Today is Pancake Day.

• Pancake: ukgate.com

This day is also known as Shrove Tuesday.

• Shrove Tuesday: mariannedorman.homestead.com

Until today, I have never made a connection between the two. I have lived in this country for six years now. Yet, I didn't know what Shrove Tuesday was. I'd definitely heard of pancake day before. Perhaps you knew the significance of today and perhaps you didn't.

How completely the separation of church from the people has occurred. Shrove Tuesday has a spiritual significance: it is a day of confession. The pancake tradition is derived from using up ingredients involved before they would not be used for Lent. Many similar traditional days peppering the Western annual calendar that have their spiritual significance wiped out or reduced.

Strange how a nation clings on to these days that no longer have any real meaning to them.

Well, they should have no meaning to them. Yet, a nation clings. These holidays are kept with all their accoutrements including their moral significance, but with a studious avoidance of any religious reference. You cannot turn your back on the religious tradition you have come from. The patterns of your calendar, the values you uphold and the law of the land are all derived from an ethics routed in religious belief. Without Christianity, your identity is impossible, even though you may not be Christian. You cannot completely wipe out Christianity, because it is who you are.

Notice the emphasis on feeding the body and pleasing it that these various days have taken on, or perhaps all that remains once you remove spirituality. Easter is for chocolate. Christmas is for gift giving and copious feasting. Don't forget Pancake Day.

As human beings, I do believe we have needs and wants that we are compelled to feed. Disobeying these compulsions is both difficult and unpleasant. These are all things basic to our nature. Obeying them is the fulfillment of natural behaviour. You cannot control what you need and want as a human being any more than you can control being born with two eyes.

There is those of the body: for sleep, nutrition, comfort, physical pleasure, adrenaline rushes, social contact and material objects.

There are compulsions of the mind. Our minds cry out for stimulation, for rationality, for control, for understanding, for stability and security.

These are wants and needs universally acknowledged modernly. What is not modernly acknowledged and most certainly not emphasised is the desire for spirituality as fundamental to human nature. Spirituality is viewed as a choice, as a personal preference, as a luxurious indulgence of emotion and thought. To quote the quotation that is always quoted, it is regarded as the 'opiate of the people'. (I should someday read the quotation in its original context. Keep that in mind that as I give it a small treatment below.)

In some ways, that quotation is apt. You manufacture your own opiates within your body; you have receptors for them in your nerves. Part of the human experience is to experience the effect of opiates. You require them for your normal functioning as a human.

Spirituality likewise is natural to the human state. I know of no people among the peoples that have built communities without marked spiritual expression. That is the evidence in history. Yet there is evidence in the present.

There are many who reach for spirituality but cannot quite capture it; the domination of rationalistic thought bars them from conviction. When they indulge their spiritual instincts, they have to compartmentalise it away from their everyday experience in a world that is effectively spiritually bankrupt.

There is much modern pursuit of practices that have a spiritual dimension to their experience. 25% of school age youth in the UK have tried drugs. This isn't mentioning when they move on to institutions such as university where they have loans to spend, lack of supervision and easy access to dodgy substances. Most of it is of course marijuana. An attraction drugs reportedly hold is an altered state of consciousness. Particularly interesting to me is repeated references to oneness and dissolving your conscious self as an individual entity. This is interesting to me because it is evocative of a practice I indulge in: Prayer.

I am not unique in this comparison. Many also seek similar experiences out in meditative rituals of various forms. Some instructors even claim they can give a psychedelic experience.

I am not commenting heavily at the moment on the consequences of spirituality. I am simply presenting to you the idea that it is human to be spiritual and that it is the natural human state from social, biological or even philosophical perspectives.

I do acknowledge that spirituality for me is basic to me and my contentment. I often become preoccupied with my experience of life as a scientist and a woman, neglecting my spiritual self. Yet, recently, when I found myself heavily immersed in religious practice which I was not accustomed to habitually, I found a weight lifted off me that I barely knew was there.

We are human. Our needs and wants are varied and conflicting. However, it is important to consider what they are before they are denied, controlled or indulged. You live as a human being on so many levels.

You have your body.

You have your mind.

You have your soul.

Remember that all parts of you must be fed.

I've been seeing over the course of the last few weeks a phrase that sets my teeth on edge.

