Just another dent in the damage…

Now really is it worth all the fuss? Ten Oscar nominations? Four Golden Globes? The ‘best ensemble cast’ at the SAG awards? Probably. It’s a good film. It’s difficult not to be drawn in by the romance of the film or the beautiful cinematography, yet categorising a film depicting extreme poverty, religious riots, death, modern day child slavery and prostitution as ‘the feel-good movie of the year’ is a tad disturbing right?

Based on the Vikas Swarup novel Q and A, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young slum boy called Jamal who manages to escape the ‘beggar mafia’ in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai and goes on to win 20 million Rupees in the Indian equivalent of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’. Having made it to the final question Prem Kumar (the game show host) calls upon the authorities and accuses Jamal of cheating, on the assumption that an uneducated tea server (chai-wallah) could not possibly know the answers.

During the opening scene the viewers are introduced to Jamal via police interrogators using torture tactics to unsuccessfully force Jamal into admitting his guilt. Determined to solve the case, police inspector (Irrfan Khan) spends the night questioning in turn how he came to answer each question correctly, resulting in a ‘bizarrely plausible’ tale of a slumdog, his brother and his love. The multi-layered story of Jamal’s battle in the slums, the death of his mother, his heart-break over Latika and the care of his brother, Salim, are depicted as flashbacks documenting his upbringing and coincidentally explaining how he came to not only be on the show in the first place but also how he was able to answer correctly and what his motivations were for participating. finding Latika.

It’s a sad story, sad in the fact that the beggar mafia is by no means fictitious or that children are taken into ‘care’ by real life gangsters, severely mutilated and forced out to beg, steal and cheat on the harsh streets of a big city. I feel anything but good about seeing the harsh reality of India’s poverty, but having said that I don’t think it should be hidden away either; ‘the last thing these people are looking for is pity‘.

The problem with Amitabh Bachchan is that hes taken all this very personal, suggesting that the portrayal of Mumbai’s slums is some kind of western attack on India as a developing nation, or more likely he’s just jealous of the global recognition a western director is getting for making an ‘Indian’ film and I just don’t get it. This film is accessible to a western audience and I hope that it will do its part in taking tourism back to India after the horrific Mumbai attacks, it’s too beautiful a country not to see! All in all, I enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire and will probably enjoy seeing it again but I totally prefer real Bollywood, Akshay Kumar is so dreamy and the dancing’s much better.

The United States of America’s 44th President.

News from the New Scientist reports Iranian brothers Kamiar and Arash Alaei, pioneers of treatment for HIV in Iran, have been charged with “communications with an enemy government” to “launch a velvet (sic) overthrow of the Iranian government”. They have been held in detention since June 2008 when they were taken to an undisclosed location pending (at the time) unknown charges.

Read more about them:

I Save Lives;
Facebook Group – Kamiar and Arash Alaei Information Group;
Tackling Iran’s Heroin Habit;
Free the Docs;
Wikipedia.

Once again whilst enjoying our Christmas break, eating til we explode (that wasn’t just me was it?), Captain Paul Watson and his Merry Men set sail on this year’s mission to save the whales. Operation Musashi launched and I think it’s about time I gave y’all an update.

Leaving Brisbane, Australia on December 4th (with a brief fuel and oil stop in New South Wales and Tasmania) the crew headed off to the Ross Sea with one sole purpose – to intercept the Japanese whaling fleet. Operation Musashi is in fact Sea Shepherd’s fifth Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign aimed to tackle illegal whaling activities committed under the guise of ‘research’. Following the success of last year’s campaign (Operation Migaloo), which saw the Japanese fleet return home 484 whales ($70 million) short of target, Captain Watson intends to further undermine their profits and expose the true damage of violating the international moratorium on commercial whaling. For Watson, in targeting endangered whales for the sale of its meat this fleet threaten ‘the diversity of life and thus the future of our own kind upon this planet’ and it is up to us as human beings to ‘risk all to protect diversity and the right of other species to live unmolested by the rapacious greed of humankind’.

Fast forward to December 20th 2008 and the crew aboard the Steve Irwin have their first encounter with the Nisshin Maru.

