This post of Gerard’s brought on quite a few comments. I think, my first comment to this post of Gerard’s was this one:
“Gerard, your imaginary ‘obituary’ shows your great imagination and humor! It is so humorous, that I made me laugh instantly.
But then I thought a bit more about it, why is it that ‘obituaries’ nearly always deal only with the ‘good’ things a person has done during a life-time?
It leads me to what I call my ‘personal’ belief about ‘Jesus’. I am not sure, whether I am a sort of ‘odd’ Catholic convert. I really do not have a lot of contact to other Catholics. I do not want to go into the reason for that. It is really another subject I would have a lot to say about . . . .
So, at age 40 I became a Catholic convert!
I was attracted by everything that related to what Jesus is supposed to have said.
He said, something like that if a great sinner (for instance someone who did commit murder) if this ‘mortal’ sinner is truly sorry for having done such a horrible sin, Jesus says, In this case a forgiveness of this sin can be granted!
I find the ‘Hail Mary’ Prayer has great faith value!
The first part of the Prayer says how blessed Mary is.
The second part of the Hail Mary goes like this:
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
Pray for us Sinners,
Save us from the Fires of Hell,
And bring all Souls to
Heaven, especially those
That most need thy mercy. Amen
The Catholic belief, as far as I know, is that every person can become as wholesome as Jesus at death’s door, and then go straight to ‘Heaven’ so to speak. So when a person is dead and has regretted every bit of ‘Wrongdoing (Sin)’ then this person is totally blame-free, meaning nothing bad at all should be said about this deceased person!
Church people, that tend to threaten a mortal Sinner, as for instance
a murderer, with everlasting ‘Hell’ in my view do not act the way the (imaginative) ‘Jesus’ would have acted towards a ‘mortal’ Sinner!
The way, I imagine Jesus, he would have talked gently towards this person who committed a very grave Sin! Probably in most cases, there would not have been an instant forgiveness, but some urging to do a lot of ‘penance’!
When you do ‘penance’, you try extremely hard, to lead a life of a kind of self-sacrifice to make up for the very great wrong of mortal Sin!
Now to Mary, who is called ‘Mother of God’: This, to my mind wholly imaginary ‘Mother of God’, is just someone, that can pray for us so much better than we can ever be praying for ourselves!
In the Hail Mary Prayer, we think especially about those who do need most this special kind of mercy, so are in need of a lot of prayer!
My feeling is, that it is quite alright, ‘to speak only well’ about the deceased.
However, somebody who says on his deathbed that it was right that it was right to murder a person because that person is from a different race, how a person like this can ever be forgiven – – – – Well, I do not have an answer to this.
What I write here, are my personal feelings.
At this stage, I do just express my personal belief!
I do not claim, that my interpretations about ‘Belief’ are of general value: Really, not at all!
I assume, to be able to talk more sufficiently about the subject of belief, would, for sure, require some proper studying!”
Liked by 1 person
My other comments, to what Gerard published, I might publish soon as a follow-up!
It is impossible to read a bad word about those that have gone. All of us, men and women are faultless when in the icy embrace of the dearly departed. Here some examples from the obituary page of the Sydney Morning Herald: “Norman. Devoted father and beloved husband, sadly missed at 98 years old after 68 years of unstinting love to his dear wife Gladys, unselfishly gave to the community. Or Mavis, at 102 years sadly passed surrounded by loving family at Eventide Home, fascinating and loving wife of Geoffrey (who remained, faithful till the bitter end). She pioneered tirelessly for the sport of indoor sword fighting, boxing and gun clubs.”
With all the rain it did make me somewhat melancholic or inward looking and spend the time as usefully as possible and of late have come to peruse the paper’s Deaths and Funerals pages. It is amazing how few…
The following is a copy of the last part of this article on Covid:
Civilization is now in a death dive, which it may not pull out of in time to avert collapse. Just as the first resistance to mandatory vaccination was from ambulance drivers being called to heart attacks of the just-vaccinated, it may be that Australians start to realise that we can’t live with covid when their loved ones and friends start falling beside the wayside from long-covid.
Eventually employers, if allowed to, will start discriminating against the vaccinated because these people will be taking far more sick leave than the unvaccinated, as well as being less productive due to brain fog and lethargy as a consequence of their higher rate of infection.
