RIFLE RANGE BOY

About Dry Grasses (Turkish, 2023) Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan According to the movie, that is what we are: the dry grasses seen paving the hillside over Eastern Turkey as the frost melts at the start of spring. They look lovely, adding a hue to the mundane colour of nature. Walking over the hill, we step over the grass as they give us a grip on the ground. We do not bother about the grass. They are insignificant. They serve a purpose to their existence, which is not apparent to us. The dry die only to be replaced by the next generation only to whither away, yet again. Is that symbolism of human existence here on Earth? We think very highly of ourselves, that we are indispensable, that our existence means a lot, or perhaps we are God's answer to mankind's problems. We fail to understand that, like the dry grass on the hill, our presence is temporary. Like many before us, we will disappear away one day, often forgotten by annals of time. All the seemingly big problems we are embr...

The word 'consent' is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there are 'implied consent' and 'silence is consent', then on the other spectrum, are the murky waters of 'informed consent', as if consents are sometimes uninformed or imposed. We have also heard of 'consent under duress' which is by no means consent. In surgical practice, failure to divulge certain rare but real complications of an operation denotes carelessness and possibly negligence of the attending surgeon. As if the patient was not informed that surgery was a risky business. Recently I heard a podcast of consent of a different kind. In fact, this edition came around way before cry babies started screaming #MeToo! The latest version of approval is 'I agreed to this but not to that..."  A few years previously, in fact, a good full decade after a young lady (A) went separate ways with her best male friend (B), she decided to revisit the event that made them part ways....