Investigate HERS, Apr/May 2015

HIS ANZAC story | Auckland’s 175th | Pioneer Voyages | 04/2015

HERS Monarchs & Despots | Fukushima | Vaccine Debate | 04/2015

CURRENT AFFAIRS & LIFESTYLE FOR THE DISCERNING WOMAN

THE ANZACS A BRAVE GAMBLE, BADLY EXECUTED, THAT COULD HAVE SAVED MILLIONS

THE VACCINE DEBATE

US COURT AWARDS MILLIONS TO FAMILY IN VACCINE DAMAGE TEST CASE

FUKUSHIMA THE ONGOING IMPACT

Apr/May 2015, $8.60

Kate & William HOW STABLE IS OUR MONARCHY?

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BEAUTY HEALTH TRAVEL & MORE

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 49 publiceye-INVES6014

Contents www.investigatedaily.com

Issue 149

Apr/May 2015

08 Absolute Power

William and Kate won’t have the powers of old, but the British monarchy remains one of the most stable forms of government on the planet. MICHAEL MORRISSEY examines a little history

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Fukushima Fallout

18

Vaccine Debate

Three years after the devastating meltdown, what’s changed?

An American family awarded millions of dollars for the vaccine damage of their child questions the demands to make immunisation compulsory

22 Images Of Conflict

A war photographer’s harrowing memoir

Contents

32

38 28 34

Formalities

04 Miranda Devine 06 Chloe Milne

Health & Beauty 24 26 28 32

Power of music New Lyprinol research Boutique New fashion trends

Cuisine & Travel

34 Duck season 36 Middle Earth on Chiloe Island

Books & Movies

40 Autumn reads 42 The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Family & Music

38 Kelly Clarkson 44 Child centered parenting

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TAPS NA 7597

HERS

DEVINE

By Miranda Devine

Attitude to mothers

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eard the one about the radio boss whose idea as you can and somehow your children will adapt. of helping staff with work-life balance is giving The supposedly conservative Abbott government, them free condoms to stop them having babies? having dropped paid parental leave, is adding to Boom boom. this pressure by exhorting mothers to get back to Well actually it wasn’t a joke. work ASAP to boost GDP, using the bribe of heavilySouthern Cross Austereo’s Perth manager Linda subsidised childcare.

Wayman told a conference last week that keeping “a The childcare industry has ramped it up further big jar of condoms at work” was her way to “advance by pushing expensive formalised “education” for gender equity”. tiny tots, instead of the stress-free play time most “I’m not lying, I’m not exaggerating. I do encour- beneficial for developing brains. age people regularly to have sex with condoms.”

Pre-school has become an arms race, so even It’s just this kind of retrograde attitude towards mothers who want to rear their own children feel maternity which keeps ambitious women down and pressured to deposit them in an institution, for fear encourages others to neglect their children. the darlings will fall behind their peers.

Of all the millions of words uttered this month Thus we have the situation where the taxpayer is for International Women’s Day, how many honour footing a $7 billion annual bill to subsidise childthe most important job women do, being mothers, care, with costs rising 8 per cent a year — and no and how many ignore, devalue, scorn or revile it? discernible benefit to children.

I would dare say the ratio is 1:999.

Yet one-third of mothers using childcare don’t No matter what her bosses said later, it was clear even work in a paid job and all that money has not from Wayman’s tone and follow-up comments she increased labour force participation one jot. was deadly serious.

The state is telling women strangers can rear their Motherhood is simply a workplace nuisance. children better — so if they don’t work they may as “I’m not lying, I’m not exagwell go to lunch. gerating. I do encourage people Whichever way you look, regularly to have sex with conpowerful forces are conspiring doms. That is a big area of focus against women doing the job for me. Not sex, unfortunately, No childcare worker, they are designed for and which because I’m usually too tired, but is of priceless value to society: no matter how encouraging people to have sex bringing up a well-loved next with condoms.” generation. well educated, is There you have it. Out of the No childcare worker, no matter a substitute for mouth of a babe. So much for how well educated, is a substifemale bosses ushering in a soft loving parents. It’s tute for loving parents. It’s such new age of workplace flexibility. an obvious truth and yet we shy such an obvious If you are a mother with career away from acknowledging it. pretensions, then you just have to The guilt working mothers truth and yet we “go for it … There’s no such thing feel when they abandon their shy away from as work life balance. It’s bullshit”. children at the start of the day In other words, work as hard is there for a reason. acknowledging it

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The maternal instinct is intense, but fragile. Push it aside and it will disappear.

Your child will be fine and eventually you will wonder why you worried, because you don’t know what you don’t know.

With my first baby 19 years ago, my career went on the back burner, but I was in the blissful situation of being able to work from home, thanks to a male boss who genuinely valued motherhood.

He was regarded as a chauvinist pig by many female staff because he refused to pay lip service to the gender equity dogma of the times, but he was a far better feminist than women like Wayman.

As Wayman finished speaking at the Mumbrella conference last week, a full-time working mother of a 13-month-old stood up in the audience to agree “there is no work-life balance” and complain about her lot.

“I’m the mum who, when Gymbaroo is waiting to start, will be writing an email on my phone desperately or at the park answering phone calls while stopping (baby) eating dog poo”.

Well, I’m sorry, that is work-life balance, but we all choose how little we tilt it towards family.

If you outsource the bulk of your mothering responsibilities to strangers, your children may be

well-cared for, but they will know that your work took priority over them, and that will lead to deep insecurities.

They will make allowances for financial necessity but it’s doubtful they will be as forgiving about your ambitions or consumerism.

In a working life that, according to the Treasurer, will stretch into your 70s, throttling back for a decade or so for your children won’t kill you, or the GDP. The pleasures are immeasurable, as are the gluelike benefits to the community of active women unshackled, even briefly, from the full-time labour treadmill, able to volunteer at the tuckshop, make meals for a sick friend, or bring in the garbage bins of an elderly neighbour.

Not to mention well-adjusted children and easier marriages.

You can’t measure the benefits of motherhood done well in the GDP but it is the most precious resource we have. *And yes, most of this goes for fathers too, but it’s not International Men’s Day. devinemiranda@hotmail.com

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 5

HERS GEN-Y

By Chloe Milne

Love actually is…

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here is a great quote in my favourite Christmas movie, which goes; “If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.” Far from being a soppy Hugh Grant romantic comedy quote; I have found in my latest ventures that this idea couldn’t be truer.

If we look for love, we will almost certainly find it.

I’m not actually referring to romantic love, (although it’s almost certainly true for romance too) but the compassion and kindness that surround us, if we choose to see it.

I am currently a couple of weeks away from movI have never felt so touched and in awe by the ing to yet another new country. I’ve already lived outpouring of compassion and kindness towards a in the States, Germany (for a briefer period than new venture. This kindness is mostly coming from expected) and the UK, but now I’m ready for a new New Zealanders, who I had previously thought to challenge. Those around me, far from being sick be terrible introducers and networkers – how wrong of hearing about travel and adventure, are more I seem to have been. supportive than ever of my decision to move to the While one person might know someone in vibrant city that is Hong Kong. recruitment, another knows someone who would Perhaps my willingness to keep trying new things, love to meet me for a coffee. Another has advice on or my ambition to gain further experience is appeal- where to live and which language to learn. While ing to them, or maybe they can see that I have never someone else makes recommendations on which been more contented in my life. companies I could be approaching. Through all Either way, even though people seem surprised these connections and introductions I feel as though that I am not interested in house buying, getting I have been welcomed to Hong Kong, and I haven’t a stable job, getting married and not interested in even arrived yet. having children, they are more I have come to the conclusion than willing to help me, with my that we get, not only what we nomadic style of life, in any way put out, but also what we search they can. for. If we are passionate, positive Far from telling me and that If we are passionate, and willing to help others when I will “change my mind” with need assistance, we will be positive and willing they regard to children or living in rewarded when we could use a to help others New Zealand, (with a few excephand. If we look for helpful peotions) they have passed me numple and act based on the assumpwhen they need bers of people they know, contion that helpful people are out assistance, we will there willing to help us; we will nected me with various groups, given advice about my new be rewarded when almost certainly find them. home and made all important we could use a hand www.chloemilne.com introductions.

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www.epson.co.nz/precisioncore Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 7

ABSOLUTE

Power A system of Government

With William and Kate breathing new life into the monarchy, and New Zealand set to debate a new flag, MICHAEL MORRISSEY examines the differences between government systems around the world

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ver wondered about the difference in style of government between New Zealand (democracy), Zimbabwe (dictatorship), and Saudi Arabia (absolute monarchy)? In simple terms, New Zealand is governed by what is called the Westminster system – a system that originated in Britain – whereby a country is ruled by a democratic parliamentary style of government modeled on the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the Parliament in the United Kingdom.

It is the model for New Zealand and many other Commonwealth and ex-Commonwealth countries.

In essence, under the Westminster system, government can be voted out after a few short years of power. When you get up on a frosty morning, it’s a good feeling to have: I can vote! I can make a difference! Often – in the past – there was a major opposition party and the two parties would vie for favour with the voters. And even in reason-

ably non-corrupt New Zealand, there could be an ambiance of pork barrel politics every three years.

Back a ways, Labour (say) won the 1957 election by promising the voter a 100 pound rebate – $4664 in today’s money. It’s a bribe the National party protested – in vain. Labour swept into power and then stunned the populace by what forever became known as Nordmeyer’s Black Budget. Well, you have to get your “bribe” back somehow.

In more recent times, we now have a multi party system. For some it’s a tad confusing, while for others it is more democratic because it allows minority groups to have a say in a parliament.

Parliament may have once sounded like a solemn debating chamber, these days it sounds likes several chooks running around with their heads cut off.

But hey, that’s the style of democracy we voted for.

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 9

Most countries that use the Westminster system have codified the system as a written constitution. It is often inaccurately said that New Zealand does not have a written constitution. In fact, its constitution is spread over various documents and sources – some items of legislation, legal documents, and common law derived from court decisions. Also, increasingly, our constitution reflects the Treaty of Waitangi. While our system, a modified version of the Westminster, has flaws – after all no political system is made in heaven – it is heaven compared to the other main systems of dictatorship and monarchy.

Zimbabwe – in case you hadn’t noticed – has a dictator called Robert Mugabe who looks 65 but is actually 91. Must be something in the water. Dictators have a wicked habit of living long. While Hitler was the exception – dying by his own hand at the relatively youthful age of 56 – Stalin lived to be 70. Paraguay (not noted for its democratic style of government) saw Alfredo Stroessner seize power in 1954 by the method commonly used by

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South American dictators – a military coup. Stroessner held power for 35 years and survived being overthrown until dying at the ripe old age of 94. Imagine having John Key in power for 35 years!

Or worse, Robert Muldoon. Please, anything but that! Fidel Castro held the reins of power in Cuba from 1959 to 2008 (49 years) and is still breathing (though only just) and is now aged 88. Why can’t these guys do the decent thing and die of pancreatic cancer in their 50s?

But back to Mugabe. While Mugabe used to score generous brownie points for leading his country to independence back in 1980, he has become adept at biting the hand that used to feed him.

Back in the 1990s and through to 2008, Zimbabwe had what is called hyperinflation. Nobody’s kidding here – at its peak in 2008, the inflation rate was 79.6 billion per cent. Yes, you read right: billion.1 In real terms, that mean prices were doubling every 24 hours. A loaf of bread costing a dollar on Monday was priced at $64 by the following Sunday.

