Thursday, July 27, 2006

Chris Cornell and Casino Royale

Was randomly browsing MSN news and spotted this little gem of trivia:

"Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell is to record the theme tune to new Bond film Casino Royale"

This excites me as I am a fan of Chris's current band Audioslave and certainly do not mind hearing the odd Soundgarden track.

Since Tomorrow Never Dies, in my opinion, the Bond films have been poor, really poor. I am led to believe Casino Royale will try to correct this by being a film that is actually good, and to be honest, a change of frontman was probably the best decision the guys behind Bond could have made as well as getting rid of the directing bloke responsible for XXX and The Fast and the Furious (and in my opinion the downfall of Bond films).

A change of director, a change of style, and now news that there will even be a change of sorts in the music department; a male has not sung the title track of a Bond film since A'ha way back in 1987! This is just more good news in my opinion. Chris Cornell's voice is great. It is grungy and driving without grating and so the new title track of the film titled You Know My Name should be a success.

Fingers crossed for a long-awaited good Bond film.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

the proverbial disability egg

Disability?

This word pops up everywhere, and its context always seems to alter. What is a disabled person? What do they look like?

Apparently, as an article in an issue of the Guardian's g2 said a week or so ago, Pete from Big Brother is disabled. Sounds terrible doesn't it. Poor Pete.

If you have never seen this years Big Brother and have no idea who Pete is, when an article describes him as disabled, you would be forgiven for thinking he was blind, or wheelchair-bound, or afflicted with a terrible mental condition. These are the things the word disability conjures up for your average joe. If you thought, having never seen Pete, that he may be affected by the latter disability, you would in fact be correct, as he has Tourette's syndrome.

"So he swear's all the time, alienating those around him, to be doomed to life a solitary cursing?" I hear you enquire.

Well no, not exactly.

Pete is warm and lovable, with his only cursing tick being a mild "Wankers!" or "Wank!". His other ticks just seem very endearing; whistles, pops, meaows, dances, wild Jim Carrey-esque facial expressions. You can't help but like him. Sometimes you may even feel you wouldn't mind having that kind of energy, that kind of "disability".

When the article described Pete as disabled, being an on-off watcher of BB, and a fan of Pete's, I was inclined to disagree with the use of this adjective. This was because, due to my extensive and specialist medical training <wink>, I knew a little about disability. Let us look at the World Health Organisation's three-fold distinction between impairment, disability and handicap:

"An impairment is any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function; a disability is any restriction or lack (resulting from an impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being; a handicap is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or a disability, that prevents the fulfilment of a role that is considered normal (depending on age, sex and social and cultural factors) for that individual."

The article celebrated the fact that reality TV could help society come to terms with how to cope with disability. I would argue however that this is not quite what should be celebrated. This reality TV show, has, in some respects, assisted with society's ability to cope with impairment. I do not believe Pete would describe himself as disabled, and according to the WHO's definition, he probably isn't. His impairment gives him a great energy to be himself - he has no difficulty performing "an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being". Moreover, I do not believe it is society's place to determine who is and who isn't disabled. It can find the medical reasons for impairment and take that as it is, but it is up to the affected individual to decide whether that impairment is a disabling feature of themselves or not. They are the one's who get to say if they have a disability.

The article should celebrate the fact that society has been shown a very positive way of coping with an impairment, to such a degree that Pete will probably never need to ask himself the question "Am I disabled?".

I must also assert that Big Brother will not have cracked the proverbial disability egg, until they get someone in one of the future houses who has a real handicap. I am talking a blind, deaf or mute housemate, or a housemate with no legs, or a one with extensive cognitive impairment (but obviously someone who it would be safe to put on the show) . If this programme could do this, without creating a freak show, perhaps it will not have been such a vacuous decade of reality TV after all and society might wholly benefit from an education in what is to be human.

It is certainly a pipe-dream, but BB has done everything else; homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, erm... wait, maybe it hasn't done everything else, but a real handicap (and a non-sexual one at that, please), if done correctly, couldn't be a bad thing.

Pete to win.

Shoot the rest.

Except Imogen, she's hot!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

reluctant to seem too eager

Typical!

I have been weighing up whether or not its worth getting a job for the rest of this summer. An opportunity that seemed worth it did appear in my student webmail; £75 an hour, 4 weeks with flexible hours, and a bonus at the end (thats £1500+!). It sounded like a pretty easy job too where I would just sit at a computer manipulating images of a medical nature in some way. I was reluctant to seem to eager right away due to a potential trip to Canada on the cards, so I sent an email asking for details as it was a Saturday and no one was answering the phone number I was given.

After a phone call, it turns out I missed a deadline of sorts that was on the Thursday of last week, the day I read the email!

The job, of course, was just as sweet sounding to about 70 other people so the organisers decided to only send application forms to those who had requested them before Thursday.

So I have gone from weighing up whether to earn quite a decent amount of cash working for the final 4 weeks of summer or to have no cash at the start of the academic year by flying to Canada for a week to potentially having the possibility that neither will occur. The optimistic side of me still believes that both are a possibility however, despite the fact that both are receding away from me at tremendous pace.

I have sent a pleading but polite email to the head honcho at this job opportunity in Manchester requesting that he send out just one more application form to little ol' me. They need me, dammit! Meanwhile, I am keeping my fingers crossed that my chum in Canada can get the necessary time off work to allow me to fly over.

