Leaving Hamburg in the evening leads us across the Kennedy-Brücke. Since last Friday
Drive Time
was the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, we talked a bit about what he meant and how much he moved in his time. Hyannis was and still is his family’s favourite place to spend the summer. Hyannis, of course, is also where Pádraig was operated on and where we spent the first weeks after his accident. i never did, but Pat and her friends actually saw JFK driving down Dorset Street in Dublin – where his car stopped to allow him to give a present to one of Pat’s friends. – Yes, we are getting old.
There are dozens of famous JFK quotes around. From being a ‘Berliner’ to doing work for your country. Here is one that made me think today: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” I promised myself that we will make sure not to miss the future.
The care for Pádraig here continues to impress us. There is a dedication and care, a professionalism and personal touch that is truly amazing – and something to aspire to.
There was a piece on the Irish news over the past days reporting that there is going to be a significant shortage of GPs in Ireland and that young doctors are leaving the country. I wonder whether that made alarm bells go off in the Department of Health? How will the health service function, following a cut of 666m in 2014 which will in reality most likely rise to one billion, according to The Irish Times. Already, the health system is not functioning as well as it should. Many people in it are disillusioned, tired, and overworked. Where in the western world have you ever seen doctors in gowns wearing multiple buttons ‘shouting’ 24-no-more at their patients? People in Ireland not only deserve better, they need it to be better. It should not be acceptable that doctors have to leave the country, and the patients with them, out of sheer desperation.
I set up a Google Calendar for friends visiting Pádraig in Hamburg:
https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ejbikhh20hgf5i87d88fenj9ns%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Europe/Dublin
You should be able to see the dates, and edit them – let me know how that works.
Today’s German Music Tip
Rosenstolz, Ich bin ich (2006)
What’s hot
Working on a computer and the internet while being driven to the hospital.
What’s cold
Getting out of the car being so dizzy that my stomach is just waiting for an excuse to bring back breakfast.
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Ich bin Ich
Hospi-Tales 
Hello again, Reinhard,
I’m always heartened to hear about the dedication of the staff in Hamburg, and I can see from other posts that other friends of yours are as well. It is of course no more than what Pádraig is entitled to.
We are indeed getting old(er) … I remember JFK’s visit to Ireland also – I was in the Phoenix Park and had been lifted up to shoulder height (well, I was very young – I have to stress this!), and saw the outline of his face, with that rounded contour. I remember it very clearly. I also remember JFK’s assassination, but this is mainly because my grandmother died on the same day, a little after JFK, and the two events became fused in my young (I stress that word again) mind. I thought that JFK would be in very good time to get up to heaven to sweep out my granny’s box (everyone in heaven stood in a box for all eternity, I thought back then) in readiness for her. Well, perhaps my pious granny made it up in a straighter line than did JFK … anyway, I don’t think he would exactly have been a dab hand with a sweeping-brush. Hopefully he got to meet my granny at some stage!
Virtue ethics stresses the character of the moral agent rather than the good/bad act itself. It is sometimes criticised for not providing a detailed decision procedure, i.e. it’s all very well for me to be a good person, but what do I actually do in a given situation? Virtue ethicists would have it that this is not a problem but a necessary level of flexibility given the specific nature of the circumstances we tend to find ourselves in. I’m conscious that one or more of your other friends out there may be much more knowledgeable than I am, and I humbly defer to their opinion if that’s the case! I would much prefer to be having this conversation with you in person, but it’s very good to have the blog all the same.
With continued best wishes to Pádraig and yourselves, and looking forward to your next post.
Louise
Hello Louise, it must have been quite something to see JFK and, even more amazing, to still remembering it in your now old(er) days! I think you are onto something when you are saying that your granny probably made it up in a straighter line that day. – What do I do in a given situation? This is a classic: you always knew what is right and what is wrong until you are faced with a situation where “right” would inevitably lead to “wrong”. Life is so full of dilemmas.
Hello, Reinhard,
Indeed life is full of dilemmas – hence the existence of the MA I’m doing! Actually, writing my comment yesterday helped me when it came to writing my virtue ethics assignment. It was good, psychologically speaking, to have put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, on the subject already.
I remember Alice Glenn very clearly, and indeed I remember the Vietnam War, though I have no memory whatsoever of the many public events of the famous summer of 1968, with the sole exception of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, which didn’t interest me much because I was a bit too young (honestly, honestly) to understand the context.
I’m delighted to hear that the Chefarzt is so positive about what can be done to help Pádraig. Given the figures you quote, it’s clear that the only place for Pádraig to be right now is in Germany, hard and all as it is to accept the fact that he has to leave Ireland for the purposes of getting the treatment he needs. I’m sure it will do him a lot of good to get visits from the first of his friends to make the trip, and no doubt the friends are looking forward to talking to him again. I’m looking forward to seeing him again myself, though it won’t be for a few weeks.
I thought it was only my German that was improving as a result of your blog. Now I find it’s my knowledge of music too …
With best wishes,
Louise
Hello Louise,
Your comment made me think of a ‘famous’ joke: St Peter is setting up spelling tests for people wishing to enter heaven. When a women knocks at the gates, he asks her to spell ‘love’. She manages alright and he lets her in. He then asks her to watch the gates for him while he attends some important heavenly business. A little later, there is a knock at the door and the same woman’s (not-so-loving) husbands wants to get in. She tells him that he will have to complete a spelling test like everybody else. ‘Which word do you want me to spell?’, he asked. ‘Czechoslovakia’ she replied. – I was also wondering whether there was a chance that your granny asked JFK the same question, when she was watching the pearly gates for St Peter and JFK showed up at the gates… A classical case of virtue ethics?
