Now that the festivities of the Jubilee are over and the excitement abated one can stop and look at the life of Elizabeth II in plainer terms without the context of her belonging to a royal family. She was and is irretrievably a human being and because I believe that our lives are meant to accomplish something or in some small way however slight advance the cause of humanity, I want to acknowledge her, not as a queen, but as a person. To someone like me, and I hope to others, If there is a thread to her life it is not that she was a monarch, but that she placed duty first, in her case that duty leading her to a life of service to country and to those who are called her subjects. Among us rare is the person who is called upon to place duty and service first, much less on a consistent basis. And if we are as were Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, our lives become what can be called sacrificial. I don’t think of the life of Elizabeth II as a sacrificial life, but it has been a dedicated life, she dedicated her life to a cause greater than herself. In that her example can be useful because many of us can or could be inspired by that kind of accomplishment. Many in both the US and the UK see her through the lens of the monarchy, but if one takes away the crown and look at the person, personal achievement emerges. Here is someone who faced disappointments, her uncle’s, the Duke of Windsor, abdication, which made her queen in waiting, compromise, those she had to make in order to have a marriage that was decades long, compassion, in dealing with a troubled sister, mother’s love in having to handle the issues faced by several of her children. And all of this under the public glare of living in what really is a gilded cage, nor does it include the challenges of what she called her job, dealing with the likes of Winston Churchill when still a young head of state, or later on with Margaret Thatcher, something that for just about any of us would be bound to be intimidating. Many step up to the plate when challenges come, many grow as a result, in that she did not do anything the rest of us can’t do, already do or ought to do. And that’s one reason she is an example: her life reminds us it is possible.
Values
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The Names of Both Parents
It is now a norm that women either keep their own names when they marry or hyphenate their own names with that of their spouse. And yet this norm does not yet apply to the children. But the Constitutional court in Italy is changing that. It just overturned the tradition that a child is only given the father’s name and ruled that they should be given that of both parents. It said that the current practice was detrimental to the identity of the child. In its statement however the court said that both parents need to make the decision. They can decide the order in which the names appear or even decide on only one name. The court’s decision though is only a beginning. Parliament now needs to take it up and legislation needs to be passed in order to implement it. But the Family minister is taking up the issue and said that it should be a high priority and an urgent tasks for politicians to be involved.
Italy’s constitutional court’s decision is a first. No one else has so openly decreed that a child ought to have both his parents surnames. While it does look like the parliament will indeed take it up, in a way it no longer matters what happens. It’s like putting toothpaste back in a tube. It’s surprising that it took so long for the issue to be officially raised and be declared a part of a child’s identity. It’s so logical. I don’t know which country will take it up next, but I do know that many parents have begun to give their children both surnames, or some combinations that acknowledges both sides. It may be that whether or not it is ever made into law anywhere will be secondary if not superfluous.
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Saving Birds and Porpoises
If you love animals, and most of us do, you have to feel sad for the way human activity affects them. That’s why when I read about new ways to help counteract what we do, it makes me smile. The first instance I’ve recently came across is about birds. We are glad for wind power and the way it can help us with climate change. There is a downside to wind power, however: birds, including eagles, and bats run into the blades and die. But now there’s a camera with special sensors that can sense the birds coming and turn itself off. It’s called Identiflight and it can detect bird flights more than 5 times better than human observers and with a 94% accuracy. The system is able to calculate the birds flight speed and trajectory and if there is a conflict, it shuts the blades down.
The other innovation is with fishing nets. They kill thousands of porpoises, cetaceans and other aquatic mammals including whales. The simple insertion of plastic beads in the nets makes a crucial difference. These animals use echolocation to orient themselves and find their prey. They cannot sense the nets, but the insertion of beads alters the whole equation, because the beads can be sensed by the acoustic signals of the animals. They are made of acrylic glass with the same density as water and do not add weight to the nets. What’s even more important is that they can also be adapted to the different frequencies of different species. Daniel Stepputtis a marine biologist in Rostock Germany, is the innovator behind the beads, and for that we thank him.
Neither system is foolproof, particularly the beaded nets, but they are saving animal lives, and their existence makes us, me at least, look forward to other such innovations to help other animals affected by humans—Bees perhaps?