There is this phrase that just says all there needs to be said about exactly how free-thinking, how much ikhtiyar, people are exerting over their own destinies. Its a phrase that only rarely should be used and which I admit to have practically used:

It is clear that you need professional psychological help.

Sorry, didn't write it properly for you guys the first time. Let me fix that for you.

If you do not agree with me on my opinion about this issue, then you need psychological help.

Occasionaly, the phrase is better and more honestly portrayed like this:

I've gotten emotional over the matter of discussion at hand, I'm going to ignore any facts you state because you're the one who needs psychological help for shocking me.

The language in which we speak contains memes we transmit. What does you need psychological help mean? It means that:

• I, the speaker, am a civilised and sane human being in comparison to you.
  What this is truly meaning is that the modern speaker cannot handle conflict or aggression unless dealt with under strictly arbitrated rules. They cannot reconcile the animalistic and dark natures of themselves to the civilised ideal demanded of a human being. It's a sin of false pride.

Who would you rather be: the ones who lie to themselves and say they are all individual or the one who deceives society and present themselves as not?

• You are pathological. Since what you say is abnormal, that makes you abnormal. The extension from this is that divergent ideas cannot be tolerated and have no merit to be addressed.

  What this signifies as far as the modern zeitgeist is that everything we do is somehow diseased. When someone does something with some structure, they're being anal. When a person sets expectations on a significant other, they're being controlling. When a person doesn't want to choose everything themselves, they're being dependent. When a feminist has sex, it's rape. When you have a strange dream, you're repressing something.

• What's wrong with all the above? Many things. Here's one. The problem in saying something is diseased is implying that it should be corrected. Regardless of whether it can be. Well, as anybody who's undergone psychotherapy can tell you, that's not true or easy. You are who you are. There are fundamentals that can't and shouldn't be influenced.

  You have to work with what you've got. e.g. If you're "controlling", you'll get along with someone "dependent".

  Why are we obsessed with calling all human actions diseased when accepting the unchanging parts of our natures is the path to happiness as what we cannot help being?

Psychology should be sparingly used. Abuse of psychology and psychiatry is nothing less than massive propaganda, a political and social tool to control a population. As exhibited by the easy clarity of the example of the target of homosexuality, what is psychologically healthy is what is considered socially normal.

For most human beings, there is nothing wrong with you! You are usually reacting in a sane way to a deranged human landscape: its the landscape that should be corrected and that can be corrected, not you. If someone went to war in Afghanistan, saw terrible unspeakable things and reacted to them in 'post-traumatic-stress-disorder' there is nothing wrong with him. Psychological help is a bandaid that effectively hushes up a much bigger problem: why send the man to a war unrelated directly to the defence of his country in the first place? Additional to this is the social problem, for any psychological problem you name, it is much more likely to happen given a lack of social support and meaning in life: in no small part due to materialism, superficiality of modern existence, a lack of cohesive communities caring personally for each other and dysfunctional families divorcing and collapsing.

Noone addresses the true issues behind mental health. A troubled mind is birthed from troubles.

Have you heard of Frances Inglis, mother?

Thomas had suffered serious brain damage after falling out of an ambulance in July 2007 and hitting his head on the tarmac. Although medics insisted he was showing signs of improvement, Inglis believed he would never recover, and plotted to "put him out of his misery", the court heard. Inglis tried to kill Thomas, administering heroin, most likely through the tracheotomy tube that was keeping him alive, the court was told.

She was on bail for attempted murder when she killed Thomas by injecting him in the thigh and arm, again with heroin, the court heard. She gave a false name to gain access to his care home. , and tried to stop nursing staff entering his room after she had injected him by claiming to have HIV and threatening to infect them with blood or saliva.

It's happening. I've talked about it here. It has been increasingly.

Why did she do this? Perhaps the clue is in her profession.

Frances Inglis, 57, a trainee nurse from Dagenham who was described by witnesses as “a pillar of the community”, denies murder and attemped murder.

I needn't tell you who it benefits to not emphasise the fact that she's connected to healthcare in any way. She's only a student, too.

The media has been giving this issue increasing attention, reflecting back the popular sentiment. For reasons I've explained before, I'm not surprised.

You're probably going to hear about this happening much more often. The popularity of euthansia or mercy murder -- whatever you wish to call it -- shall rise.

I'm gonna pull the whole thing down. I'm gonna bring the whole fuckin' diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be biblical.