What To Do
Stop vaccination immediately.
The Australian Government should offer free, three monthly blood tests which will test for levels of the following:
D-dimer
Vitamin D
Selenium
Zinc
D-dimer is a marker for thrombosis. Covid tends to cause micro-clotting in the bloodstream. The D-dimer level will indicate if the individual needs to go on a thrombolytic.
Vitamin D is strongly protective against viral replication. The vitamin D level in the blood should be around 50 ng/ml. Actually there aren’t that many people in Australia who are vitamin D deficient, but the cost/benefit of testing and supplementing is positive.
Selenium and zinc also inhibit viral replication.
The Australian government should also make up personalised capsules based on the blood test results, like a compounding chemist but on a national scale. At the moment, taking precautions against covid through supplements means taking half a dozen capsules per day which is suboptimal for compliance.
As well as vitamin D, selenium and zinc, the capsules will contain quercetin and ivermectin at the rate of 0.4 mg per kg of body weight. Amongst other things, quercetin is a zinc ionophore which increases the intracellular zinc level.
This supplementation scheme won’t wipe out covid but will significantly reduce the viral load and infectivity, in turn making eradication easier.
Adopt a zero covid policy. The way to return to normal is to eliminate covid. Then we could dispense with the use of masks etc.
Ensure that all the pharmaceuticals, masks and everything else necessary to the task are made in Australia.
Start three institutes for studying covid and the best ways to eradicate it. If we only started one, there is the danger of it being led by a non-productive individual. Most of the chief health officers in Australia have proven themselves to be incompetent and uninquisitive, if not evil and stupid — including one that cackled on about being in ‘a new world order’. We don’t want one of those sort of people running just one institute. If we have three, we can close down one occasionally due to lack of performance and start another one.
Would You Spend $450 to Apologize to Your Best Friend?
And three other ways to resolve conflicts like a Byron Bae.
By Joseph LewMarch 15, 2022
Pristine beaches, linen jumpsuits and sun-soaked drama? That can only mean one thing: Netflix’s first Australian docusoap, Byron Baes, is here, and boy is it wild.
When musician Sarah St. James and social media star Jade Kevin Foster move to the coastal town of Byron Bay, they fall in with a tight-knit group of locals. But not all is as idyllic as it seems, as Sarah quickly finds herself in the middle of a drama-filled love triangle. As the group starts to split down the middle, the alternative-lifestyle-leading locals try to resolve the bubbling tension the best way they know how. Cue outlandish fire-twirling ceremonies, art therapy and shouting matches that belong on Melbourne’s Chapel Street on a Saturday night (“I’m not a fuckboi!” says Nathan for the millionth time).
Which has us wondering: Could we resolve, ahem, bad vibez, by bringing all our mates over for a Handmaid’s Tale–esque sound healing? Is it practical to replicate Simba’s fire ceremony every time we end up in a love triangle (which happens more often than we’d hope)?
In our own best interest, we’ve decided to sit down, pour a savvy-b and rank every conflict resolution method the cast uses in Byron Baes by whether we could actually afford them. (Spoiler: No.)
Paul A. Broben/Netflix
4. A good ol’ confrontation
Sometimes people need to be called out on their ish and no one’s kicking that into gear better than Johansen-Bell sister Jessica. You can’t convince us she’s not an Aries because that fire-sign energy literally leaps out when she confronts Hannah in Episode 1.
But while a cheeky confrontation might be free, who wants to just talk things out — boring. After all, when in Byron…
Cost: $0
3. Art therapy
What do you do when you’ve got spare paint, a tension-filled friendship and a couple messy binches? Make even more of a mess and call it, uh, “art therapy.” In Episode 8, Cai leads a workshop to help some of the baes “clear the air,” turn their beef into beauty and answer the age-old question: Can art heal all?
But while something like this might only set us back the cost of some arts supplies, judging from the way Elle flings that paint like a toddler with a brussel sprout (blegh), all the art therapy in the world can’t save you from a Gemini with a vengeance.
Cost: $40
Ben Symons/Netflix
2. Shamanic fire ceremony
Is it getting hot in here or is Simba on the scene? After toxic energy starts to cloud the Baes, the former finance bro decides to hold a fire ceremony to burn away “internal deadwood” and create space for groundedness and healing. Think: drumming, sage, organic cacao and fire twirling.
