I was rubbish!

The folks at Harvard Medical School have prepared this clear, unsentimental guide to comforting someone who’s grieving.

If you have a friend or relative who is grieving, it can be hard to know how to console him or her. If it seems that nothing you can do or say helps, don’t give up. You can’t take the pain away, but your presence is more important than it seems. Accept that you can’t fix the situation or make your friend or relative feel better. Instead just be present and offer hope and a positive outlook toward the future. Accept that the person’s grieving will be a gradual process.

It is sometimes difficult to know what to say to a bereaved person. If you find yourself tongue-tied or uncertain of what to do in the face of someone’s loss, here are some steps you might try.

1. Name names. Don’t be afraid to mention the deceased. It won’t make your friend any sadder, although it may prompt tears. It’s terrible to feel that someone you love must forever be expunged from memory and conversation. (This suggestion does not apply in cultures in which mentioning the dead is taboo or bad luck, however.)
2. Offer hope. People who have gone through grieving often remember that it is the person who offered reassuring hope, the certainty that things will get better, who helped them make the gradual passage from pain to a renewed sense of life.
3. Make phone calls. Call to express your sympathy. Try to steer clear of such phrases as “It’s God’s will” or “It’s for the best” unless the bereaved person says this first. Your friend or relative may need you even more after the first few weeks and months, when other people may stop calling.
4. Write a note. If you had a relationship with the deceased, try to include a warm, caring, or funny anecdote that shows how important to you he or she was. If you didn’t know the deceased, offer your sympathy and assure the bereaved that he or she is in your thoughts or prayers.
5. Help out. Be specific when offering help. Volunteer to shop or do laundry, bring dinner, pass on information about funeral arrangements, or answer the phone. Pitch in to clean up the kitchen. A lawyer might volunteer to help with the estate. A handy person might button up the house as winter approaches.
6. Be sensitive to differences. People mourn and grieve in different ways. Religion plays a big role in how death is treated; so do ethnic, cultural, and family backgrounds. Avoid criticizing the funeral arrangements or memorial service. Also, try not to impose your beliefs about death on your friend.
7. Make a date. Ask your friend to join you for a walk or meal once a week. Be aware that weekends are often very difficult, and suggest an activity. Low-stress activities may be best: watch a video at home together versus going out to a movie. Sometimes just being there without saying much is enough — it may even be exactly what your friend wants.
8. Listen well instead of advising. A sympathetic ear is a wonderful thing. A friend who listens even when the same story is told with little variation is even better. Often, people work through grief and trauma by telling their story over and over. Unless you are asked for your advice, don’t be quick to offer it.
9. Express your feelings. If you share your friend’s sorrow, say so. It’s even all right to blurt out that you don’t know what to say. Most likely, nothing you say will turn the tide, but your sympathetic presence may make your friend feel slightly less alone. (One caveat: try not to express your feelings so emphatically that your friend has to take care of you.)
10. Handle anger gently. People who are grieving sometimes direct angry feelings toward the closest target. If that happens to be you, try to be understanding. That is, wait until well after the person has cooled down before raising your concern in a nonthreatening way.
11. Keep your promises. If you offer to do anything, follow through. This is especially important where promises to children are involved. Losing a loved one is abandonment enough.

Okay, here’s the killer feature I’ve been waiting for that I never knew I needed. I now absolutely need an iPhone 4 to conduct regular measurements on how truly awesome I am. For those not familiar with the argot, here’s some help.

As a kid I used to think that I was an anarcho-syndicalist, I didn’t really know what it meant, and I didn’t really care. It satisfied my simultaneous need for individualism and tribalism. In spite of the passing of a few decades, and the help of Wikipedia, I have to say I’m still not entirely sure. For me politics is dangerously like art: I don’t know much about it, but I know what I like.

Helpfully, the folks at Political Compass have come up with a convenient test, a few simple questions and you’re all set.

Although I’d still struggle to expound my political and social beliefs without a couple of drinks inside me, it appears that I’d happily share a dinner table with Nelson Mandela and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Whether they’d be as thrilled with my company is a matter you’d have to raise with them.

This ad produced by Saatchi and Saatchi for Beit Lohamei Haghetaot is a masterpiece of simplicity.

The understated strap line carries a devastating punch.

The internet’s a funny old place sometimes. Other times it’s just plain messed up. I blame insomnia. Somehow I made Bizarro to Woodstock in just 3 moves…

Fair warning: You kind of need to watch the videos, that could be 7 minutes and 30 seconds of your life you’ll never get back. What else could you be doing with that time?

