Standing

A conversation took place this morning. Actually, it was an earlier exchange that prompted the conversation.

Taking the vows to officially wed a couple, the registrar of civil marriages was taken aback by an unexpected question that she apparently seems to have elicited from the groom. This was at the point in the proceedings when she needed to ask the couple whether it was their free will to appear before her to be wedded. 

The exchange : The groom interrupted the ceremony to ask the registrar: Excuse me but are you actually married yourself?

Visually and physically, the celebrant is younger than the bride and groom who are in their 50s and today, as usual, was dynamically dressed. She wears a diamond stud in the left one of her top two middle teeth and her silver hair pin is studded with little diamonds. Her long hair is a combination of black and blond streaks. Okay, she also has a cheeky, friendly smile which gives her cute dimples on her cheeks, but she doesn't wear that when she is presiding over weddings. She carries the dignity of her office normally.

What a moment, conducting a ceremony where the groom felt it necessary to interrupt proceedings and to ask her, the celebrant, if she was married herself. She answered in the affirmative. Then after some laughter from the witnesses and guests, the ritual proceeded to conclusion.

When that was over and the registrar came out to the adjoining office, although she was in her usual beaming self and smiling, she immediately recounted the incident.

It is not really normal what the man had done. The registrar's office does lend itself to the public and allows for wedding couples to express themselves naturally, as long as the celebrant at the end, is satisfied with the information that is vital to the state's recognition of a marriage. So we sat there and eventually laughed it off, but we did talk a little about the incident.

What was the man thinking? What was the nature of his question? What would have been the effect of his question had the registrar replied that she was not married? 

Does an unmarried woman have the right to officiate over a civil wedding ceremony? What constitutes authority for the groom?

Perhaps he was satisfied with her answer. Perhaps he was only trying to be smart before his bride, and their guests. Maybe he just wanted to be cool. But what if he really has no recognition and belief that an unmarried woman can, and has the right to hold high office, to the point where an older man should render himself under the authority of her office and presidency during his wedding?

Something was not right in his thinking. Because further along in the ceremony when the registrar had to verify personal details, maiden name of the bride, the new name she would now acquire from her husband, their new permanent address... here, the man felt it funny to equivocate about whether the address they had given to the registrar's office was accurate. So the registrar again had to enquire as to why the husband was uncertain about his own permanent address. To which he replied that if he should win the Lotto at the weekend, his new address would be in Monaco. This conversation was going on in the middle of the official proceedings of a civil ritual - the man's own wedding ceremony.

He may have felt that this was in good spirit and he may have been acting in jest. Whatever his reasons, this man had a mind, to be disrespectful to a registrar and to show contempt for her office in that way. 

As he was already in his stride, he also felt that he should ask the registrar why she had not  asked them, the couple, if they would love and respect one and other, in good times and in bad times, till death do them part. To which the registrar replied: We don't do that. We are a civil office not a church. We do not preside over moral considerations. We concern ourselves with the basic rights, expectation and injuries of citizens.

Plastic: The Dark Side of Success

Introduction and translation of text from a television programme concerning plastic and its side effects on health and the environment.


As the Pacific Ocean continues to succumb to industrial pollution it is important to look at the chemical materials pouring out of the global market and entering our bloodstream. It is essential to draw our attention to plastic waste which is already a huge problem in our Pacific Island countries. 
Papua New Guinea is a place where some of the most beautiful carrying bags are made. So there is really no need for us to be polluting our environment with cheap supermarket plastic bags. There have been many efforts and clean up campaigns done in our urban centres, but we have to also realise and undersand the fact that plastic waste is a long lasting poison in our environment.
The film on this blog will stream to you from a German website and this link may only be current for a week until ZDF moves it perhaps into an archive. I'll try to keep track of this programme so that we can have it available to the Pacific for a while longer. Unfortunately I have not found an English version of the film, but I provide a translation of the main themes and facts. If you speak German then you may just go ahead and watch the presentation - just in case you have missed it. The programme itself "Abenteuer Forschung" comes in regular weekly installments on Wednesday evenings on ZDF.

