31 Jan 2010

Good things about running

So, I’m running the marathon and the pretext is that I am running to raise money for the Leeds Jewish Welfare Board http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NeilClarke).  When they emailed me saying that there were reserved places left for them, I jumped at the chance.  Now, they are a worthwhile charity and I would have been too guilty to a marathon without raising at least a little money for someone.  But really, I have been saying for a few years that one day I’d do a marathon, and regardless I wanted to get back running again.  This was a great opportunity to do both!

It got me thinking about why running was good for me:

  • It suits my physical skills- I don’t have any physical skills!  All I have to is just keep on going. 
  • Fresh air- gets me out the house and means that I spend at least some of each day outside.
  • Rosy cheeks- I don’t know why but it’s cute.
  • Improves my skin- oils and toxins are released from your pores when you sweat. So long as you wash yourself straight after the run, your skin improves.
  • Helps me live longer- some people run marathons into their 80s.  I won’t.  But keeping body, mind and soul active is important to continued health.
  • Helps drive away the yetzer hara- to be all wishy washy, my “energies” go towards a constructive purpose rather than idle thoughts.  Some of the same hormones are released as when, for example, you eat chocolate…
  • Gives me a purpose- In a rudderless life like mine- this gives me an aim, one that is achievable and one that is largely in my control.
  • Time management- in order to fit a long run in, I actually have to think in advance about what to do with my evening.  I probably do more in that shorter amount of time
  • I feel less lethargic- activity breeds activity, while laziness only breeds more laziness.
  • Washed Clothes- running means there is no wearing the same underwear or T-shirts two days in a row!  So, I wash everything regularly and thee are less piles in my house.
  • Makes me ‘fit’- fit as in “yes you’re fit but don’t you know it” (oh, and the other kind). Toned muscles and slender stomach will make me irresistible(-ish).  All I will then have to work on is having a personality.

and many more…

10 Jan 2010

Leeches Suck and ECT is Shocking

New Scientist had an intriguing article about Leeches and their use in modern medicine. Apparently, they are very helpful in preventing problems when limbs are reattached. They help remove excess blood that could be life-threatening, and also inject a chemical that prevent blood-clotting. Who would have thunk it?

These poor leeches, however, have a very disreputable reputation, and probably through no fault of their own. It is not as if leeches deliberately prey on human beings, hide in your cornflakes or wait on street corners for an unsuspecting vein to walk past. Who can blame a leech for not looking a gift horse in the mouth and gorging itself on blood until it is six or seven times its normal size? After all, humans in our decadent West gorge themselves on cupcakes until they are six or seven times their normal size!

Yet, one cannot blame someone who would be weary of the use of leeches as part of their medical treatment. For almost 2000 years they were used as a catch-all treatment by ‘doctors’ who may have killed more patients than they cured. This is nicely summed up from a scene from Blackadder:

Edmund: Never had anything you doctors didn't try to cure with leeches. A leech on my ear for ear ache, a leech on my bottom for constipation.
Doctor: They're marvellous, aren't they?
Edmund: Well, the bottom one wasn't. I just sat there and squashed it.
Doctor: You know the leech comes to us on the highest authority?
Edmund: Yes. I know that. Dr. Hoffmann of Stuttgart, isn't it?
Doctor: That's right, the great Hoffmann.
Edmund: Owner of the largest leech farm of Europe.
Doctor: Yes. Well, I cannot spend all day gossiping. I'm a busy man. As far as this case is concerned I have now had time to think it over and I can strongly recommend a [in chorus] course of leeches.
Edmund: Yes. I'll pop a couple down my codpiece before I go to bed ?

For much of the time, this proliferate use of leeches was based on the belief that our body was composed of four basic substances or humours (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) that corresponded to the four Greek elements (fire, earth, air and water). Disease was caused by an imbalance of these humours and significant blood-letting could redress the balance.

Now that, post 19th Century, we do not believe in this theory, how come we still have leeches being used in medicine? Sure, it is not done on the basis of a discredited theory and it would be wrong to discard something just because of a chequered past, but is anachronistic nonetheless. After all, surgeons have great trouble preventing the leeches from straying and there is no guarantee that they will latch on and suck. Equally, if they know the combination of chemicals that stop blood-clotting why don’t they administer it in a different way? And if they don’t, why are we comfortable administering something we don’t have an understanding of?

The same goes for ECT (Electro-convulsive therapy), a commonly used technique in the 1940s and 50s, that passes an electric current through a patient and produces a seizure in the patient. It was used to ‘cure’ a large range of mental illnesses, often without the consent of the patient and sometimes was administered as a form of abuse. Yet, this is still in use today!