Some zany solutions were tried to salvage

financial order. In 2007, the government declared inflation illegal(!). When that didn’t work, they abandoned their own currency and now use the currencies of other countries. The patient has a sore leg? Cut his head off!

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hile his country has abandoned its currency, and 70 per cent live in poverty, Mugabe recently celebrated his birthday by eating elephant meat. Pity they didn’t leave the tusks on so he could choke. A photograph in the Guardian makes him look like the monster he presumably must be. Under dictatorships vital information is often suppressed and no knows how much Mugabe is worth. Not even him. But he manages to keep ahead of inflation. In a move that must make the western mind boggle, he has just been made president of the African Union. You can’t keep a bad man down.

Dictators have a boringly similar way of running (and ruining) their countries – the rule of which they have often seized illegally. Here are some of the

characteristics: a strong army (but not too strong, because one of its generals might turn maverick and seize power); a “secret” police force with limitless powers of arrest, detention and torture, (I’d rather not give details but it’s never a picnic); censorship of all media; death for rebels and dissenters; a system of informing on “traitors”; the dictator (almost invariably male) will often have a chain of mistresses; while not a monarch, he will often construct a series of palaces (Saddam Hussein had between 80 and 100!); while the population starves because of the cost of building palaces, neglect of the infrastructure and other extravagances, the dictator has another helping of dessert. And maybe orders up a fresh mistress. Or thinks of some new “traitor” to torture. If this lineup of nasty traits sounds familiar, that’s because it is: history is grimly repeating itself.

Stalin, a past dictator of Russia, made some horribly cynical comments about his style of dictatorship. While they spilled from his lips, just about any dictator could have made them: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”

“Death is the solution to all problems – no man – no problem.”

“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.”

So how many dictators are current in the world today? The conservapedia lists some 21 countries as having dictators.

While no dictatorship is a good thing, I was pleasantly surprised the total wasn’t higher. Of course some countries not listed as having a dictator may have an oppressive government. (Mysteriously, I could not find Mr Putin of Russia on the list).

Are you ready for a dark ride?

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ight dictators in Africa (Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Sudan (which needs an update), Chad, Rwanda, Gambia); one in South America (Venezuela); one in the Caribbean (Cuba); one in the Middle East (Iran); three in Central Asia (Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan); one in the Far East (North Korea); one in Europe (Belarus); and one in Oceania (Fiji).

Wow. And I thought Iraq (shadow memory of Hussein?) and Russia (will the real Mr Putin please take a bow) had dictators. The conservapedia back list makes for grim reading for it includes all those numerous countries who used to have dictators. They have left a bloody footprint through modern history.

How about monarchies?

Of the approximately 200 countries in the world, some 44 have monarchies.

This includes 16 that are linked to the UK, ruled (when I last heard) by Elizabeth II. New Zealand is one of these. This is a soft sort of monarchical suzerainty, the kind that doesn’t wake you up in the morning wondering what is that lump on your forehead?

Besides these 16 UK-linked constitutional monarchies, there are 22 more that are not linked to the UK yet considered constitutional monarchies. Compared to the monarchies of old these monarchs have limited powers. They certainly cannot order anyone’s head cut off. They cannot appropriate property just because they feel like it or on a royal caprice. They cannot wage war at a whim. Nor can the male monarchs select a bride from the populace at random or have more than one wife unless he is the Sultan of Brunei or the King of Swaziland. These categories are not water tight and some constitutional monarchies have more power than is appropriate or desirable. For instance, while the current Emperor of Japan does not have the godlike powers of Hirohito – who ruled during World War Two – he is credited with more political clout than is healthy.

Japan needs to pull its socks up. As a matter of moral principle, I will not visit Japan until they apologise fully and try to compensate for atrocities committed during World War Two including “comfort” women, extensive human laboratories similar to the Nazis where people were frozen, subjected to decompression experiments and used as human ‘logs’ – experimentally operated on without anaesthetic. Plus the rape of Nanking, starvation of prisoners of war, cannibalism and other atrocities such as beheading competitions and fake executions.

These items represent the extremes of dictatorship which prevailed in wartime

IT IS ENOUGH THAT THE PEOPLE KNOW THERE WAS AN ELECTION. THE PEOPLE WHO CAST THE VOTES DECIDE NOTHING. THE PEOPLE WHO COUNT THE VOTES DECIDE EVERYTHING

– Stalin Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 11

Japan. Things are incomparably better now, but they have hidden away their past in the name of Face.

There is a rare breed of monarchy called absolute monarchy where the leader does have extreme powers, equivalent to a dictator. There are just seven absolute monarchies in the world today. These are Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the emirates comprising the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Swaziland and (surprise?) the Vatican.

Swaziland is notoriously renown because its 46 year-old Emperor is the prime witness of a dance by thousands of bare-breasted virgins from which he may choose a new bride. It’s tough job but, hey, someone’s got to do it. Sorry: bad joke.

The reprobate king already has 14 wives but when he chose a new one recently a gleeful reporter pointed out that one has already run away and her replacement (so to speak) isn’t a virgin because she has been dating two of the king’s sons.

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he advantages of being a wife of the king of Swaziland are that you don’t go hungry, have a reasonable wardrobe and have the title of wife. And presumably no longer have to join the thousands of other half naked lasses swiveling their hips to catch the royal eye. The downside is you have to share your new husband with his other prior brides, you are continually watched by bodyguards and have restricted freedom of movement. It’s not all bad – brides get an annual trip to the USA to go on a shopping spree. So the absolute monarch of Swaziland has much the same powers and status as a dictator plus thousands of gyrating virgins.

For the rest of Swaziland – the smallest country in Africa – the situation isn’t that good. In fact, it’s downright grim. While the king recently lavished $61 million on his palace, the budget for the country’s health was a trifling $28 million. Twenty eight per cent of children under five are “stunted’ in growth and 66 per cent of the people can’t meet their basic food needs.

Life expectancy is 48.

Now for the bonus ball. Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV in the world – 26.5 per cent. The consequence is some 200,000 children without parents – and that is out of a population of just over one million. Local cultural belief encourages procreation. Swazi women are expected 12 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

HE’S WELL-EDUCATED, INTELLIGENT, HUMBLE, KINDLY, DARING, FORTHRIGHT, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE WHO RECENTLY PULLED A CROWD OF SIX MILLION IN THE PHILIPPINES. BEAT THAT, MICK JAGGER! to give birth to more than five children.

Condoms are discouraged. The current King’s father should know – he had 70 wives and over 1000 grandchildren.

OK, now it’s the Pope’s turn. Being Catholic, I’m reasonably knowledgeable about popes. There have been wicked popes in the past but not for some time.

The present one looks like the best in a while. He’s well-educated, intelligent, humble, kindly, daring, forthright, a man of the people who recently pulled a crowd of six million in the Philippines. Beat that, Mick Jagger! But until reading my conservapedia list, I didn’t know he was an absolute monarch. Possibly neither did he. Anyway, he’s no dictator; is celibate (unlike some absolute monarchs I could name). I think he is a good man. So the gamut of absolute monarchs runs from a man who has 15 wives to a man who has no wife and no plan to acquire one; from a man who lives only to indulge his appetites to a man who keeps strict rein on his desires.

Interestingly enough, all the Middle East absolute monarchs (as well as Brunei) have corporal punishment, mainly by caning on the buttocks. The Pope does not cane. He blesses. In Qatar, they go one step further and flog. You may be able to get a fair trial in New Zealand but not in Saudi Arabia. Those arrested are often not informed of the crime of which they been accused nor have access to a lawyer. There are no jury trails, you are presumed guilty and you may be tortured to confess, And if you are found guilty – a likely outcome –

you will be beheaded in public. However, they do serve excellent coffee.

So how does England, the foster mother of our constitutional monarchy, measure up? Not too badly. Admittedly, maintaining the Queen and Duke in the style to which they are accustomed is fearfully expensive but you do see where the money goes. The Queen is always exquisitely tailored and the Duke, ramrod-straight of back at 93, used to pass some invariably hilariously politically incorrect remark. To be honest, I miss the younger brasher Duke’s caustic bon mots. He once allegedly said to General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.” Perhaps

time, or up to date speechwriters have softened his acerbic style?

The still youthful Duke of Cambridge aka Prince William has shown some nicely judged political acumen by condemning the slaughter of elephants for ivory. Prince William hasn’t tackled as many subjects on which to sound off about as his father, Prince Charles. Stephen Fry, in his desperately self-centred memoire More Fool Me, defends Prince Charles as a man who knows a lot about a lot eg architecture, agriculture, painting, sailing, flying, riding, horticulture, cheeses, geography, botany, environmental science – all promptly informed comment from the well-read prince. So there

you go. I’m sure the absolute monarchs wouldn’t fare as well as Prince Charles in a general knowledge quiz contest.

While our Commonwealth constitutional monarchies look tame enough, back in 1975 there was an incident where it was shown there could be a bite in the jaws of the usually sedate system of balances.

Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was sacked. Why? The Opposition had been using its control of the Senate to defer appropriation bills which had been passed by the House of Representatives.

The opposition said it would continue to do so unless Whitlam called for an election for the House of Representatives. They urged the Queen’s Representative, Gov-

ernor-General Kerr, to dismiss Whitlam.

Whitlam believed Kerr would not dismiss him – but he did. It didn’t seem like the high moral issue one might expect.

Shock waves rippled through New Zealand’s political consciousness and our government reacted in horror. What suppose Sir Denis Blundell sacked Bill Rowling? However, since there has been no repeat of this incident, it looks increasingly like a one-off. But watch this space. The Queen, through the Governor-General, still has some power left in her exquisitely manicured gloves.

References: 1. http://www.cato.org/zimbabwe

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 13

FUKUSHIMA nuclear cleanup Words by Julie Makinen eon pink and yellow banners flutter along the roadsides, their gentle flapping breaking an eerie stillness. The houses here are shut tight, the streets are nearly deserted, the fields that once sprouted rice, tomatoes and cucumbers are fallow.

Shigeo Karimata dons a hard hat and a mask and prepares to get out of his car.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, it looks like a festival!’” says the avuncular 62-year-old Environment Ministry worker. “Then they see the writing on the flags: ‘Decontamination Work in Progress.’”

A colleague pulls out a radiation-measuring machine. “0.29 microsieverts,” he says, looking at the readout. “Not too high.”

Karimata is in charge of the work here in an evacuation zone about 12 miles north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant – part of the most extensive, and expensive, nuclear cleanup ever attempted.

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The scale and complexity of what Japan is trying to do in the aftermath of the 2011 meltdown at Fukushima is mind-boggling. Decontamination plans are being executed for 105 cities, towns and villages affected by the accident at Fukusima Daiichi, 140 miles northeast of Tokyo.

Many Japanese regard this massive undertaking as a solemn obligation to right a terrible wrong. Others, even some of the people directly affected, question whether it’s a quixotic waste of resources.

Karimata’s delegation marches up a side street to check on a brigade of labor-

ers wearing gloves, masks, helmets and fluorescent vests with radiation detectors tucked in their chest pockets. Some are spreading fresh soil in the yard of an uninhabited home. Next door, workers are up on a scaffold, preparing to wipe down the roof and gutters.

Across the street, near a bamboo grove, two men are erecting a plastic frame to support a massive double-lined garbage bag about the size of a hot tub. Dozens of identical black sacks, each weighing about a ton and stuffed with radiation-contaminated soil, leaves, wood chippings and other debris, stretch out

behind them, awaiting transport at some uncertain date to a yet-unspecified final resting place.

