We’re equals, not doubles

On some points, I agree with the writer… two becoming one doesn't necessarily mean enslaving or dominating or dissolving the other person completely; the unity is simply more than just what we perceive. There is more to a person than what we see or hear. The unspoken and unheard, the unuttered and unannounced, the hushed… when becoming one means being one in thought, but not in the execution, one in mind, but not in the action… one in emotion, but different in the presentation or display of affection…

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btw: ON DIFFERENCES IN A RELATIONSHIP

ANA OW

MY HUSBAND cannot see the light – when it comes to the styles of furnishings and fixtures that I prefer for our new apartment, that is.

D and I have been shopping for pendant lights over the past few weekends and the number of items that we both like are a dismal few.

"Sorry, but we are not having a pseudo-baroque chandelier in our bedroom," was D's last word on the matter after a couple of minor spats. He did, however, concede to the funky bronze lamps for the dining room that I picked out.

Despite the trouble it entails, I am glad for these differences of opinion. It means that we are still individuals and that in getting married, we have not morphed into a single entity – which is what I must say many Singapore couples I know tend to be or strive to become (yuck!).

I know of a woman who joins every single Facebook group her boyfriend does. She has even changed her style of dressing to suit his and mimics his speech, artistic preferences and even socio-political opinions.

I think it is sad when two people come together and one defers to the personality of the other by erasing her own.

There's no fear of that happening to D and me. We are both stubborn as hell and it takes a lot to change each other's minds. There are, however, times when he wins me over after a long battle of wits.

What's fascinating is that such conversations force me to clarify my beliefs, reflect on why I hold them in the first place and see if there is any room for manoeuvre.

Having an individual voice (and making sure it is heard) is something which I value greatly and believe to be important in an equal partnership – never mind that it may invite my significant other to challenge my opinions.

I welcome the debate – it is evidence that I'm not married to a block of wood.

To me, opposites attract and to reach a compromise and common ground despite having differences is part of an exciting and enriching life together.

D, despite being 11 years younger than me, has never been afraid of making his opinions known. While he is often keen to try out new experiences and activities that I especially enjoy, ultimately, he will decide for himself whether or not he really likes or wants something that I have suggested.

D would sooner wax his legs than accompany me to watch an art-house film, but would gladly book a French restaurant of my choice for my birthday dinner because he now appreciates the food.

Similarly, while I have tried to understand his love for comics, I would much rather read a real book. Having said that, I'm currently enjoying some of his favourite novels from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.

Yet when it comes to relationships, there are some things that definitely warrant an agreement from both parties involved.

You've got to see eye to eye, for example, on whether or not to get married.

The decision to have children, the number of kids in a family and how to manage shared finances are areas in which a couple must share the same goals.

Differences in opinion may exist, but common ground has to be forged if the relationship is to work.

For D and myself, raising our baby son, K, is an issue which we are eager to get right together. Altercations aside, we would do everything and more to have K know that his parents love and support him, no matter what.

So, when it comes to sofas and light fixtures, I don't mind if D doesn't share my taste. Especially when I know that where it counts the most, we are both on the same page.

myp@sph.com.sg

From myPaper, My Lifestyle – Tuesday, 05-May-2009

Teach ’em young

Compulsory Sex education
Five-year-olds to learn about birds and the bees in British state schools

LONDON — Children as young as 11 will be taught about homosexual relationships and civil partnerships under plans by the British government for compulsory sex education.

They will also get lessons in contraception, pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases in the first three years of secondary school.

New-style classes will also be compulsory in all faith schools in England, although they will also be free to apply their "values" to lessons by telling pupils that same sex relationships, contraception and sex outside marriage is wrong.

The government said issues would be covered in PSHE — personal, social, health and economic education — which is to become a statutory part of the National Curriculum from September 2011.

Under plans, which are subject to a public consultation, children aged five to seven will learn about the "simple physical changes to their bodies since birth" and the differences between boys and girls.

Between seven and nine, they will be taught about puberty and "how to form and maintain relationships" with different people. In the final two years of primary school, pupils will learn about human reproduction.

The curriculum for 11 to 14-year-olds covers sexual orientation, contraception, pregnancy, homosexual relationships, civil ceremonies and the importance of marriage.

Students between the ages of 14 and 16 will be taught about media portrayals of body image and "social and moral dilemmas".