It’s so nice to read your comments and see that we have a bit of a connection across this long long distance.
What this week’s ethic class topic?
Reinhard
Hello again, Reinhard,
I was in the middle of replying to you when my PC decided to close down! It did something similar this morning. I don’t think you would have got my reply, so I’ll write it again. This PC is about to be recycled, and I can’t wait. It’s quite old and, as has just happened, is beginning to misbehave. I will be getting a desktop replacement bundle, which is basically a laptop that you can also use as a desktop, so that should be very useful. My day’s work has gone badly as a result of the problems, so I need something reliable (and flexible).
At the risk of repeating myself … if by any chance you did get my first (partial) reply, which I don’t think you did because I didn’t get an opportunity to post the comment … I had suggested that my granny might have asked JFK to spell ‘Khrushchev’ (‘Cuba’ being too easy). I had to look up ‘Khrushchev’ myself, and indeed the spelling here is probably only the most common English way of writing this particular surname, so JFK could probably have argued his case various ways and done my poor granny’s head in with the result that he would probably have wiggled his way into heaven on the basis of having won the war of attrition.
This week’s topic is actually virtue ethics. We being a very engaged crowd of students, the lectures are a bit behind schedule. We keep interrupting the lecturer with new and interesting topics for discussion! This is all part of the package, though, in this kind of programme, and the lecturer welcomes our interventions. The upshot is that I did my virtue ethics essay before the main lecture on this topic. But that’s fine – there’s a lot of learning in this, and we are Master’s students after all. We have a lot to get through by the end of the semester, including metaethics and natural law theory. Metaethics is not my cup of tea, and I won’t be doing my main (January) essay on it, nor will I be doing it on Nietzsche (another option) because I don’t feel comfortable enough in terms of my background knowledge of this particular thinker. I may well find myself focusing on virtue ethics in the essay.
In Business Ethics (my other module this semester), we are working in teams, preparing to make a presentation on an ethical dilemma (what would Kant do? what would Aristotle advise? what would John Stuart Mill think best?). Our team is looking at the issue of sponsorship of sporting events by alcohol companies. The class is also discussing the famous case study from a good few years back involving glue manufacturer HB Fuller and a glue they produced called ‘Resistol’, used for glue-sniffing purposes by street children in, among other places, Honduras, with the result that these children became known as ‘Resistoleros’. What steps, if any, should the company have taken to address this problem? We concluded that the issues in the case are potentially just as pertinent today, i.e. ethical dilemmas are timeless! and that the only old-fashioned thing in the video we watched was a video (within this video) dating from 198x and looking distinctly clunky.
This is a lot of rabbitting on … but you did ask!
I noted your comment about the amount of support that is being shown for Pádraig. It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Even when I tell people of my acquaintance who never heard of Pádraig (or you) before, they always say they will think about him and wish him well and (if they are that way inclined) pray for him. And, often, they come back and ask me again how things are going (again, this applies to people who are strangers to you – though perhaps no longer strangers).
With best wishes,
Louise
Hello Louise,
it’s such a pleasure to read you comments – I wish we could talk about the ethics stuff. When I listen to the Irish news I get the distinct impression that the country (or at least the commentators:) have moved way beyond the classical questions. They are not discussing business ethics, but ethic business (not sure how well that ‘phrase turning around’ worked). Ethics is only relevant if it’s good for business. Everything is measured by how much it is going to make: a conference (x million for the city’s economy), research (x million of European money), teaching (attracting x million worth of inward investment), and the list goes on. It’s like turning everything on its head: philosophical considerations should guide our behaviour in the economic sphere – today, it money and the economy that decide whether something is worthwhile doing.
Pádraig’s accident had a profound effect on so many people. What happened to him since is incredible, in many different ways. In his own way, he is, as he always did, having an huge impact on people’s lives.
Hello, Reinhard,
Pádraig is indeed having a huge impact on people’s lives, including my own. I decided a good while ago that, rather than going around lamenting the situation, which doesn’t help at all, I would approach it differently and make a conscious effort to try to live a better life, even in small ways, as my contribution to Pádraig’s welfare. Of course, human nature being what it is, my progress in this regard is patchy, but it is there none the less, if only in small ways.
I will be in attendance at Club Chonradh na Gaeilge tomorrow night week. Now, I’m quite aware this is an event organised by young people for young people, and I think I will be 2.5 times older than most of the other people there! But, provided they don’t eject me for being over-age (as distinct from under-age), I would like to be there as a matter of principle – even if I will leave it to the young people to stay till the small hours or whatever.
I must be getting into this Ethics thing … while preparing the slides, last night, for the ‘dilemma presentation’ I have to do with my team (within my class), I thought of a couple of in-jokes to put in about Kant, Mill, Aristotle and the rest. We were actually specifically requested to inject humour (while making serious points, of course), and from the perspective of those who have to listen to us (at around 9.00 p.m. of a Tuesday night), I can really understand this. The humour doesn’t, of course, belie the very serious issues that we discuss, and that are not at all dissimilar to the issues you raise in your post (the post to which I am replying).
I see I am not the only person who thinks very highly of your posts. I did say before that I didn’t think I would ever participate in a blog in this way. Another good effect Pádraig is having in my life.
All the best,
Louise