Clyde as a hero* appeals on so many levels. A civilised man betrayed by the promises of civilisation. He's forced to become a vigilante to attain justice. He is the dad doing anything for his family. Sickly self-righteous; the monster that is birthed by monstrosity, with its heart a black vortex birthed from the abyss it has too long gazed upon.

* (well, meant to be the villain of the piece but I'll call him a hero because that's how I see him in a twisted way)

The problem with this movie was not that it didn't go far, but that it did not go far enough. I'm surprising myself saying this. Even though there was destruction and violence, there wasn't enough. Well, not quite. The system itself did not pay nor did it change. It did not get enough scrutiny or involvement. I'm not sure whose fault it is, where in the chain of Hollywood production things weren't adequately addressed. The system is impersonal, yet this movie personalised and focused on the personal interactions. We did not see the corrupt temple collapsing in and on itself. We did see hints of the corruption of complacent bureaucracy; obsessing with targets and creating enough rules that you'll find one to suit you if you find one that suits your agenda.

The personal interactions themselves left something to be desired in terms of substance, rather than style. The style itself was brilliant. Our hero was by turns insolent and tragic. He taught his lessons in perfect time with instances of hypocrisy and negligence; giving a way out if the lesson was learned although he did not expect it to be learned either.

Yet: Our vigilante father did not face much of an adversary. We didn't know anything about his thoughts or his background. In order for his opponent to remotely measure up, Clyde had to commit an error that was grossly out of character. What chessplayer doesn't watch their king?

This movie was a tragedy in so many ways. So many suffered for an end that simply was in teaching a man a lesson that is learned too late. Even this change is an optimism that is confined to the realms of Hollywood and an optimism we didn't see realised in the contexts of the actual film; we didn't actually see the change ensuing from the hero's terrible actions played out on screen.

It did strike me that Clydes of the world exist. They are losing their families everyday:

They[mothers] will continue to run off with the kids and there will be nothing the children’s fathers can do about it.
[...]
In fact, if there is anything men should have learned from the lessons of the past half-century or so, it is that in the absence of vigilance and stern oversight, government and politicians can only be counted on to betray us.

Noone is doing anything about it. Noone is seeing it as the same thing, not even the dads themselves (and that's where they're different from our hero.) Noone will. Noone even knows how.

Deal with the human being in front of you, not their ID number. Know the rules, then resolve to break them when it matters. Retain your humanity; it's not only a duty to yourself but it protects the humanity of every other human being around you.

A famous piece called The Physician's Prayer:
"From inability to let well alone,
from too much zeal for the new and contempt for what is old,
from putting knowledge before wisdom, science before art and
cleverness before common sense,
from treating patients as cases
and from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the
endurance of the same,
good Lord deliver us. Amen."
-- Sir Robert Hutchinson
(1871-1960)

(Despite my misrepresentation: the emergency code for the UK is 999, not 911. I am surprised the Politically Correct Brigade hasn't thought to push for changing that 9/11 number.)

Being in medical school, any idealism about your role is systematically ameliorated and deconstructed. When we submitted our personal statements outlining precisely why we wished to pursue the arduous path of medicine (an admittedly mad decision), a common piece of advice was not to present a picture of unrealistic idealism: they wanted some evidence of the understanding of precisely what a doctor's role actually is, specifically within the framework of the National Health Service. Still, the primary reason for choosing the doctor's role over other professions for most who do is in finding that is worth doing, worth getting out of bed for, worth the comparative loss of sanity, sleep and income to other fields open to you. A role that is both compatible with your personal ethics and perceived to be of inestimable worth to society.

You are allowed to retain some version of naivety and self-righteousness -- sorry, encouraged to be ethical and good -- insofar as it allows you to justify any action to yourself within the safe knowledge that you are doing it either in the best interests of your patient or out of respecting their autonomy: that is, for them to make their own decisions even if you disagree with them.

You are allowed to do a lot of good as part of the medical profession: vaccination, treatment, easing suffering. This is what happens most of the time.

However, there are grey areas. Or even black areas. A problem with being part of a nationalised service or any organisation is that you are essentially an agent of their interests; you may disagree with them but your enforced job is to remain in line with them. You are a slave to political trends and helpless to powers beyond your realistic control.

