Last Words: Brendan Behan

 

“Bless you sister, may all your sons be bishops.”

Last words of Brendan Behan (1923-1964)

Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also an Irish Republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army

His last words were spoken to a nun who was taking his pulse.

St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney

 

St Vincent’s Hospital was originally established in 1857 by five Irish Sisters of Charity.  The Sisters had come to Sydney in 1838 to help the poor and disadvanta.  In that capacity, they nursed victims of the 1844 influenza epidemic and assisted  prisoners and their families of the nearby Darlinghurst Gaol.. Three of the Hospital's founding Sisters had trained as professional nurses in France.  The hospital established was free to all people, but especially for the poor. The original site for the hospital was in the neighbouring suburb of Potts Point but was moved to its present location in Darlinghurst in 1870 due to demand.

Vincent’s Hospital, 1857.  The building, called “Tarmons”, was originally the residence of Sir Maurice O’Connell.

‘Tarmons’ was bought from the O’Connells by Sir Charles Nicholson, co-founder of Sydney University. He sold it to the Sisters in 1856 when he heard they were looking for a suitable site for a hospital, and a permanent home. The purchase was made possible through the activity of the Hon. Mr Plunkett, who had also allowed the Sisters to live for several years in his newly built house in Macquarie Street. St Vincent’s College, which still stands on this same site, began in a small room in ‘Tarmons’ in 1858. The Hospital moved to Darlinghurst in 1870.

Mattie Stepanek

Matthew Stepanek, commonly known as Mattie Stepanek, was an American poet, who had six books of poetry and one book of essays all reach The New York Times bestsellers list. Mattie was also a peace advocate and a motivational speaker who lobbied on Capitol Hill on behalf of peace, people with disabilities, and children with life-threatening conditions.  Mattie himself suffered from a rare form of muscular dystrophy, dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy, that resulted in his death.  His sister and two brothers also died from the disease during early childhood, and his mother has the adult form, diagnosed only after all four of her children were born.

One of Mattie’s poems is called “I Could. . . If They Would”:

If they would find a cure when I'm a kid…

I could ride a bike and sail on rollerblades, and

I could go on really long nature hikes.

If they would find a cure when I'm a teenager…

I could earn my licence and drive a car, and

I could dance every dance at my senior prom.

If they would find a cure when I'm a young adult…

I could travel around the world and teach peace, and

I could marry and have children of my own.

If they would find a cure when I'm grown old…

I could visit exotic places and appreciate culture, and

I could proudly share pictures of my grandchildren.

If they would find a cure when I'm alive…

I could live each day without pain and machines, and

I could celebrate the biggest thank you of life ever.

If they would find a cure when I'm buried into Heaven…

I could still celebrate with my brothers and sister there, and

I could still be happy knowing that I was part of the effort.

Mattie died on 22 June 2004, three weeks before his fourteenth birthday.

Some more graffiti. . .

  (Click on the images to enlarge).

Oops

 

Byter Frederick, who describes himself as “a thoroughly orthodox Mormon”, has taken me to task for saying that Mormons do not display crosses and believe them to be anti-scripture, along with the Seventh Day Adventists.

I confess, I screwed up.

Firstly, my reference to Seventh Day Adventists should have been a reference to Jehova’s Witnesses.

The Seventh Day Adventists do actually use a cross in their logo:

Jehova’s Witnesses, however, condemn the use of crosses and crucifixes, seeing them as a pre-Christian, pagan symbol.  The official JW website states:

Why, then, was this pagan symbol promoted? Apparently, to make it easier for pagans to accept “Christianity.” Nevertheless, devotion to any pagan symbol is clearly condemned by the Bible. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18) The Scriptures also forbid all forms of idolatry. (Exodus 20:4, 5; 1 Corinthians 10:14) With very good reason, therefore, true Christians do not use the cross in worship.   

http://www.watchtower.org/e/bh/appendix_05.htm


See also:

http://4jehovah.org/wdgrs03q05.php

Secondly, Frederick points out that the Mormons do respect the cross as a symbol of Christianity.