1. Original Bizarro post, the trololo guy really starts to rock out at 1:30

2. Comments on YouTube makes reference to Lawrence Welk. Slightly disturbing, with a bit of a rag thing going on.

3. I’m humming the Fixin’ to Die Rag

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He’s got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We’re gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.

Tell me I’m not right.

It’s that weekend of the year when we mark Mother’s day here in the UK. It’s easily spotted by the marketing campaigns unleashed by flower, chocolate and card vendors. However, if like my sister you struggle to remember its timing, refer to the following simple rules for easy calculation*.

Mother’s day is one of those tricky moveable feasts in the UK, we only have to remember the second Sunday in May for my wife’s Mom in the US. It seems that the only time mother’s day isn’t celebrated somewhere worldwide is July and September.

However, in reality, Mother’s day is actually one of the simplest occasions to mark if only you pay close attention to some basic rules. It’s conveniently timed to be celebrated on the 4th Sunday in Lent. Lent of course being the 40, 44, or 46 day period leading up to Easter. Of course this is complicated very slightly if you observe the Ambrosian rite of not counting the Sundays, because of course these are mini-Easters, in which case Lent starts exactly six weeks before Easter.

A useful rule of thumb is to simply establish the date of Easter using the easy to remember rule that Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. This is rendered trivial by remembering that in Ecclesiastical terms the vernal equinox is always March 21, irrespective of the correct astronomical date. Again we should be mindful of the Eastern Orthodox church whose March 21st actually falls on April 3rd this century, aside from leap years, because of course they stuck with the Julian Calendar never having quite seen eye to eye with Pope Gregory over his calendar meddling.

So from the above you can see that in 2010, in the UK, Easter falls on April 4, Mother’s day on March 14th – Simples!

*Errors & omissions excepted

Controversy over the departure of the modern games from the Olympic ideal is not new, particularly when it comes to the commercial stranglehold of the IOC:

… the Games are funded by host cities and national governments; the IOC incurs none of the cost, yet controls all the rights and profits from the Olympic symbols. The IOC also takes a percentage of all sponsorship and broadcast income.

The IOC are after the makers of Lindsey Vonn’s ski goggles, forbidding them under various sanctions from making reference to her gold medal wining success in the Women’s downhill.

“Except as permitted by the IOC Executive Board, no competitor, coach, trainer or official who participates in the Olympic Games may allow his person, name, picture or sports performances to be used for advertising purposes during the Olympic Games.”

Olympic Women’s downhill gold medal winner Lindsey Vonn – don’t look at the goggles…

A blogger who posts on behalf of the US distributor of UVEX goggles has responded within the letter of their preposterous law.

Blonde we like wins Downhill (Last name rhymes with “Bonn”)
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

There once was a lawyer from the IOC,
who called us to protect “intellectual property.”

“During the Olympics”, she said with a sneer
“your site can’t use an Olympian’s name even if they use your gear.”

“No pictures, no video, no blog posts can be used…”
Even if they are old? “No!”, she enthused.

While Olympians chase gold the IOC pursues green.
Cough up millions, or your logo cannot be seen.

Except there it is, on top of countless heads!
Tax free endorsements the IOC dreads.

And so it is with a wink and a nudge
that we would like to congratulate a skier whose name we must fudge.

Her hair is long and blonde
Last name rhymes with the German city of Bonn.

Congratulations Women’s Downhill winner –
from all of us here at UVEX (no longer an IOC sinner).

I don’t know about Uvex, I suspect they’re pretty much another corporation with all that entails. But really, credit where it’s due, the guy’s response to this overbearing abuse of law deserves support.

The Australian government is sticking to its New Year’s Resolution to stop Japanese whaling in the southern ocean – Bloody Bonzer Mate!

NPR report that Australia has stepped up its efforts to stop the atrocities that Japan continues to peddle as whaling research.

Australia’s prime minister on Friday set a November deadline for Japan to stop its research whaling program that kills hundreds of whales a year in Antarctic waters, or else face international legal action.

If you think November sounds a long way off, then shuffle on over to the folk at Sea Shepherd, where the smallest donation will help them continue their activities to harass and shame the Japanese whalers.

Google has announced its acquisition of Aardvark, a new kind of search engine powered by social networks.

Q: What is Aardvark
A: Aardvark is social search: ask any question and Aardvark will discover the perfect person in your network to answer in minutes. 

It all sounds fine and dandy it your social network is sufficiently large to effectively anonymize your questions, but you may want to think twice before asking some of the more personal questions that people routinely use Google for.