TOP 100 ENGLAND SITES
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| Les Iversen appointed as drugs advisory group chairman Retired pharmacology professor Les Iversen succeeds David Nutt, who was sacked for criticising government policyA retired Oxford pharmacology professor, Les Iversen, has been appointed interim chairman of the government's advisory committee on the misuse of drugs.The appointment for a period of 12 months follows the sacking of the previous chairman, Professor David Nutt, for "crossing a line" by repeatedly criticising the government's decision to toughen the laws on cannabis, which he argued was less harmful than alcohol or nicotine.Iversen, who is perhaps a more measured figure than Nutt, has been chairing the council's technical committee, which produced controversial reports on ecstasy and cannabis advising against reclassification.He is an authority on the actions of drugs on the brain and has published research showing there is little evidence for a causal link between chronic cannabis use and psychiatric illness. He is known to be open-minded to concerns about the long-term effects of the more potent strains of skunk cannabis.Iversen was a member of the Royal College of Physicians inquiry into the medical uses of cannabis and is the author of two books on drugs, Science of Marijuana and Speed, Ecstasy and Ritalin: the science of amphetamines.The home secretary, Alan Johnson, said he was pleased to appoint Iversen. "The council's work continues, including a forthcoming assessment on the harms of the so-called 'legal high' mephedrone, following on from our control of GBL, BZP and others late last year."Iversen said he was honoured to take up the position. "I look forward to ensuring the ACMD provides government with continued expert advice on drug issues in the UK."He is said to have impressed committee members with his chairmanship of the difficult eight-hour meeting that took place in the aftermath of Nutt's dismissal.One effect of the row over the sacking is that the home secretary is now obliged to meet the council formally once a year and its chairman more regularly. Johnson has also agreed that in future the committee's reports will not be dismissed out of hand but given proper consideration.The advisers are due to set up a sub-group to look in detail at mephedrone, a legal drug sometimes called Bubbles, which imitates the effects of amphetamines. It is already illegal to sell it marked for human consumption, but is marketed instead as plant food.Drugs policyDrugsDrugsAlan Travisguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Gordon Brown faces questions about 'stash' of Labour money Gordon Brown is facing questions about a "stash" of Labour Party money he used for his own private research projects. telegraph.co.uk |
A pragmatic fight for animal rights | Ingrid Newkirk Despite criticism, we at Peta believe compromises and funny antics are necessary to the real work of animal protectionIn recent years, there has been a controversy swirling in animal rights circles, as some people such as Victor Schonfeld object to the work of groups such as Peta, which, while abolitionist and determined to get animals off the dinner plate and out of the fur farms, circuses and laboratories, have nevertheless been working with corporations to achieve animal welfare reforms within their industries. A few outspoken critics of such "half measures" or "baby steps" have gone so far as to argue against Peta's campaigns for improved slaughter practices for chickens, better living conditions for hens and larger cages for animals in laboratories. We find this attitude unhelpful to the goal of animal liberation.Not only is it possible to work for an end to animal slavery while simultaneously supporting incremental change, moving the bar closer to that goal also seems to us to be an important step. Yes, it is more comfortable for industry and consumers alike, but short of a bloody revolution of the sort history has witnessed in other social movements, it is also nearly impossible to move a society forward in any other way. The vast majority of people, if they care about animals − and consumer surveys show that they do − support incremental improvements, even if the increments are far from wholly satisfactory to the animals, who would rather not be caged and mutilated, hung upside down and killed, and to the liberationists, who chafe at such slow progress. It seems obvious that society is more likely to progress in a way that causes particularly abusive systems to be improved or eliminated before full animal liberation is achieved.If society's perspective is that animals should have no rights or interests at all, then moving from that mentality to complete animal liberation will require an impossibly enormous shift in viewpoint, no matter how much more enlightened this generation is than the last when it comes to understanding the complex behaviour and needs of all the various species from dog to duck. However, once society gets the picture provided by ethologists and others who study animals in nature and captivity, the interests not only of great apes and whales but also of the "humbler" species we have long taken for granted and whose fundamental interests have been totally disregarded, including chickens, pigs and other animals, will be understood and begin to be respected. That is when massive changes will come about in what we eat and wear and how we test chemicals. Not to change would be an indictment of our humanity, our societal values, ourselves. Now that some of the world's largest corporations are saying, "Yes, we understand that animals can suffer, and we see that this is a real concern," the discussion has begun in earnest.For those who decry gradualism, the practical philosopher Peter Singer would ask, "Would you prefer to live in the horror you're in, bred to grow seven times more quickly than natural so that your bones splinter and your organs collapse, or would you prefer to be able to live without chronic pain? Would you prefer to live your life crammed into a small cage, unable to lift your wings, build a nest, or do almost anything else that you would like to do, or would you prefer to, at the very least, be able to walk? Would you prefer to be hung upside-down by your feet and then scalded to death or lose consciousness when the crate you are in passes through a controlled atmosphere stunner?" The answers should be clear.Campaigns against the practices of fast-food chains and the campaign to ban battery cages, which have been heavily supported by the hard work of tens of thousands of grassroots activists, have improved the living and dying conditions of millions of animals. As the industries change and evolve, the improvements will apply to billions of animals every year. At Peta, we completely understand the appeal of battle cries such as "Not bigger cages − empty cages!" But giving a little comfort and stimulation for animals who will be in those cages their whole lives is worth fighting