Four years after the Great Tohoku Earthquake shook northern Japan to its core, touched off a deadly tsunami and precipitated the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, hundreds of square miles remain off-limits for habitation due to radioactivity. Some 79,000 people still cannot return home.

But unlike the 1986 accident at Chernobyl, where authorities simply declared a 1,000-square-mile no-habitation zone, resettled 350,000 people and essentially Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 15

homes were ruined and realized they had to move on, he says, many radiation evacuees are stuck in limbo, knowing their homes are still standing.

After the disaster, Iwao coordinated shelter programs but quit government life after his bosses asked him to resume his duties in the tax department a year later.

“Sometimes I think the decontamination project is run by the sales department of general contractors,” he adds, puffing on a Lucky Strike cigarette.

Even before the disaster, the region was rapidly aging and losing young residents to Tokyo and other urban centers. Many of those who want to return home are senior citizens. Decontamination efforts may allow them to go back, but there’s little guarantee that their communities won’t die out anyhow within a few decades.

“Some people have already given up. I don’t think most people will come back,”

IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS, THE GOVERNMENT HAS SPENT $13.5 BILLION ON DECONTAMINATION EFFORTS OUTSIDE THE NUCLEAR PLANT, AND THE BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE FISCAL YEAR STARTING IN APRIL IS ANOTHER $3.48 BILLION decided to let the radiation dissipate over decades or centuries, Japan is attempting to make the Fukushima region livable again. It is an unprecedented effort.

The sheer manpower and money dedicated to the house-to-house effort is staggering: In the last four years, the government has spent $13.5 billion on decontamination efforts outside the nuclear plant, and the budget request for the fiscal year starting in April is another $3.48 billion, said Seiji Tsutsui, director of the international cooperation office for radioactive decontamination at the Environment Ministry.

At the peak, some 18,000 people were doing decontamination work; as of early February, that number had dropped to 12,000. But around Minamisoma, there are still so many workers that residents in the northern part of town – which is not under evacuation orders – complain 16 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

of heavy traffic as laborers commute to job sites and orange, yellow and turquoise backhoes and other equipment is moved from field to field.

The fruits of the laborers’ efforts are stacked in those giant sacks – 5.5 million of them and counting. They are spread out across Fukushima province, along roadsides, in parking lots and backyards. They are tagged and bar-coded so authorities know what’s inside and how radioactive it is – and when the bags might start to wear out.

As the bags pile up and workers fan out across the landscape, some locals are questioning the cost-benefit analysis.

“Decontamination – the activity is endless. The huge amount they are spending, maybe it would be better spent helping residents” resettle elsewhere, says Hoshi Iwao, a former city official in Minamisoma. Unlike tsunami victims whose

concedes Karimata. “After the evacuation, many people wanted to return, but it’s been four years, and now it’s maybe half. The longer it takes, the more the numbers will be reduced.”

Karimata, who spent his career doing rural development with the Agriculture Ministry and worked in hardship posts including Pakistan and Ethiopia, hovers over a map showing the evacuation zone.

Pink areas are places the government says residents “will have difficulties returning for a long time” and cannot go without permission; green and yellow areas have lower radiation, and people can enter during the daytime but not stay overnight. That’s where the work brigades have been dispatched.

Twenty thousand people from Minamisoma remain evacuated, and Karimata has until March 2016 to decontaminate 5,000 houses and yards in his zone of

responsibility. So far, they’ve finished just 360. He has 3,300 workers in Minamisoma, and another 1,000 in the adjacent town of Namie; they’re working six days a week. “This kind of work is new for everyone,” he says.

Besides Karimata’s district, there are four other branch offices in charge of other zones.

In addition to wiping down roofs, gutters and walls, the workers scrape several inches of soil off the most contaminated farmland and replace it. Less-contaminated ground is “turned over” to a depth of 12 to 16 inches. Forest areas are also being attended to as well – within 65 feet of homes. That work is complex, Karimata says, because radioactive material fell on leaves in 2011, and those leaves then dropped to the ground, and have been covered over by several more seasons of detritus.

I

n the long term, Japan’s target is to reduce radiation in decontaminated areas to less than 1 millisievert per year on top of normal background levels.

The Environment Ministry wants to wrap up the cleaning brigades by 2017, but where to put all the material they’ve collected remains a vexing challenge.

Authorities recently started construction on a massive specialized landfill in a pink zone just outside the Fukushima Daiichi plant. When complete, it is expected to hold between 16 million and 22 million bags of debris – enough to fill about 15 baseball stadiums.

Although construction has begun on the so-called Interim Storage Facility, not all the landfill area has been secured from the owners, who are reluctant to sell their property even as they realize returning to that area in their lifetimes remains highly unlikely.

“People love their land and don’t want to release it,” said Tetsuya Nakashima, director of the project for the Environment Ministry. “This is their personal land, and they want it clean too.”

Further community consultations will be necessary on issues such as transport routes and safety plans, said Nakashima.

The national government has promised that the material will be disposed of “outside of Fukushima” after 30 years, but hasn’t determined where that might be.

Even if all those details could be

worked out immediately, there is still the question of just how to get millions of bags of radioactive debris to the landfill.

A 10-ton truck can only carry seven bags at a time. At that rate, transport could take decades. Material might have to be put into fresh bags if they start to break down before they can be moved.

Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of Tokyo University’s Radioisotope Center, who has been recruited by Minamisoma to chair its Committee to Promote Decontamination, says the government’s plan is “nearly impossible” and makes no sense.

“The government is simply putting soil into bags with no plan for recycling,” said Kodama, who has been visiting the area on a weekly basis. “The residents don’t trust the government so much.”

Only if the material is condensed will it be possible to gather it in a central location, Kodama believes.

Kodama believes some decontamination of bagged waste can be done locally. To that end, he has been trying

to encourage authorities to build local waste recycling facilities that heat soil to high temperatures to remove radioactive material like cesium. A demonstration project that can process 10 tons a day has already been built in Iitate, a ghost town just west of Minamisoma that just before the disaster had been named one of Japan’s most beautiful villages.

For now, Karimata’s brigades are laying down sand and waterproof sheeting on a 50-acre plot that used to be a rice field; the area will hold 400,000 of the one-ton bags for about three years, officials said, before they are presumably moved again.

Karimata knows he’s in a bit of a race against time. “The old people, the evacuees, they are stressed and want to come back so I want to help make that happen,” he says.

“This work is very important. At the end of my career, I’m happy to be doing this. It will be recorded in history, and maybe 100 years from now my descendants will feel proud.”

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 17

Words by Karen Garloch

A

LIFE

OF A CHILD, & A FAMILY, CHANGED PERMANENTLY 18 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

s they started their family, Theresa and Lucas Black dutifully got their children immunized, never doubting their doctor’s word that vaccines are safe and necessary.

But their faith in those promises was shaken in 2001, when their 3-month-old daughter, Angelica, developed life-threatening seizures and brain damage just three days after getting several vaccinations.

The child’s neurologist diagnosed her with vaccine-related encephalopathy, or brain injury. And in 2006, the little-known US federal “vaccine court” agreed, awarding Angelica nearly $2 million plus about $250,000 a year for medical expenses for the rest of her life.

Despite the ruling that vaccines caused her daughter’s brain damage, Theresa Black said she has felt bullied in recent weeks by reaction to the California measles outbreak that has spread to 16 other states.

Health officials have stressed repeatedly that vaccines are safe, and some people have suggested that parents who choose not to get their children vaccinated are selfish and willfully endangering the lives of others.

“There’s people out there calling for us to get jailed,” Black said. “I am not a freak. I am not trying to endanger anyone’s child. ... I actually think vaccinating is a good thing. My problem is I don’t think they are as safe as they could be. ... There are bad things that happen.”

Today, Angelica is 14 and profoundly disabled.

She has cerebral palsy and a seizure disorder. She is unable to speak. She uses a feeding tube and a wheelchair. Because she requires around-the-clock attention, her parents quit their jobs to care for her.

Renee Gentry, the lawyer who represented the Blacks before the vaccine court, said she too has been bothered by some reaction to the measles outbreak. “People are saying there’s absolutely no evidence that vaccines cause brain injury, and we’re

sitting here with all these cases. It’s rare ... but they clearly have happened.”

Angelica’s case is one of thousands that have sought compensation from the US National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Since 1988, when the vaccine court was established

by Congress, about 4,000 victims have received more than $2.8 billion in compensation for vaccine injuries, according to federal records. In fiscal year 2014 alone, the court granted $202 million to 365 vaccine-injury victims.

Most people have never heard of the vaccine court or the compensation program.

It came about in the 1980s because pharmaceutical companies were facing an increase in lawsuits claiming adverse reactions, mainly from the diphtheriatetanus-pertussis (DPT) vaccine. Sympathetic juries awarded millions of dollars in some cases. Some manufacturers left the market and shortages loomed.

Congress decided that, instead of suing vaccine makers, people would first have to seek compensation from the court, funded by a surcharge on vaccines. The fund balance now is $3.5 billion. Awards are decided by special masters in the US Court of Federal Claims.

Under the law, plaintiffs cannot seek punitive damages or losses to family members as they can in civil court. But the process was intended to be speedier, with a lower burden of proof.

The federal law created a table of injuries listing certain symptoms that could be blamed on the vaccine if they occurred within a specified time after the vaccination. For example, in Angelica’s case, the window for developing seizures after a pertus-

sis vaccination was 72 hours. Her seizures started within 70 hours.

Initially most cases involved “table injuries” that were conceded by the government, said Gentry, president of the Vaccine Injured Petitioners Bar Association, a group of lawyers who specialise in these cases.

But in recent years, Gentry said cases have become more adversarial; plaintiffs “have to prove actual causation,” and lawyers for both the plaintiffs and the federal government call expert witnesses.

Awards have ranged from $1,100 to more than $30 million, said David Bowman, spokesman for the Health Resources and Services Administration.

In 26 years, 15,747 petitions have been filed with the vaccine compensation program, and 3,941 received awards – about 1 in 4.

Peter Sarda, a lawyer, has won 17 vaccine court cases

SINCE 1988, WHEN THE VACCINE COURT WAS ESTABLISHED BY CONGRESS, ABOUT 4,000 VICTIMS HAVE RECEIVED MORE THAN $2.8 BILLION IN COMPENSATION FOR VACCINE INJURIES, ACCORDING TO FEDERAL RECORDS

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 19

since 1990, including the case of a 2-year-old who suffered brain damage after getting a chicken pox vaccination in 2008. In December, the court awarded the child lump sums totaling $1.9 million, plus annual medical expenses for the rest of his life. If he lives to 72, the award could total $14 million, Sarda said.

The boy’s mother took her older daughter in October 2008 to get a chicken pox vaccination, Sarda said. While there, a health care provider offered to vaccinate her son as well. Although the mother thought her 2-year-old had been vaccinated against chicken pox, she didn’t have his records and wasn’t sure. He got the vaccine, and two weeks later he developed seizures and was subsequently diagnosed with encephalitis, or permanent brain damage.

N

ow 8, the boy is “totally impaired,” Sarda said.

“He cannot even sit up. ... The mother still blames herself for not grabbing the kids and leaving.” Medical records show the boy had received a chicken pox vaccination a year earlier.

