Culture

“D’ough!”

Crime, Culture, Economy, Europe, Funny
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How could I resist the pun after reading this story?


Spanish shopkeeper finds Homer Simpson euro

MADRID (Reuters) – A one euro coin has turned up in Spain bearing the face of cartoon couch potato Homer Simpson instead of that of the country’s king, a sweetshop owner told Reuters on Friday.

[…]

“The coin must have been done by a professional, the work is impressive,” he told Reuters.

The comical carver had not taken his tools to the other side of the coin displaying the map of Europe. So far, no other coins of the hapless, beer-swilling oaf have been found in circulation.

“I’ve been offered 20 euros for it,” said Martinez.

Imitation Is The Severest Form Of Battery

Crime, Culture
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Is beheading the new black in the sociopathic community?

First Canada, then Brazil, now Greece:

Sun Aug 3, 2008 4:50pm EDT
ATHENS (Reuters) – A 31-year-old Greek beheaded his girlfriend and carried her head round the popular tourist island of Santorini before he was arrested, police said on Sunday.

All in the space of a week, more or less. Are there more beheadings these days or are we just more sensitised to the news reports because of the phenomenon of terrorist beheading videos? Could the apparent increase in beheadings be explained by the perpetrators having seen such videos or might it be that because of the videos, beheading is now considered the ultimate expression of personal up close violence – the gold standard, as it were?

Are murderers just as susceptible to the vagaries of fashion and YouTube as any other social microgroup?

Not enough data to decide – and anyone trying to research the subject is likely to get banged up for downloading terrorist materials, so I doubt an answer from academia will be forthcoming either. All I can say is it certainly looks that way.

The Age Of Entitlement

Bloody Lawyers, Civil liberties, Culture, Health, Parenting
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There has been much criticism this week of the dyslexic student at Plymouth’s Peninsula Medical School who’s sueing to have multiple choice exams removed from the curriculum in a teaching system which already allows extra support.

The BMA calls this learning disability ‘the gift of dyslexia’ and sees no reason why dyslexics should not qualify as doctors.

Speaking as a patient my view on dyslexic doctors is simple, clear and unequivocal – if it comes down a clash between the right of someone with a learning disability to follow their dream, and my right not to be killed as a result of their doing so, then I say sorry, choose another profession.

That is neither nice nor nasty, but simple self-preservation.

We are all different I have a degree of dyspraxia – I’m a bit clumsy – and synaesthesia, and I have depth perception problems. But my IQ (if you accept the validity of IQ in the first place) once tested in the top 3% of the nation.

I *choose* not to drive a car, although this causes me social problems and narrows my career choices, because I know I’d be a potential danger to the public. Similarly I decided not to be an engineer – not because I’m too thick, but because I have no aptitude for numbers. I might even be diagnosed as dysnumerate, were my middle class parents seeking to game the system in my favour. Certainly any railway, bridge or large building designed by me would be a danger to the public.

So too a person who has difficulty reading, writing and spelling (for whatever reason) has no aptitude to become a doctor and is a fool to think they do. A large component of the practice of medicine consists of clear and accurate observation, record keeping and prescription. There are minor spelling differences between hypo and hyper, for instance, yet the difference in meaning is vast and immediately life-threatening.

“0.1mg or 01mcg? Ooooh, not sure, let me squint a little…”

Doesn’t work, does it.

But the primary reason why this student is unqualified to be a doctor is not her dyslexia; it’s that she’s putting her own career ahead of her future patients’ interests. That’s not someone I’d want to treat me or anyone close to me.

If you’re bright enough to be interested in medicine as a career then you surely should also be bright enough to see the danger you might pose to a patient. How does the Hippocratic oath go? “First do no harm”? I can’t see how this student could take any such oath in good conscience. Or maybe she doesn’t have a good conscience; maybe she sees notions like ‘care for the patient first’ as boring old shibboleths which cannot be allowed to interfere with her own personal life choices.

This student and those supporting her are incredibly selfish – but then again, what can we expect from the flower of 3 generations of entitlement culture?

Just by way of hyperbolic illustration, here’s where making allowances gets you:

Doctor barred by state helps in U.S. executions

By Henry Weinstein
November 15, 2007 in print edition A-17

Note This article includes corrections to the original version.