What faces the future doctor?
We have the financial consequences of the recession, although finances were a problem already. Latest figures from the office of statistics place the public debt at 7.7 billion, compared to surplus at the same time last year. Contributing to this figure is the cost of bailing out banks; figures for the cost of this ranged from billions to over a trillion.

Cost-cutting measures in the nationalised health service are happening and will happen, leading indirectly to loss of life. This can't be avoided.

Euthanasia is currently illegal in the United Kingdom. A matter darker than this is that there is and will be increasing clamour for legalisation and laxity around anti-euthanasia measures. Not only will this benefit the strained coffers of the NHS but the demand increases: as we lose the soft, warm and comforting blanket of the comforts of deranged consumerism, more of the population will find the idea of living intolerable as well as the idea of being a 'burden'. More people will want to be helped to die and it will be easier to say 'yes'.

This is an issue wherever economies are affected and not just a local one.

I wonder -- as an aside -- what the USA motivations for pushing health care reform measures leading to an increase of control by governmental institutions might be amidst a tenuous economic climate? Will Obama's administration abuse this control? Will the next administration?

Again and again, I question and reflect: will I be able to recognise when I'm doing what a good doctor should be doing or am I rationalising that what the NHS wants is precisely what a good doctor is?

Well, we are far away here from the idealistic pre-medical student state where the role of the doctor is to 'save lives.' It is to ease suffering. Like healers before me, I may include dispensation of death within the purview of my role: even though it offends the very foundation of what I intended to study and fight to preserve.

Easing suffering (where do we draw the limit for suffering?) or not: will I be able to make the decision to kill? That remains to be seen.

In 1886, a man called John Langdon Down asked a question that would be regarded today as politically incorrect. In his "Observations on the Ethnic Classification of Idiots", he showed that ' A very large number of congenital idiots are typical Mongols'.

In fact, he was using this observation as an argument against slavery:

If these great racial divisions are fixed and definite, how comes it that disease is able to break down the barrier, and to simulate so closely the features of the members of another division. I cannot but think that the observations which I have recorded, are indications that the differences in the races are not specific but variable.

His observation was also an important step in understanding Down's Syndrome and dealing effectively with those affected, resulting in less stigma of the condition. Needless to say, any allusion to 'mongolism' is studiously avoided modernly.

Political correctness itself is a recurring seeming contradiction in the pursuit of truth. In
order to properly care for a group, -- if you are honest about their welfare -- you must face their reality.

When an insult is issued, there may be truth behind it. The more important question to ask is why was the seeming insult issued? It leads to a line of inquiry and debate that leads to real investigation and thought about what action to be taken. You cannot even begin to decide what to do unless you have the facts. You cannot have the facts unless you verify observations and investigate any reasons behind them honestly.

These facts do not go away simply because we choose not to acknowledge them and bury our heads in the sand.

An example of a very controversial current topic is IQ differences between ethnic or racial groups. Yet, asking the question is important. The answer will of course be used by different factions to promote their agendas; that's no reason not to ask the question or acknowledge average differences in the first place. Only then can real debate and action happen examining why is it happening: to what extent is it genetic, disease-related, environmental, cultural or socioeconomic? What're the implications of this and does it matter to society? What are the solutions and do we need them?

The message hasn't sinked in to the disbelieving public consciousness. Best available evidence shows that antioxidant supplements either have no effect or, worse, increase your risk of death.

You heard that right.

These supplements either WASTE YOUR MONEY or they KILL you.

Main results
Sixty-seven randomised trials with 232,550 participants were included. Forty-seven trials including 180,938 participants had low risk of bias. Twenty-one trials included 164,439 healthy participants. Forty-six trials included 68111 participants with various diseases (gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neurological, ocular, dermatological, rheumatoid, renal, endocrinological, or unspecified). Overall, the antioxidant supplements had no significant effect on mortality in a random-effects meta-analysis (relative risk [RR] 1.02, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99 to 1.06), but significantly increased mortality in a fixed-effect model (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.06). In meta-regression analysis, the risk of bias and type of antioxidant supplement were the only significant predictors of intertrial heterogeneity. In the trials with a low risk of bias, the antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality (RR 1.05, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.08). When the different antioxidants were assessed separately, analyses including trials with a low risk of bias and excluding selenium trials found significantly increased mortality by vitamin A (RR 1.16, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.24), beta-carotene (RR 1.07, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.11), and vitamin E (RR 1.04, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.07), but no significant detrimental effect of vitamin C (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.20). Low-bias risk trials on selenium found no significant effect on mortality (RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.01).