Despite the vaccine-injury cases he’s won, Sarda said he’s a “firm believer in vaccines” and that vaccine injuries are “very rare.”

Born on Nov. 12, 2000, Angelica Black is the seventh of Theresa and Lucas Black’s 11 children.

She was developing normally until she got four vaccines when she was almost 3 months old. Three days later, Angelica was “sighing and cooing and playing” when Theresa Black left for her job as a restaurant manager. Later, when Lucas Black checked on her, the baby wasn’t breathing.

Angelica was transported by ambulance to a medical centre, and Theresa Black, who rode along, said the baby barely had a pulse. She started having seizures in the emergency room.

Doctors transferred Angelica to another centre, where she stayed in the pediatric intensive care unit for two weeks. Dr. Robert Nahouraii, a pediatric neurologist with Mecklenburg Neurological Associates, eventually concluded she had a reaction to the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine.

While dealing with Angelica’s health problems, Theresa Black continued to get her children vaccinated. Over the next three years, four of the other children were diagnosed with medical and developmental conditions, including two with disorders on the autism spectrum. By that time, Theresa Black said her “very pro-vaccination doctors” agreed with her decision to stop having her children vaccinated.

In 2003, the Blacks filed their claim with the vaccine court, and both Nahouraii and Dr. Amy Ferguson wrote letters in support.

Angelica had been a “normal, healthy baby” before that day in the ER, Ferguson said in an interview.

“This is truly one of those rare (vaccine) reactions that was just devastating. ... She was as sick as you can get and not die.”

20 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

Ferguson continues to recommend vaccines for most children because they protect against “terrible illnesses that we used to see.”

Unlike some pediatricians, Ferguson said she and her partners will continue to work with parents who question the safety of vaccines. “I still think they have a right to choose what they want for their child.”

It took three years for the Blacks to get a vaccine court ruling, in 2006, and another two years to be compensated.

Angelica received two lump sums totaling more than $1.2 million. They included $555,000 for lost future earnings, $216,000 for “pain and suffering,” $437,000 for medical expenses in the first year after the award, and $7,000 for past unreimbursed medical expenses. A separate payment of about $205,000 went to North Carolina’s Medicaid program to reimburse for past care.

Another amount was set aside to buy annuities to pay lifetime expenses for Angelica’s medical care.

Records show she has received more than $250,000 per year since 2009 and similar amounts are designated for future years. The money is kept in a trust and administered by a court-appointed guardian.

The court award covers Angelica’s care, but Theresa Black said the rest of the family is living at “pretty much poverty level. There have been times when I could barely afford shoes for the other kids.

“Everyone in this house has been affected,” she said. “Nothing will ever be the same.”

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Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 21

‘It’s What I Do’

A war-zone photographer’s harrowing memoir

I

Words by Carol J. Williams

t would be easy for “normal” people to conclude that journalists chronicling war and disaster are anything but.

Why would anyone in his or her right mind leave the comfort of home to document the savagery inflicted by Islamic terrorists on any Western hostage they can get their hands on? Or to witness the sadistic mutilation of rival factions’ women in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Only someone a little crazy does that, the uninitiated might conclude. Or bent on basking in the glory of capturing an iconic image with wanton disregard for one’s own mortality. But such assumptions are a superficial and unfair reading of a journalist’s motivation to bring the reality of suffering, instability and injustice to the consciousness of those who 22 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

might be moved to try to right the world’s wrongs.

In Lynsey Addario’s memoir, It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War, precociously undertaken before she turned 40, she endeavors to explain the “why?”

She takes the reader through a decade of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq after Sept. 11, 2001, then on to the Arab Spring. As if to set the record straight on the death-wish allegation, Addario opens her story with a harrowing account of being trapped between the rebels and Moammar Kadafi’s gunmen in the chaotic months before the Libyan leader was captured and executed.

“I hadn’t covered Tunisia and Egypt, because I was on assignment in Afghanistan, and it had pained me to miss such important moments in history. I wasn’t going to miss Libya,” Addario writes of one of the

most powerful drivers that compel journalists to downgrade potential danger.

She and three other veteran conflict journalists were taken captive by Kadafi’s gunmen, who bound and blindfolded them for the hour’s long ride in the back of a pickup during which the men were punched and rifle-butted and Addario was fondled. The Libyan experience conveys effectively the judgment lapses and regrets that consume journalists when they ignore the ever-present subconscious hazard detector.

Failure to heed those warnings is an occupational hazard, especially for female journalists traveling with male colleagues. Addario expresses through-

out the memoir her aversion to being seen as “the girl,” more easily scared and inclined to leave the scene.

“The fact is that trauma and risk taking hadn’t become scarier over the years; it had become more normal,” she writes of her oscillating regret and resignation during the detention at a Kadafi prison and guesthouse.

Like Addario, I have a husband who is a journalist and understands the compulsion to cover the consequences of US foreign-policy decisions. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” my husband would say to me as I was leaving.

And I’d try not to dwell too much on broken promises as I clung to a Haitian motorbike driver taking me on a slalom ride through burning tire barricades.

Addario seldom waxes remorseful in her richly illustrated memoir except when acknowledging the emotional trauma imposed on those who care about her. She recalls the year her mother fell into a coma after a car accident: “My family chose not to tell me, because I was far away and there was nothing I could do.”

Then there are the professional disappointments that inevitably afflict writers and photographers seeking to present a truthful image that military public affairs officers feel duty-bound to suppress. Addario’s devastating moment came after a grueling two-month embed with US forces in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. A disturbing image she had taken of a young boy injured in a US bombing raid was left out of the published photo essay for the New York Times Magazine because “the editor trusted the US military public affairs officer – whose main responsibility was to polish the image of the US military to the greater public – over us,” Addario recalls with a bitterness lingering seven years later.

She also recounts the deaths of colleagues that have saddened and shocked her, including the New York Times’ Anthony Shadid, who had been among the trio with which she was taken hostage in Libya. He died in February 2012 from an acute asthma attack while making his way out of Syria.

Addario’s memoir is replete with the downsides of witnessing war and chronicling its myriad tragedies, all of which leaves the reader struggling with “why?”

Her answers are vague, as reflected in the memoir’s title. There is little historical context in the memoir, and Addario herself seems mystified by what she sees at times.

The book, though, doesn’t aspire to make sense of our violence-wracked world. It is narrowly focused on explaining photojournalism and the psychic rewards of influencing policymakers.

She conveys well her unstated mission to stir the emotions of people like herself, born into relative security and prosperity, nudging them out of their comfort zones with visual evidence of horrors they might do something about. It is a diary of an empathetic young woman who makes understanding the wider world around her a professional calling.

By the end of her memoir, Addario slows ever so briefly to have a child with the man she marries after a minutely detailed decade of relationship misfires.

Still, she returns to the scenes of chaos and violence, burdened anew with the fears that her young son will grow up motherless.

“As a war correspondent and a mother, I’ve learned to live in two different realities ... but it’s my choice,” she concludes.

“I choose to live in peace and witness war – to experience the worst in people but to remember the beauty.”

It’s what she does.

Williams has been a foreign correspondent since 1984, covering the Eastern Europe revolutions as well as the violent rebellions and wars in the former Yugoslav republics, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine.

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War

By Lynsey Addario Penguin Press, $29.95

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 23

HERS health

Power of music Words by Jeff Strickler

F

or two hours every Wednesday morning, Tom and Julie Allen feel like a couple again.

That’s when they rehearse with the Giving Voice Chorus, a choir that’s open to Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers. Except those labels are never used, which is one of the things that makes the mornings so special.

“Once you get the diagnosis (of Alzheimer’s), you’re identified as either the patient or the caregiver. You start to feel less like spouses,” said Tom

24 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

Allen, who takes a half-day of vacation on Wednesdays so he can attend the rehearsals. “In this environment, we’re husband and wife. This is one of the few things that we can still do as a couple. ... We love this choir.”

The chorus was launched by Mary Lenard, director of the Minnesota Leadership Council on Aging, and Marge Ostroushko, a radio producer whose credits range from “A Prairie Home Companion” to “Speaking of Faith.” They share a longtime friendship, a can-do attitude and an intimate experience with Alzheimer’s: Lenard’s father and Ostroushko’s mother.

For the choir members, the rehearsals offer a musical trip down memory lane, in the songs they sing – a repertoire that runs from “Fly Me to the Moon” to “Happy Trails” – and in the way they feel.

“This gives them a chance to remember who they were before the diagnosis,” Lenard said. “Members of the chorus can do things here that they can’t do anywhere else. They can come here and sing; they can make friends; they can be part of a community.”

Sue Erickson marvels at what being in the chorus has done for her husband, Bruce. “It’s made a real difference in his self-esteem,” she said, noting that his ability to sing offsets the frustration he feels about other things that challenge him. “They gave him a practice CD (of the choir’s songs), and every time we get in the car, he sings with it. He even lobbied for a solo part, and he got it. I’m so proud of him.”

Over the past decade, there has been a growing body of research on the positive effect singing has on people who are battling dementia. (Researchers from the University of Minnesota are studying the chorus in hopes of adding to that data.) People who struggle to remember a family member’s name can recall complicated song lyrics at length.

Once the rehearsal starts, everyone joins in so enthusiastically that a casual observer can’t tell the singers who have memory issues from the caregivers.

“That’s the beauty of it,” Ostroushko said.

According to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, music involves “the motor centre of the brain that responds directly to auditory rhythmic cues. A person’s ability to engage in music ... remains intact late into the disease process.” As a

result, music “can spark compelling outcomes,” including facilitating cognitive function and motor movements.

Science aside, the chorus members just know that something special happens, said Karen Sonday, who joined with her sister, Barb Neafus.

“Our first day here, Barb cried,” Sonday said. “She said it was too good to be true. For the next week, the choir was all she talked about. She even carried her (song) book with her all week.”

The chorus is led by Jeanie ­Brindley-Barnett, who is equal parts musical director and cheerleader.

“Follow me and everything is going to be all right,” she promised as the choir prepared to sing “We’ve Only Just Begun.”

At the end of the song, she let out a loud whoop and exclaimed, “Tap somebody on the shoulder and tell them: ‘Good job!’”

She was still enthused after the rehearsal. “They teach me more than I teach them,” she said. “They have made me aware of the now. When I start to get frazzled, I slow down and experience the moment.”

Living in the moment is a common practice for people facing Alzheimer’s, Lenard said.

“Some of them don’t remember a lot about the past, and they don’t know what the future holds,” she said.

“So they focus on being together in the present.”

No previous musical experience is required. The members who don’t know how to read music get printouts of just the lyrics; the melodies are familiar.

Still, some people are a little hesitant at first.

Jerry Semmler was one of them.

“Mary and Marge came to one of my Alzheimer support groups and said they were going to start a chorus,” he said. “It sounded like a good idea, but I didn’t want to come. I’d never been in a choir. But then I thought, maybe I’ll come just to see what’s happening. And once I came, I was hooked.”

For many of the members, the chorus is as much about socializing as music.

“Every Wednesday is a love fest,” Brindley-Barnett said.

Marvin Lofquist relishes the opportunity to lower his social defences and just be himself. “I feel free to participate when people know my problem,” he said.

“I have cognitive ability, but I have trouble remembering things. It’s very freeing for me to participate in a group that understands my limits.”

Often, people who are not familiar with memory issues don’t know how to deal with people who are afflicted by them, Ostroushko said.