After sussing online at how we could burn baby burn some negative vibes of our own, we stumbled upon a couple events that offer exactly the same thing. Better defrost that credit card though, because each ticket will set you back an average of $120. Conclusion? Yeah, nah we’re good — we can get the same experience from a Fitzroy sharehouse.
Cost: $120
1. Sound healing
Did enemy No.1 just walk into your party? As Hannah knows all too well, sometimes the only way to rid yourself of some bad juju is with a full-on sound-healing sesh. As sound practitioner Avi Sherbill told Harper’s Bazaar, sound healing uses musical instruments to create meditative vibrations to the equivalent of a “massage on a cellular level.” Clocking in at upwards of $450, depending on how many people are attending, we’d probably rather put on a Youtube video and just pretend it’s the same thing. Close your eyes and you won’t even be able to tell the difference… right? Right? And, in case you missed it, no booze while you sound-heal.
Cost: $450
Ben Symons/Netflix
GUIDE
Would You Spend $450 to Apologize to Your Best Friend?
And three other ways to resolve conflicts like a Byron Bae.
By Joseph LewMarch 15, 2022
Pristine beaches, linen jumpsuits and sun-soaked drama? That can only mean one thing: Netflix’s first Australian docusoap, Byron Baes, is here, and boy is it wild.
When musician Sarah St. James and social media star Jade Kevin Foster move to the coastal town of Byron Bay, they fall in with a tight-knit group of locals. But not all is as idyllic as it seems, as Sarah quickly finds herself in the middle of a drama-filled love triangle. As the group starts to split down the middle, the alternative-lifestyle-leading locals try to resolve the bubbling tension the best way they know how. Cue outlandish fire-twirling ceremonies, art therapy and shouting matches that belong on Melbourne’s Chapel Street on a Saturday night (“I’m not a fuckboi!” says Nathan for the millionth time).
Which has us wondering: Could we resolve, ahem, bad vibez, by bringing all our mates over for a Handmaid’s Tale–esque sound healing? Is it practical to replicate Simba’s fire ceremony every time we end up in a love triangle (which happens more often than we’d hope)?
In our own best interest, we’ve decided to sit down, pour a savvy-b and rank every conflict resolution method the cast uses in Byron Baes by whether we could actually afford them. (Spoiler: No.)
Paul A. Broben/Netflix
4. A good ol’ confrontation
Sometimes people need to be called out on their ish and no one’s kicking that into gear better than Johansen-Bell sister Jessica. You can’t convince us she’s not an Aries because that fire-sign energy literally leaps out when she confronts Hannah in Episode 1.
But while a cheeky confrontation might be free, who wants to just talk things out — boring. After all, when in Byron…
Cost: $0
3. Art therapy
What do you do when you’ve got spare paint, a tension-filled friendship and a couple messy binches? Make even more of a mess and call it, uh, “art therapy.” In Episode 8, Cai leads a workshop to help some of the baes “clear the air,” turn their beef into beauty and answer the age-old question: Can art heal all?
But while something like this might only set us back the cost of some arts supplies, judging from the way Elle flings that paint like a toddler with a brussel sprout (blegh), all the art therapy in the world can’t save you from a Gemini with a vengeance.
Cost: $40
Ben Symons/Netflix
2. Shamanic fire ceremony
Is it getting hot in here or is Simba on the scene? After toxic energy starts to cloud the Baes, the former finance bro decides to hold a fire ceremony to burn away “internal deadwood” and create space for groundedness and healing. Think: drumming, sage, organic cacao and fire twirling.
After sussing online at how we could burn baby burn some negative vibes of our own, we stumbled upon a couple events that offer exactly the same thing. Better defrost that credit card though, because each ticket will set you back an average of $120. Conclusion? Yeah, nah we’re good — we can get the same experience from a Fitzroy sharehouse.
Cost: $120
1. Sound healing
Did enemy No.1 just walk into your party? As Hannah knows all too well, sometimes the only way to rid yourself of some bad juju is with a full-on sound-healing sesh. As sound practitioner Avi Sherbill told Harper’s Bazaar, sound healing uses musical instruments to create meditative vibrations to the equivalent of a “massage on a cellular level.” Clocking in at upwards of $450, depending on how many people are attending, we’d probably rather put on a Youtube video and just pretend it’s the same thing. Close your eyes and you won’t even be able to tell the difference… right? Right? And, in case you missed it, no booze while you sound-heal.
