is much talk of national reconciliation. But can this succeed if the President is not answerable to Parliament? The Liam Fox agreement and the U.N.P. Select Committee proposals have been silently abandoned. The LTTE has lost confidence and prefers to fight than talk. While the President invites Ranil Wickremesinghe to join her in the search for Peace, his supporters are being attacked and the walls are plastered with posters reviling both the Opposition Leader and the LTTE. And so we wonder - is this a diversionary tactic, a snare for the Opposition or a sincere search for Peace. The New Year will reveal the truth and demand total vigilance from all outside the Government Spectator.

The why and the wherefore of that Christmas nip in the air

By K. R. Abhayasingha
Meteorologist,
Department of Meteorology.

The North eastern monsoon conditions now prevailing over the island will continue till February and is called the "winter monsoon’’ within the region because this is the time of the year when there is winter over the northern hemisphere.

Weather conditions over Sri Lanka during this monsoon depend mostly on the wind streams blowing over the island’s landmass predominantly from the north east. But the area of origin or the path of the wind may not be the same during the length of the season.

North east monsoon winds sometimes starts from high pressure systems over North India and sometimes from the North East Asian landmass (China-Russia region).

The weather in North India now is cold and dry and the temperature of the wind streams originating from there is low as they pass over a cold land dry landmass and a short stretch of ocean before reaching Sri Lanka. These wind streams are therefore cold and with little moisture.

On the other hand, when wind streams originating cold from the high pressure region in North East Asia pass over longer expanses of the warm Pacific Ocean and the Bay of Bengal before reaching Sri Lanka, their temperature rises and they accumulate a mass of moisture during their passage to become saturated.

These two different characteristics of wind streams during this season create different weather conditions over the island. A dry and cold wind blowing from the Indian landmass establishes comparatively cold but dry weather over many parts of the country. The weather is generally cold and comfortable although it can become very cold in the early morning hours. Cloud-free skies both day and night give us days of sunshine and pleasantly cold nights. These conditions allow solar radiation to pass through and reach the earth’s surface during the day.

The cloudless skies help the earth surface and the adjoining air to release the heat by radiating it back to space as long wave radiation during the night. With this process, the earth surface and the lower atmosphere cools down making the latter part of the night and early part of the day cold. Under these conditions, formation of mist, dew or fog is common during the early morning hours specially in areas with vegetation or water bodies.

Under certain extreme conditions, the temperature near the earth’s surface, specially over high ground, may fall to near zero or below - the freezing temperature of water. Sometimes, conditions may be cold enough to deposit ground frost on leaves and grass in some hilly parts of the country. This is common in many places in the Nuwara Eliya district.

People exposed to such weather will need warm clothing and may also find their skin drying in soft parts of the body like the fingers and lips.

Wind streams that originate over high pressure regions in North East Asia and blow over the Pacific and the Bay of Bengal pick up sufficient moisture to bring rain bearing clouds to produce the seasonal rainfall in the northern, north eastern and eastern provinces of the island. Such wind streams under certain conditions help develop thunder showers over the central hills during the afternoon or evening. Some of these thunder showers are sometimes pushed to the western and southern regions during the late evening or early night.

These two kinds of weather can be expected over Sri Lanka during the north east monsoon. Extremes of both types of weather will have repercussions - cold weather affects plantations upcountry specially when ground frost forms. Too much rain also has its consequences.

In Sri Lanka, the weather is often affected by low level disturbances during any season causing drastic though temporary changes of normal seasonal weather. This is common even during this monsoon when under the influence of low level disturbances the weather over many parts of the island will mean rain both during the day and night before changing back to the seasonal pattern.

When lightning occurs, there are hazards to people and property and very strong winds that blow with thunderstorms can also cause serious damage. This makes it important to take precautionary steps to reduce wind and lightning hazards.

The Three f’s behind the radio Ceylon Microphone

by Mervyn Jayasuriya

Part V

Although Radio Ceylon was a government department where officers were entitled to permanent pensionable service, some of them, and these included all the announcers, were not entitled to permanency, or to retire on pension.

This was because Clifford Dodd did not want permanent pensionable staff, as he claimed that it would have a bad effect on efficiency.

His credo as I have said before, was Hire and Fire.

The trade unions had taken up the matter, and all except the announcers were granted permanent pensionable appointments.

I rounded up my colleagues and drafted a memorandum which was signed by all the announcers.

It was addressed to the Minister who gave us the opportunity to meet him and discuss this with him.

When I arrived at the Minister’s office at the appointed time, I found to my dismay that I was the only announcer there.

The rest of my colleagues had backed out.

Clifford Dodd was there with the Director General John Lampson, and a senior civil servant Mr. M. Rajendra, who was Permanent Secretary to the Minister, and two other high officials in the Ministry.

