What should one’s Heart Rate be?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 1 Comment

In the McCleland household this is a contentious issue. Always was; always will be. This bone of contention raised its head some 20 years ago when I was training heavily in order to achieve my personal best [PB in runners-speak] over all distances up to and including a marathon. Anal would be too blasé an epithet to describe how I measured my runs: weather conditions, temperature, splits per kilometre, weight loss on the run & controversially from Janine’s perspective, my daily heart rate. Science has now come to my rescue and vindicated my standpoint. At the extreme, it also issues a warning when one’s resting pulse is too high. What does science now tell us?

Main picture: An X-ray of the heart with veins coloured blue and arteries red

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What will the Next Diet Revolution be?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 2 Comments

Even though the Banting or LCHF diet is in the spotlight due to the “trial” of Tim Noakes for advice given by him about the feeding of an infant, this is definitely not at the forefront of dietary research. I have only recently become aware of this research last week on the BBC Science Program on BBC Earth hosted by Dara ‘o Briain where scientists at the cutting edge of research are invited to discuss the latest breakthroughs in various fields. This interview dealt with the effects of our gut bacteria, one of which related to dieting. As if to endorse these findings, this week’s online edition on Time Magazine covers the same topic. [Note: The printed version did not carry this story as the two editions carry different articles]

Main picture: Is this still on your menu?
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Rhino Poaching: On the Horns of a Dilemma

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 0 Comment

Yesterday’s decision [Thursday 27th November 2015] by Justice Francis Legodi to lift the six year moratorium on the internal sale of rhino horn in South Africa has placed me in a dilemma. I am totally conflicted. Tellingly the ban on the sale of rhino horn in terms of CITES has not produced the intended result. Instead the killing of rhinos for their horns has increased explosively. A growing chorus of dissension against this ban especially from legitimate rhino owners and breeders in South African has ultimately resulted in this court case. How can the rhino be saved from this scourge especially in the light of the fact that the cost of protecting the remaining animals is too prohibitive?

 Some suggestions are considered

Main picture: For how much longer will this be seen?

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While Paris Weeps

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 0 Comment

In the aftermath of the barbaric and inconceivable atrocity in Paris, I am still benumbed at how an organisation, especially one supposedly with strong religious and moral credentials, could commit such an egregious act. No simplistic remedies will suffice. No strident rhetoric should serve as a pretext for intemperate action. Rather divine the essence of what drives supposedly intelligent youngsters to be radicalised to commit such heinous crimes and take appropriate action. But more importantly from a personal perspective what was the historical prelude to this shameful act.
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Are RICA and FICA effective?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 1 Comment

Who would not be in favour of these regulations? Nobody except of course the criminal element. The reality is much more mundane. If the measures were extremely effective with 97.5% compliance both in the accuracy of capture or the system not being bypassed, I would classify these measure as being ineffectual. The (purposely) incorrectly recorded or unrecorded instances would allow all manner of miscreants and nere-do-wells to flaunt the system with impunity. The only complaint individuals will be the law-abiding majority. This undermines the noble intention of the legislation. Why do I assert this and what can be done to make these measures effective?

Despite being introduced with great fanfare to curb corruption, in both instances I was churlishly cynical regarding their efficacy. Without both rigorous enforcement and incorruptible systems, only the non-criminal element would endure the burden of compliance. At the margin, it would allow the apprehension of the in-astute criminal to be trapped but a seasoned criminal such as Radovan Krejcir would never comply.

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Varsity Unrest: Chickens Coming Home to Roost?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 2 Comments

South Africa has experienced unrest since 1994 but never on a co-ordinated national scale like it has been now. Why is there a sudden explosion of emotion and what are the portents for the future?

Firstly an admission. I embrace the students’ mission but never violence nor the destruction of property. Fortunately these protests have been largely peaceful. From a global perspective they might look intimidating but they have been no more violent that comparable student demonstrations as in Paris or London. South Africans, especially whites need to reframe their understanding of the dynamic of protest action. It is inevitably disruptive to some element of society – be they motorists, commuters or businessmen on their way to work or home.