On Saturday morning, we spotted a moving target on the radar. The entire area was shrouded in thick fog and dense ice as we moved towards the ship. It could only be a whaler in this area and we could only assume that they thought we were part of the fleet. They did not alter course nor did they attempt to speed up. – Captain Paul Watson

Then out of the fog, emerging on Steve Irwin’s port side, came the Yusshin Maru No 2 sporting a new device – a large net rigged to draw across the entire side of the vessel on a high wire between the fore and aft mast – to stop the Sea Shepherd crew from boarding. And so the inflatable Delta was launched armed with rotten butter bombs as foul props. But with high winds and a malfunctioning GPS system the Delta was called back and the Irwin moved on to seek protection against the blizzard conditions from a nearby iceberg – where they remained for the next 12 hours before pursuing open water. This time the whalers escaped fleeing eastward, putting 50 miles between themselves and the whale protectors. Being more concerned with running from the Sea Shepherds than killing whales meant that for now the whales were safe.

Unbeknown to the crew they’d only have to wait another nine days until their next encounter. Quartermaster Jeff Hansen ‘noticed something on the radar that warranted first mate Peter Brown’s attention’. With the fog clearing Emily Hunter (daughter of the late Robert Hunter) later confirmed this ’something’ to be the Kaiko Maru, one of the fleet’s spotter vessels. And so the chase continued and the Japanese were unable to continue whaling in Australian waters. However,

‘What is now good news for the whales in Australian waters is now bad news for the whales in the waters south of New Zealand,’ said Captain Watson. ‘They are still targeting endangered and protected whales in the waters of an established international whale sanctuary and thus they are still in violation of international conservation law and acting under the principles of the United Nations World Charter for Nature, we will continue to pursue, harass and intervene against their blatantly illegal lethal assaults on the whales.’ – Sea Shepherd News.

Fast forward again to January 6th 2009 and three whaling vessels (spotter vessel the Kyoshin Maru No. 2 and the two remaining kill ships, the Yushin Maru No 1 and No 3 – No 2 had headed off for mechanical repairs) lay on the horizon engaged in a search for the missing whaler Hajime Shiraskai, thought to have fallen overboard the night before from the Kyoshin Maru No.2.

Out of respect for the lost whaler and his family, we all stood down as an offer of assistance was put forward to the whaling fleet to help in the search. Our Japanese crew member radioed the Japanese fleet with our offer which resulted in almost 15 minutes of silence before we finally got a response. – Crew Blog.

And that response was to inform Paul and his crew that the fleet were not willing to accept any help from ‘Eco-Terrorists’. Yet with Paul being Paul they launched two boat crews and a helicopter to search the area, aiding the search nonetheless. But not for long, the ship is in need of fuel to continue with the Operation’s second leg. After a stop in Hobart they’ll be back in the dangerous waters to continue our battle for the seas. Please support this mission!

The Nature Publishing Group has launched a new online educational resource called Scitable. Aimed at undergraduate biology students and educators the platform combines scientific information with social functionality to provide users with an authoritative resource in the Google-isation of education. So far Scitable boasts over 150 evidence based articles in the field of genetics, which includes:

• chromosomes and cytogenetics;
• evolutionary genetics;
• gene expression and regulation;
• gene inheritance and transmission;
• genes and disease;
• genetics and society;
• genomics;
• nucleic acid structure and function;
• population and quantitative genetics.

Each overview has been vetted by the Nature Publishing Group with reference to primary scentific literature and best of all it doesn’t cost a penny to use.

By registering with Scitable you can build a ‘personal portfolio’ (or profile) to store bookmarks and join in the discussion, creating groups or classrooms to host topics. There is also the opportunity to practice your networking skills by communicating directly with other users around the world. And finally with the option to contribute material and collaborate with peers there couldn’t be a better way to develop fundamental research in the public domain.

For more visit Scitable on:

• Facebook;
• Twitter;
• Myspace Videos.

Today kicks off Macworld 2009, IDG’s annual Apple trade show and conference platform, but without Steve Jobs and any future participation from Apple (after 24 years) concern for the conference and expo’s future has overtaken the fruitful announcement rumour mill. This year Apple’s keynote is to be delivered by Senior Vice President of Product Marketing, Philip Schiller rather than Steve Jobs (whose keynotes have ran for the last ten years) and with calls for silent protests both annoucements have clearly angered fans. Apple’s decision to pull out of future expos has come about due to the forum not providing value for money in terms of reaching its customers. With 3.5 million store visits a week trade shows are no longer a major platform to promote new products or make annoucements and in scaling back its presence at other trade shows the news is not necessarily surprising, just disappointing especially for the Jobs fanclub.

But… the show must go on and thanks to this wonderful thing called the internet there’ll be numerous ways of keeping up-to-date with event activities. For starters check out:

• The Unofficial Apple Weblog – macworld09;
• Hashtags – macworld, mwsf09;
• Twitter – macworld;
• and, Macworld Magazine – Macworld Expo.

Update – And to put a stop to the health rumours Jobs has released a statement describing the cause of his weight loss.