Another speculative thought about the interesting case of "Doc" Evatt

A couple of years ago I was amazed to be apparently the first person in the world to identify the fascinating, formidable and not bad looking for a pollie late Australian politician H. V. Evatt as a synaesthete, based on biographical information written by others but not previously analysed in terms of synaesthesia. Evatt was a controversial and enigmatic character, and his coloured days of the week synaesthesia was perhaps one of the least amazing of his characteristics. Synaesthesia certainly wasn't the only interesting thing going on inside the brain of the ALP leader. By all accounts he suffered from a dreadful mental decline for an unknown period of time before his death, which seems like an especially cruel fate for a man who displayed a powerhouse intellect since he was a school-boy. Biographers have put forward a number of theories about the cause of his death and decline. Some wrote of atherosclerosis, some offered convincing evidence that epilepsy was treated as a definite or speculative diagnosis by Evatt's doctor. As you'd expect, some who don't like his politics have asserted that he was simply crazy as a loon. Asperger syndrome has been offered as an explanation of his personality, which is really an empty assertion as that label is itself little more than a description of behaviour. Eccentric behaviour has been noted by a biographers and commentators - a terror of flying, stuffing newspapers under his clothes as insulation against hot weather, sloppy dressing accompanied by a "strine" accent, a cruel manner at times, sleeping few hours a day (as appears to be common among political leaders), and meeting guests fully dressed but lying in bed. In not sure exactly during which period in Evatt's life he liked to go nude, a behaviour admired by another colourful past ALP leader, Mark Latham. Our nation came that close to having a nudist PM, that long ago? That's something to consider. I could be accused of anti-intellectualism in my suspicion that there was something interesting behind Evatt's life-long habit of collecting achievements, but when I read in one biography pages upon pages of description of the academic prizes, positions and honours amassed by Evatt since his earliest school-days, I couldn't help wondering about the powerful driving forces and motivations.  Even his nick-name is an academic achievement. He had a doctorate in law. 

Perhaps the oddest behaviour noted by biographers is the being in bed fully clothed. Why? Sleeping in clothes? An odd attempt to hide physical collapse caused by absence seizures? Some other medical problem causing fainting? I was monkeying about on YouTube, as you do, viewing one of my favourite genres of videos - the medical freak-show, when I came across an episode of the TV series Mystery Diagnosis. There were two interesting medical cases in the episode, but it was the case of swallow syncope in long-suffering patient Martha Bryce that made me think of Evatt. If Evatt had this illness or something like it. it would explain a lot of his eccentricities and also the tragic mental decline. This rare medical condition as an explanation would encompass both the seizure-like and the circulatory symptoms that Evatt appeared to have. If he had it way back in the 1950's in Australia I think most likely it would have been misdiagnosed or not medically understood and not treated effectively. I imagine it would slowly but surely destroy the brain and the mind if untreated, and no one would understand what was happening. What a horrible fate. Could there be any link between synaesthesia and neurally-mediated syncopes? God only knows, but I do know that I, a multi-synaesthete, have experienced some memorable episodes of this type of fainting. 

Rare diseases and medical conditions deserve a greater share of research funding, recognition and donations. Individually these conditions are indeed rare, but as a group rare medical conditions and disorders are not rare at all - many people have one or more rare or uncommon medical issue, but it is the common deadly diseases that get all the attention. 

http://www.swallowsyncope.com/

Making trouble on the Australian political scene - Robert Manne collection worth a look

If I had to cite an Australian whose profile most fits the job description of an intellectual, it would have to be Robert Manne. I've had a look at his recent collection of essays, and I've found it compelling reading. This collection covers some areas that I've written about in this blog, such as Kevin Rudd's term as a Prime Minister and that other fascinating Australian individual Julian Assange. The revised version of Manne's essay about Assange which was first published in The Monthly is included in this book. Shortly after the essay was published earlier this year, Manne made amendments "in light of a lengthy email exchange initiated by Julian Assange". I think this shows what kind of intellectual Manne is. For those interested in Kevin Rudd and the Rudd Government, there is a section of seven essays about "the rise and fall of Kevin Rudd". None of these essays are dated after the date of the coup that toppled Rudd as PM. One is dated June 16th 2010. It is nice for a change to read stuff about Rudd and his government that is not inspired by an irrational personal hatred of the man.