Authors' conclusions
We found no evidence to support antioxidant supplements for primary or secondary prevention. Vitamin A, beta-carotene, and vitamin E may increase mortality. Future randomised trials could evaluate the potential effects of vitamin C and selenium for primary and secondary prevention. Such trials should be closely monitored for potential harmful effects. Antioxidant supplements need to be considered medicinal products and should undergo sufficient evaluation before marketing.

This is published by the Cochrane Library, which only publishes the most rigorous and quality systematic review of best evidence.

Photo by Piku.

I urge you to get your antioxidants naturally, my darlings.

The NHS is often spoken of like a particularly good and frightening ghost story around the campfire. If by campfire we mean a fake fireplace in your living room. Alhough often nothing has happened personally to anyone, people share stories -- their voices lowering to whispers -- of that person who they heard was infected with MRSA or -- disbelieving gasps! -- that woman who has had her leg amputated by mistake.

The horror stories about the NHS are just that: horror stories. It can be an imperfect organisation, hampered by being a political football as well as financial and organisational limitations. However, healthcare works in many more cases than it doesn't. It is undoubtedly and definitely better than nothing if you need help.

With that in mind, enjoy these Halloween-themed health-related happenings, keeping in mind their rarity and the continuing effort to fight for better standards of healthcare in and out of the NHS:

• Bats have invaded a hospital in Dundee. It does seem a shame to expel them from the premises, as they were only moving in time and in preparation for All Hallow's Eve. The bats should put in a complaint about discrimination against their species: the casual disregard of the sacrosanct nature of creatures surrounding popular holidays -- even apparently secular in nature -- should not be tolerated.
• The witches -- sorry, the alternative therapists -- now have their familiars registering to practice in association with their selves. The first familiar to join these licensed practitioners is, of course, a cat. His name is George. So what talents would a cat have?

  Go on, guess.

  He is a hypnotherapist.

  Look into George the Cat's eyes.

  You will have a Happy Halloween.

  You will have a Happy Halloween.

  You will have a Happy Halloween.

Image credits:
Halloween Hospital -- Jascha Hoste
Bats & Cats -- Jade Gordon

With every right comes a duty. Whenever we assert that we have a right that is basic and important, the only way to guarantee it is by upholding that right for ourselves and others. There is an accompanying responsibility that comes with it that must always be recognised.

It is a reasonable assumption that every individual's preferred status is geared towards freedom and autonomy: they want to decide where their resources and money go, they want to know what is happening to them and they want to know that their wishes are being followed.

What happens when an individual's own independent decision restricts the autonomy of others? Then their own autonomy becomes restricted. The thief who steals the resources of another becomes imprisoned against his will. An eye for an eye is the effective outcome in most cases: the payment may not be exactly equal but the payment is made.

Now let us look at this in a wider scale. Let us call the population the thieves and the government their policeman.

It is a reasonable assumption to make that since we are largely leaning towards maximal freedom, that we wish as minimal governmental interference in our lives. However, this means we have a responsibility. We have a responsibility to ensure that this interference is not required.

Governments only have as much power as their populace gives them, mainly through the amount of interference and involvement we allow.

I see this interference every day. I see it in our failures. Every time a person is unemployed and goes on welfare, every time a family undergoes a troubled divorce, every time a member of a family is left in the care of the state.

Once family breaks down, once community breaks down, once society breaks down, then this is when the government becomes the new society, the new community, the new family.

The government uses your desire for an easier life and abdicating personal responsibility to become responsible for you. The government becomes responsible for what you should be responsible. The government cares for those you love and those that surround you. The government cares for criminality and addicts. The government cares for your planning permission, which you can't resolve because you don't know how to deal with your neighbour.

All this is when you lose any control over the world that surrounds you.

An easy life is not the life you choose freely.

Do you ever envy the parasite that preys on waste itself and benefits noone? Do you ever envy what lives and dies only to feed an appetite that can never be satiated?

If your answer is no, then do what you can to ensure that you do not become a parasite on the body politic. Do what you can to live a life where all those immediately around you can rely on you and you can rely on them. Family first, friends first, community first and government last.

That is as it should be.

