Viva Forever

Primordial Dwarfism
I watched a documentary called The Smallest People in the World by the ABC about Primordial Dwarfism, initially focusing on a TINY baby girl called Kenadie who was born with the condition before progressing on to talk to other, older people who also have the condition. It was utterly FASCINATING. Most people would be used to the archetypal impression of what a person with dwarfism would look like, but I was utterly taken back by how regularly proportioned people with primordial dwarfism, but just that EVERYTHING is shrunken down! There’s a wonderful gallery of professionally taken photos of Kenadie and other people with such conditions here. There’s also a video available here with more information (if you’d excuse the obnoxious interviewer lady).
Because most of the documentary I saw focused on Kenadie, I was just constantly enchanted by how tiny she was. She… looked almost like some sort of fantastical, magical creature! Oddly enough, I felt she made the people around her look like giants rather than herself looking too small. Most of all, she really reminded me of the classical illustrations of Matilda by Roald Dahl. I loved that book, Matilda was one of my favourite childhood figures.

It’s quite tragic how people with Primordial Dwarfism have so many health problems though and statistically die quite young. I think it’s rather amazing that they survive that length of time at all, given how shrunken down in size every part is… when you come down to it, the shrinkage is not perfect (for one, you can’t get smaller atoms, and maybe even not be able to get functioning, smaller cells), Primordial Dwarfism means less than normal of all parts of the body. Still, utterly fascinating it all is.

Foetal Theft
On a more macabre note, I watched another documentary called Foetal Theft on the Crimes and Investigations Network. It’s exactly what it sounds like, people who go out, find pregnant women and forcibly remove the growing foetus from the mother, often leaving the pregnant woman to die. Such cases are incredibly rare (thankfully!) and a synopsis of the show can be found here.

While it wasn’t too surprising that the documented cases were of women, with probable mental disorders and unstable romantic relationships who might possibly be wanting to steal baby to stop their partner from leaving them. What WAS surprising though was how all the women documented already have children! Many children in fact! Some perpetrators were even pregnant at the time! So it’s not some deranged, lonely woman craving for a child of her own, but for some reason, women who want another child to add to the ones she already has. Perhaps these women have found previously that their relationships with their partners can be healed by birthing a child that is theirs and in a fit of panic, wanted a child immediately to fill some sort of relationship breakdown? The documentary suggested that the need for control could be another central element.

It was also startling to see these foetal thieves (or as apparently some in the US have called them, “womb raiders”, har har) all simply refusing to own up to having done anything wrong. For example, the last woman, Solangela Cartagena, concocted an elaborate lie about how the pregnant woman she found WANTED to have the foetus cut out of her and she was simply obliging. This cannot be the case because the pregnant lady was found alive and recalled she was drugged right before she was kidnapped by Cartagena. It’s really tragic for all those involved.

I finished watched the BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. Now, I own the book version but it’s sitting on my bookshelf still unread. There’s just something about the way Jane Austen writes that utterly bores me to death.

The series however, has been utterly delightful and I enjoyed every moment of the six episodes. Call me plebeian, but just seeing the people interacting and moving about amongst quaint (and on occasions, grand) English country settings is enough to sustain an interest in me to keep watching (as opposed to having to read Austenian descriptions of people and places), even if the dialogue at times gets a little difficult to understand.

My favourite characters are definitely, Elizabeth Bennet, her father and of course, everyone’s favourite, Mr. Darcy. I absolutely love the character of Elizabeth, for her sensibility, her quick wit and her courage to stand up to people who offend her, regardless of class. One of my favourite scenes was her argument with Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Of course, she wasn’t without flaw in how she was quick to judge and presume things but hey that makes her a more real character. Her father too, is one of the most awesome fictional dads I’ve ever come across! I loved his snarky attitude towards his wife and silly daughters.

And Mr. Darcy. Apart from his subtle little mannerisms that are just adorable (giant top-hat!!), he’s just an awesome person. I loved that he fell in love with Elizabeth because she was different from the other flighty women around her. He merely accepted the fact that Elizabeth was a brilliant and different young woman, without any condescension. Sure, he had his whole superiority complex at the very beginning (but who can blame him when he lives in a gigantic brick-box of a house and resides in a social class way above her own). I love the fact that Darcy’s so willing to be frank and honest (even if it might slight and offend) and yet willing to apologise when he makes mistakes, and only when he makes mistakes. And that, in my opinion, is the template of an admirable person.