Byron Baes’ Hannah (left) invites Ruby (right) to do some “sound healing” at a party in the show’s first episode.(Supplied: Netflix/ABC Everyday: Luke Tribe)
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I’m only a few episodes deep into Byron Baes and I already have so many questions.
For starters, what is a “ceremonial cacao”? And why does everyone hate the Gold Coast so much?
But of all the questions I’m dying to ask Byron Bay’s “tight-knit inspirers”, I’m most curious about the “sound healing” Hannah books for the party at her parents’ bougie house in the first ep.
“I’m having my beautiful sound healing lady play a little,” Hannah announces at the event, trailing off as she gestures into the air.
“It’s about music as it changes the molecular cellular levels.”
A few reality-TV minutes later, Ruby the sound healer arrives.
Then she begins using what look like singing bowls to create “meditative vibrations“.
Some people at the party take it seriously, but there’s also plenty of laughter and shared confused glances. If I were there (a gal can dream) I probably would’ve raised an eyebrow.
Psychologist Mary Hoang tells me sound healing is an ancient practice that uses different instruments including singing bowls and tuning forks to give people “an experience of their mind and body state”.
“Sound healing has been used for quite a long time to help people connect to their emotions, remember past experiences, and it’s an opportunity to just relax and get a sense of wellbeing,” Ms Hoang continues.
“It’s [based on] the idea that the music will have a direct effect on the body and brain and that it will be able to bring about some kind of healing,” adds Professor Katrina McFerran, head of music therapy at the University of Melbourne.
Professor McFerran says this is very different to music therapy, which is a research-based profession that involves music therapists working with people “to achieve their goals using music”.
Some examples of this include using music to help improve pain relief, for help with rehabilitation goals, or to develop insight into personal issues.
This is not to say the contemporary practice of music therapy in Western culture, which sits within a medical model, is “better” than sound healing, or that there’s no point to it.
“There are longstanding cultural traditions of using music within all kinds of rituals which might be described as forms of healing. It’s really important to be respectful of that, and not to disregard what may be thousands of years of beliefs and practices using music,” Professor McFerran adds.
“I don’t know if [sound healing] ‘changes the molecular structure of the cells’ [like Hannah claims], but music can help trigger different emotions and memories and help reduce stress by reducing the heart rate [and] decreasing cortisol in the body,” Ms Hoang says.
And Amanda Krause, a lecturer in psychology at James Cook University, says “there are cognitive, spiritual and physical benefits” to hearing music and sounds, too.
“But it’s really important to note that peoples’ preferences play a role [in the level of benefit that comes from listening to them],” she adds.
If you like what you’re listening to and you’ve chosen to listen to it, she says that’s when you’d start to see some of the positive benefits we just touched on.
But if you don’t respond well to a particular song or sound — say the chiming vibe at Hannah’s party grates on you — you won’t.
Professor McFerran says this is why music therapists and music psychology researchers veer away from “generalisations about the reactions and responses people have to music emotionally, let alone at what you might call a level of ‘healing’.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the nation in Kyiv on Feb. 25. (Handout/AFP/Getty Images)
A video of a duo singing “Endless Love,” the 1981 song by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, identified the singers as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife, Olena Zelenska. It immediately went viral.
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. PolitiFact correctly identified the singers as Alejandro Manzano of the band Boyce Avenue and Connie Talbot, an English singer.
On the phone with my sister, who had sent me the link, we both admitted we wanted it to be real, if only because it fit the narrative that Zelensky, an entertainer before becoming a politician, could do anything. To a world long starved of a hero, the Ukrainian president reminded us of the power of unyielding courage in the face of overwhelming odds.
Maybe part of our infatuation is that so few expected so much from Zelensky. Before becoming akin to Superman, he was a television personality and comedian — a funny guy. But signs of backbone were also plain to see: Zelensky had already proved himself to be a stand-up guy when then-President Donald Trump asked him to investigate Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, as the 2020 campaign approached.
