Professional Athletes and Sudden Death?

The magazine New Scientist (Vol 203 No 2725, 12 September 2009) had a closer look at the issue of sudden cardiac deaths in young sportsmen in September 2009. Shortly before that, two seemingly healthy athletes had died: the Spanish footballer Antonio Puerta and the British rower Scott Rennie.

Now the so-called 'Lausanne Recommendations' suggest regular physical examinations in order to detect problems triggering heart conditions that could be fatal. The pharma giant Merck elaborated in an article that an estimated 1 in 200,000 apparently healthy young athletes could develop abrupt-onset ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation and can die suddenly during exercise. Screenings to identify risk should be undertaken before the start of any professional sports activity with reevaluation every 2 years (for high school age) or every 4 years (if college age or older). Ultimately, they can save lives as there can be conditions which are silent.

Russia and Vodka

Russia and vodka seem to belong together like hen and egg. Since the times of Peter the Great, Russians have been known to be heavy, but jolly drinkers. Tsar Peter the Great was said to have even encouraged his fellows and subjects to drink more than they could handle as to boost their resilience towards alcohol. Stupid, roar male affectation if you ask me.
Recently though, Russia's vodka consumption as well as population decline have been resounding throughout the lands again. After Gorbachev's unsuccessful attempt to restrict alcohol uptake in 1985, Medvedev has resumed the anti-alcohol campaign in order to stop the shrinking of the Russian population, alcohol is believed to contribute to. According to a report in The Lancet medical journal in June 2009, the average male life expectancy is just over 60. On top, alcohol-related diseases caused more than half of all deaths of Russians aged 15 to 54 in the 1990s. Everybody thinks Russian men just drink themselves to death.

He has urged the government to pass new laws to regulate the sale of alcopops, vodka and beer. Currently, Russians are said to consume about 18 litres (32 pints) of pure alcohol per capita per year, which is more than double the maximum, recommended by the World Health Organisation. What's more, Medvedev wants a minimum price for a bottle and strong government control over the production of any alcohol.

One big supporter stands to his side, the Russian Orthodox Church, whose deputy head Georgy Roshchin expressed willingness and determination to take part and implement the new strategies.

Languages and God

The best stories one can hear in an everyday casual settings. So it happened yesterday during a bus into London. An old lady, sitting in the first row behind the driver said in fine formal English "So I hear you speak several languages." "yes, nine", responded the driver. "That is a favour from God. It has nothing to do with intelligence", he added and kept driving. After a few minutes of silence the lady continued saying: "However, it is great. I used to do French and Spanish in school. Also, I did German, but I was rather bad at it." And with that the conversation concluded until a short while later when the old lady said that she had to catch a bus at Swiss Cottage and the driver offered to stop there for her, which she gratefully accepted.

Eleanor Roosevelt said

..that no one can make you feel inferior without your permission: Don't give them permission." (from Clinton's My Life, 2004.) (Picture: Time)

Sozaboy?

The word 'Sozaboy' caught my attention as I was reading Felix, the Imperial College Student newspaper, published by the IC Student Union. Turns out that Sozaboy is the title of a book, written by Ken Saro-Wiwa and published in 1995. It is a shockingly realistic novel about the madness of war from the perspective of a young, naive Nigerian army recruit during the time of the Civil War (1967-1970) in Nigeria. The special language in which the book is written - called 'Rotten English' - gives the novel, touching upon already powerful, tragic topics such as genocide, war and human rights, effective messages and an extraordinary realism.

The author Ken Saro-Wiwa was not only a writer, but intellectual and human rights activist, fighting against multinational corporations which were after the oil of the Niger Delta. He was also one of the Ogoni people, decimated by genocide, which Saro-Wiwa denounced. In November 1995, he was hanged by Nigerian authorities after having been formally accused of inciting separation and riots. Informally though, the involvement of Royal Dutch Shell in the death of Saro-Wiwa is assumed and their innocence has not been proved fully.

Guess

Now, I let you guess first what time this picture was taken? 1, 2, 3. What's your verdict? Horse carriages were the most important means of transportation in the 19th Century, weren't they. So, it might be that. But no, this picture was taken on the 10th February 2010! It's Amish people in Maryland, United States, making their way through a snow storm. (Picture by TIME)

World's Disasters

Mankind has seen many disasters, taking millions of lives. This is a true, sad, general fact. Putting faces and numbers to such an informations makes a catastrophy hard to grasp for everyone. Three of the most devastating and deadliest tragedies happened in the last 5 years:
1. 2004, December, Tsunami after earthquake , hitting Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, taking 250,000 lives.
2. 2008, May, earthquake, hitting China, costing 88,000 lives.
3. 2010, January, earthquake, hitting Haiti, costing 230,000 lives.
That is more than 1/2 million lives wiped out in just 5 years. As grim and ghoulish as it may sound, it seems as earth and nature reclaim whatever is theirs by these natural disasters...


Tsunami about to land.
(Photo by BBC)

Haiti's Port-au-Prince after the quake.
(Photo by CNN)






China, Sichuan province.
(Photo by BBC)

Russian TV Show about Schools

The Russian Media is all stirrep up by a new TV show, broadcasted on Channel One Russia, National TV.  Shkola, the Russian word for school, is its title. It is controverse because it is touching upon school issues like sex, alkoholism, abuse and violence-tough areas, of which people and conservative authorities did not want to hear anything for a long time.
The Russian school had been a traditional, sacred place where children were taught big values set by the literary elite such as Pushkin and Tolstoy. Problems were not seen and denied. The producer of Channel One Russia, Igor Tolstunyev, wants to wake people up and sharpen awareness. Therefore, in the series actors are mixed with real students; they are as unadorned as one can be in front of a camera; nothing is glamorised or glossed over. They are simply authentic.
One episode, for example, deals with the issue of gang kidnapping, blind racism and abuse when Wadim (9th grade, Russian) accuses his fellow student Timur (from the Caucasus) of having kidnapped his younger brother Fedya (Russian, Skinhead). Turns out though that Fedya just ran away from home because his father (Russian, alcoholic) beat him up. (Photo by Channnel One Russia)