He writes:

We Mormons respect as legitimate all symbols used by other Christian faiths. It is in our interest to support and promote belief in the divinity of Christ through all faiths. It is a matter of choice by leaders of the Church since the founding not to use the symbol of the cross. I find the "machine gun" argument to be insulting to other Christians. There have been some small minded and superior feeling members that denigrate the use of symbols forgetting we have some very meaningful symbols used inside temples (which non-Mormons cannot enter).

Some Thoughts of Steve Jobs

 

Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955, to two University of Wisconsin graduate students who gave him up for adoption. Smart but directionless, Jobs experimented with different pursuits before starting Apple Computers with Stephen Wozniak in the Jobs' family garage. Apple's revolutionary products, which include the iPod, iPhone and iPad, are now seen as dictating the evolution of modern technology.  They are credited with revolutionising the computer industry by democratising the technology and making the machines smaller, cheaper, intuitive, user-friendly and accessible to everyday consumers.

At the time of his resignation, and again after his death, Jobs was widely described as a visionary, pioneer and genius in the fields of business, innovation, and product design, a man who had "profoundly" changed the face of the modern world and who had revolutionised at least six different industries. 

On October 5, 2011, Jobs died in California at age 56, seven years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The following quotation was sent to me by Byter Leo:

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary".

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech, 2005

Repackaging Jesus

 

My Honourable Number 2 son (as Charlie Chan was wont to say) is in his last year of High School and is about to tackle his Higher School Certificate.

We recently attended his school’s graduation Mass, which was held at a local church, Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church at Kingsgrove. It is a beautiful church with a soaring roof that is open inside, no ceiling, making it reminiscent of a Maori or Samoan meeting house.

Our Lady of Fatima Church, Kingsgrove

Whilst sitting, standing, wishing the peace of the Lord to each other and asking that He hear our prayer, I was looking around and my mind started wandering. What came to mind was the scene from the movie Dogma, where Cardinal Glick addresses the reporters at a press conference on the steps of his church:

Now we all know how the majority and the media in this country view the Catholic Church. They think of us as a passe, archaic institution. People find the Bible obtuse... even hokey. Now in an effort to disprove all that the church has appointed this year as a time of renewal... both of faith and of style. For example, the crucifix. While it has been a time honoured symbol of our faith, Holy Mother Church has decided to retire this highly recognisable, yet wholly depressing image of our Lord crucified. Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies... He came to help us out. He was a booster. And it is with that take on our Lord in mind that we've come up with a new, more inspiring sigil. So it is with great pleasure that I present you with the first of many revamps the "Catholicism WOW. " campaign will unveil over the next year. I give you... The Buddy Christ. Now that's not the sanctioned term we're using for the symbol, just something we've been kicking around the office, but look at it. Doesn't it... pop? Buddy Christ...

Buddy Christ from Dogma

Funny Friday

   

My father in law, Noel, gave me the following item, a letter, for inclusion in Bytes.  Thanks Noel.

Mrs. Gladys Gardner

The Methodist Centre for the Aged

NEWTOWN. NSW 2042

Dear Mr. Dumbrell.

I am writing this from my room at the Methodist Centre for the Aged, where as you know, I have been since my daughter died 10 years ago. It gets very lonely here and I don't know how much to thank you for your wonderful gift of this beautiful little portable radio.

I have not had a radio of my own before and you don't know how much comfort it is to be able to listen to the wonderful music and pass away the lonely hours. May God bless you for your kindness.

I share this room with my friend Elsie Jackson who is 81, I am 93. Elsie had a little radio but she always played it so softly that I could never hear it. The other day she dropped it on the cement floor and broke it. The repair man said it would not be worth fixing, so you can see how nice it is to have my own.

Last night while listening to the lovely choral service from the Methodist Church, Elsie asked me to turn my radio up, so naturally I told her to get fucked.

Thank you again for your generosity.

May God Bless You

Gladys Gardner

Snopes.com, the website that looks at urban legends, email onsends, internet rumours and other stories of questionable origin, has a piece on this letter.  It comments that the letter has been circulating since 1992 and quotes an alternative version:

Quote: Picasso

 

“Every positive value has its price in negative terms . . .  the genius of Einstein leads to Hiroshima.”

-          Pablo Picasso (1881 -1973)

Spanish painter, sculptor and graphic artist.  His prolific inventiveness and technical versatility made him the dominant figure in modern art in the first half of the 20^th century.