Mr. Collins is definitely a character I dislike the most in the series. He’s such a slimy character; thinking so highly of himself and so willing to condescend. His initial attraction to Elizabeth had nothing to do with her personality, but only her looks. He fumbles and flops all over himself while he tries to catch her eye, by making one foolish remark after another about his station in life. He patronisingly assumes that Elizabeth would be falling head over heels for him for his meager wealth and it was another favourite scene of mine when Elizabeth laid her smackdown on him.

Anyway, I’m just another person who highly recommend this series to anyone. Does anyone know anything about the 2005 movie adaptation? I have a feeling that Keira Knightley would do a terrible job as Elizabeth (ugh, I can imagine her doing her whole “Pirates of the Caribbean”, indignant, angry, “OMG shut up okay at least you don’t have to wear a corset!!” spiel and tying that in with her version of Elizabeth) and he looks too pansy to be a proper Mr. Darcy.

So Tim and I watched SiCKO the day before yesterday. I actually really wanted to see it, as I’ve seen clips of it online, and even though I’m not American, it does concern me to know how the health care system is over there.

And it seems absolutely ATROCIOUS. At one point, one of the Senators were doing his impassioned parliamentary speech on some sort of deregulation of drugs bill for senior citizens, said something along the lines of “I *love* my mother just as much as any of you love YOUR mothers!!!” And Tim pointed out, that he never said that he loved OUR mothers. And that’s kinda the crux of the mentality that drives private health care. Everyone is out for themselves (and their family) and not for each other.

The movie does seem to present the health care system of Canada, England, Cuba and France a little too positively, but there were practical time restraints for that. No health care system is perfect, but I strongly believe that universal health care is a gzillion times better than private health care. Good universal health care IS expensive mind you, and these countries (and Australia’s!) pay heaps of tax, depending on how much you earn. I have no problems with the idea of paying more tax if you earn more. It makes me happy to know that at least part of it is going to someone who needs it. Capitalist mentality would all be like “you should do whatever with what you earn! It’s YOURS!” That kinda ties in with what one of my clever economics friend told me recently. Lowering tax means that people would spend more money. Spending more money would mean that inflation goes up which means the interest rates for housing goes up. While this might be a simplification of the issue, it nonetheless sounds like a lose-lose situation.

I looked up what critics of the movie said and here’s two gems I found.

1. SiCKO mentioned that in the WHO report of the quality of health care globally, America does amazing poorly. One critic said,

   “The WHO report doesn’t just rank health care systems according to how well they cure you when you’re sick. Indeed, 25% of the WHO report’s scoring is based on the “fairness” of a country’s health care financing as measured by how redistributionist – socialist – it is.”

   Oh noes! A criteria based on the FAIRNESS of how health care is distributed! That’s… bad? What do people have against socialism anyway? Why is the idea of helping someone in need such an oddly feared and hated idea? Does 1950s propaganda about communism and socialism still effective to this day? Jesus Christ, freaking out over a socialist criteria is not a problem with the criteria, but with your paranoia about socialism.

2. One thing that SiCKO failed to mention was that in places with universal health care, one common down side is waiting time. For non-emergency dental work, my grandparents here had to wait months on the list. I hear horror stories on our news of patients dying because they had to wait too long. And that DOES freaking suck. That’s a problem with the availability of resources though at the institutionalised level It might freaking suck to have to wait for months/years for something but at least you would eventually get it. If you’re poor in a system with private health care… you’ll never get it. As claimed by this critic:
   

   “Browning tells the tale of Lindsay McCreith, a retired body shop owner from Ontario who was forced to wait four months for an MRI to determine whether he had a brain tumor. Banned by Canadian law from seeking private care, he finally got the MRI in Buffalo, New York, whereupon he discovered that the tumor was indeed real. But he still needed surgery. In Canada, he would have been required to wait six to eight months — by which time the tumor might have proved fatal. In the United States, he got surgery within a week.”

   Note the convenient use of the word “got”. If you’ve got PLENTY of money, of course private health care would be awesome. You’ll be set back however many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars that you have lying around anyway, but hey no waiting! In a system with only a limited amount of resources, if you’ve made more money than the guy next to you, you DESERVE to get better more right? We’re all worth according to how much is in our bank account and stock portfolio right?

