Grief

In the beginning, the ball is huge. You can’t move the box without the ball hitting the pain button. It rattles around on its own in there and hits the button over and over. You can’t control it – it just keeps hurting. Sometimes it seems unrelenting. pic.twitter.com/Wcas2p4vab

— Lauren Herschel (@LaurenHerschel) December 29, 2017

 

Over time, the ball gets smaller. It hits the button less and less but when it does, it hurts just as much. It’s better because you can function day to day more easily. But the downside is that the ball randomly hits that button when you least expect it. pic.twitter.com/fevAttojBg

— Lauren Herschel (@LaurenHerschel) December 29, 2017

For most people, the ball never really goes away. It might hit less and less and you have more time to recover between hits, unlike when the ball was still giant.
I thought this was the best description of grief I’ve heard in a long time.

— Lauren Herschel (@LaurenHerschel) December 29, 2017

Whakaari / White Island tragedy

This picture tells only a very small part of the unfolding story on Whakaari / White Island.

Whakaari/White Island is erupting. More information soon. pic.twitter.com/B5m4BSa4bt

— GeoNet (@geonet) December 9, 2019

 

From that distance, we can’t see the terror that must have struck, the efforts to rescue the visitors and the heroism of the rescuers.

Last photos: here are the White Island Tour operators rescuing people, timestamp 14:24 (~12-14 minutes after eruption). Endless gratitude to that crew for stepping up as first responders.

I took these and reporters welcome to use with attribution. pic.twitter.com/ITmY1jCezr

— Michael Schade (@sch) December 9, 2019

The whole story of this eruption will add another tragic chapter to New Zealand’s history.

Clive James 7.10.39 – 24.11.19

Clive James, worsmith and broadcaster has died.

Broadcaster, critic, poet, TV presenter and prolific author – Clive James cheerfully criss-crossed the boundaries between high and lowbrow.

He was as much at home hosting a Shakespeare documentary as he was at fronting a programme showing people suffering indignities on Japanese TV.

His sardonic tones graced a host of TV documentaries in which he brought his own acute observations to bear on a wide variety of subjects.

A journalist on The Sydney Morning Herald once wrote: “His gift and lasting contribution has been to recognise that mass appeal does not translate into lack of substance.” . . 

Roger Franklin pays tribute to him at Quadrant:

. .  . As New Republic put it in 2010, attempting to explain Clive’s significance to American readers:

But try, if you will, to imagine that David Letterman also wrote long, charming critical essays for The New York Review, published more than 30 books, issued memoirs that moved readers the way Frank McCourt’s do, knew seven or eight foreign languages, and composed poems that were printed in The New Yorker, and you are getting close.

When England loses Clive James, it will be as if a plane had crashed with five or six of its best writers on board.

A devoted, dear and longtime friend of Quadrant, Clive’s wit and insight pepper our archives. Below, a sampling of the many reasons the world is today so much poorer for his passing. But first, as a reminder that five decades’ residence in England had not in the least thinned or in any way diminished the Australia that was in his blood, an expat’s memory . . 

 

 

His writing survives him at clivejames.com

Robert Ross ‘Blue Jeans’ McMillan 1929 – 2019

Naseby farmer and bush poet Ross ‘Blue Jeans’ McMillan has died.

The ODT profiled him here a couple of years ago.

Ian Cross 6.11.25 – 3.11.19

New Zealand has lost a wordsmith:

The journalist and author Ian Cross has died aged 93.

He is best known for his classic novel The God Boy but in a wide-ranging career he achieved distinction in other spheres, notably as editor of The Listener and chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation.

A journalist for many years, he began writing fiction in his spare time.

His four years as Listener editor in the 1970s helped to expand the magazine to an unprecedented mass circulation, and he then served as executive chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation before retiring in 1986. . .

You can read more at Wikipedia.

 

Cancer survival rates

What has made the difference to cancer survival rates?

Research.

That is what is needed to find better treatments and cures.

Early detection is also important.

 

Hat Tip: Utopia

Robert Mugabe – 21.2.24 – 6.9.19

Robert Mugabe has died.

Robert Mugabe, the first prime minister and later president of independent Zimbabwe, who traded the mantle of liberator for the armor of a tyrant and presided over the decline of one of Africa’s most prosperous lands, died on Friday. He was 95. . . 

There are some to whom the adage that you should not speak ill of the dead don’t apply.