While on the topic of Picasso, what do you think of his sculpture Bull’s Head, made in 1942 whilst he was living and working in occupied France.  It is made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle.  A common comment is “I could have done that”, to which the common response is “But you didn’t, he did.”  Is it art?  Is it good art?  Is it simply a piece of whimsical tomfoolery?  This was one of the first sculptures to use found pieces as the medium for sculpting, materials being in short supply in 1942 in France.  His innovation inspired the move towards using already existing items, recycled materials and found objects for sculpting.  Another is Baboon and Young (1951), which also uses recycled objects.  Note the use of the toy car for the head.

Quote: Lewis Carroll

   

'Well, in OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get to somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen.  'Now, HERE, you see, it takes all the running YOU can do, to keep in the same place.  If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

 

Interestingly, the above quotation has given rise to a principle known as the Red Queen Effect.  In 1973 the biologist Leigh Van Valen (for the benefit of my son, that is Van Valen, not Van Halen) named a principle after the Red Queen, who must keep running just to stay in the same place.  This is because as the Queen is running, everything in the landscape is also moving at the same speed.

Van Vlen’s principle is that regardless of how well a species adapts to its current environment, it must keep evolving to keep up with its competitors and enemies who are also evolving. The Red Queen Effect, at its simplest, says that if a species does nothing, it falls behind, so that it must run to stay where it is.

One writer has commented that:

Look around and you'll see that the "Red Queen Effect" is happening in many places: it's part of the business landscape, new technology development, and arms races. Indeed, in the past few years major universities have a "Red Queen Effect" going in their fund-raising drives. One university will announce a goal to raise $4.5 billion ("the biggest ever"), and a month later another will announce a campaign for $5 billion ("the largest ever"). Small money-raising drives carry less prestige.

http://blog.creativethink.com/2007/03/the_red_queen_e.html

Back to the 50's Part 2

 
(Continued from yesterday).

How many of these do you remember?

Coca Cola in bottles.

Choo Choo Bars and Fags. (That word had no other meaning then.)

Quote: Tim Berners-Lee

 

"n an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of other words. I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it’s related to, and how it’s related.

There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything. There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected."

-           Tim Berners-Lee

Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee (1955 - ) is a British physicist, computer scientist and MIT professor who is credited with the invention of the World Wide Web,  a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.

Back to the 50's

 
 

Byter Shirley sent me the following email, which I will post in two parts, the second part tomorrow because of the large number of photographs in it.

Much as many of my posts look at historical events, photographs and people, and at the origins of things, I am not a person who looks to the past to say how bad the present is.  Certainly there is truth in some of those messages, such as “Remember when we used to go to sleep with all the doors and windows open to catch the southerly?”  Looking back to bygone days simply to moan about what has been lost is a quick means to unhappiness and bitterness. Life’s journey is similar to driving a car:  you look through the windscreen at where you are and to where you are going, you don’t travel forward with your eyes fixed on the rear vision mirror.

That said, I am posting Shirley’s email because of the simple question she asked when she sent it:  “Remember these days Otto?”  Shirley and I are showing our age because I remember them all, even to the extent of saying that the penny depicted appears to be a Pommy penny.  Also, we didn’t call them shanghais, to us they were slingshots.  (And I don't agree with the pic showing the child being spanked).

This is the email sent:

Back to the 50's!

None of you blokes would remember these . . .

All the girls had ugly school uniforms

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up

Photos: #1

 

(Click on image to enlarge).

Photos: #2

 

(Click on image to enlarge).

The above photograph is genuine. 

It shows a Mandarin Airlines airliner taxiing past the burnt out remains of another Mandarin Airlines plane laying upside down adjacent to the runway.  The plane which crashed was enroute from Bangkok to Hong Kong I August 1999 when it sought to land at Hong Kong Airport at the same time as there was a strong crosswind from Typhoon Sam.  The plane came down too hard on its right side, causing the No 3 engine to hit the runway and the right wing to be torm off.  The plane rolled over and slide off the runway upside down.  It burst into flame and came to a halt on the grassy area shown above.