A week before the call, Trump had frozen almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine. Trump was running a squeeze play: Get me some dirt on Biden, he told Zelensky, and Ukraine can have its weapons. This improper hostage-taking of funds for personal political gain resulted in Trump’s first impeachment trial.
Note: Zelensky never did investigate the Bidens, a decision that must seem providential in retrospect.
In the present context, such gambits now seem almost quaint. Nearly three weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 44-year-old Zelensky is Russia’s No. 1 target. Tuesday, as Zelensky likely was preparing for a scheduled virtual address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Olena Zelenska posted online: “Like all wives in Ukraine, I’m afraid for my husband’s life.”
Zelensky long ago mastered the art of simultaneously taunting Putin and inspiring the world. In one recent gibe, Zelensky showcased a photo of an apparent Russian missile fragment, found near his residence in Kyiv. “Missed,” Zelensky said to Moscow.
While requesting a meeting with Putin on March 3, Zelensky said, “I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?”
Citing Putin’s curious habit of sitting at the end of extremely long tables during meetings with aides, Zelensky said, “Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at 30 meters.”
Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and a professor of foreign affairs at Manhattan’s New School, told me recently that she believes Putin puts himself at the end of long conference tables to avoid being physically compared with other men. She also briefly considered the possibility that Zelensky had hired a public relations firm to help sharpen his mordant trolling of the Russian president.
“I thought he had hired a PR agent because it was so well choreographed,” she said.
But then, Zelensky is a comedic actor, an art that is serving him well. If he’s fearful, he doesn’t show it as he walks the shell-shocked streets of Kyiv. He has made clear he won’t leave Ukraine, inspiring his fellow Ukrainians to stand and fight. Equal parts Sam Elliott, Stephen Colbert and, in the romantic fantasies of at least two gullible sisters, a crooner, Zelensky has gone a long way toward redefining manhood in a time of gender muddle and animus toward men.
He is the modern-day warrior-artist — political and presidential, fearless and faithful, humble yet cocky, beautiful in his ordinariness. An Everyman in his trademark T-shirt and half-zip, Zelensky is David against Goliath, shouting to the world that he’s not afraid. We are riveted because this bird is so seldom seen.
Art and war have been companions through the centuries, but it’s rare to discover someone who combines the spirit of both disciplines. Zelensky has reminded us that a warrior’s strength isn’t measured in missiles; and that an artist’s soul (along with sharp wit) guards freedom as much as the point of a spear.
The best men in history have understood these imperatives and rallied others as their time commanded. Zelensky was made for this role in this moment. Bravo.
Opinion by Kathleen ParkerKathleen Parker writes a twice-weekly column on politics and culture. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2010. Twitter
Posted Tue 5 Feb 2019 at 6:00amTuesday 5 Feb 2019 at 6:00am, updated Wed 6 Feb 2019 at 12:44pmWednesday 6 Feb 2019 at 12:44pm
5 Feb 2019 at 6:00amTuesday 5 Feb 2019 at 6:00am, updated Wed 6 Feb 2019 at 12:44pmWednesday 6 Feb 2019 at 12:44pm
The IQ test is held in high regard — but is it a genuine measure of intelligence?(Getty Images: Chris Ryan)
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For over 100 years, the intelligence quotient (IQ) test has been considered the quintessential marker of who is “smart” and who is not.
But a dip in IQ scores worldwide has researchers questioning if it’s time to broaden how we understand intelligence.
“My particular theory is that scores really haven’t gone backwards, but the IQ test hasn’t kept up with the way we’re using our brains,” says Tony Florio, a clinical psychologist and senior lecturer at the University of NSW.
He argues the test measures only a certain kind of intelligence, and is therefore of limited use.
Tony Florio is a clinical psychologist who specialises in IQ, but he believes the test doesn’t measure everything.(ABC RN: Farz Edraki)
Dr Florio suggests that the IQ test might help us see who will be successful in a traditional school system, which was its original purpose, but that it is not the be all and end all about who’s smart and who isn’t.
Dr Florio has studied the test for decades and says a typical IQ test is divided into ten subsets including vocabulary, general knowledge and problem solving.
In Australia, he says, these tests are conducted by psychologists either clinically, in schools or very occassionally for organisational psychology testing — for example when selecting members for executive committees.