A doctor who was barred from taking part in executions in Missouri because of concerns his dyslexia would interfere with his ability to administer lethal injections is helping the federal government carry out death sentences in Indiana, according to court documents.

The physician has been the target of more than 20 malpractice suits, was barred from practicing at two hospitals and was publicly reprimanded by a state agency for failing to disclose those suits to a hospital where he treated patients, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper identified the doctor as Alan R. Doerhoff of Jefferson City, Mo.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan Jr. of Kansas City, Mo., banned Doerhoff from participating “in any manner, at any level” in lethal injections in Missouri.

The judge said earlier he was “gravely concerned” that the doctor responsible for “mixing the drugs which will be responsible for humanely ending the life of condemned inmates, has a condition [dyslexia] which causes him confusion with regard to numbers.”

Federal officials, however, have made Doerhoff part of the execution team at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., according to court papers filed on behalf of several inmates there. All condemned federal prisoners are executed at that prison.

Among those executed there was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.

Ah well, if this student wins her case and goes on to qualify, I’m sure Jack Straw can find her a similar place at one of his Titan prisons.

The Politics Of Mixtapes

'08/12 Election, Culture, Gordon Brown, UK politics, US politics
Published on 1 Comment on The Politics Of Mixtapes

[Image source Peter And The Hare]

In the midst of this morning’s wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Glasgow bye-election result the Observer gives us a little glimpse of the fundamental difference between Gordon Brown and David Cameron:

Yesterday Brown was trying to show it was business as usual, joining his family in Suffolk for his summer break and telling reporters: ‘I think everybody’s ready for a holiday.’ Hours before, he had hosted the US presidential candidate Barack Obama in Downing Street. Obama met Brown’s children and his brother-in-law during a relaxed visit, during which the Browns presented Obama with books on Churchill and silver photo frames for his daughters.

The Tories had their own meeting between Obama and David Cameron, at which the senator was overheard congratulating Cameron on ‘all your success’. The two spent 20 minutes chatting about juggling fatherhood and politics and discussing Afghanistan and the economy. Cameron gave him a box of CDs including albums by the Smiths, Radiohead and Lily Allen.

As if Obama has never read about Churchill. The first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review’s as well if not better educated than Brown himself. How condescending.

In any case Churchill died over 40 years ago; what possible new insights could yet another Churchill doorstop give Obama into the lives and aspirations of the British now? Dizzy Rascal says more about today’s Britain than any tired rehash of we shall fight them on the bloody beaches could – because what a prospective US president needs to know is what we are today, not what we were in 1945.

Cameron has been very shrewd in his gift. There’s nothing gives such illumination into the character of a nation than the music it produces. By contrast Brown’s gift of a history book looks leaden, clunky and old fashioned. Did anyone at No 10 stop to consider that someone campaigning as busily as Obama would never have the time to read books? On the other hand, we know he has an iPod.

But then there’s the other aspect of mixtapes – traditionally, they’re what you give someone you fancy or you want to impress. Those of us who were teenagers in the seventies will well remember the agonies of choice that went into making them. Too slushy? Too twee? Not obscure or cool enough? A bad segue or miscued track intro could ruin your lovelife for ever! The modern equivalent of a box of carefully chosen CDs is a gift that has resonance for Generation X and Cameron knows this.

He knows too that he must impress the potential US president if he wants some of that Obama stardust to rub off.

I expect he was impressed too – Cameron may be politically shallow but he’s a lot more tuned in to the zeitgeist than anyone New Labour or the Lib Dems can produce. Politically astute as well to give CDs rather than MP3’s, neatly avoiding any potential accusations of RIAA infringement by either party.

All of those CDs will have been chosen specifically to convey a message about Cameron, about the Tories and about the country. Like Obama, I grew up in the era of the mixtape, when choosing music to compile for someone was a minor exposure of the soul, unlike these days when people spew endless lists of their unedifying likes and dislikes all over the interwebs. By giving Obama music he likes Cameron is saying, here’s me, here’s us, this is what we British are about. I can relate to that and so I expect can Obama.

I’d really like to know the full list of albums in that box. There’s a meme to set running – which 10 albums would you give to Obama or McCain to express what they need to know about today’s Britain?