As I walked into the room Clifford Dodd invited me to sit next to him which I did.

Clifford Dodd then presented his case, claiming that an officer was entitled to a pension if that officer had served the government for one or two decades.

If however an announcer lost his voice during that period, he .would be unable to work, and Radio Ceylon should have the ability to get rid of him he argued.

The Permanent Secretary to the Minister who chaired the meeting then asked me if I represented the announcers, and invited me to make my comments.

As I was about to open my mouth, Clifford Dodd gave me a slight smack on my knee and hissed, "Shut Up."

I answered in a loud whisper that could be heard round the table, "Not here Mr. Dodd," and I went on to my argument.

I said I was surprised at Mr. Dodd’s statement as Mr. Dodd himself had been broadcasting for over twenty years, and he was still broadcasting without any loss of voice.

I also pointed out that Stuart Hibbard started broadcasting as an announcer for the BBC at its inception in the 1920’s, and through the 1950’s was still an announcer without any loss of voice.

Then there was Thevis Guruge and that great broadcaster, Livy Wijemanne both of whom had been broadcasting for many years without any loss of voice.

With a do or die resolve, and buoyed up by the attentiveness of the bosses I continued, "Gentlemen, just as an announcer might lose his voice and so become a liability, so can a surgeon lose his eyesight, and a Director or Administrator lose his sanity and become useless to the service of the State.

Is there a little bias here, or am I just being silly?"

There was a rather puzzled silence and Mr. Rajendra with a glint in his eye could barely conceal his amusement.

Finally it was a win for us announcers.

As the meeting ended Clifford Dodd put his arm round my shoulder and said, "Good show Jay-shurya," and insisted on taking me to lunch at the Galle Face Hotel!

In 1958, I found myself in trouble when I was commissioned to produce a special programme on Ten years of Freedom, which was to be broadcast on the Fourth of February, our Independence Commemoration Day.

Going through Radio Ceylon’s archives, with only four days for the broadcast I discovered that a recording that should have been made of a speech by Mr. Dudley Senanayake on his assumption of office as Prime Minister on the death of his father in 1952, had not been recorded.

I invited Mr. Senanayake who was then in the Opposition in Parliament, to come to Radio Ceylon, and read out the text of the message that had been given that day—a copy of which I rescued from an old newspaper at Lake House.

Mr. Senanayake was also informed of the programme which he said he would listen to on the Fourth of February.

The Director General of Broadcasting summoned me to his office on the morning of the Fourth, as I was about to go to the studio to record the programme, and wanted to look at my script.

I told him that I hadn’t written a script, but that I had a set of programme notes which would help me to ad-lib on the forty-five minutes programme.

The Director General hardly glanced through the notes and said, "I say, this is highly political"

I pointed out to the Director General that a programme on Ten years of Freedom was necessarily political.

He then claimed that too much prominence had been given to the decadent Western countries, and that I was partial in not having mentioned Soviet aid to Ceylon during the devastating floods in December 1957 in the Northern, North Central and Eastern provinces.

I pointed out to him that I had been reporting from that area during the floods when the Americans had diverted an aircraft carrier, the USS Princeton, for rescue work. I had been in their helicopters for more than twenty hours non-stop, while they rescued stranded people and dropped food parcels.

I told him that I had seen the Ceylonese, the Indians, the Canadians and British engaged in rescue operations, but I had not been aware of anyone from the Soviet Union being present.

He then pointed out that there had been a report that a Soviet ship, the Sevastapol, was bound for the island with food, so I told the Director General that I would be happy to include this. He also said that I should mention the visit of a soccer team from the Soviet Union which I said I would do if he so ordered it.

Why a soccer team had to be included in the midst of the floods I found difficult to understand.

He then asked me to delete any reference to the former Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala.

This was really too much, and I told him, "DG, the broadcast or non broadcast of this programme is not my responsibility; but if I am to produce it I accept full responsibility for its contents, as the programme goes under my name as Producer.

The programme was cancelled.

The day after Independence Day things started popping.

Apparently on Independence Day, Mr. Dudley Senanayake had tuned in to listen to the programme and having heard that the programme was cancelled, telephoned Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, asking for the reasons for its cancellation.

The Prime Minister telephoned the Director General who claimed that Mervyn Jayasuriya had produced an antigovernment programme, and he had been forced to cancel it.

Word went round that I was to be interdicted, and Clifford Dodd called me to his room. "Jay-shurya," he said, "don’t worry, if you go, I go!"

Mr. Dodd then called on the Prime Minister and his argument was unique.

He claimed that they were discussing a subject that was NOT!

They were talking about a programme that was not broadcast or even, recorded. So it was not a programme.