If neither of these things happen, I shall wear my sad face, whilst refusing to ask for my delivery job at Domino's Pizza back, and I shall enter the beginning of the third year at Medical school with a normal amount of debt and reasonable amount of cash. That's just boring!

over 3000 lithium ion batteries

Before I finally make my way to bed after this mammoth web browsing session, I just had to share this beautiful nugget of information with you.

Imagine a car that looks great, is fast, and has a great fuel economy.  Imagine this car doesn't run on petrol.  Imagine a car that runs on over 3000 lithium ion batteries like the ones in your laptop or mobile phone.

Well, apparently, you need not imagine it at all since it is actually a reality.

Tesla Motors are about to go into mass production with their Tesla Roadster.  It sounds like an amazing piece of kit and also like the sort of electric vehicle lots of people would buy.  To be green and fast is the dream and it looks like its here.

I can't wait for say, 10 years time, when these guys may have rolled out saloons and hatchbacks that we can all afford.  Lets hope this type of vehicle catches on as it would mean a fundemental change to overall carbon dioxide emmisions as well as leaving no one with an excuse to own a gas-guzzling SUV, the swines!

more precisely, not right-wing

In George Galloway's post on the Guardian run discussion place comment is free, "Time to boycott the Standard?", he criticises the use of the headline "The Human Sandbags" which was accompanied with a picture of a man carrying a dead Lebanese child. Galloway is angry because the implication is that this dead child is one of the "human sandbags". I cannot see any other intention by the Evening Standard beyond this implication and share Galloway's contempt of the newspaper.

Before I continue, please understand that I am not a fan of Georgie boy, he is a fine speaker, its just I find myself disagreeing with the bullshit however eloquent it may sound.

A commentator of the article said it better than I could:

"Whatever you think of Galloway, that headline was a piece of shit. It wouldn't have even made the Mail, it's that shit. The Express would rather have gone with 'Hezbollah link to Diana death', that's how utterly shit it was."

Check out the full comment here.

Once I had stopped laughing I started thinking about beginning this blog. I loved this mixture of comments this little article churned up. There was a lot more than just Evening Standard knocking in this debate. People had a go at Georgie boy, whilst others defended him, meanwhile the general discussion expands to varying sentiments about much wider issues.

I couldn't find my footing, just like I couldn't find it whilst reading another chain of debate earlier today. "Remember how this began" is an article by an Israeli named Benjamin Pogrund. It piqued my interest as the news had generally seemed highly critical of Israel's response to the rockets and kidnappings. Benjamin sought to defend Israel somewhat by creating a debate about where it all started. But when did it all start? Everyone had an answer, and no one seemed incorrect, despite disagreements.

It was in these follow-up comments that my feet began to slip. The article had attracted all kinds of people with differing political leanings and allegiances. It was fascinating, albeit, unhelpful in my quest to find out where I am politically.

The Guardian, is considered by most to be a left-wing newspaper. It is my newspaper of choice, one which I have read now for about 3 years. I chose to read it because I consider myself left-wing, or, more precisely, not right-wing. Despite my temporal left-wing status, I find George Galloway's lefty rantings non-sensical and ultimately unhelpful and can often find myself at odds with fellow left-wingers. Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Before the war, I was willing to accept the governments WMD arguement, as well as the need to remove Hussein. The Liberal Democrats were staunchly against the war, and left-wingers descended on London in the Stop the War marches. With hindsight, I guess I feel the invasion was unwise, and yet I cannot help but note the hope Iraq now has, despite the insurgency, to be a free, democratic country.

But free, democratic countries don't put me at ease. Most of them seem to have nuclear weapons and powerful armies. The country that prides itself most on freedom and democracy is one of the biggest aggressors of this century. Imagine having the USA as your enemy. I cannot think of anything more terrifying. So many nuclear weapons, and so angry with the world, it really doesn't bare thinking about.

That said however, I am in a country who is a strong ally of America, and Britain, in turn, is a member of the European Union, which comprises 25 free and democratic countries. This future the West wants, where all countries are free and democratic is a future I would embrace. I do not believe however that we can hypocritcally force it on others.

I really am going off at a tangent here. There is no way I will be able to get a hold on how I feel about the global situation. All I know right now is that I hate what Hezbollah has done/is doing and I hate the Israeli response to it. I hate the fact that it is impossible to trace where this began exactly and the lives that will be lost because of this. I hate that I can't pick a side when that is what I set out to do. Everyone just seems wrong.

And you know what I really hate? The fact that Mr Galloway can use a comment forum to shallowly promote his radio show. I know he had a point, but this man really can't stop advertising himself; just see if you can watch his unsettling cat impression one more time without feeling the insatiable desire to show him some real respect by kicking him up the arse.

stimulated by something

Blogging has been calling me for some time but I have never felt I had it in me to blog about anything. I mean, who cares what I think?

Well, there is only one way to find out. So here is "Mind Camp" and my intentions are simple. Whenever my curiosity is stimulated by something, anything, then that thing will find its way here in some form or other. Expect comment on current events, a little amateur philosophy, nuggets of trivia from the life of a medical student, and a journey to find my political, moral, and emotional standing within an ever changing and increasingly complex world.

Has anyone brought any marshmellows?