As one astute but anonymous commenter noted, the ethical scenario derived from this ethical problem is from the Tarasoff case:

On October 27, 1969, Prosenjit Poddar killed Tatiana Tarasoff. Both had been students at the University of California at Berkeley. They had met a year earlier at a folk dancing class. After a kiss on New Year's, Poddar became convinced they had a serious relationship. Tarasoff told him she was involved with other men and not interested. Poddar became depressed, neglecting his studies and health, speaking disjointedly and often weeping. He talked to a friend about blowing up her room, and was eventually convinced to go to student health. He started therapy with a psychologist on staff, Dr. Lawrence Moore. In August, during his ninth session, Poddar confided to Dr. Moore that he was going to kill Tarasoff when she returned from summer break. Dr. Moore subsequently informed the campus police that he felt Poddar was dangerous and that he should be hospitalized involuntarily. The police picked up Poddar, but after questioning felt he had "changed his attitude" and released him after he promised to stay away from Tarasoff. The psychiatric directior, Dr. Harvey Powelson, learned of the situation and instructed his staff not to pursue further attempts to hospitalize Poddar. Poddar stopped seeing Dr. Moore. In October, he went to Tarasoff's house and stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife. He then called the police and asked to be handcuffed.

The California Supreme Court heard the case twice, in 1974 and 1976. The court found the police could be held liable in the first hearing, but not in the second. In contrast to the police, the therapist was consistently held liable because of the "special relation that arises between a patient and his doctor or psychotherapist."

As an anonymous commenter said here, the immediate answer seems to be informing the authorities. So they're informed, you can trust them to take action, they have a duty to protect the public, isn't that right?

Well, it is not as proven in the aforementioned scenario. A psychiatrist must be a policeman, somehow find the person under threat without provoking their patient and inform them independently i.e. pull out all the stops especially under the discretion of your judgement, as anonymous here and Yewzer-1 commented.

The ability to consult colleagues in the team at your practice seems is the norm on any aspect of any case: it doesn't seem any medical professional is expected to manage on their own and there is implicit consent apparently that your information will be shared with appropriate members of the team who are also bound by confidentiality. Exceptions may be given to cases where there is any known relationship between you and another member of the team.

Police and prosecutors are to be told to presume that hundreds more crimes are "honour" based in a new drive to bring more offenders to justice.

Under the new guidance it will be assumed that an honour crime has been committed in any case in which there is the slightest sign that such an offence has taken place - even if the victim has not reported it.

The BBC has a great section on honour killings, which you can read wholly here: it corrects a few misconceptions and confirms other assumptions. Highlighted, I believe, also by the BBC above is how much the tension between differing cultural pressures is a problem.

As the BBC mentions, honour killing are known to take place in certain communities including among Hindus (the story linked here is a bit of a horrifying role reversal) and victimise men (especially gay men) as well.

I like this discussion in the Guardian about attitudes new and old, both in the article and the comments section. There's some evidence attitudes are changing:

In Jordan, Queen Rania has publicly called for tougher sentencing of honour crimes. But the parliament there has twice refused to abolish Article 340 of the penal code, opting instead to modify it and allow convicted honour killers to be sentenced for a few months only.

Pakistan however has voted to introduce a law to punish honour killers with the death penalty. And in Turkey, where honour killers used to incur just an eighth of the normal sentence, life imprisonment is now a real possibility.

Why are honour killings special, and not simply called murder? Here's one argument:

Killing a spouse for insurance is brutal and monstrous but it is an act only focused on the deceased.

But honour killing kills the deceased and threatens others. An honour killing uses violence as theatre to intimidate others. It stands to enforce a sexual code of conduct by violence and threats.

Here's another more detailed argument in the context of honour killings versus 'simply domestic violence'. (simply domestic violence? Now that's something you thought you probably you wouldn't see someone saying in the current political climate.)

Notice that the official position of muslims in the West is not condoning it; this is consistent with the incidents seem to be restricted to new immigrants. As well as this, looking at the incidents of honour killings on a case by case basis there're many unIslamic elements. This doesn't change that it is largely within muslim communities that honour killings occur.

I must take an aside to wonder how we women continue to actively defy this. How controllable is female sexuality, with anecdotal evidence on my part and by another person or two, of promiscuity in e.g. Saudi Arabia?

In general, these honour killings as they occur seem to have no justification to me: my prayers and thoughts with the victims (one of the only times you'd see a muslim spoken positively about in what seems to be a generally anti-Islamic blog).