Mr. Dodd then handed over a copy of my programme notes to the Prime Minister. After he looked through them Prime Minister Bandaranaike chuckled and asked if the Director General was mad.

I quietly nodded in the affirmative.

A few days later Radio Ceylon had a new Director General!

An announcer is a Voice actor with a sense of occasion, and to be a good announcer one has to have the ability to relax.

Eardley Peiris was a good announcer and an old boy of my school, S. Thomas’ College, but unlike me he took his relaxation very seriously. (Eardley was also rather absent minded.)

One day, when he was about to read the news, he had a short mental blackout and couldn’t remember his name, and he started the broadcast with "Here is the news read by ....(he suddenly spotted Jimmy Barucha in the control cubicle) "Jimmy Barucha"; and he went on merrily with the news to Jimmy’s surprise and horror.

Commentaries on State occasions give rise to unintended humour.

During the visit of His Holiness the Pope to Sri Lanka, a colleague was doing the commentary from the airport, and for a few minutes his view was obstructed, and the commentary went like this:

"Yes...yes.. I can see Him. I can see His Holiness coming down the ramp. He is waving to the crowd. Yes I can see him. He is coming..he is coming.

The Pope is coming and and and, and now he’s disappeared..."

Although State funerals are sad occasions, they too give rise to mirth.

One commentary was broadcast like this — "We are gathered here at Independence Square in front of the multitude..and now the two nephews of the corpse are walking back to back carrying the torches to light it up."

One of the best known commentaries was on the BBC some years ago, when the BBC commentator Woodruff bent the elbow too many times at the local pub before going to the commentary point.

The occasion was the Review of the Fleet, by the British monarch.

Woodruff’s drunken voice began, "The fleetsh.. lit up the fleetsh..lit up..Ash I shaid the Fleetsh (hic) lit up; the whole bloody townsh lit up..Hic..and By Gad.. I’m lit up too!"

A grimly sober BBC voice followed with, "We apologize to listeners that due to circumstances beyond our control the commentary on the Review of the Fleet by His Majesty the King will not be broadcast."

Another cracker from the BBC was about a special programme called the Land of the Niger, which was scheduled for broadcast during the visit of Queen Elizabeth the Second to the African continent.

Jack de Manio who was reading out a summary of programmes for the evening transmission, announced that at eight thirty in the evening there would be a special feature programme on the Land of the Nigger.

Within minutes, the BBC was inundated with telephone calls, and African delegations called on the BBC to fire de Manio for insulting the Africans.

De Manio may not have been able to believe his luck when he was sent on full pay sick leave for an year!

Probably the best known early Radio show joke is the following which created a furore when Jack Parr quit as host of the Tonight Show. This was his story.

An English woman while visiting Switzerland was looking for a room, and she asked the local schoolmaster if he could recommend something suitable. When everything was settled she returned to her home in England to make final arrangements to move to her new Swiss place.

Recent Exhibition of paintings by Jagath Ravindra
"Picturing consciousness"

by Prof. S. B. Dissanayake
In his new sequence of paintings at Lionel Wendt Exhibition, Jagath Ravindra, who found a unique voice with bright colours to match his unique visual language in the early is 1990s, in now painting at the dark end of spectrum. He discovered bright colours early in his painting career to express his ideas about the inviolability of light, whether he painted city-light, Moonlight or Sunlight. In these early delineations of light, Jagath Ravindra sought its effectual qualities on our moods - moonlight for romance and reds or oranges for our more violent passions, like Paul Klee, who in 1914, with August Macke and Lois Moillet went to Tunis with a view to "discovering" the qualities of Mediterranean light, Jagath Ravindra came to the city of Colombo as a young man to discover the subtleties of light in city scapes, mostly of the night. But now, approaching perhaps early mid-life, he is painting the same city scapes; still abstractions for the most part, but with figures veiled in misty blues that blend into the pictures. It is as if the artist is now exploiting the qualities of light to portray his inner life. He explains that he is now under the spell of a growing sense of isolation. He uses veils and curtains of colour from the blue-end of the spectrum, leaving the viewer’s gaze to decipher and "Complete", and posit meanings into the pictures by turning directly to the viewer’s own experience - his or her recollections and reflections.

Isolation is so addictive it is often irreversible. It makes you at once hungry for company and unable to cope. When I saw Jagath Ravindra last week at the Lionel Wendt he was surrounded by younger artists who were helping him with the hanging. His sense of isolation probably has nothing to do with other people, but a reaction perhaps to the pace of modern life in the city, that tends to leave people like him behind.