An IQ score of a 100 is considered a score of average intelligence, 130 and above is defined as gifted, and a person scoring below 70 is interpreted as having an intellectual disability.
Not the first time the test has been criticised
Dr Florio has several criticisms about the breadth of the IQ test, which, he says, measures linguistic and logical-mathematical abilities and not motivation, personality or creativity.
“It’s gone down a narrow pathway,” he says.
He’s not alone in criticising the test.
He says there has been a perennial debate about whether there is one general intelligence.
Is there more to being smart than IQ?
Dr Florio argues that the IQ test doesn’t necessarily accommodate that “individuals are complicated with many aspects to them” — pointing to similar concerns raised by the test’s very founder.
He explains that French psychologist Alfred Binet, who developed the IQ test over 100 years ago, feared the test — initially designed to help measure the ‘mental age’ of a child — could be too limited.
Binet stressed that intelligence was far too broad a concept to quantify with a single number; however, he designed the test as a way to help identify children with learning difficulties.
France was the first country to introduce universal education and needed to work out who would struggle with learning and might need extra help, Dr Florio explains.
He says it’s much easier to compare people as children because there are different educational milestones that they reach at different ages.
If children were reaching them at a younger age they were seen as gifted and if they were reaching them later they were seen as delayed.
In 1916, Dr Florio highlights, an American psychologist adapted the IQ test for use in the US Army and since then the test has been adopted by many institutions other than schools.
The impact of the ‘Google effect’
Since the test first began in 1906 there has been, until recently, a steady increase in IQ score test resultsworldwide,a trend dubbed ‘the Flynn Effect’.
Dr Florio says factors that led to the Flynn Effect were improved nutrition and maternal health, and increasing access to education.
Even the reduction in the average size of families was a contributing factor, says Dr Florio, as “there’s less children per family so more attention per child”.
Now, however, Dr Florio says research shows a decline in scores occurring specifically throughout Europe where most of the relevant research has been conducted, and this is being branded the ‘reverse Flynn Effect’.
Research seems to suggest that worldwide our IQ scores in developed countries have been dropping over the last decade, Dr Florio says.
Davina Bell is a children’s author whose most recent book is called ‘All the Ways to be Smart’.(ABC RN: Fiona Pepper)
“You’d think logically that it should’ve just plateaued but it seems to have in fact gone backwards.”
According to Dr Florio, there are several theories to explain this.
“There’s a theory that’s been dubbed the ‘Google effect’,” he says.
“Because we now outsource a lot of things like our memory and doing cognitive tasks to machines, we don’t develop general knowledge retention which is something that is measured on IQ tests.”
Dr Florio says another explanation could be “that we can’t improve forever”.
But do the decreasing results point to a decreasing intelligence?
Dr Florio isn’t convinced.
He says it may be that it’s not useful to have that kind of general knowledge memory any more, which means that the IQ test as we understand it may need to change.
More than one way to be ‘smart’
Children’s book author Davina Bell, who has researched alternative approaches to intelligence, sits firmly in the camp that argues there is more than one way to be intelligent.
She says she has long felt that creative pursuits were undervalued in traditional intelligence tests, an idea she’s explored in her latest children’s book, All the Ways to be Smart.
Davina aimed to create a children’s book that celebrates all the many ways someone can be ‘smart’.(Supplied: Allison Colpoys)
While researching for this book, Bell discovered the work of Harvard psychologist Howard Gardener and his theory of Multiple Intelligences.
“Gardener said that rather than seeing intelligence as dominated by a single general ability we should see it as a series of modalities or abilities,” Bell says.
Gardener describes nine categories to measure intelligence, including bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, such as good hand-eye coordination, interpersonal intelligence, such as the ability to effectively communicate,and musical intelligence.
Bell wanted to create a book that honoured all nine ‘ways of being smart’, for example being ‘smart’ at drawing, interacting with others or being physically coordinated.
“The book offers a kind of validation,” Bell says.
“If you weren’t a traditionally smart person or if you had intelligence in other areas that perhaps weren’t recognised, maybe it provides a validation of your identity outside those traditional intelligences,” she says.
Dr Florio supports Gardener’s broader approach to intelligence, but says the academic community’s response to Gardener’s theory is mixed.
