Latest in Self-help CPR

Today I received an e-mail from one of my colleagues that is being circulated through the expatriate community here in Shanghai and has now hit our company as well. Strange that it has taken so long to get here as it has been circulating globally since 1999, but then given the way some things sometimes happen here this is not completely surprising!! The presentation tells one how to practice a particular coughing technique if you are having an unwitnessed heart attack.

I am sure that the individuals who send it on do so with good intention, but they should be alerted to its authenticity merely by the fact that this is such an amateur power point presentation that even I would be embarrassed to send it on if I had produced something similar. Anyway the beating heart could be used on a Valentine’s Day Card with good effect!!

It also refers to some poor hospital “Journal Article” which did not look like a valid scientific reference to me, so I googled it and found the following information on the Rochester General Hospital website alluding to the e-mail.

Elsewhere on the internet, there is reference to some of the information being published by the Mended Hearts, a support group for heart disease sufferers and their families and they have since disavowed it and have published something to this effect on their website as well.

Needless to say most people would have no problem here with the coughing technique suggested as you would be doing that without intention from the pollution here in Shanghai. Also should not be a problem to do it as described with gusto “deep and prolonged as when producing sputum” - this is part of the normal daily habits of many people living in the city!!

On a more serious note, if you have a problem let common sense prevail and get the right advice from a reliable source. Too often people get caught up in silly advice that should obviously lead one to contemplate this with serious suspicion!

Dalai Lama Refused Visa To South Africa

The Dalai Lama was scheduled to deliver a public lecture at Wits University on Saturday, 28 March 2009. This event has been cancelled due to the South African government not granting him a visa.

One wonders about democracy in South Africa if this is the kind of behaviour that the government portrays. Of course one clearly understands the motives behind this, but are South Africans going to stand for being dictated to by other nations around the world?

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Loyiso Nongxa, issued the following statement on behalf of the University.

STATEMENT FROM WITS UNIVERSITY PERTAINING TO THE GOVERNMENT'S REJECTION OF A VISIT BY HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA TO SOUTH AFRICA

Wits University expresses its profound dismay at the decision taken by the South African government not to grant a visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to attend a Peace Conference in South Africa along with other Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.

The University does not accept the rationale offered by the South African government to bar this stalwart of peace from entering the country. The decision of the government ridicules the values enshrined in our Constitution, and the freedoms for which so many South African have lived, and indeed died.

The Dalai Lama was scheduled to deliver a public address at Wits University on Saturday, 28 March 2009, following on a similar lecture that he delivered to a full capacity audience at Wits during his last visit to the country. To have the voice of the Dalai Lama silenced at both the Peace Conference and the Wits Public Lecture is a setback to the principle that rigorous intellectual debate and reflection is central to the defence of democracy. As part of its commitment to being a publicly engaged institution, Wits hosts numerous public engagement activities and provides an intellectual platform for robust debate. We believe that making differing perspectives and views accessible to our community is a vital part of sustaining and defending the constitutional values that we express as a country.

No country in the world has produced as many Peace Prize Laureates as South Africa, a testament both to the struggles that we have waged in this country for the principles of human rights, as well as to the great stature of the South Africans who have found transcendent ways of expressing the struggle for freedom. It is with this tradition in mind that we view the exclusion of the Dalai Lama from our shores with grave misgivings. This betrayal of a key constitutional value provides a clear window into the fragility of the democracy we are trying to sustain.

It is our responsibility as a University to express our concern at this development. Wits University takes this opportunity to strongly condemn the action of the South African government in denying His Holiness the Dalai Lama access to South Africa.
We add our voice to that of other leaders, calling on the South African government to apologise to the nation for this oversight. It is a betrayal of everything that we, as South Africans, fought against during the apartheid regime and a gross violation of the values we espouse as a nation.