Main picture: Dark smoke billows from the crowd where thousands of students have gathered at the Union Buildings, calling on President Jacob Zuma to come out to address them Source: EWN

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Bob and I

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces, Personal, Running 2 Comments

Of course I am not referring to the President for Life north of South Africa. Somebody less well-known but for me as a youngster he was “famous.” On three occasions he was runner-up to Bruce Fordyce on the South African version of the rite of passage, the purgatory of the Comrades Marathon. His name is Bob de la Motte. For people of my generation, the Comrades Marathon held a fascination unlike any other sport as South Africa was besotted and enthralled in equal measure by this long distance odyssey. For one day a year, all South Africans would be glued to their TV sets as the runners battled it out over 90 kilometres of the most arduous road race in the world.

Having never met Bob de la Motte how can my Opinion Piece be entitled Bob and I? Having recently read his autobiography – The Runaway Comrade – which is partly biographical and partly a social commentary of the milieu in which South Africa existed at the time, I was struck by so many similarities in our upbringing and life experiences.

Main picture: Bob de la Motte being congratulated by Bruce Fordyce, his nemesis. In any other era, Bob de la Motte’s finishing times would have accorded him a win. What Bob did was to force the indominitable Fordyce to greater feats.

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The Cancer Paradox Part 1: Sugar

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Health 2 Comments

The Metabolic Model of Cancer has recently been resurrected after lying dormant for slightly less than a century. This 1924 model is predicated upon the work of a physiologist, medical doctor and Nobel Laureate by the name of Otto Warburg who espoused the eponymous Warburg Effect. What has re-ignited interest in this theory is that contemporaneously with the rise in sugar/carbohydrate consumption since the 1970s, the rate of cancers has increased in tandem. Unknown in traditional and primitive societies such as the Inuits some 100 years ago, with the change in their diet to a western style diet, cancer has become one of the leading causes of death in these societies. In the light of this correlation, does the Metabolic Model of Cancer deserve another investigation?

The rate at which the prevalence of cancer is affecting society – already one in every two men and one in every three women will suffer from it. With the current rate of increase being 3%, shortly almost everybody will be afflicted.

Main picture: Dr Otto Warburg, the Nobel Laureate who discovered aerobic glycolysis

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Life is Not Fair

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Opinion Pieces 3 Comments

This weekend Dianne Kohler Barnard must be rueing the fact that she retweeted a post by Paul Kirk. During the same week, Pravin Gordhan the ex-Finance Minister was accused of being aware that a rogue intelligence unit was operating within SARS during his tenure. This week also saw Riah Phiyega being lambasted after the release of the annual crime statistics. What about the Hitachi imbroglio? Of these which will generate the most controversy?

Today Pravin Gordhan is a senior figure within the ANC government serving as Minister of Cooperative Governance. His tenure as head of SARS can be characterised as highly successful. Unlike similar government departments after 1994, it flourished becoming more effective whereas the rest degenerated into incompetence as ANC cadres were deployed into them. The level of compliance steadily increased as their systems and procedures were streamlined and improved.

Main picture: Dianne Kohler Barnard

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What was VW Thinking?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs 2 Comments

In a democratic society, secrets and malfeasance are exposed at lightning speed. As such, the more influential and well-known an institution is in society today, the higher the standards bar is set. Any failure in this regard will have catastrophic world-wide implications. Think no further than the disaster at Bhophal of a subsidiary of Union Carbide. It would have been pointless for Union Carbide to insist that the safety standards at this plant complied with the local Indian Standards when the standards required in America would have prevented such a tragedy.

Notice what happened in South Africa when KFC was allegedly caught on video “recycling” burnt chicken. Would the same backlash have been experienced if the Take Away Joint had been McCleland’s Luscious Fried Chicken? I doubt it. Perhaps a few lines, if that, in a local newspaper but little else besides.

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