Bell’s book highlights creativity as one of the nine ways of being smart.(Supplied: Allison Colpoys)
“I think Gardener’s theories are valid, there are lots and lots of other abilities,” Dr Florio says.
Although Dr Florio explains Gardener’s critics say his definition cannot be quantified and in the academic community some say it is not backed up by enough data.
Dr Florio believes there still is a place for the traditional IQ test when it comes to diagnosing conditions like autism, dyslexia and intellectual disabilities.
But, like Bell, he sees approaches like Gardener’s as offering a broader and more modern understanding of intelligence.
“Gardener was pointing out the limitations of the IQ test and the problems of focusing on one aspect. We are complex individuals,” he says.
Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Bernard-Henri Levy, 2019COURTESY THE AUTHOR
Idon’t know if, by the time this article appears, Volodymyr Zelensky will still be alive.
We do know that he is in Kyiv, surrounded by his generals, in a bunker that the Sukhoi fighter jets seek.
And we have just seen him in a video where he appears helmetless, outside, like a young Churchill walking in the poor neighborhoods of London during the Nazi Blitz of September 1940.
But I also know that he is at the top of the Kremlin’s kill list, according to the English-language press.
His recent farewells come to mind—on Friday, Feb. 25, to his counterparts over Zoom during a special meeting of the European Union: “This is maybe the last time that you will see me alive.”
What is greatness?
True greatness, as taught by European chivalry?
Perhaps it is that.
That heroism, calm and proud.
A touch of Allende the night before the assault of the Moneda by Pinochet’s death squads.
The way he told President Biden, who offered up an exfiltration—“I need weapons, not a taxi”—and Putin, today’s Pinochet: “You can try to kill me, I am ready for it, since I know that the idea lives in me and will survive me.”
The first time I met him was on March 30, 2019, the night before the first round of his stunning election, in a seafood restaurant near the Maidan.
I had just performed, at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Looking for Europe, the theatrical monologue that I was bringing then to the European capitals. My friend Vladislav Davidzon, one of the last American journalists still in Ukraine—reporting for Tablet—had arranged the meeting.
Volodymyr Zelensky was, at the time, a very young man. Looking like a paper boy in jeans, old sneakers, and a black T-shirt with a worn neckline, he had spent the night celebrating the final performance, in an old Kyiv skating rink turned café-theater, of “Servant of the People,” the one-man show that had made him famous.
We talked about Beppe Grillo, that other cabaret actor, and founder of the Five Star movement in Italy, whom Zelensky hated being compared to.
About French Coluche, whose story he didn’t know well and whose final pirouette, a decision to retire from the presidential election, he did not quite understand: “Maybe because there was now a great man in France, François Mitterrand, so his service was no longer needed?”
About Ronald Reagan, by contrast, he knew everything; hadn’t he just done—for the Ukrainian TV channel 1+1, which belongs to the Israeli-Ukrainian Igor Kolomoyskyi, Zelensky’s sponsor—the voice-over for a docudrama on the destiny of this actor in bad Westerns who became a great president?
We also spoke about Putin, the other Vladimir, about whom he had no doubt: If he would come face to face, he would make Putin laugh, just as he had made all Russians laugh. “I act in the Russian language, you know; the kids love me, in Moscow; they double over with laughter at my sketches; the only thing is …”
He hesitated …
Then, over the table, in a low voice: “There is one thing … this man does not see; he has eyes, but does not see; or, if he does look, it’s with an icy stare, devoid of all expression.”
The other subject of our conversation was his Judaism.
How could a young Jew, born into a family decimated by the Shoah, in the oblast of Dnipropetrovsk, become president of the country of Babi Yar?
It’s simple, he answered, with a hoarse laugh: “There is less antisemitism in Ukraine than in France; and, above all, less than in Russia where, hunting for the Nazi mote in thy brother’s eye, they end up missing the beam in thine own eye; wasn’t it Ukrainian units of the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz, after all?”
Our second meeting took place at the annual Yalta European Strategy conference, the Ukrainian mini-Davos created by the philanthropist Victor Pinchuk.
Like every year, there were distinguished geopoliticians, American officials, NATO representatives, acting or former European heads of state, and intellectuals.