I was surprised that one essay that most grabbed and held my attention was the detailed account of "the strange case of Cornelia Rau". When government bodies and government employees act to strip a vulnerable individual so completely of their basic human rights and needs, we should all be most alarmed. I realised that the idea that her case was the result of institutional neglect was nonsense when I read the bit about Rau being hurriedly plucked out of a shower at Baxter Detention Centre and sent off to a mental institution as soon as it was known that the media had gotten onto the story. I'm pleased that Manne took such care to put names to the players (the good guys and the bad guys) in this disgusting episode of Australian history.

One thing about Rau's case that I hadn't known before was that she was a victim of the vile Australian Kenja aka Kenja Communication mind-control cult. I wrote about this exploitative and highly harmful cult way back in 2008 at my other blog Incorrect Pleasures. In 2008 the ABCTV show Compass broadcast a fascinating and disturbing story about Kenja. Why are our governments not doing more to stop or curtail mind-controlling cults and religious organizations that exercise an excessive degree of control over their members? If politicians took a few moments to reflect on the amount of social disruption and trouble that even the smallest of these sick-f***er groups can cause in Australian society, surely they'd do more. If we had no Kenja, the Cornelia Rau case might never have embarassed the Howard Government, because poor Rau might have been able to stay on the more functional side of the borderline between sanity and madness. If the childhood of Julian Asssange hadn't been so thoroughly insecure and unsettled due to his mother's fear of another dangerous Australian cult The Family, he might possibly not have grown up to be the international troublemaker outsider genius that he is.

I am sure you will find much in Robert Manne's new book of essays to provoke thought. I recommend.

Some quotes from the book:

"The distasteful and dangerous mood of complacency which was imported into Australia from right-wing American political culture during the period of the Howard government took the form of what I call populist conservatism."

"To compete with the Coalition, Labor did not oppose but rather absorbed and moderated the mood of populist conservatism."

"Interest in how this situation has come about explains both my deepening detestation for Rupert Murdoch and my admiration of and fascination with Julian Assange, the only person in recent times who has thought of a political means to discomfit the increasingly irresponsible and impudent Western elites."

"Whatever his faults, one thing that differentiated Latham from other political insiders was his unwillingness to play by the rules."

"John Howard is one of the most unscrupulous but effective politicians in our history."

"To judge by the initial response to the Rudd essay, among the Australian neo-liberal commentariat and political class that often painful process known as thought has not yet even begun."

Manne, Robert (2011) Making Trouble: Essays Against the New Australian Complacency.
Black Inc Agenda, 2011.
http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/making-trouble

Manne, Robert (2011) The Cypherpunk Revolutionary: Julian Assange. The Monthly. March 2011.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/julian-assange-cypherpunk-revolutionary-robert-manne-3081
[The full revised essay can be read here.]

A political quote to ponder

"One of the habits of our national life is to glorify all aspects of the military. I've always assumed this gushing, out-of-proportion praise could only come from those who have never met our soldiers and experienced firsthand their limited intelligence and primeval interests in life."
- Mark Latham, June 2009

Mark Latham was roundly and soundly condemmed for making this statement, but in light of the many disgusting stories about abusive and bullying behaviour and vile sexual practices in the ADF that have come to light in recent times, it looks like Latham was actually right, again.

Paul Howes' book not really a disappointment, because I didn't expect much anyway

I have been reading the recent book by the "faceless man" Paul Howes titled Confessions of a faceless man. Originality is clearly not a trait that defines Mr Howes. This claustrophobic book gives the reader the viewpoint of Howes during the 2010 election, and it is a visit to a world of power, but also a limited and personal world. Mr Howes displays a lack of self awareness and social awareness in that he does not seem to realise that the whole world doesn't care who he likes or doesn't like, and doesn't attach the same importance to social ties and group membership that he does.