“Many times, when a person gets a diagnosis, their friends start pulling away,” she said. “They become more isolated. This is a place where they will be accepted for who they are. They can come and enjoy each other’s company.”

And enjoy it, they do.

“The people are so friendly here,” Neafus said as

Many times, when a person gets a diagnosis, their friends start pulling away. They become more isolated. This is a place where they will be accepted for who they are she and her sister prepared to join the rest of the choir for cookies and coffee during a break in the rehearsal. “You can talk to anybody – and we love to talk.”

The chorus was launched in September and has succeeded beyond anything its founders anticipated.

It’s up to about 60 members, not counting a halfdozen who will be returning soon.

“This was an experiment,” Ostroushko said. “We had no idea what to expect.”

Lenard agreed. “We wrote up a one-page statement of intent listing our goals and then ran all over town with pieces of paper,” she said. “We were looking for funding and recruiting members, but we didn’t know how it was going to work out.”

Everything fell into place when the centre offered to partner with the chorus as part of its Music for Life program.

“When they embraced us, it changed everything,” Ostroushko said. “It gave us structure, it gave us this beautiful space and it gave us student services, which provides volunteers to come in and help.”

The public response has surprised them, too. The chorus scheduled a concert in December, thinking it would be mostly for family and friends. The auditorium quickly filled. A second show was added, which also played to a full house.

More concerts are scheduled, including appearances in April and June.

The original plan was to have the chorus take the summer off, but the members are pressuring Lenard and Ostroushko to keep it going.

“Right now we only have enough money to get us through June, so we’ll have to see what we can do about that,” Ostroushko said. “But I understand how people feel. Alzheimer’s doesn’t take a break.”

Lenard said they feel obligated to do everything they can to help.

“I had no idea how much fondness I was going to end up feeling for these people,” she said. “I really care for these people, and they really care for each other.”

That emotion is clearly visible. Back at rehearsal, Brindley-Barnett noticed that a newcomer was struggling. She reached out and held the woman’s hand.

“There is no wrong in this room,” she told the woman. “That is our favourite saying.”

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 25

HERS althealth

Lyprinol reduces muscle damage Words by Ian Wishart

I

t’s a topic of hot medical debate at the moment – whether over the counter pain relief for injuries and muscle aches could be doing us more harm than good.

There’s emerging research that suggests taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory painkillers could actually slow down your recovery dramatically… because it puts the body’s natural repair mechanisms to sleep in those crucial first hours after a strain or injury.

Pain, as we’ve all been told since schooldays, is our body’s messenger that something is wrong. Not just to our consciousness, as it turns out, but the pain response also triggers biological repair agents to rapidly head to the wound area. Inflammation, likewise, is a red-light going off in the body.

Without a sense of pain, and without inflammation, the natural repair teams don’t deploy – so the argument goes, and injuries can take much longer to heal, requiring more use of painkillers – a serious case of commercial pharmaceutical irony.

It was a doctor who first warned me of this, the second time I broke a toe. “Don’t take anti-inflammatories for the first 24 hours,” he said. “Allow your body’s natural healing system to begin doing its work first. After 24 hours, if you still feel the need, then you can pop a pill.”

The first time I broke a toe I’d taken NSAIDs instantly. The toe took six months to come right.

This time, it took about four weeks.

All of which is why the latest research on the powerful marine Omega-3, Lyprinol, caught my attention recently, because it was making the same point, in scientific language, about muscle pain after exercise, known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS):1 “The use of non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and continued exercise appear to be the most commonly used methods to treat DOMS. However, while the use of NSAIDs has been shown to decrease perceived muscle soreness and pain associated with DOMS, they fail to impact the length or degree of muscle weakness, may be

26 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

detrimental to muscle cell repair and adaptation by decreasing satellite cell activity, and have been shown to suppress the protein synthesis response in skeletal muscle after eccentric resistance exercise.”

Scientist Tim Mickleborough graced the pages of Investigate in August 2013, with ground breaking research showing the active ingredient in Lyprinol, marine lipid PCSO-524, significantly reduced the frequency and severity of asthma attacks brought on by physical exertion.

The secret lay in Lyprinol’s own anti-inflammatory properties. Mickleborough has now told ScienceDaily that those asthma study results got him thinking, what if it works on muscle inflammation as well? Turns out, it did.

In a randomised controlled trial, just published, Mickleborough tested a group of men at Indiana University by giving them Lyprinol for 26 days, then putting them through a punishing exercise experiment. He found those taking Lyprinol not only felt better, but tests on their blood proved they’d suffered much less muscle damage and inflammation than those who were given a placebo.

Both groups still suffered soreness as a result of exercise, but for those on placebo the pain lasted much longer and was stronger, compared with those taking Lyprinol. More significantly, there was independent confirmation in the blood results, meaning it wasn’t just a ‘feeling’.

The study showed you couldn’t just pop a Lyprinol like pain relief…you had to be taking it regularly. As a specialised Omega-3 extract, Lyprinol already has all the existing Omega-3 research behind it, justifying its use as a daily supplement anyway, but its unique chemistry means it could also be a crucial ingredient in the diet of anyone leading an active physical life who wants fewer injuries and less downtime.

References: 1. Mickleborough et al. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (2015) 12:10 DOI 10.1186/s12970-015-0073-z

Both groups still suffered soreness as a result of exercise, but for those on placebo the pain lasted much longer and was stronger, compared with those taking Lyprinol

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 27

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Farewell to pores with the arrival of Baby Skin Pore Eraser – Maybelline New York’s revolutionary route to baby-soft skin in seconds. The lightweight and breathable gel uses a combination formula of silicon elastomer and antioxidants to moisturise and smooth skin in a matte finish. RRP$14.99 www.maybelline.com

Hopping on and off buses, from cafés to cabs, up curbs and through the city, with its agile chassis, ease of fold and innovative, spacious storage capsule, this quick and lightweight stroller is the smart choice for urban adventures with your newborn or toddler. The option of a lie-flat position allows the Raspberry pushchair to be used from birth without the use of a carrycot. www.icandyworld.com

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Meet this season’s cheekiest blush on the block - Master Glaze Blush. The portable cream stick is infused with shimmer pearls and shea butter to add a dewy shine to cheeks. RRP$14.99 www.maybelline.com

The spirit of the Kingdom of Colors collection captured in a graphic palette embossed with the personal crest of Christian Dior. Ten custom textures for a full beauty makeover: face, eyes and lips. A mattifying skin-perfecting powder, a pearly highlighter and a coral blush enhance the complexion. A deep purple enhanced with a silver shadow, an illuminating touch of aqua green and a black eyeliner define the eyes. www.dior.com

Meet Color Sensational’s newest drama queen – Color Drama Lip Pencil. The slim pencil packs double the pigments of an ordinary lipstick, while the nourishing oils enrich the formula for a smooth semi-matte velvet finish. Apply as you would a lipstick for lips that major in drama.

Available in ten shades. RRP$9.99 www.maybelline.com

Beyoncé Heat Wild Orchid is an enticing, mouth-watering fragrance that emits a fierce, feminine energy. At the heart of it all is the Butterfly Orchid, believed to have magical aphrodisiac qualities, which gives the scent its exotic signature. It is enveloped by an addictive mélange of fruits, florals and woods to create a captivating and memorable scent. www.beyonceparfums.com

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 29

Sleek Smartphones $579 OCTO-CORE 200 phone | Telecom 0 Experience the power of an eight-core smartphone.

Let’s put this phone in perspective: more built-in storage (32GB) than a Samsung Galaxy S4 (16GB). A higher resolution display than an iPhone 5S. Plus the power of not dual core, not quad core like the Galaxy, but a stoking great 8 cores, and a monster 5 inch screen (compared to 4 inch on iPhone 5S) Your choice of black or white. Tuned for Telecom/ Skinny 3G with 2G service for Vodafone/2Deg Android 4.2, 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth Corning Gorilla Glass 5 Inch Display Dual sim (Telecom in Sim 1, Vodafone/2Degrees in Sim 2) 1.7GHz Octo Core CPU 1GB RAM 8MP Camera Click here to view specs or purchase

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HERS beauty

It’s a wrap: Fashion trends that lit up the runways Words by Sara Bauknecht

A

t New York Fashion Week, which wrapped last month, we said goodbye to Lincoln Center’s signature tents and hello to trends for autumn/winter 2015.

Many designers gave a nod to the cliché “everything old is new again” by refreshing and remixing past trends for today’s style savvy. Others embodied the spirit of the approaching chilly season by working in colours and luscious layers that capture its hibernative hush.

32 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

So when the temperatures drop in autumn, there will be lots of versatile trends to heat up ready-towear fashion. Here’s a runway recap of some of them: That ‘70s show: The decade was probably designers’

single-most cited inspiration for autumn 2015. Some capitalized on the glamour of the era, while others channeled its laid-back, hippie-chic vibe. But rather than literally translating the fashions of the times for today, designers used references sparingly – a

little tweed here, lots of fringe there. Plus there was the occasional fitted, high-waisted pant with flared bottom paired with a blousy top. Groovy!

Fur foray: It was hard to miss it – Fur was everywhere.

It covered coats and hats. It trimmed sleeves and necklines and hemlines of skirts and dresses. Even handbags came in all-over fur varieties. Designers did it in real and faux in colours such as chocolate, black, charcoal and tan. Furrier-to-the-stars Dennis Basso even tried it in camo by subtly swirling shades together. For the ultimate casual-luxe look, designers such as Ralph Lauren and Zac Posen paired a fur hat or top, respectively, with evening wear.

Strong meets sensual: Several designers created col-

lections with an image in mind of a woman who can hold her own but also has a softer, seductive side.

This came through in pin-striped wrap dresses and suits, moody hues, luxe laces and androgynousmeets-feminine silhouettes.

Statement outerwear: Beat the cold weather blues

this autumn by bundling up in coats of many colours and styles. Peacoats, cape coats, quilted jackets and ones accented in everything from sparkle to shearling flooded runways. For an extra dose of coziness, designers added an oversized scarf or stole to the mix.

Hair hardware and bold accessories: Break out your

hair clips – They’re back! Designers dressed up models’ hair for the runway with simple accessories such as hair combs slipped into long locks or skinny barrettes used to hold back a low ponytail.

Accessories also caught the eye, usually because of their size. Dangling chandelier earrings and long necklaces with oversized pendants were the most common kinds.

Embellished to the max: Designers drenched every-

thing from day-to-day separates to red carpet-worthy dresses in beading, jewels and sequins. Other options: feathers (as trim or all-over accents on skirts or dresses) and embroidery.

It was hard to miss it – Fur was everywhere. It covered coats and hats.

It trimmed sleeves and necklines and hemlines of skirts and dresses.

Even handbags came in all-over fur varieties

Toned-down hues: Timed with New York Fashion

Week, forecasters at Pantone released their colour report for the season, predicting that the “it” palette for autumn will include dried herb, desert sage, stormy weather blue, oak buff, Biscay Bay teal, reflecting pond (a cool blue), cadmium orange, cashmere rose, amethyst orchid and marsala, the Pantone colour of the year for 2015. Designers seemed to agree with the colour forecast, taking a break from the sugary winter pastels and bright color pops that were popular on autumn and winter runways in

recent years. This time, it was all about neutrals and muted shades, complemented by rich jewel tones.

Boots, boots and more boots: Looks got leggy with

boots of all heights: short, below the knee, at the knee and thigh-high. They cropped up in all sorts of neutrals and were paired with both pants and formal looks, often playing peek-a-boo as they came into sight through a slit in a gown or a long flowing skirt.