for, even as we demand those empty cages. Not only is it the best thing for the animals in the cages, it's also the best thing for animal liberation. It's a stepping stone on the road to animal liberation.As for the sexy women in our ads, the silly costumes, the street tableaux and the tofu sandwich give-aways, in a world where people want to smile, can't resist looking at an attractive image and are up for a free meal, if such harmless antics will allow one individual to reconsider their own role in exploiting animals, how can it be faulted? Yes, Peta could restrict its activities to scientific work, but how often do you read of that in the papers? It could just hand out lengthy tracts about ethics, but how many people would stop and take one, let alone read it? Any peaceful action that opens eyes, hearts and minds should be commended, not condemned. Victor Schonfeld's film is a wonderful milestone and provides an excellent education, but there must be constant incremental daily efforts − not just big hurrahs − or we will never succeed. Too many lives depend on that success for us to be worried about how grand and perfect we are on the way to saving them.Animal welfareProtestAnimal researchFarmingIngrid Newkirkguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Chris Ofili: A journey from elephant art to mother nature's son Turner prize-winning artist evolves from dealer in shock to purveyor of colourful perception, as new exhibition showsIn pictures: Chris Ofili retrospectiveThink of Chris Ofili and you would be forgiven for imagining the following: elephant manure; the weeping profile of Doreen Lawrence; a black, dung-breasted Virgin Mary that enraged the mayor of New York.But, when a major, mid-career retrospective opens on Wednesday at Tate Britain in London, visitors will see a new Chris Ofili.His recent work may, frankly, come as a shock. There is no dung and no glitter. There are no richly-collaged, jangling surfaces. Instead, in the last room in the exhibition, unexpected swathes of colour lash down the canvases: imperial purple dissonant against citrus orange, saffron squealing against sea green.With the exception of two paintings previously exhibited in New York, none of these eight works has ever been seen in public. They come fresh out of the artist's studio. The exhibition is the first major survey since 1998 of the often controversial 41-year-old's work. Almost a third of the 45 paintings on display have never been shown in the UK before.All the big hits are here, including the Doreen Lawrence painting, No Woman No Cry, which was exhibited in Ofili's Turner prize exhibition in 1998. There is also a fresh chance to see the famous installation The Upper Room – 13 paintings of chalice-bearing monkeys, a reimagining of the Last Supper.But it is in the final two rooms of the exhibition that audiences will see a different artist from the one whose last solo show in Britain was in 2002 (when the Victoria Miro gallery showed The Upper Room).These works reflect new surroundings. Ofili has left the crowded London art scene and, since 2005, has been working in Trinidad and Tobago, living in a cottage in the hills above Port of Spain."I felt in some way things had closed down," the Manchester-born artist says in the Tate exhibition catalogue. "London was an exciting place to work at one point, because socially it was very progressive – a catalyst... But it got to a point where the social aspect became claustrophobic ... It also got to a point where I felt the work was really known in a public sense, that the division between public and private was like a thin membrane. And I didn't feel that gave me a greater sense of freedom."The penultimate room sees Ofili, like Picasso, going through a "blue period". Giant canvases swirl with a dictionary-defying battery of midnight shades: ultramarine, indigo, smoke, bilberry. The colours are so deep and dark that images are hard to read. The only texture comes from the flat paint surface: sometimes velvety, sometimes reflective.In one, Iscariot Blues, two men play musical instruments under a bridge while a hanged man dangles from a gibbet – all are enveloped in tendrils of lush foliage.In these and the most recent paintings, the one recognisable aspect of the work is the mysterious figures that inhabit the paintings. Ofili has always created his own semi-mythological dramatis personae, whether the cartoonish, faux-superheroic character he called Captain Shit in the early work, or the simian saints of the Upper Room.In a painting that has something of William Blake about it, a shower of egg-yolky, lemony blossoms is surrounded by an almost-black ground. On further inspection, the blackness resolves itself into a curious and possibly terrifying creature that appears to be devouring the flowers.Ofili calls this figure The Healer, and imagines it gorging itself on the blossoms of the yellow poui tree, which flower in Trinidad with intense vividness and fall overnight. "I imagined that The Healer feasts on the poui flowers feverishly, and in the frenzy many of the flowers fall off," he has said.The Ofili who was once painting phalluses and porn stars in a King's Cross studio is now painting en plein air – he began The Healer, he has said, outdoors during a lunar eclipse, inspired by "the forms in the clouds hovering over the hills that night".Where once he was bringing all the clamorous life of London into his exquisite paintings as a self-conscious visual analogy of gangsta rap (aggressive lyrics, sweetly sung), he is now more likely to spend his days kayaking or observing the beauty of a Trinidadian waterfall.In other words, Ofili is still transforming what surrounds him into paint, but these days that's the thick, fertile vegetation of the Caribbean rather than the urban jungle.He has said of his new environment: "It has a mystical quality to it. The landscape is hilly, the vegetation is dense and you have the constant feeling that things are happening on the other side of the hill or deep in the forest."By moving to Trinidad he has also retreated from the public gaze. In 1999, the year after he was the first black artist to win the Turner prize, his work attracted controversy when the then mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, objected to the exhibiting of The Holy Virgin Mary at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The painting was touring as part of the Sensation! exhibition of works owned by Charles Saatchi.In 2005, the Tate bought the installation The Upper Room for £600,000, when Ofili was a trustee of the gallery. The Charity Commission published a report critical of the institution's mismanagement of the conflict of interest involved in the purchase.Chris OfiliArtTate BritainExhibitionsCharlotte Higginsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Toy hamsters breed for next Christmas The British Toy & Hobby Association's toy fair kicked off today, to show off what toys will be hitting the shelves in the next few months guardian.co.uk |