There is no message in these new paintings that indiscreetly out-shouts the message that the work itself must communicate directly. Jagath Ravindra now seems to me to be after shadows -those of his imagination and those his life. But what is most apparent in these paintings is that in the intervening years between his first exhibition and, this one, he has doubled his remarkable ability to reactivate knowledge as lived experience with immediacy and unmediated naturalness - and it is all woven into a strikingly beautiful and extended autobiographical measure of the artist. That he does it in such a convincing and unobtrusive manner is testimony to his skills as a painter.

The pictures at this Exhibition are like intimate incantatory whispers shot through with claims of light. They are about the consonance and dissonance between society and the life of the interior of an artist. They are about, in Iris Murdoch’s phrase, "Picturing consciousness, separateness, discontinuity and fragmentation. They are about the ways of our coming to terms with ourselves and the world in which we must continue to live in.

Nature of good architectural design

By W. J. Neil Alles (Architect)
Now that we have recognized that so much excellent work has been done by the vernacular craftsman designer and by the modern architect, it comes as a disturbing shock to confront the total visual beauty of our modern world and find that we must admit that only a tiny part of it can make any claim to being well designed. If we search for a well designed house or apartment, a well designed automobile or Bus, good furniture, lamps, appliances, or any number of similar everyday things that we all must have and use, we find that anything that approaches the excellence of technological and vernacular design (not to seek of the products of nature) it is very rare and only discoverable in a few situations where there has been an extraordinary effort to find and cultivate what is rather self-consciously called "good design".

This situation seems to result from the fact that our society no longer makes it possible for the craftsman or artisan to make design decisions in a way that would make him truly a "vernacular designer", and at the same time, in most cases, it does not employ a trained or skilled designer for most projects. The average house has no designer or architect, nor is it the design of the carpenter or mason; it is rather the unthinking production of the operative builder (who is primarily a businessman) influenced in some case by the desires and tastes of the owner.

Most products are designed by the manufacturer or distributor who has no contact with the physical work of production and has no training or skill in design either, towns and cities simply "happen" under the influence of business and political pressures without any plan or design of any kind. It is no wonder that this way of doing things produces such bad results. It is only fair, however, to point out that the work of skilled and trained architects or designers is often as bad as the undesigned production we have just discussed.

While there are some architects who design excellent buildings, the majority of architects - designed buildings are just as bad as (and sometimes worse than) those built without benefit of expert design help. Interior designers and decorators produce some of the worse interior space ever assembled throughout the history or design. We must make it clear that in this article we are not discussing any and all work of trained designers when we discuss "good design". We are instead talking about the quite small amount of truly excellent work done by some designers and also the good work done by some architects engineered and talented men who are one way or another have come to understand what design really should be.

Good design means something more permanent and more fundamental than being tasteful. It refers to qualities that can be recognized in an object whether it is in style or out, whether it is popular or unpopular. It is possible to recognize something that is well designed while not particularly linking it personally. If one can come to understand that once own personal likes and dislikes. To make one’s goal as a architect the creating, of things that will be "pretty" attractive, or even beautiful. It may sound less personal and more serious than the mere application of "good taste".

Many architects and designers are, of course, quite content to work at this superficial level. They try to learn what is considered to be tasteful. What is coming into fashion, and what is spoken well or by critics, and they develop technical skills that make them able to work well in currently fashionable ways. There is no question that a person with a high level of visual and artistic sensitivity can have a successful career on this basis. It seems doubtful that such a superficial approach has ever lead to anything very great and it is almost impossible for it to lead to anything new since it is almost entirely imitative in nature. It is the level of design work that is usually called "styling". That is giving a stylish appearance to something that, in most cases, existed before and will continue to exist in future in slightly changed forms.

It is only the designer who accepts as his fore most professional responsibility a concern with how things will look (and also, in the appropriate cases, with how they will feel, sound, or even smell). Since we have already dismissed the idea that this means trying to make things tasteful or pretty, we must face questions of what it really does means. Why is it necessary to be concerned at all with how things look? It is surprising how few people are able to offer any sort of reasonable answer to this question.

A meaningful answer must be based on some understanding of what vision is for (and the other senses, too, where they apply). No one wants to be blind and a man who is blind must use his other senses to the utmost to partly make up for the deficiency. If he is to live an approximation of normal life. It is almost impossible to imagine a life in which all five senses were inoperative plants lead such a life, but we find it very hard to think of such ‘living’ as having anything in common with human life as we normally think of it. Natural objects have a kind of distilled history of their origins built into them also, but it is the role of the maker’s thought built into the human product that makes it so subtle and complex.

Man’s most important tool for survival and progress is his ability to think and understand. A well designed building not only serves its user well, but puts him in direct communication with the intelligence, skill, and thought of the designer. This is a helpful thinking for the individual user or owner and for the whole society.

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