The move has provoked anger among parents' groups who claim children are being exposed to sex before they are ready.

Britain already has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in western Europe and recent figures showed conceptions among under-16s hit record levels.

But Mr Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said lessons were needed to prepare children "for life in the 21st century".

"Parents bring up children, not the Government," he said.

"Schools, however, can play a vital role in teaching children essential skills for learning and life." THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

From TODAY, World – Wednesday, 29-April-2009

When Meat Really Is Murder

Swine Flu Outbreak

Mike Davis

THE Mexican swine flu, a genetic chimaera probably conceived in the faecal mire of an industrial pigsty, suddenly threatens to give the whole world a fever. The initial outbreaks across North America reveal an infection already travelling at higher velocity than did the last official pandemic strain, the 1968 Hong Kong flu.

Stealing the limelight from our officially-appointed assassin, H5N1, this porcine virus is a threat of unknown magnitude. It seems less lethal than Sars, but as an influenza it may be more durable. Given domesticated seasonal type-A influenzas kill as many 1 million a year, even a modest increment of virulence, especially if combined with high incidence, could kill as many people as a major war.

Meanwhile, one of its first victims has been the consoling faith, long preached by the World Health Organization (WHO), that pandemics can be contained by the rapid responses of medical bureaucracies, independent of the quality of local public health.

Since the initial H5N1 deaths in Hong Kong in 1997, the WHO, with the support of most national health services, has promoted a strategy focused on the identification and isolation of a pandemic strain within its local radius of outbreak, followed by a thorough dousing of the population with anti-virals and (if available) vaccine.

An army of sceptics has contested this viral counter-insurgency approach, pointing out microbes can now fly around the world (literally, in the case of avian flu) faster than WHO or local officials can react to the original outbreak. They also pointed to the primitive, often non-existent surveillance of the interface between human and animal diseases.

But the mythology of bold, pre-emptive intervention against avian flu has been invaluable to the cause of rich countries, like the United States and Britain, who prefer to invest in their own biological lines of defence rather than dramatically increasing aid to epidemic frontlines overseas, as well as to big pharma, which has battled developing-world demands for the generic, public manufacture of critical antivirals like Roche's Tamiflu.

The swine flu may prove that the WHO/Centers for Disease Control (CDC) version of pandemic preparedness — without massive new investment in surveillance, scientific and regulatory infrastructure, basic public When meat really is murder health, and global access to lifeline drugs — belongs to the same class of Ponzified risk management as Madoff securities. It is not so much that the pandemic warningsystem has failed as it simply doesn't exist,even in North America and the EU.

A decade of urgent warnings by scientists has failed to ensure the transfer of sophisticated viral assay technology to thecountries in the direct path of likely pandemics.Mexico has world-famous diseaseexperts, but it had to send swabs to a lab in Canada order to identify the strain's genome.Almost a week was lost as a consequence.

But no one was less alert than thedisease controllers in Atlanta. Accordingto The Washington Post, the CDC did notlearn about the outbreak until six days after Mexico had begun to impose emergencymeasures. There should be no excuses.

What caused this acceleration of swine flu evolution? Virologists have long believed that the intensive agricultural system of southern China is the principal engine of influenza mutation. But the corporate industrialization of livestock production has broken China's natural monopoly on influenza evolution.

In 1965, for instance, there were 53 million US hogs on more than 1 million farms; today, 65 million hogs are concentrated in 65,000 facilities. This has been a transition from old-fashioned pig pens to vast excremental hells, containing tens of thousands of animals with weakened immune systems suffocating in heat and manure while exchanging pathogens with their fellow inmates.

Any amelioration of this new pathogen ecology would have to confront the monstrous power of livestock conglomerates such as Smithfield Farms (pork and beef) and Tyson (chickens). Last year, a commission convened by the Pew Research Center reported a systemic obstruction of their investigation by corporations, including blatant threats to withhold funding from cooperative researchers.

This is not to say a smoking gun will never be found: There is already talk in the Mexican press about an influenza epicentre around a huge Smithfield subsidiary in Veracruz state. But what matters more is the larger configuration: The WHO's failed pandemic strategy, the further decline of world public health, the stranglehold of big pharma over lifeline medicines, and the planetary catastrophe of industrialised and ecologically-unhinged livestock production. THE GUARDIAN

From TODAY, News – Wednesday, 29-April-2009