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 33

HERS cuisine

Duck season James Morrow has a great recipe, but first, catch your duck…

T

he other day I was browsing in my favourite bookstore when I happened upon a collection of essays by the British environmentalist George Monbiot.

Now in case you don’t spend your day skiving off work and surfing political weblogs on company time, George Monbiot is one of those sensitive, dystopian souls who have managed to make a not inconsiderable pile of dough telling us how just plain awful everything is, and how we should all abandon the cities to live in isolation or in small clusters in peat bogs or other wilderness to do penance for the sins of humanity, and how it doesn’t really matter anyway if we do because all life on Earth is about to be destroyed by hellfire anyway.

In other words, he sounds a lot like one of those early Christians who believed that Jesus was due back any minute, urging anyone who would listen to repent – the end is near!

Of course there is one major difference between those early hermits of the Levant and this modernday Stylite: where the Christians of old believed in God and sought eternal life, today’s modern ecologist seeks no such thing.

Don’t believe me? It’s right there on the back of

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Monbiot’s book, which promises, among other things, to explain why (I quote from memory) “eternal death is preferable to eternal life”.

Doesn’t get much more explicit than that.

This is the sort of guy who plays Logan’s Run backwards so that it has a happy ending.

I thought of this because I keep hearing other stories about environmentalists behaving like your more violent strains of religious fundamentalists.

(Not to single anyone out, but I think we all know I’m not talking about Presbyterians).

In the US, for example, a street of luxury display homes was recently torched by, authorities believe, members of the radical Earth Liberation Front, a fundamentalist green group that has caused countless millions of dollars worth of damage to ski resorts, auto lots, and anything else that represents the resource-sucking bourgeoisie (ie, you and I).

And in England a number of restaurants that once served that great delicacy, foie gras, have bowed to attacks – real or threatened – and stopped serving the specially fattened livers of geese or ducks on their tables.

Yet to anyone who has studied the issue, and really cares about animal welfare, artisinally-produced foie

gras leaves little to complain about. It’s the sort of business extolled by the “slow food” movement. The fattening process is a natural one in migratory birds (ancient Egyptians first prized livers of birds making their seasonal sea change for this very reason) and the farmer simply helps along the process.

Meanwhile the whole capitalist edifice that is responsible for the battery-raised chicken, which leads a life that is truly nasty, brutish and short, is left unmolested.

What this all goes to prove is that the pointy edge of the environmentalist wedge is not so much directed at changing or eliminating things that do real damage to flora or fauna, but rather things that are aesthetically displeasing to people who can’t stand the widespread prosperity of the capitalist post-World War II West.

And just as with rioters who used the occasion of a few cartoons in a Danish magazine to wind back the West’s hard-fought for tradition of free speech, it’s not about redressing actual torts as it is seeing how much one can get away with in the quest to remake society.

On my side of the ditch, at least, foie gras is vanishingly hard to come by. The real stuff isn’t even allowed to be produced locally, thanks to the efforts of animal rights activists years ago. What is imported has generally had to be heated or preserved in such a way as to get it through Australia’s quarantine regulations – another bane of the food-lover’s existence, but that is another story.

Yet, for now, one can still have duck. Which is good, because as a meat it has a taste like no other.

Slightly gamey, firm of flesh, with a delicious fat that can be rendered for use in confit, or slowly crisped to a delicious “cracklin’”. Too many people are afraid of cooking duck, but it’s just a question of managing your heat right. Well-bred ducks aren’t greasy, either, so forget about the oily, chewy stuff that featured in Chinese restaurants ages ago. Properly cooked and sliced, duck breasts present as beautiful medallions of meat and stand up well to other flavours. And there is no better match for duck than some of New Zealand’s heartier pinot noirs.

What are you waiting for? Get quackin’!

Honey-Roasted Duck This is a great starter dish for anyone interested in trying out some duck breasts, which should be available from your local butcher or food hall. I always have a pair of cryovac’d duck breasts in the fridge from my local – they keep for weeks – and this is a notuncommon semi-special weeknight dinner around my place. The key here is the slow rendering of the fat – take your time – before finishing the thing off in the oven.

You’ll need: 4 175g duck breasts, with skin on Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper Pinch of Chinese five spice Olive oil 1-2 tbsp honey 2 tbsp soy sauce 200g green beans 85g toasted hazelnuts 100ml hazelnut oil 200ml olive oil 100ml sherry vinegar

Method 1. Score the skin of the duck breasts in a criss cross pattern with a very sharp knife. Season the duck breast generously with salt and the five spice and rub into the skin thoroughly.

2. Place the duck breasts, skin-side down, on a dry ovenproof pan and cook over very low heat to render down most of the fat. This may take 8-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fat.

3. Now turn up the heat and fry until the skin is crisp. Turn the duck breasts over and cook the other side for another 3-4 minutes. Just before the duck is ready, drizzle the honey and soy sauce over. Toss and turn the duck in the honey and soy and cook until the liquid has reduced to a syrupy glaze. Transfer the duck to a warm plate and leave to rest for 5-10 minutes.

4. Get a pan of boiling water for the beans with a large pinch of salt. Add the beans to the water and cook for no more than one minute. Meanwhile, crush the hazelnuts lightly with a pestle and mortar. Drain the beans thoroughly and pat dry with kitchen paper.

Whisk the oils and sherry vinegar together with some seasoning.

Toss the beans in the vinaigrette to taste.

5. To serve, place the bean salad off centre on warm plates. Slice the duck lengthways and place on top. Drizzle any remaining pan juices over and finish with a small drizzle of the vinaigrette.

(Adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food).

Properly cooked and sliced, duck breasts present as beautiful medallions of meat and stand up well to other flavours Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 35

HERS travel

Middle Earth, on Chiloe Island Words by Anne Z. Cooke

T

he farm woman selling the orange and pink hand-knit dolls at the farm market in Castro, on Chiloe Island, is telling me where she gets the wool, I’m trying to answer, and we’ve hit a dead end. We’re both speaking Spanish. After all, Chiloe belongs to Chile. But we might as well be shouting in the wind.

“She’s says the wool comes from her sheep and she spins it herself,” says Rodrigo Guridi, appearing at my elbow. A guide and longtime resident of Chiloe Island – the largest island of the Chiloe Archipelago – Guridi had already unraveled a couple of mysteries for me and my husband, Steve, explaining that Chiloe’s unique culture – people, language, farming and fishing – is the result of more than three hundred years of isolation.

The next time, visit in autumn – March and April in the southern hemisphere – after summer vacation ends, he says. Local tourists go home and the leaves turn red and yellow. Now he tells me, I’m thinking, wondering what comes next.

Things are seldom what they seem here in Middle Earth, Chile’s little-known step-child, a cluster of green hills rising out of the southern Pacific Ocean.

Skim milk doesn’t masquerade as cream, exactly, and hobbits are thin on the ground. But as the growing number of foreign travelers touring this

36 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

40-island archipelago, at 42 degrees south, west of the Gulf of Ancud, have discovered, every day brings a new surprise.

After a two-day stopover in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, where Salina, a new friend and movie fan, said Chiloe Island, also known as Chiloe Grande, reminded her of “the shire,” I wasn’t sure what we’d find. Images of dry heat and a scrubby, rocky landscape, something like Argentina’s pampas, wouldn’t go away. But I saw what she meant once we reached our hotel, the Parque Quilquico, perched on a bluff overlooking a long, blue bay.

“Oh, take a look! It’s breathtaking,” gushed the woman who’d shared our cab from the airport.

Beyond the windows lay a wonderland of rolling hills, grassy meadows, leafy trees and half-hidden vales sloping down to the sea. A dozen brown and white cows grazed in the foreground, enjoying the last warm days of summer. Only the hobbits were missing.

The next morning we headed to the farm market, always an unfailing opportunity for colorful photoops. The usual fresh farm produce, raised locally, was a vegetarian’s delight: cabbages; lettuce; tomatoes; onions; carrots; apples; purple, yellow and white potatoes; and honey, breads, fish and cheese. The same wool that made my doll reappeared as nubby grey and brown shawls, hats, socks and blankets.

But what in heck were those ugly dried lumps suspended on long strings, and the dark-green bricks, and the jars full of stringy stalks? And the muddycolored, folded leather things? I’ve said yes to some strange edibles in my time – grilled warthog and seal oil ice cream among them – but this food, if it was food, looked like expired army field rations.

Once again, Guridi stepped up with answers. The

foods on the strings were smoked, dried sea squirts, weird marine creatures pried out of rocks at low tide; and two kinds of smoked mussels. The stalks that looked like sugar cane were the stems of the nalca plant, the so-called giant Chilean rhubarb, so large and healthy it looks carnivorous. The “bricks” were dried seaweed and the folded “leather” was bull kelp, leaves harvested from the sea, dried, folded into squares and tied together with the stems, Christmas gifts from Neptune.

“It’s the old way of doing things, so nothing would be wasted,” said Guridi. “If you wanted to survive on this island, you had to be ingenious.”

It was an accident of history, of course, that shut Chiloe off from the world. After Spain conquered Peru, the conquistadores headed south, expecting to walk over Chile’s indigenous people. But the Mapuche tribes living south of the Bio Bio River weren’t so easily pushed around. Whomping the Spaniards, they chased away the remaining settlers, a group of Spanish and Huilliche Indians, who fled from the mainland to Chiloe.

Alone on the island, the new arrivals intermarried, blending their cultures and creating today’s mostly mestizo population. Early on, Jesuit priests arrived, and traveling from one island to the next, encouraged the converts to build churches. Over time, 70 were erected, each made entirely of wood

joined by wooden pegs. Today, 17 of these exquisite expressions of primitive art have been designated World Heritage Sites and are Chiloe’s best known, most visited attraction.

Motoring across the bay to Chelin and Quehue, two tiny outer islands, we stopped to inspect the bare bones of the Chelin Church, in the midst of a renovation, then anchored in the cove at Quehue, for two perfect hours of kayaking.

The churches are famous. But Chiloe’s signature buildings are the “palafitos,” ancient ramshackle wood houses built on stilts built over Castro’s bay.

No could tell me why these houses, decorated like Easter eggs, weren’t built on dry land, but one guide thought they’d originally belonged to fishermen.

With tidal variations as high as 23 feet, being over the water might keep a fishing boat afloat.

The same tidal variation, in fact, is why thousands of shallow wetlands and estuaries dot Chiloe’s east and west shores, making the islands a top birding destination. If I’d had my binoculars – and a passion for birds – I could have seen Magellanic and Humboldt penguins, Chilean skua, parasitic jaeger, Buller’s albatross, kelp goose, cinnamon teal, blacknecked swans and Chilean Flamingoes.

Driving up and down roads that resemble roller coasters, I wondered if the hills are moraines and whether Chiloe was glaciated during the last ice age.

Apparently so. Ice once entombed the island, except for a narrow strip now within Chiloe National Park.

Despite another rainy day, we joined trained naturalist Pablo Mansilla, a guide with Chiloetnico, a local tour company, for a nature walk through an old-growth rain forest in the southernmost sector.

Exhibits at the interpretive center near the entrance help to make sense of the park’s indigenous flora and fauna, many predating the last Ice Age. The brush in this forest was so tangled and thick and the ground cover so mossy and spongy that bushwhacking was literally impossible. Thank goodness for the long loop of raised boardwalks that gave us a peek at the way it used to be, and answers to at least one of Chiloe’s many mysteries.