There are far more controls to its use, is limited to fewer illnesses, and is more monitored. Interestingly enough, in my psychology course, I learnt that the research shows that ECT is (slightly) more effective in treating schizophrenia than any of drugs currently available. Schizophrenia has a mainly biological rather than psychological cause, and passing current through the brain ‘does something’ to temporarily reset the brain. However, the ‘does something’ is not very well understood. Are we really happy to administer this when we don’t really understand it or its long-term effects just because it seems to work? Couldn’t scientific and medical funding be better directed elsewhere?

This is where the chequered past of a medical method comes in. After all, which modern scientist would a priori think of leeches or electricity as a great way to solve illness based on what we know? We only use it because of a direct link to a past where medicine was more barbaric. After all, the farm that breeds the leeches has been in operation from 1845, when the theory of humours was still believed. Given that it is the only licensed farm, Blackadder’s criticism of Dr. Hoffman of Stuttgart is prescient.

Of course, it’d be all worth it if we could make it up to leeches as a reparation for a history where we have abused their talents! Their life starts well being fed on sheep blood served in a sheep-gut condom. Yum! Alas, as soon as they are used, the surgeon drops the leech into a tub of alcohol and thrown into “Medical Waste”. Neither the leeches or the humans are being given the chance they properly deserve!

3 Jan 2010

G-d’s response to the Israeli Settlers

Finally, leaders of pro-Israel countries such as America are taking on the settlers. If only were it the case that a) more countries were strongly pro-Israel and b) countries that are, take a stand against the settlers. Thankfully Netanyahu, if only for reasons of self-interest, is playing along to a certain extent. As a result of this, Gush Emunim are revealing their true colours as some of the great anti-Zionists of our time. Not only are they intent on pursuing a course of action that can only lead to the destruction of Israel in the long-term, they are now advocating soldiers refuse to obey Israeli orders.

R’ Eliezer Melamed, a leading (and I use the words reservedly:) ‘Religious-Zionist’ rabbi has incited soldiers not to follow IDF orders to remove people from illegally constructed houses or settlements in West Bank. Due to this, his Har Bracha Yeshiva has been quite rightly removed from the Hesder Yeshivot programme that allows participants to spend part of their time studying and part of their time serving. People like this only support or see value in the State of Israel so long as it does what they want and serves their particular interests. They don’t support Israel; they only want Israel to support them.

His excuse is that the army is there to protect against its enemies and not against their own countrymen. Surely he cannot mean that the army can never be used against Jews. What if powerful Jewish drug barons started to run a well-armed drug empire from there neighbourhood? He can only mean the army cannot be used against Jewish interests and in this case, expelling Jews from their homes. Well, it is not their homes to start with! The ban is only applicable to new houses that are set up without permission. They are most definitely illegal according to the Israeli government and according to international law. Even (or especially) from the point of view of halacha, it is highly doubtful that Jews should be there in the first place.*

Maybe they would say (and I have heard many people say) that as Jews they say that the land is our natural inheritance given to us by G-d. ‘Greater Israel’ is our possession regardless of Israeli or international law; no-one else should have any of it; and no-one has the right to remove us. Well, fortunately G-d got his response in early (through the mouth of Ezekiel):

Then the word of G-d came to me saying, Son of man, They that inhabit these waste places of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one man and yet he inherited the land, but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance. Therefore we say to them, thus says the L-rd G-d: You eat with the blood and lift up your eyes towards your idols, and shed blood: and shall you possess the land? You stand upon your sword, you carry out disgusting deeds, and you defile every man his neighbour’s wife; and you shall possess the land?

The land is unequivocally not ours to do what we want with. We may say along with Leibowitz that: “To speak of the divine promise to Abraham and his issue as a gratuitous gift, to ignore the condition of the promise, and to disregard the obligations it confers on the receivers is a degradation and desecration of the religious faith”.

The settlers have an attitude that “it’s ours, not yours, so get out”. Yet G-d’s response is that if you do not conduct yourself with morality, you the ‘land will spit you out’. This shown by the first Rashi which Religious Zionists often use, but which says the opposite of what they want it to say. No human and no Jews has a ‘right’ to any the land- it is G-d’s land and plays by his rules. That is, it is only for those who are Yashar be’einei Hashem- straight in the eyes of the L-rd. According to Rashi, He can take it away from the Canaanites (due to their lack of morality) and give it to the Jews. However, he can take it away from them and given it to the Romans or Ottomans when the Jews weren’t moral.

In summation, let us quote the Netziv who talks about just this eventuality in the time of the Second Temple:

Regarding this came the justification of the divine judgment, because the Holy One, blessed be He, is a yashar, and He cannot tolerate righteous people like this unless they also function with decency in their dealings with the world

Apart from all the political reasons for being against the settlers, and the universal moral ones, let us say it is an affront to G-d.

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* A Milchemet Reshut, such as a war of conquest, could only be sanctioned by a Sanhedrin, which we don’t have. Thus, when the six day war turned from a defensive war (Milchemet Mitzvah) into one of conquest, the government (and rabbis who supported it) broke Jewish law.