However, honour killings are and can be used as a propaganda tool to justify the following:
-- global condemnation of values and beliefs perceived as traditional, including expressing disapproval over sexual behaviour.
-- misandry, including presumption of misogyny as men's nature.
-- non-selective anti-Islamic sentiment, extending to other religions.

Honour killings capture the consciousness of the public, with the incomprehensibility of them. A father, a brother killing a family member. Assisted by female relatives, even. It's somehow an extension of forced marriages. I examine all this being in the position of feeling that it could easily be me. I did not realise how progressive my family were until sorely tested with my brother's sexuality. Since I don't like hiding from uncomfortable ideas: I ask myself, do I deserve it? An honour killing? I remember seeing a video of Du'a Khalil Aswad and revisiting the issue in in Channel 4's Britz. I'd congratulate myself on how lucky I am. Then I'd ask myself not to bring shame to my family, because I start to believe more and more they wouldn't do anything like this to me.

Doctors should be interested in climate change and the environment for many reasons, including those outlined here:

Some of the headline findings were that rising temperatures are likely to increase transmission of many infectious diseases, reduce supplies of food and clean water in developing countries, and raise the number of people dying from heat-related conditions in temperate regions.

It is actually arguable whether any one 'developed' country should really care about developing countries. However, in this world strangely filled with images of starving African guilt and endless global guilt about them, the masses will accept and be motivated by this without question. Or maybe another possibility: perhaps they are just assumed to do so. In any case, although this seems to be the focus of the article, what is more important for the individual making any changes are the costs and benefits to them or their country.

Is a more environmentally friendly society an economically viable society? The answer to this is complex and beyond the scope of this post.

Is a more environmentally friendly society a healthier society? More exercise, less reliance on electricity, more locally and homegrown products. I believe the general agreement on this is that the answer is yes.

This doesn't mean that everything that's environmentally friendly is healthy:

"A low-carbon economy will mean less pollution. A low carbon-diet (especially eating less meat) and more exercise will mean less cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

"Opportunity, surely, not cost."

Trans fats have been proven to be culrprits in the above diseases, more or less without question. Saturated fats also have been implicated and well.

However, villifying meat as a food product seems to be unfair. It is a source of protein and iron, working well if grilled or boiled and supplemented with cereals, vegetables and fruits. What's most dangerous is including fish under this heading, which is one of the healthiest foods to eat.

Image by Ivan Petrov.

Martin's post about The Moral Authority of Artists reminded me of some works I've seen in the glorious city that I am so grateful to inhabit, London. The Top Five below encapsulate and demonstrate some of the issues regarding modern art, namely that anything is justified from pure ridiculousness to morally questionable work.

At Position Number Five: My Bed by Tracey Emin

Make your room really dirty. Do not clean up your rubbish, especially discarded underwear and condoms. Move it to a gallery, call it art, showcase the literal waste that represents your life.

Anointing Number Four: 20:50 by Richard Wilson.

It's a room full of oil. It reflects quite perfectly. You have to enter one at a time for safety reasons. I'm not sure what to say more than this.
It's a room.
Full of.
Oil.

Wearing the Crown of Number Three: Self by Mark Quinn

A man so infected with narcissism that rivalled Ms Emin, he drained blood from himself for a year to gather enough to compose a sculpture of his own head.

At Tank Number Two: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst

A shark was killed.
So that it could be preserved.
Frozen, appearing as if it was in fact alive and fighting for it.
A very cruel piece of work, this.
As if one wasn't enough, the first was not preserved properly and they had to kill another one. Gruesome.

At the Edifice of Number One: Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo

The Tate Modern is a historic establishment, including its Turbine Hall. So, let's put a giant crack in the floor and call it art. The reactions of people to it is what makes it remotely interesting.

What it is meant to symbolise:

In particular, Salcedo is addressing a long legacy of racism and colonialism that underlies the modern world. A ‘shibboleth’ is a custom, phrase or use of language that acts as a test of belonging to a particular social group or class. By definition, it is used to exclude those deemed unsuitable to join this group.

Oh, really? What with such a noble message, Doris' crack has become completely justified.

Including the few minor injuries it has resulted in.

P.S. If you for some God forsaken reason actually enjoyed these then, hey, looks like you can do works similar to these at home. Although I am seriously questioning the safety of the blood-taking kit, which I myself have to do some training in order to carry out safely.