A video of the crash can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuoeYaR4MP4

Surpisingly, out of the 200 passengers and 15 cabin crew, there were only 3 fatalities.

Sean Connery

 
 

Ned Kelly: Part 15

 

 

Execution

On 30 October 1880 Ned Kelly had been sentenced to death by Mr Justice Redmond Barry.  On being sentenced, Kelly had responded that he would meet Barry where he was going.

Ned’s execution was scheduled for 11 November 1880,

A massive public movement sought to have Ned reprieved from the gallows.  Public meetings, torch rallies, a deputation to the Governor and a petition of 32,000 signatures failed to have any effect.

The day before his execution Ned was photographed wearing his prison clothes.  Two photographs were taken:

Quote: Janis Joplin

 

“Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week.  In MY week.”

-          Janis Joplin (1943-1970),

in an interview in 1969 in New Musical Express, referring to the bumping of her photograph from the cover of Newsweek by the death of ex-President Dwight D Eisenhower.

Ned Kelly: Part 14

 

The trial:

The trial began on 15 October 1880.  A brief adjournment was granted and it recommenced on 28 October 1880.

The Ned Kelly trial

Notes about the trial:

·         The trial was sandwiched between the Great Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880 and the Melbourne Cup.\

Officials wanted the trial dealt with as speedily as possible.

It was over in two days.

Funny Friday

 

From Byter Vince:

At dawn the telephone rings:

"Hello, Senor Rod? This issa Ernesto, the caretaker at your country house."

"Ah yes, Ernesto. What can I do for you? Is there a problem?"

"Umm, I just calling to advise you, Senor Rod, that your parrot, he issa dead".

"My parrot? Dead? The one that won the international competition?"

"Si, Senor, this issa the one."

Damn! That's a pity! I spent a small fortune on that bird. What did he die from?"

"He issa eating the rotten meat, Senor Rod."

"Rotten meat? Who the hell fed him rotten meat?"

"Nobody, Senor. He issa eat the meat of the dead horse."

"Dead horse? What dead horse?"

"The thoroughbred, Senor Rod."

"My prize thoroughbred is dead?"

"Yes, Senor Rod, he issa die from all that work pulling the water cart."

"Are you insane? What water cart?"

"The one we issa use to put out the fire, Senor."

"Good Lord! What fire are you talking about, man?"

"The one at your house, Senor! A candle issa fall and the curtains issa caught on fire."

"What the hell? Are you saying that my mansion is destroyed because of a bloody candle?!"

"Yes, Senor Rod."

"But there's electricity at the house! What was the candle for?"

"For the funeral, Senor Rod."

"WHAT BLOODY FUNERAL??!!"

"Your wife's, Senor Rod. She issa showed up very late one night and I issa thinking she issa a thief, so I hit her with your new Ping G15 204g titanium head golf club with the TFC 149D graphite shaft."

SILENCE........... LONG SILENCE.........VERY LONG SILENCE..

"Ernesto, if you broke that bloody driver, you're in deep shit!"

Good Vibrations

 

(Click on images to enlarge)

I was looking up some vintage advertising for today’s post and came across the above advertisement for the Vibra-Finger.  It is readily apparent to us today that the device is a vibrator, but the advertising of that period wasn’t so forthcoming (no pun intended), such devices then being commonly  disguised as therapeutic massagers.  This has resulted in some interesting ads, a selection of which appear at the end of this post.  They date from the 1890’s through to the 1950’s.

Leo's graph

 

This graph was sent to me by Byter Leo.

In its humouros simplicity, it has a message that is quite profound: that as we age, some of the things of our youth increasingly disappear.

In looking up this graph on the internet, I came across a comment by someone: “This is also representative of my erections.”

That in turn started me thinking about other things that the graph might depict.  In place of “Giving-a-fuck” on the left, one could substitute:

·         Bodily condition

·         Zest for life

·         Partying

·         Belief that one knows everything

It’s a strange thing, how the human body and mind are designed.

We start off as babies, wetting and soiling ourselves, no teeth, no hair, unable to fend for ourselves, unable to speak and then, in old age, the process reverses itself and we work back towards that condition.  The above graph reflects that, a point on the upward graph can be correspondingly found on the downward graph.

"The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important."

- Martin Luther King Jn