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 37

HERS music

Kelly Clarkson offers up a ‘Piece’ of her mind Words by Mikael Wood

T

rue to form, Kelly Clarkson minced no words in a phone call the other day from her home in Nashville, US. But rather than handing it to some no-good guy – as she’s done in brutally frank hit singles like “Since U Been Gone” and “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” – Clarkson was describing the stability she’s found with her husband, whom she married in 2013, and their 8-month-old daughter.

“I’ve never been this happy or felt this loved in my life,” said the singer, 32, in her matter-of-fact way.

“I’m in a really, really great place.”

You can hear that fulfillment on Clarkson’s new album, “Piece by Piece,” which came out earlier this year and immediately shot to the top of the iTunes chart.

“Where the hell did you come from?” she wonders in the record’s upbeat opener, “Heartbeat Song,” “You’re a different kind of fun / And I’m so used to feeling numb.” Later, in the stately title track, she sings about finally overcoming the fear of abandonment she received from her father.

Yet “Piece by Piece,” Clarkson’s seventh studio disc since she won the first season of American Idol in 2002, also has echoes of old recriminations, as in “Someone,” where she apologizes with an audible smirk for saying “things I wish I didn’t really mean.”

And it similarly mixes musical styles, putting airy pop songs next to throbbing dance-rock jams and ballads such as “Tightrope,” an elegy for two out-of-synch lovers.

“No human being on this planet is ever feeling just one emotion or going through just one experience,” she said. “That’s kind of a silly idea.”

It also presumes that being happy somehow prevents you from using your memory or your imagination.

“Right. Take a song from the record like “Invincible.” I’m not experiencing that specific emotion at this point in my life. But have I at previous points in my life? Hell, yes! I can definitely relate to that song – having to make your way by yourself without a lot of help and feeling like you have to find the power within you to accomplish that. I’ve been there before.”

But to sing the song now complicates this simplistic image of the gratified wife and mom.

“You can’t control that. Before this, it was Kelly

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It’s easy to draw that conclusion once a song is finished. Going in, though, the possibilities are so vast.

How do you know what it’s supposed to be?

“The emotion in the song lets you know where it should sit. But it’s funny – I mean, it’s all perception. Jason, he knows me so well musically and I know him so well – he’s been my musical director for 13 years – but we’re so opposite. I’ll sing something to him and he’ll be like, “Oh, OK, so it’s a big band thing.” And I’m like, “What?

That was soulful R&B.” I remember when “Since U Been Gone” came out and everybody said it was this indie-rock song. But to me it was straight-up pop.”

It definitely had an indie-rock guitar sound.

“But I don’t think of it that way. That’s not how I perceive it. And that’s what’s cool about music.

Even “Because of You,” it’s very much a country waltz. But it’s also this big pop ballad that people got used to from hearing it that way. But then when I recut it with Reba (McEntire), it fit very nicely.

Certain songs, it doesn’t matter the genre. Think about “Make You Feel My Love.” Everyone from Bob Dylan to Adele to Trisha Yearwood has cut that song. Some melodies are so classic-sounding that they’re able to translate.”

Part of your ability as an artist is identifying those songs. How have you honed that skill?

Clarkson the man-hater. I’ve never been a manhater! But people like a headline. And with me and my career, there’s never really been a ton of drama – I haven’t gone to rehab, and I haven’t gotten in fights in public – so I think people have a hard time figuring out where to put me.”

That’s true musically too. Your new album closes with “Good Goes the Bye,” which was co-written by two of Nashville’s best songwriters, Natalie Hemby and Shane McAnally. But it’s not a country song.

“We changed it. I’m a huge fan of Natalie and Shane; I have a few of both of their songs recorded for a country album I’m working on right now. And the demo we got was obviously more geared for country.

But my producer, Jason Halbert, and I were like, “Man, this feels like it could be this ‘80s Eurythmics beat.” The great thing about people like Shane and Natalie is that they just write classic melodies and clever lyrics. So it really can float though any genre.”

Kind of like you do.

“It’s just about wherever the song will shine brightest. “Good Goes the Bye” was a good country song, but it’s a great pop song.”

“Gosh, I’ve been doing that since “Idol,” you know what I mean? That’s one of the reasons I ended up making it to the end. Even though you might like a song, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to shine or translate or be as broad as you’re wanting it to be. So on “Idol” I picked songs that I felt would stand out and would be big songs.”

And you’re still doing that?

“Here’s the thing: In our industry you have people that excel at dancing; you have people that excel at singing; you have people that excel at being musicians and songwriters. Everyone has their little area – unless you’re Beyonce, and then you excel at everything. Other than her, you find your niche, and mine is singing. So every time I do something, I need to make sure – just like every week on that show – that I do something even better to stick around. That’s kind of how I look at my career. You have to stand out, almost in a strategic way.”

If the voice ever gives out, you might have a future as a record executive.

“I always tell my friends I’d be really good at A&R. With other artists, I’m like, “I wish they would’ve cut this song!” I can hear it in my head. I just love songs. I love storytelling. I love everything about it. I don’t know necessarily how or why I make the decisions I do. But I guess they’ve worked.”

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 39

HERS readit

New and noticed Words by Sam Thielman & Jonathan Silver The Buried Giant

By Kazuo Ishiguro Alfred A. Knopf, $29.99

Kazuo Ishiguro, master of the slow burn, has carefully cultivated what may be the best metaphor for our troubled times in recent literary fiction: England after the fall of Camelot.

Ishiguro’s spare, powerful novel The Buried Giant, his first in a decade, follows Axl and Beatrice, two forgetful old people in a forgetful old nation. Gradually, though, it becomes clear they and the rest of the country suffer from a “mist” of memory loss against which they must struggle to remember their shared histories.

The pair can’t remember a great deal about their lives – how much isn’t revealed until the final pages – but they’re certain they have to find their son, who (maybe) lives in a nearby village. Once they set off to find him, they run across the elderly Sir Gawain, formerly of the Round Table, and a Saxon warrior (never “knight”) named Wistan, both of whom declare their intention to slay the dragon Querig, whose magic breath causes the mental fog that afflicts, or perhaps protects, all of England.

Most vitally, the mist obscures Axl and Beatrice’s memories of one another. As they wander the countryside with the errant heroes, the two have odd flashes of days gone by, and both begin to worry that total revelation will end their marriage. There’s a lot more to the book – the tribal loyalties that may return if the dragon is slain could cause bloody war – but the marriage of two elderly peasants somehow becomes the most important thing in the world, its tenderness deepened by the fear that it might vanish forever in the light of the truth.

This slim volume draws on all sorts of Arthurian miscellanea, but it’s best shelved to the right of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, for which The 40 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

Buried Giant is both an homage and a corrective: Here’s a narrator forgetting himself and speaking fondly of the English countryside; there’s scraggly, too-old Gawain, a dead ringer for King Pellinore from The Sword in the Stone.

Ishiguro’s best and subtlest trick is to fill the mouths of beloved heroes doing great deeds with exactly the same kind of hateful rhetorical flourishes emitted on the news by extremists and demagogues: No peace is possible. All people of a certain kind are the enemy, no matter how good they try to be.

The only solution is murder. It’s less a perversion of the Arthurian themes of duty and heroism than a frank appraisal of them.

The author doesn’t pretend vengeance has no appeal. Late in the book, a Saxon warrior generously spares the life of a young man who stands bound and vulnerable against a tree. “Should I fall and you survive, promise me this,” the knight says. “That you’ll carry in your heart a hatred of Britons.” All of them, he explains, and if you feel your hatred flagging, protect it. If the young man will just promise to hate, the warrior will fight any enemy he names.

Adoringly, the boy agrees, of course.

As what feels like the entire literary world crafts poetic sci-fi post-apocalypses, Ishiguro manages to strike a lot of the same notes – hopelessness, human frailty, the preciousness of individual kindness – against the soiled, unsparing backdrop of a bygone era that’s usually remembered fondly. And in so doing, he manages to suggest that it’s the past, not the future, that’s the problem: If we cling to our enmities and dress them up in shining armour, we damn ourselves far more effectively than zombies, plagues or vampires could. The apocalypse happens pretty regularly, remember? Or does the mist affect you, too?

For all its grittiness, this is very much a fantasy novel and a romance in the classic sense of the word.

Axl meets pixies and ogres and dragons, but (as the author tells us in the first few pages) they’re just part of the landscape, like poisonous snakes or bears. “[E] very so often, an ogre might carry off a child into

the mist,” Ishiguro writes. “The people of the day had to be philosophical about such outrages.” Like the best fantasy novels – and the best Arthurian legends – The Buried Giant is unapologetically moral.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

By Erik Larson Crown, $26.90

They had been warned.

With war raging across the ocean, an eclectic group of passengers gathered in New York City in May 1915 for a trans-Atlantic voyage aboard the great Lusitania, a majestic, swift and towering vessel that catered to the pampered classes and was the pride of the safety-conscious Cunard shipping line.

Everyone knew the risks. En route to Liverpool, the Lusitania would be passing through a Germandeclared war zone off the coast of Ireland during an era in which submarine warfare was ascendant.

The German embassy in Washington, D.C., had gone so far as to place an ad on the shipping pages of New York’s newspapers that levelled a veiled yet unmistakable threat at the Lusitania.

Many shrugged off the peril. Built sturdily – a “passenger liner, but with the hull of a battleship” – the Lusitania also found protection in the hubris of man. Its experienced and unflappable captain, William Thomas Turner, was skeptical that any German submarine could match his vessel’s speed.

His bosses felt the same.

“The truth is that the Lusitania is the safest boat on the sea,” the company said. “She is too fast for any submarine. No German war vessel can get her or near her.”

A U-boat’s single torpedo sank her in 18 minutes.

In the hands of a lesser craftsman, the fascinating story of the last crossing of the Lusitania might risk being bogged down by dull character portraits, painstaking technical analyses of submarine tactics or the minutiae of WWI-era global politics.

Not so with Erik Larson. In Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, the author’s latest masterful fusion of history and storytelling, the former Wall Street Journal reporter effortlessly re-creates the collision course taken by Capt. Turner and the man who would destroy his ship, Kptlt. Walther Schwieger, commander of Unterseeboot-20.

With a book release cleverly pegged to two months shy of the centennial of the ship’s sinking, Larson and his star power don’t have to rely on Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to bring centre stage the gripping story of the lesser-publicized of the 20th century’s major maritime disasters.

Dead Wake deftly weaves together a number of Larson’s fascinations from previous books – technology, weaponry, wartime, Germany, weather and period pieces.

Engaging in a favoured chronological newspaper storytelling technique called a “tick tock” that exploits Larson’s print journalism roots, the author invites readers on a journey of parallel tracks.

He escorts us as we join the Lusitania’s passengers readying for their voyage, departing from the New York wharves, sharing the quotidian rhythms of life aboard the ship, fretting or not fretting about the German warning and, ultimately, dying or surviving catastrophe.

At the same time, Larson opens up the cramped quarters of a German submarine, illuminating the tensions of a dangerous life beneath the water and the zeal of the men commanding that country’s undersea arsenal.

Thankfully for his readers, Larson not only has a keen eye for delicious detail and an endless appetite for research (as evidenced by his always enjoyable footnotes), he has a lot to work with.