Please click link below to play video

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1104664/Kunststoffedie-dunkle-Seite-des-Erfolgs

Translations of main themes from the  programme: Kunststoffe: die dunkle Seite des Erfolgs - "Plastic: The Dark Side of Success" presented on the science magazine of ZDF (Second Channel of German Television) by Professor Harald Lesch. I provide some pictures (actual screenshots from the programme) so the reader may work out which part of the film the translations belong to. Source material which I have translated is written in italics and my notes are in normal script.

Mankind came into the world and found that the earth is not always at the whims of our wishes. So we have been developing for over a hundred years in chemical laboratories: wish fulfilling substances that can behave exactly as we wish of them. Plastic is such a substance... so now plastic is everywhere, on us, around us and even inside us.  

Opening lines by Professor Harald Lesch 

Hormone affecting materials:

Fertility of men in industrialised nations steadily decreasing

Tiny Quantities with Enormous Consequences:

The fertility of the men in industrial nations decreases steadily since the middle of the last century. Researchers observe also an increase of testicle cancer as well as of deformations of the genital organs in babies. Research in the animal world gives evidence of chemical substances, which work like hormones. Plastics contain such hormoneal effective substances: Could there be a connection here?

Chemicals in beauty products

Already since the 1980s evidence began to mount that fertility disturbances were connected with certain chemicals. Approximately 100,000 synthetic substances are at the moment marketed world-wide. Hundreds of new chemicals are added annually, many of which one hardly knows, how they affect the environment. However so far, thousands of substances are well-known, which are suspected of affecting fertility. These include chemicals, which we inhale, eat or absorb through our skin. And there is no end to the chemical flood in sight.

No Chance for Reproduction:

Pike Alligator

Scientists in Florida already encountered at the end of the 1980s, a puzzling phenomenon: At the Apopka lakes they observed shrinking animal populations. Further Investigation showed modifications in the sex organs with some bird and fish species. In particular pike alligators are concerned: The females do not carry fertilized eggs, and the males have clearly smaller, usually also crippled sex organs. The consequence: The population is threatened with extinction. 

Female pike alligator with unfertilised eggs

The researchers see a connection with a chemical accident in the year 1980 which resulted in chloric insecticide entering the water. Within the following four years the stock of the pike alligator decreased drastically. And that is not it an individual case. Also in other continents disturbances in the sex development or sexual behavior of animals can be connected with specific chemical substances. In the Arctic for example polar bears are more frequently giving birth to hermaphroditical offspring. The cause here is strongly assumed to be due to chloric substances, so-called PCBs or Polychlorinated Biphenyl. 

Further info on PCBs:

http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/hazard/tsd/pcbs/index.htm

Graphic illustration of hormonal interaction

Hormone-simulating Effects:

The question arises, how dangerous such chemicals are to humans. Researchers assume that a host of industrial chemicals are intervening in the human endocrine system.

(Here they are referring to very early development of the human embryo, where the greatest danger of hormone affecting influences can occur as a result of chemical poisoning).

Hormones are of central importance to the control of different bodily functions, and for the development of the sex organs. They bind in the Cytoplasma to specific receptors prior to the unfolding of their biological effect (on embryonic development and cell growth). If for example, certain chemicals have occupied these receptors, then the effect of the hormone can be restrained or even completely suppressed. A blockade of the androgen receptor could suppress the biological effect of the natural male sex hormone Testosterone.

Even more risky is however a deception of the endocrine system: Synthetic chemicals can fill the receptors, for example of the female sex hormone oestrogen, and be detected as normal. The chemicals act as sexual hormones towards the body and can lead to feminisation. The biggest danger exists however, in the effect of synthetic chemicals on the early childhood development. Already smallest concentrations can leave tracks - for example to lead to disturbances in the development of sexual organs.

Some plastic products in our everyday lives

Does the risk stem from plastics?

Despite the knowledge around, the risky materials with hormone simulating effects continue to be produced and used. Such is the case, that this multicolored variety of plastics without limit to their abundance of chemical content is beyond comprehension. The synthetic blending and mixtures lend different characteristics to plastics: They make them softl or hard - in complete accordance to desire. The chemical compound Bisphenol A plays a large role for the production of hard plastics. It has also been suspected for a long time to endanger fertility. Bisphenol A is world-wide, the most frequently assigned industrial chemical: Over three million tons of it are manufactured annually.

