The World's Champion Mother

Life Matters News Digest No.76 January/February 2025

Hello again and a warm welcome to the many new subscribers who joined the newsletter recently. Apologies too for no newsletter over the last three months. I am alive and well but things have been a little challenging and there has been almost no time for writing. Sometimes, justifiably, life gets in the way of what you plan to do, and we have to roll with it.

YES, IT'S JUST ONE GUITAR!

Let's start with something mind-blowing! Meet Marcin, as he is known, aged 24, from Poland. Marcin Patrzalek is an extraordinary percussive fingerstyle guitarist whose talent has swept across the Internet and into the world's concert halls.

When you hear him play, you will swear that there are two guitars or even a full orchestra - but it is just him living his music! Watch this ......

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That was his arrangement of the Moonlight Sonata from the 1st and 3rd movements. You can find much more on his website when you click on "video" HERE:​

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Record Reproduction

With Valentine's Day at this time of year and all that may (or may not) lead to, have you ever wondered who in history has given birth to the most children?

Meet Mariem Nabatanzi, who lives in Uganda and has given birth to 44 children by age 40.

Mariem, known as "Mama Uganda," has produced four sets of twins, five sets of triplets and five sets of quadruplets and only once, a single child. Six of her children died.

However, the all-time world record is thought to be held by Valentina Vassilyeva, who lived in Shuya in Russia in the 1700s. Valentina is recorded as giving birth to 69 children, 67 of which survived infancy. Valentina's record tally was 16 sets of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets.

I feel for both women! Apart from the discomfort of all those pregnancies, can you imagine the collective pain of all those deliveries? Add in the multiple difficulties of raising, feeding and clothing those children together and the complex interactions and relationships involved - a psychotherapist's nightmare!

In Mariem's case, it is even worse. She was forced into marriage against her will at the age of 12 so her parents could collect a dowry, and, after leaving her with 20 boys and 18 girls, her husband ran off taking all the family's money with him.

Both women are likely to have suffered from abnormally large ovaries, leading to a condition called "hyperovulation" or "ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome." In these, fortunately rare cases, the ovaries produce multiple eggs each month leading to multiple simultaneous pregnancies. At the same time, most forms of contraception lead to complications and can be dangerous to their health, the only solution being sterilisation.

So if you ever get frustrated with looking after your children, think about poor Mariem and Valentina!

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Knighthood for Human Rights Abuse?

In November 2024, the UK's King Charles awarded an honorary knighthood to King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain.

This small Gulf kingdom in the Middle East is run by a Sunni Muslim minority and the king's family members occupy & control most of the country's critical positions.

Addressing the Bahraini monarch during a recent visit, King Charles praised him for being "guided by his concern and care for his people." That's not what the country's Shia majority would describe him as doing.

Back in 2011 during the Arab Spring, I wrote extensively about the Shia majority uprising to gain equal rights and opportunities. The protests were suppressed with the help of the military from Saudi Arabia and the UAE (both Sunni Muslim-controlled countries).

Many of those who protested were brutally attacked and summarily convicted on dubious charges in flimsy court proceedings. The king's sons were accused of personally torturing some of the prisoners.

To mark his 25 years of ruling Bahrain, King Hamad "generously" released hundreds of political prisoners. That doesn't help human rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, 63, who led peaceful protests in the kingdom or opposition leader Hassan Mushaima aged 76, who both remain in jail along with many other political prisoners.

Al-Khawaja's daughter, Maryam, and Mushaima's son, Ali, have written a letter to King Charles protesting King Hamad's award of the "Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order."

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, who is now a British citizen and the third signatory to the letter, says, "Scores of Bahrainis have been arbitrarily detained and tortured and even killed ... exercising their rights to assembly and free expression. The recent pardons ... don't make up for these abuses."

Hundreds of Shia political prisoners remain in jail in Bahrain - at the last count, there were 900 -1200 still in prison. The people of the UK would not put up with political repression on this scale in Britain. So why is Britain's king honouring the leader of a country that treats it as normal behaviour?

As I said earlier, I wrote a great deal about Bahrain in 2011 and 2012 and published cartoons of King Hamad and his suppressive regime as a way of protesting the abuse.

I doubt if I am very welcome in Bahrain or any of the Gulf states as all their security systems are linked (take my word for it, they check the names on the flight manifests for "offensive" social media activity before you even get off the plane).

I will continue to protest against human rights abuse wherever and whenever I can. Being in power brings the responsibility to protect everyone's human rights - not the right to suppress and silence those whose views you don't like.

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Discovered - One of the World's Largest Sea Creatures

A typical coral reef consists of multiple coral colonies that are genetically different all living together. Just off the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific divers & researchers have discovered an enormous reef, 34 meters wide and 32 meters long, a single communal organism of a specific genetic type, comprising millions of creatures called polyps.

This lumpy brown piece of coral with patches of yellow, green and purple, the size of two basketball courts, is a species known as Pavona Clavus. Given the very slow pace at which coral grows, this specimen is probably several hundred years old.

No other coral has so far been recorded as being larger but there may be even larger corals out there, especially as only 5% of the world's oceans have been surveyed. At the same time, many of the world's coral reefs are disappearing.

Global warming is raising the temperature of seawater, killing the symbiotic algae that gives coral its colour and on which it depends for much of its food supply. When the water gets too warm, the coral turns white or "bleaches", effectively starving to death because the algae has died off.

Scientists estimate that three-quarters of the world's coral has been affected by bleaching since the beginning of 2023. Another thing to think about as the world flagrantly continues to burn fossil fuels and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

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What's Hiding Under the Antarctic Ice?