Zelensky, now president, gave a strong speech in which he laid out his plan for combatting corruption, the scourge of his country’s economy.
The time came for the traditional closing dinner, where the host would, over pears and cheese, offer a “surprise” to anchor the event: one year, Donald Trump, candidate … another, Elton John or Stephen Hawking …
This time the surprise, arriving on the stage, in front of the tables, is the troupe of actors who had performed with the new head of state, up to his election.
One does an impersonation of Angela Merkel.
Another plays a supposed WhatsApp exchange, hilarious and salacious, between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
And here was a third, made up like Zelensky, playing a rustic Ukrainian who speaks poor English searching for someone to interpret for him and pointing, as if by chance, at the real Zelensky, who without being asked twice, bounds out of his chair to join his comrades on stage.
That was the situation.
A fake Zelensky, playing the real one.
The real Zelensky, playing the interpreter of the fake.
The fake, translated by the real, offers up howlers that the other is forced to translate, which make fun of him.
In short, an incredible show.
The room, faced with this quid pro quo, this joyful blurring of original and copy, faced with the self-effacement of a president swallowed by his avatar, hesitates among laughter, uneasiness, and amazement.
That night, Zelensky was Woody Allen inviting us, like in The Purple Rose of Cairo, into his film, or, better, into his TV series.
When the show was over, I went to ask him what Putin, in Moscow, might think of this enemy disappearing behind his mask and allowing himself to be silent within his simulacrum. He told me this: “It’s true! The attitude is surely unheard of in the main repertoire of the FSB! But laughter is a weapon that is fatal to men of marble! You shall see.”
We met again, once more, last year.
I was coming back from reporting in the Donbas, where I had run the front lines from Mariupol to Luhansk, with elite troops of the new Ukrainian army. And while my photographers, Marc Roussel and Gilles Hertzog, had laid out some of their best shots on the coffee table in the room where we were being received, a whole other Zelensky revealed himself.
In one of the photos, taken at Novotroitske, Zelensky recognized Major General Viktor Ganushchak, the leader of the 10th Battalion of the Alpine Chasers brigade, mildly paunchy in a chicane jacket straight out of frozen Verdun.
About another photo, taken in the Myroliubovka zone, near Donetsk, he commented to Andriy Yermak, his close adviser, to his right, on the vulnerability of three 155 mm cannons, positioned like prehistoric iron monsters in the middle of a field.
About a third, taken near Donetsk, on a gutted road in the ghost town Pisky, he knew the exact number of brave souls who, dug into the mud and snow, held the line.
And then, in Zolote, not far from Luhansk, in a maze of trenches made from an assembly of planks planted in the black earth, he knew by name, having just inspected them, most of the overequipped Rambos, their faces muddy or hooded, who stood guard every 30 feet and seemed hypnotized by the no man’s land before them.
Did Volodymyr Zelensky already know, on that day, that Putin had decided he’d had enough of the Ukrainian democratic exception, and of his clowning?
Did he understand that he would never, after all, laugh with the cold-eyed man with an assassin’s soul?
At that moment, things became clear.
I understood that this former artist of the LOL and the stand-up, whose true nature I thought I had found at the gala dinner in Kyiv, had transformed himself into a warrior.
I saw him join the exemplary company of the men and women that I’d revered my whole life—from republican Spain to Sarajevo and Kurdistan—who are not made for the part that befalls them, but who take it up with panache and learn to make war without loving it.
And in his silhouette grown heavier, on his features once young like French republican drummer boy Francois Joseph Bara, now resembling the French revolutionary Georges Danton, I saw the resistance fighter whose courage amazes the world today.
This man prefers to die fighting than to suffer the dishonor of forced surrender.
The Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. It is a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, under the supervision of the Swiss government.
The program was founded by Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum in 1993 under the name “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” and was renamed to Young Global Leaders in 2004.[1]
Schwab created the group with $1 million won from the Dan David Prize,[2] and the inaugural 2005 class comprised 237 young leaders.
People recognized as a Young Global Leader are allowed to attend one meeting of the World Economic Forum for free.[3]
Reception
BusinessWeek‘s Bruce Nussbaum describes the Young Global Leaders as “the most exclusive private social network in the world”,[4] while the organization itself describes the selected leaders as representing “the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation”.
AuntyUta 