Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Credit:  Ondobondo magazine I learnt about the ogre in my course on Oral Literature and Traditions under the tutelage of the venerable Indian scholar, Prithvindra Chakravarti.     I was introduced to the ogre killing child story that is prevalent in many Melanesian societies of the southwestern Pacific, particularly in the western and northern regions and the Massim district of PNG, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Tanna in Vanuatu, and Malaita. It is absent in Fiji and New Caldonia.    The two well documented versions are from Mekeo and Buka. In the Buka version the monster Burjangio is a spirit pig who arrives in a village bringing with it massive earthquakes that destroy a village.   The word “ogre” has its first use in the French language, through the  French writer, Charles Perrault, in 1697. Charles  Perrault, (1628–1703), French writer is remembered for his  Mother Goose Tales    (1697), containing suc...

  Ben Carson’s   Think Big   had me thinking about how medicine is made interesting and easier to understand if it’s in the hands of those gifted and able to make the complex easier to grasp. Knowledge revealed to ordinary people can transform lives beyond oneself.     Dr. Benjamin Carson talked about medicine and the stories of those encounters he had in practising medicine every day. Ben Carson honors those who made the journey interesting and worth it, those who surrounded him in his life, and those who changed his life.    Even after I have read Carson’s book I can never forget the acknowledgement he made of the influence of his mother. His mother prepared Ben and the  elder brother, Curtis, to read. Reading was the foundation for real success in Ben and Curtis’s lives.   I sometimes wonder how anyone in the world can speak with authority about a subject without reading on the subject or even learning all there is to learn about the ...