Sports Medicine Growth Keeps Medicos Mum.
When Muhammad Ali came to the Hutt Valley in 1979 a member of his entourage was a stooped man who passed unnoticed even to boxing aficionados. It was in fact Jimmy Ellis, former World Heavyweight champion, and the author of Ali’s favourite tag line, Float Like a Butterfly/Sting Like a Bee.
At that time all those years ago the late Jimmy Ellis (pictured) we now know was in the grip of dementia pugilistica.
The stilling of all official condemnation of boxing remains one of the weirdest silences in today’s age of officially imposed urban safety and ultra-caution. Voices are equally stilled about injuries sustained at rugby football, notably at its high end (“just concussion- he’ll be right.”)
In boxing the debate like a deflected punch centres around the safety and security of the boxing gloves in absorbing the immediate kinetic energy of the blow.
In the event there is a school of thought that holds that boxing would be safer if blows were delivered unsheathed, the numerous bones of the hand being anatomically the most delicate.
Until quite recent times there was a belief that the deliberate attempt to concuss an opponent, the KO, would cause boxing to fade away under the feminisation of society inherent in the women’s movement. In the event the movement instead swerved toward boxing on the grounds that women could do it, with the result that female boxing now appears as a mainstream sporting code co-equal to the male version .
The medical profession has steered a cautious path around the issue, if only because so many of its members are actively involved in the sports medicine category.
Bare-knuckle boxing is the original form of boxing and involves individuals fighting without boxing gloves or other padding on their hands. Bare-knuckle boxing was sidelined with the arrival in 1867 of Queensbury Rules and gloved bouts.
In recent years bare knuckle has staged a comeback if not in name then as a component of martial jousts.
Ali meanwhile following his visit to NewwZealand was never to regain the fitness he displayed on that tour. Many mark his downward spiral from events soon after when in order to raise funds for the Black Muslims he embarked upon a career of Thai kick boxing. In doing so many believe he took blows to his neck which detonated his early Parkinsons Disease.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - Friday 30 September 2016
Dollar Control of Trade Underpins Pacific Pact
This time the feeling is mutual
The EU is actively wooing New Zealand in the matter of the mooted NZ/EU Free Trade Agreement.
Tapie Affair Opens Door of Opportunity for Kiwi
A door of opportunity has unexpectedly opened to enable New Zealand prime Minister John Key tomaintain his upward trajectory in the form of becoming managing director of the International Monetary Fund.
The present managing director of the IMF Christine Lagarde (pictured) has become inextricably enmeshed in France’s Tapie Affair and has been ordered to stand trial for her alleged part in it.This coincides with a move to place a non-European official at the helm of the IMF. This originally came about in order to position someone from a BRICs nation at the helm. But nobody has been forthcoming from these nations, possibly because of their objective of becoming independent of it.
Step forward Mr Key who also has the essential background in Wall Street international finance.Earlier Christine Lagarde had been expected in mid 2016 to renew her mandate with the IMF. However she has now become the latest in a long line of high level French officials to have become rolled up in the Tapie Affair.This centres on Bernard Tapie a onetime member of the Mitterand government, a celebrated sportsman and entrepreneur, who had gamed Adidas eventually though having to hand it over to a consortium which included Credit Lyonnais.In the event this group made a substantial profit on the deal, which Tapie now claimed. Amazingly he was successful.The problem was that Credit Lyonnais was now back in public hands. So Mr Tapie’s payout which approximates to $500 million was derived from the pockets of French taxpayers.The other enduring problem in the 20 year affair was that instead of the matter being referred to the courts, it was placed in the hands of private arbitrators.Christine Lagarde was minister of finance at the time and is thus being accused of signing off on the arrangement.Mr Tapie has now been ordered to pay back the money.The IMF stems from Bretton Woods, as does the World Bank. Curiously the IMF acts as a bank. The World Bank, as a fund.The World Bank is traditionally under United States direction. The IMF under European, as a counter balance.Nobody doubts though that White House approval is required for the leadership of both organisations.Mr Key has the required money market experience. He has run a country. He has backed President Obama’s showpiece international thrusts, the TPPA, and the Paris Climate.He is known to be on personal terms with President Obama who will have the ultimate sign-off on the IMF leadership.Politically Mr Key leads a centrist party and long-running government and above all one which features favourably at the top of all the internationally “transparency” tables.
From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk
Production engineers and manufacturers assessing their own position in the wider TPPA picture should devote special attention to the term “intellectual property.” This means patents.
New Zealand production engineers as soon as the negotiation dust settles should consult their North American agents for hard news on tariff, clearance, and preference shifts on machinery imports including machinery re-builds.
Machinery and equipment rebuilding and reconditioning opportunities will now open up for New Zealand engineers following approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242