Did you know there are freshwater lakes deep under the ice in Antarctica? No, neither did I, even though I have been there ( Newsletter No. 59). Apparently, there are more than 600 of them.

Lake Vostok, for example, is almost 4,000 metres under the ice and 500 metres below sea level.

How are these lakes not frozen too, you may be thinking? The thickness of the surface ice in Antarctica insulates the water below, for starters. Secondly, the pressure of the ice on the lake water lowers the freezing point to -1C instead of zero. And thirdly, the lakes may receive warmth from geothermal activity below the continent.

The really interesting thing about these lakes is that they may have been sealed off from light and air for as long as 15 - 20 million years - and yet they contain their own forms of life. Living cells that live off CO2 are created by the breaking down of rocks on the lake's floor.

The podcast below tells the story of Jon Priscu, a microbiologist, who, together with a large team, drilled down into Lake Whillans in Antarctica, where they found 3,900 kinds of microbial life.

Go to Unexplainable: What's Hiding Under the Antarctic Ice? (You may have to scroll down the playlist to find this particular title.) or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Alchohol Anyone?

Most of us like an alcoholic drink now and again and I am no exception. However, the latest research confirms that alchohol is a "very, very weak neurotoxin - and it's not good for nerve cells."

By the time we reach 65 years of age, the human body has fewer neurons than it used to and although we only lose "2 to 4 per cent" of our body's neurons in our lifetime, it is extremely important to take care of them.

Dr. Restak, a neurologist who wrote a book called "The Complete Guide to Memory: The Science of Strengthening Your Mind," suggests that, "If you are 65 or older, you completely and permanently eliminate alcohol from your diet."

The biggest reason to avoid alcohol is to minimise the risk of developing dementia, a tragic illness of decline that is horrible to watch in others. Consuming more than 14 units of alcohol a week, which is far too much, we are seriously putting our brains, our liver and other organs, in danger.

However, it seems that no alcohol at all is the safest way of protecting yourself. That seems hard when it is something you have enjoyed over a lifetime.

My instinctive response for quite some time now is to not drink alcohol when I am alone at home and then to only have a small amount when I am engaged socially. Even then, I often ask for a zero-alcohol beer when I know they are available. The choices have certainly increased - a friend even turned up with a zero-alcohol sparkling wine recently.

I do wonder about recent generations of young binge/shot drinkers who have consumed vast amounts of alcohol in a few short years. What damage have they already done to their brains? Certainly, many hospitals are reporting many more young people in their 20s and 30s turning up with liver damage, especially since the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Hate to be a party pooper, but perhaps this is all food for thought as we look forward to our retirement years and maybe something to consider years before?

You can read more, HERE:​

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Singin' The Blues

A few months ago I belatedly discovered Kevin Roosevelt Moore, much more widely known as Keb' Mo,' a nickname given to him by his original drummer. A winner of four Grammy Awards, he has been prolifically making albums since the 1980s in what is described as "post-modern blues."

I am not quite sure what that means, but I like what I hear and I recommend him to you. His rich brown voice, strong foot-tapping rhythms and uplifting lyrics, often on contemporary themes, will relax you and put a smile on your face. Here he sings "Put A Woman in Charge," dedicated to his mother who died at 91, from his Grammy Award-winning album "Oklahoma."

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Credits: My thanks to Frances and Karen for contributing ideas and material. Photo Credits: Reuters/New York Post, Aaron Chown/PA/The Guardian, Carlos Latuff x 3, Manu San Félix/National Geographic Pristine Seas, Steve Spence/National Geographic Pristine Seas, Alex RK 2/Wiki Media Commons, Henry Ford.com, Keb Mo.com.

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END PIECE

In the last three months. a lot has changed. I don't know about you, but to me, it feels like the world has gone mad!

Over in Gaza, Israel is currently on the attack again, spurred on by the present US administration. 400 people were killed in just one day this week. It's claimed that 174 of them were children. This brings the total number of people killed in Gaza to more than 48,500, at least 18,000 of them are children and many more are women. Another 25,000 children have lost at least one parent or become orphans.

To make matters worse, President Trump, in one of his insane, off-the-cuff rants, has proposed evicting the remaining 2 million Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt and Jordan (who don't want them) and turning the entire Mediterranean coastal "property" into a US administered holiday resort!

This inhuman lunacy has to be stopped - but how do we do that? I, despairingly, do not know the answer.

Other Trump rants have pissed off Canadians over tariffs, calling Canada's recently replaced Prime Minister, "Governor Trudeau," and suggesting Canada "surrenders" and becomes the 51st state of America.

As for the horrendous meeting in front of the world's media in the White House when Trump and his vice-president, JD Vance, went out of their way to humiliate President Zelensky of Ukraine, I was lost for words at the time, not believing what I was seeing.

Now we are watching the demolition of democratic checks and balances in the US and people interrogated on the borders, travellers put in chains for minor visa irregularities and others deported without due process for offences they may or may not have committed.

Although President Trump seems to be at the centre of this chaos, what worries me most is that I think he is just a willing, egotistically-driven stooge. Behind him, manipulating Trump and everything else is a coterie of alt-right activists who are dedicated to destroying the accepted world order, while heavily lining their pockets in the process at the expense of the rest of us. Worrying times!

Lastly, some good news. This week I had a 76-year-old, cataract-blurry lens in my right eye removed and replaced with an artificial one that should last me the rest of my life. The operation itself took just 10 minutes! The next day my right eye vision was vastly improved, reading the phone without glasses and permitted to drive. Second eye operation in a couple of weeks. Sometimes modern technology just blows you away!

Until the next newsletter, take good care of yourself - and be kind caring, generous and patient with those less fortunate than ourselves.

All good wishes,