Heated plastic facilitates intake of Bisphenol A into the bloodstream

Particularly dangerous is their application, where the substance comes into contact with food. From aged, porous and scratched plastic, the chemical emanates quite easily. Also with heating up (baby bottles for example) the risk rises that bisphenol A gets into the food chain. Today scientific researchers know that the chemical works on two levels: Bisphenol A not only blocks the receptors of Testosterone, it also strengthens above all the effect of female sexual hormones. Because, like the natural, the chemical messenger also fits well with the appropriate receptor.

________________::::________________ 

To be continued -  I plan to translate the entire content of the video into English. More transcription and translation updates in a second installment. Thank you for your patience. Best Wishes, MM

Starting Points

Contemplating writing the first article of my blog, I have a moment to think about what things I would like to write about and why I would like to write them.

Many thoughts float before me, carried by waves of memory and experience as I find myself revisiting emotions and sensations, joy and regret from moments along the path that I have walked to lead me here, so far from my first home.

I'm drifting on the "magirai" with the tide towards a black sandy beach at the feet of Kabiu, Mount Mother. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea.

We are drawing designs in the sand and singing for the sea to send us more waves because some of us are making "roro" - the foam which we extract from the sand using sea water. 

Ta ngala ngala na bobol

Di maria ma ra kula

Pata teke teke na boroi tana

We are singing for big waves, decorated in festive glitter, and totally free, by all means of any pig shit. 

The "roro" is part of our bride wealth, the "toro toro" or coconut cream topping for the imaginary feast we are preparing for a bride and groom who are embarking to set sail into the ocean. Soon we are wading into the sea with our gifts. We walk until the sea is up to our necks, a little beyond the place where the waves break, and we wait for a calm period so we may set afloat, our vulnerable creations upon the ocean. Whereas earlier on we wanted the waves to help us make the "roro", now we are gently beating the waves with our open hands to calm the sea so that the flotilla of our bride and groom may reach the deep blue sea unmolested.

But starting points are not only an issue for people like me who wish to write and publish their first blog posts. Starting points are profound moments in the life of all humans and we do find it necessary to mark our most significant starting points in elaborate ritual.

We have numerous rituals that give significance to a countless number of recognised starting points in everyday human aspiration and existence. Points of arrival and points of departure, of the beginning of life and the end of life. The first light of dawn, the first day of our lives, our first love, the first day of a marriage, our first babies, the first steps of our children, the first day of spring, the first fruit of our trees. We even have rituals to greet the first sliver of the new moon, the time of planting and the season's first harvest.

But in spite of this human fascination with our beginnings and the origin of things - the big bang theory, the origin of the universe and the origin of life, there is one beginning in our human consciousness, which we have never fully embraced and have never truly enjoyed. The beginning of peace. Of lasting peace.

We have celebrated the end of some wars with victory parades but if we were to really look at the rituals of victory, the parades and war memorials, we do not see the beginning of peace. Rather, we see our humanity trapped in its warlike nature and we see the parading of mankind's most horrible tools and technology. We see a worshipping of the tools we use for the ending of human life. 

One of many figures which Tolai children drew in the wet sand. The designs are part of a game called 'Where did I begin?' in which people had to guess where the drawing was begun. Such a game is typical with the Tolai cultural concern with origins. From the book "Tolai Myths of Origin" - Edited by H. Jansen, M.Mennis and B. Skinner.

Tok Piksa Blog Created

My new blog: "Tok Piksa" was created today on Blogger.com.


"Tok Piksa" is a common expression meaning, a parable or an illustration in Tok Pisin, one of three official languages of Papua New Guinea. The phrase can also mean a discussion about images, imagery, fine art painting, photography and filmmaking.


So as the name suggests, "Tok Piksa" allows for a wide range of social and cultural commentary, on Papua New Guinea, its languages, and its art and culture both traditional and modern.


My intention is to provide a Melanesian view and cultural perspective on international events and to engage followers in an in-depth reflection upon issues of concern.


I hope to host many interested followers.


With Best Wishes,
Martin Maden