This book has done nothing to dispel my fear that petty personal antipathies were an important factor behind what they did to Rudd. Howes makes quite a few unsupported derogatory claims about Rudd's character in this book. It is alarming that Howes has shown in this book how willing he has been to assume that Rudd was the source of the infamous leaks that damaged the ALP during the 2010 election, assuming the worst about a man. I have found no account in the book of Howes attempting himself to investigate the truth of this matter.

I find it interesting that a man who has assumed so many adult responsibilities at an early age (Howes is a married father of three and the head of a major union at the age of 30, and left home to live independently at the end of year 9, forsaking an education), is so fond of using the term "grown-ups" when taking a snipe at people. I think Mr Howes might have unresolved issues of some type with early origins, and I wonder how much trouble those issues might have caused for everyone to date. Howes is an unusual man - every bit as unusual as Rudd, and I am surely not the only person who has noticed that Howes and Rudd seem to be opposite types - Rudd the socially clunky academic star and Howes with his street-smarts but no education. David Marr should have done a job on Mr Howes, but who would bother to write an essay about a faceless man?

I think it is also interesting that Howes tends to favour using terms such as "bizarre", "odd" and "strange" in reference to things or utterances of others that seem to be mistakes or questionable. Howes seems to be a man who would rather drop innuendos about possible mental heath issues of others instead of stating plain judgements. In this book Howes shows his herd-mentality with his fondness of the mental health diagnosis du jour of Australian commentators - he speculates about narcissistic personality disorder in relation to Latham and Rudd. This says so much more about Howes than it does about anyone else.

I find it interesting how little there is written in this book about those troublesome people beyond the world of the ALP, the media and the union movement. I'm talking about voters, the public. They don't get much of a mention in this book, except for references to undefined people who sent Howes abusive messages through his Twitter account. Howes' term for Twitter is "the shit room" for an obvious reason. I've read much of the book but I still haven't found any bit where Howes tackles the big question about Rudd's relationship with the ALP - the question of why the voters were so very willing to vote for Rudd in 2007, but in other actual elections haven't shown nearly the same electoral enthusiasm for the rest of the ALP for a very long time. Mr Howes seems to be so very wrapped up in his tight and collegiate but limited and sharply defined world that he has forgotten that the business of political parties is courting and winning votes, and then governing.

Another thing that is noticeably almost absent from this book is mention of the other "faceless men". I find it hard to believe that this absence is a reflection of the reality of the time that was supposedly chronicled in this election diary. I guess Howes did not want to paint a picture that looks like an evil conspiracy.

In December 2010 the Australian newspaper reported that Paul Howes is one of the protected sources / US embassy informants named in WikiLeaks cable number 08CANBERRA609. Mention of this matter is yet another thing that is absent from this book, but this is hardly surprising.

I'm sure many people reading this book will be wondering how the people in politics and the media described in this book get anything much done while they spend so much time drinking or recovering from drinking, but I'm sure this will surprise no one, considering the long association that the ALP has had with alcoholics and drunken bonding. It's another world.

If you are really interested in Paul Howes this book is worth a read, because it gives an insight into the psychology of the man, who is probably typical of other ALP figures. Howes' passion for defending the rights of refugees is displayed prominently in this book. But if you are hoping to discover any major new information about the events of June 2010, you will be disappointed.

Going Cheap!

A heap of copies of the Julia Gillard biography The Making of Julia Gillard by Jacqueline Kent was seen today going for ten bucks a pop in the remainders bin at my local Angus & Robertsons. The price is sure to go down in the new year. And if you are in the mood for a bargain political read for the summer holidays, any respectable secondhand bookshop will have a shelf devoted to pre-loved copies of books about and by Mark Latham.

A political quote to ponder

If Mark had become Prime Minister, he would have had around him an absolutely first-class front bench which would have taken care of any emergency situation that arose....If anything went seriously wrong with the leadership while we were in office, we would have dealt with it.

- Kim Beazley about Mark Latham, quoted in the 2008 book Power plays by Laurie Oakes, p. 326-7