It seems to me that in a capitalistic system with private health care, there’s no intrinsic human rights, the market tells you how much you are worth and subsequently, what rights you get. That friggin’ sucks. Universal health care at least has its heart in the right place, although the practical lack of resources (money, trained professionals, etc) make it seem like an imperfect system with sometimes tragic results. As a system though, I don’t see how that’s possibly worse than private health insurance.

I think most people that see these sort of documentaries would generally come out pretty glum. What can WE do about it? We’re not in Parliament, making the decisions, or a CEO of an insurance company. But as that British guy in the movie said, what people have is the power to vote. Governments love to keep people apathetic, frightened, poor, demoralised and cynical about what change they themselves can make. That makes people easy to control. But if people are aware of the changes they can make, if they go vote for policies that would affect their lives, all this can change.

But then again… I say this with a liberal dose of sad idealism. There’s just too many people out there who ARE cynics of government, who work three jobs a week to keep a family together and food on the table. Why would they even BEGIN to care about things like health care when they barely know where to find the money to pay the week’s rent?

And completely off-topic: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TIM! He turned 22 today. :3

Time is passing WAY WAY too quickly. Already three weeks into university?! WTF?

I’ve been getting really tired lately. And by lately, I mean it’s been like this for at least a year or two. Sure I sleep late, but I’m fortunately able to sleep in the next morning for most days of the week. I think I average about 8-9 hours of sleep which should be more than enough. And yet, I’m so drowsy during the day (even with a cup of coffee) and taking naps has been much too easy in the afternoons once classes are over. I don’t exercise too much, but I walk around a lot to and from my campus and the shopping complex nearby and I play my share of DDR, so I’m not a COMPLETE slug. My diet is okay, I try to eat something fruity everyday (whether it be orange juice or a fruit salad) and I try to avoid very fatty foods. I don’t often eat snacky foods either. When I sleep, I get vivid dreams all the time and I sometimes wake up all jittery and tired. Major suckage.

I watched Marie Antoinette the other day, and there’s only one word I could think of to describe it: empty. Oh yes, it was very pretty with all the beautiful costumes (and pastry!) but storyline-wise… it was slow and… lacking. It was really hard not to get bored during some sequences. It seems like the director focused so heavily on stylising the movie, they forgot about plot, dialogue and characterisation. Marie Antoinette was actually quite a remarkable historical figure and all the movie seemed to portray is her being bored, superficial and… empty.

When I arrived in Australia at the ripe old age of five, my parent’s financial situation was far from super. I’m not sure what the criteria for poverty is, but we probably around that description. My parents struggled to make sure we had a roof over our heads and enough to eat, but other luxuries like toys were completely out of the question.

But that was alright. I loved reading, and my thirst for knowledge and literary entertainment were easily and freely satiated by libraries. Once in a blue moon, the primary school I was at would have a book fair where they’d clear out incredibly old and mangly books (e.g. books without covers, or missing a few pages) and they’d be on sale for something like 5 to 20 cent each. I’d splurge my tiny fortune saved from Chinese New Years and my birthdays on such events and happily drag home a literal sack of these unwanted tomes.

But as I said above, I never had any toys to play with but I came up with an elegant solution to the problem. Like most people, our household got their frequent share of junk mail in the mailbox. Many of these would be glossy-paged catalogues from various stores having some sort of sale. I’d meticulously flip through these catalogues and clandestinely sneak specific ones into my room. These ones are always those that have toys on sale. I’d first carefully read over the short descriptions of each toy in the catalogue and marvel at what they can do. Then I’d cut out my favourite ones and glue it in an exercise book. I literally had a scrapbook filled with pictures of toys. I also did the same thing for jewelery from jewelery catalogues (I’d keep the most prettily designed ring or earring, for example) though that practice didn’t last very long.

I can’t remember being bitter about the experience. I guess it’s similar to how people might watch travel shows because one day they might be able to view the Parthenon or the Sistine Chapel with their own eyes. I guess it helped that I didn’t really have any other kid who had lots of toys to compare myself to. I could’ve been a lot more miserable than I was in that situation, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, I can’t find my scrapbook of toys any more, otherwise I could scan a few pages in to show you guys. :P