Set against a backdrop of England and Germany battling for bragging rights on the high seas, Larson’s book is inhabited by the larger-than-life characters of Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, spiritualists and ship captains, warmongers and, of course two impressive vessels, each with its own outsized personality.

As Turner and Kptlt. Schwieger barrel toward confrontation, in London a secret operation known as “Room 40” deciphers coded German messages – ones that, had they been acted upon, could have saved the Lusitania and its 1,198 hapless souls. And in Washington, the newly widowed isolationist President Wilson grapples with his country’s place in an increasingly fractured Western Hemisphere, even as he woos a new love.

As has become his specialty, Larson wrestles these disparate narratives into a unified, coherent story and so creates a riveting account of the Lusitania’s ending and the beginnings of the U.S.’s involvement in the war.

At the same time, Larson tries to answer the nagging journalistic questions that inevitably arise from such a focused examination about what went wrong.

“Indeed, these are the great lingering questions of the Lusitania affair,” Larson writes, “why was the ship left on its own, with a proven killer of men and ships dead ahead in its path?”

What if the Lusitania had not spent extra time taking on passengers from another ship? What if the heavy fog that day had lasted just a bit longer?

What if the U-boat’s torpedo had struck a different part of the vessel?

“In the end,” Larson concludes, “Schwieger’s attack on the Lusitania succeeded because of a chance confluence of forces. Even the tiniest alteration in a single vector could have saved the ship.”

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 41

HERS seeit

No laughing matter Words by Roger Moore & Rick Bentley

T

he best acting job in “Unfinished Business” is turned in by Vince Vaughn. He spends the 91 minutes of this seriously laughstarved comedy trying to pretend he doesn’t want to strangle Dave Franco.

Rare is the performance that inspires such instant loathing. But Franco, shorter and toothier brother of James (if that is possible), plays a maddeningly annoying employee of Vaughn’s character’s metal shavings brokerage. His grinning, mousy-voiced, perhaps savant sexual innocent will drive you a little crazy. His upstaged co-stars certainly could be excused for throttling him between takes.

Dan Trunkman (Vaughn) gets tired of working for somebody else’s bonus and leaves his insufferable boss Chuck (Sienna Miller) to go into business for himself. He invites, Jerry Maguire-style, his colleagues to join him in revolt. Tim (Tom Wilkinson) has just been laid off, so, what the heck? And Mike Pancake (Franco) had a job interview and no prayer of being hired. Any prior experience?

“Foot Locker.”

UNFINISHED BUSINESS “Reasons for leaving?”

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco, “I didn’t like ... feet.”

Sienna Miller, Tom Wilkinson A year later, the trio’s new Directed by: Ken Scott firm is close to “the handRunning time: 91 mins shake,” closing a big deal.

Rating: R for some strong risque But the duplicitous heel they sexual content/graphic nudity, and for need to shake their hands language and drug use (James Marsden) strings G them along, making them

42 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

the “fluffer” for this contract. Chuck may be their undoing. But not if their flights to Portland, Maine, and then Berlin – to pitch to the big bosses – pay off.

Vaughn plays it straight, going for a frustrated slow burn here. Franco tests that. His Pancake is meant to wring laughs out of simple, unschooled and inarticulate mispronunciations of simple words.

“Exploits,” for instance.Tim is an old man in the last throes of a bad marriage who just wants to “experience joy” for once. He’s the one willing to drive this business trip into Hangover territory, hiring sex workers and trying ecstasy at the Berlin youth hostel he and Mike board in.

Screenwriter Steve Conrad gives Dan a couple of comically problem kids – a boy being bullied because of his weight, a daughter not happy with public school, either. Dan’s been an absentee dad and longs for this deal to change that.

The desperation spills from the characters and this story – a gay fetish festival in Berlin, a rave at the aforementioned youth hostel – and into the filmmaking. Unfinished Business, the second film Vaughn has done with the slow-footed and sentimental Canadian Ken Scott (Delivery Man) groans under the weight of expected laughs, expectations that are rarely met.

Wilkinson, out of character as broad and randy, is funny, and Franco, as grating as he plays this guy, may wear you down a little. But you can see the fear in Vaughn’s eyes as another gag limps to its payoff, another scene fails to deliver anything but stony silence where the laughs are supposed to be.

S

equels are notoriously disappointing, so there’s good reason to have reservations about seeing The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Though the sequel lacks a touch of the magic that came with the grand discovery of the quirky characters and exotic settings in the original production, it uses the same phenomenal cast, sweet writing and beautiful appreciation of the Indian culture to create a film that may be “second best” but is still a winner.

The action picks up with the British seniors as they settle into their lives with found love, lust and new careers.

At the same time, the hotel proprietor, Sonny Kappor (Dev Patel), is juggling plans for his wedding to Sunaina (Tina Desai). He is also trying to buy a property to expand the business. The efforts include a trip to America with the usually unflappable Mrs. Donnelly (Maggie Smith) that leaves her extremely flapped.

The action quickly settles back into life at the hotel where the already talented cast gets an added boost from the addition of Richard Gere as a guest who’s hiding a big secret.

Director John Madden again blends the multiple plot threads so perfectly that he creates a cinematic tapestry that celebrates life and the wide assortment of those who have lived it.

No one trumps Smith for the number of best lines.

And, it’s not just that Ol Parker’s screenplay is loaded with the best material for her. Smith has a magical way of delivering the most innocuous words and making them hilarious and biting. She’s shown that skill from Downton Abbey to the Marigold Hotel.

Bill Nighy brings a dry humor to the film. He’s roguishly charming and that provides plenty of sparkling moments.

Equally good is Judi Dench, whose Evelyn Greenslade represents the central theme of the film: She’s reached a point in her life where the common perception is that she should take it easy. She soon discovers that the only person who can close the chapters on a person’s life is that person.

Just like the original, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel will attract older film fans because of the age of the cast. Madden has broadened the appeal through Sonny’s wedding day blues.

The trials that the young couple face trying to get married set up some of the sweetest and funniest moments in the film. It seems all Bollywood-style dancing doesn’t come naturally.

All of the wedding elements also help shift some of the film’s focus. The original film was about foreigners trying to adapt to life in India. Now that they have adjusted, the cultural elements are to show off the culture.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel flies in the face of so many Hollywood conceits. It proves that with the right cast and script, a sequel can be an extremely entertaining experience. It shows what a little extra effort can produce.

More importantly, the film shows that great acting is not the sole property of the young.

THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC The veteran cast demonstrates MARIGOLD HOTEL that life and love are timeless.

Cast: Stars Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, In doing so, this cast becomes Maggie Smith, Dev Patel a global treasure, the kind of Directed by: John Madden riches that make movie-going Running time: 122 mins so enjoyable.

Rated: PG for language, Have no reservations and suggestive comments check into The Second Best GGG Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 43

HERS family

Has child-centered parenting backfired?

Words by John Rosemond

I

n the 1960s, child and teen mental health and behavior problems began an alarming rise that has continued to the present. In 1970, one of my grad school professors proposed that this trend could be explained with the flight-or-fight principle (i.e. in response to perceived threat, a person is inclined to either flee or stand and fight).

He theorized that when parents fail to provide sufficient authority, they also fail to convince their children that they are capable, unequivocally, of guaranteeing their safety and security. The world begins to seem threatening, and that insecurity is likely to express itself as either emotional flight (depression, anxiety, or both) or fight (rebellion).

Has teen rebellion significantly increased since my college days? Absolutely. Belligerently rebellious teens were a relative rarity back then. For example, I went to a very rough suburban high school in the early 1960s. It was so rough, in fact, that we had a daily police presence in the cafeteria. But whereas we fought with one another, I don’t recall a fellow student who was belligerently disrespectful much less threatening toward a teacher, problems that are not uncommon in today’s high schools. And I’m not relying on my memory alone. When I have asked people of my generation if they remember such kids, the answer has always been no, irrespective of where they grew up.

Have teen mental health problems increased since the 1960s? Again, absolutely. The teen suicide rate, a good marker of teen depression and anxiety, has tripled in the last 50 years. Some experts estimate a five- to ten-fold per capita increase in teen mental health problems during that time frame.

All indications are that my psychology professor was spot on and quite prescient to boot. It would further appear that the increase in teen rebellion is not being recognized for what it is. Many psychologists continue to adhere to the party line that rebellion is normal for teens. That simply is not the

44 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

case either historically or cross-culturally.

Not coincidentally, these alarming trends began when the mental health community began promoting the “child-centered” and “democratic” family in the 1960s. Best-selling psychologists like Thomas Gordon (Parent Effectiveness Training) even said parents had no right to exercise final authority in a child’s life.

As a result, increasing numbers of parents began putting children at the center of attention in families and seeing their task as that of establishing wonderful relationships instead of providing competent

leadership. As an insufficiency of parent authority has become endemic, so have various manifestations of child insecurity, most prominently the flight or fight responses of depression, anxiety and rebellion.

If that explanation holds water, then the solution is fairly simple: a retro-revolution in parenting philosophy and practice. It is, after all, becoming increasingly clear that new parenting has been a bust for both parent and child, proving that progressive and progress are not necessarily synonymous.

That one lecture made my entire graduate school experience worthwhile.

Has teen rebellion significantly increased since my college days?

Absolutely. Belligerently rebellious teens were a relative rarity back then Apr/May 2015  INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM  45

HERS faith

Voices of Faith: How did Jesus view the Old Testament?

Words by The Kansas City Star Q: How did Jesus view the Old Testament?

The Rev. Scott Gordon: Regarding the Old Testa-

ment, Jesus made two very important statements.

In relationship to his followers, Jesus asserts, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or 46 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM Apr/May 2015

the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) By “fulfill,” Jesus did not mean “make irrelevant,” making the contrast to “abolish” in that verse nonsensical. By what Jesus goes on to say in Matthew, we see that he gets to the heart of the matter God

Jesus demonstrates that the Old Testament speaks of him, the promised savior of mankind, who enables his people to live rightly, according the truth he has revealed in all of Scripture

beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:25-27) Jesus demonstrates that the Old Testament speaks of him, the promised savior of mankind, who enables his people to live rightly, according the truth he has revealed in all of Scripture.

The Rev. Joe Nassal: There is a scene in Chapter 4 of

addresses through the moral law of the Old Testament and calls his followers to live by this standard.

The ability to live what Jesus says comes only by understanding what the Bible, even the Old Testament, says about him.

This consideration brings us to the other important statement of Jesus. He says in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.”

Elsewhere Jesus, after his resurrection, consoles and instructs two followers: “’O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And

Luke’s gospel when Jesus returns to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and is given the book of the prophet Isaiah to read.

He chooses the passage from Isaiah 61 to capture his mission: “The Spirit of God is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to God.” Then he sat down, and with all eyes fixed on him he gives one of the shortest sermons on record: “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus saw himself as the fulfillment of the promises of the prophets in the Old Testament.

He often quotes the Hebrew Scriptures. When he is tempted by the devil in the desert to be a different kind of messiah, he answers every temptation with a truth from the Old Testament.

But he also sees himself transcending the tradition as in the Sermon on the Mount when he quotes the Mosaic Law but then stretches it to include love for enemies. And he confronts the crowd wanting to stone the woman caught in adultery and offers mercy, not condemnation.

Jesus embraces the first covenant that God made with his ancestors in faith, but then proclaims a new covenant that he inaugurates with his life, death and resurrection, as he calls his followers to be a new creation.

Apr/May 2015 INVESTIGATEMAGAZINE.COM 47