Dr Jocelyn Bell collects her honorary degree with Tesco Burka.

Dr Jocelyn Bell discovered the pulsar a highly magentised dead star that emits immensely powerful radio waves. Here she is accepting her honorary degree form Lancaster University in a Tesco Burka.
I have been using Dr Bell  for a while now, since she faced huge dis crimination as a female astrophysics student in the sixties at Cambridge. And one had the hilarious, though disturbing, situation where her professors preferred to believe her data on the pulsars must be little green men  rather than accept the scientific conclusions of a woman that she had discovered a new astrophysical phenomenon.In fact they held a boys only tree house conference in which they considered destroying her data because of the panic it would cause.

Here she is in a short film (2min) talking about her discovery.
I am always interested in the discussion on religious coverings, since in England this is a relatively new phenomenon from recent immigrants.The discussions one finds promoted by the media are of course the worst type of  yellow journalism. With rent-a-fundamentalists and bigots helpfully shouting down the camera lense at the audience, and little actual information provided. And, more importantly , one hardly ever sees women on the platform discussing this, since this effects them, not men. Will we ever have objective journalism?

I would love to hear other peoples view on face coverings. Thanks if you comment. And sorry for my delays in posting and replying

Judith Barzi bad taste quiz.

I first became aware of the tragic story of Judith Barsi when i was looking at this Rotten Tomatos bad taste pop quiz. I am interested very much in pop culture and how it says a lot about our society, more so often than academic studies which tend to be academics talking to each other. Also i find it funny that people contribute to sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes with their own creative content and the sites make huge profits out of them through advertising. Same with 4chan and icanhazcheezeburger, the public works for free, very odd.

I thought the quiz was in bad taste, but this common to the internet where peer group outrage is limited due to the relative anonymity of the internet .
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Judith Barsi who starred in'All Dogs Go To Heaven' (1989) was a rising child star.

 Whose young life was cut short by an act of extreme selfishness.


Judith's father Joszef was a Hungarian immigrant and an alcoholic who had a long history of beating women.  Joszef's first wife took their two children and fled his violent bullying.Leaving him looking for another victim.
Josezf then met  Maria, a young waitress who herself had suffered a violent childhood and sadly was pre programmed to equate violence with love, falling for a man who would beat her with everything from steel pans to his fists.

When Judith was born (1978)   she might have had a chance to escape it all for she  was photogenic which lead to offers from modelling agents which then quickly led to adverts and then movie work. With the child showing talent in performing. As the money rolled in , allowing the family a large house in Beverly Hills , so Joszefs drinking increased and his bullying of his family.
The young Judith was becoming psychologically damaged  from seeing her father beat and bully her mother. She began to self harm at just 8 years old, picking her skin, and pulling her eye lashes out. After breaking down in front of her agent   who reported what was happening to Child Services. Police began to take an interest in this wife beater and what he was doing to his family.

With his meal ticket looking to be taken away and fearing loss of control over his victims, Joszef decided to commit the ultimate act of selfish narcissism.  On Monday 25th July 1988 Joszef took a shotgun and shot Judith in the head while she slept, then murdered her mother, before setting them on fire. He then committed suicide.
Judith was only ten years old.

So many child actors become victims we are used to reading about them going off the rails in to substance abuse and having horrible and short lives, then becoming prey to the bottom feeders of journalism. But i thought it was especially tragic since she was so young and was a victim all her life to her horribly selfish father, who was not content to just ruin her childhood but denied her an adulthood as well.

I have lived next door to a man who beat his wife and the issue is very complex, since intervention rarely works, the victim must want change and their caught in this cycle of self hate.
But it is a horrible story whatever your views.