text:
|Disability Studies Quarterly
Fall 2006, Volume 26, No. 4
Copyright 2006 by the Society
for Disability Studies
The Disabled Male Gaze: Expressions of Desire and Emotion in
Rory O'Shea Was Here
Michael Gill
This essay examines Rory O'Shea Was Here as a male melodrama. Chiefly utilizing theories of narrative prosthesis, problem bodies, and melodrama, a discussion of the disabled male gaze is forwarded. The result is a conclusion that within the film the objectification of Siobhan and the sentimentality of Michael and Rory's lives combine to further damaging gender politics and static representations of disabled characters. Despite the rhetoric of independence and self-sufficiency, Rory O'Shea Was Here employs a narrative of disability that offers an ultimate option of death instead of living with impairment. Rory O'Shea also endorses the view that the only meaningful relationships are authorized via professional routes.
Disability representations in film, problem bodies, melodrama, narrative prosthesis, Rory O'Shea Was Here, disabled male gaze
Disability, representation and film typically have been combined in static and potentially derogatory ways. Most often disabled people are either represented as deformed, such as Quasimodo (Lon Chaney) in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) or evil like Mason Verger (Gary Oldman) in Hannibal (2001). Similarly disabled bodies are often presented in the context of medicine and death. Characters such as Judith Traherne (Betty Davis) in Dark Victory (1939) pervade popular imaginations as a sick disabled character with death as the final solution to escape the "disabling" conditions (Longmore, 1987; Norden, 1994; Pointon and Davies, 1997). Sometimes representations of disability, particularly disabled men, emerge in narratives about veterans including The Men (1950) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Particularly in films about veterans the narrative centers on a male character (or characters) trying to reclaim their masculinities often through hired sex workers (Kim, 2003). Films that have perhaps more mundane plots, such as Rory O'Shea Was Here (2004)[1], are not as common.
The film starts as Rory O'Shea (James McAvoy), a 20-year-old radical complete with heavy metal T-shirts and piercings enters Carrigmore Home for the Disabled, an apparent brief stop on his continual tour of segregated Irish living situations. It becomes clear that Rory is trouble and often does not stay in one location because of the incompatibility of his lifestyle with those of the professionals around him. At Carrigmore the professionals are largely a group of middle-aged women. The characterization of the women caregivers and administrators at Carrigmore is problematic at best, while furthering notions of "smothering" females. What is especially bothersome is that the women at Carrigmore are set up as cruel and spiteful — in such a way that suggests to the viewers to align with Rory and Michael at the expense of these women. It is character depictions such as these that contribute to the troubling gender politics within the film.
When Rory enters Carrigmore he meets Michael Connelly (Stephan Robertson), clearly his contemporary despite Michael's somewhat conservative attire. With the encouragement of Rory based on his previously failed attempts, Michael applies for an independent living allowance from the Irish government. A successful application, blackmailing Michael's emotionally distant father (he is a well-known judge) and finding the perfect sexualized and competent assistant, Siobhan (Romola Garai), results in Rory and Michael living independently in an apartment in Dublin. The choice of Siobhan, a young, feminine, and sexy equal (as opposed to an older desexualized male) as a personal assistant is interesting especially considering the interview process when Siobhan says, "No, I am not qualified" to which Rory responds, "You have the best qualifications we have seen in a long time." Rory's response is a clear endorsement of the objectification of Siobhan indicating that he considers Siobhan's figure to be the indicator of qualifications. Despite the objectification of Siobhan, she does provide a high level of care and assistance, further troubling the gender politics as quite literally Siobhan's body becomes a sexual object while her labors reinforce traditional "female" roles. This objectification of Siobhan as a sexual entity drives the remaining plot, as Michael grows increasingly attracted to her while the camera continues to objectify her body. This plot of sexualized desires culminates when Michael tells Siobhan he loves her, only to have her quit and be replaced with a black male assistant, apparently as a signifier of a desexualized body in Michael's world. The remaining narrative has Rory contracting pneumonia and dying in the hospital but only after delivering his final words of inspiration to an increasingly independent but still virginal Michael.
Without writing off the entire project of Rory O'Shea as damaging to the politics of disability representation, I seek to provide a multifaceted examination of the film and its representations of disability and gender. After my first viewing, I was impressed with the radical representation of Rory; he is a punked and pierced wheelchair user, but I was also dismayed that in the end of the film Rory dies, a plot device central to many representations of disabled characters. Only upon revisiting the film in the context of my Women and Film class a year later was I willing to engage with issues of gender and sentimentality within the film. Specifically, I am attempting to examine how my first viewing of neutrality changed with each subsequent viewing. Why am I increasingly bothered with the over sexualization of the character Siobhan and over sentimentalization of the lives of Michael and Rory? In my examination of the film I do not want to fall into the trap of describing these representations as "negative" while others are "positive". Instead my hope is that, consistent with David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder's claim, I can produce an analysis that "complicate[s] the question of 'negativity' without surrendering a usable politics (2001:16)."
Narrative Prosthesis at Play
Even though Rory O'Shea is an independent film made in consultation with disability activists and loosely based on lived experiences of disabled people at Dublin's Center for Independent Living, this paper seeks to explore Rory O'Shea as a product of typical filmic representations of disability (Haller, 2006). Despite the guise of a progressive narrative with ideas of independent living and the radical appearance of Rory with a pierced nose and spiked dyed blonde hair, my argument is that Rory O'Shea plays off of narratives of disability that offer options of death instead of living with an impairment, as well as endorsing the view that the only meaningful relationships are authorized via professional routes. Specifically in the film Rory suddenly dies as a result of his impairment, an all too familiar plot device of disability used in such films as Philadelphia (1993), Million Dollar Baby (2004) and The Sea Inside (2004). It would appear that death is often the resolution advanced in these films because of the inability of the film itself to imagine a narrative in which the disabled character moves on past the crisis of the plot to navigate their lives with a renewed sense of self-determination. Death often gets confounded with disability in these movies and as a result the presence of disability is seen as a chronic condition in which death or cures are the only options. As a result the message of disability as death or death as the release of disability is forwarded onto the largely nondisabled audience. As a contrast to the narratives of death, Michael, on the other hand, negotiates a relationship in the film with his personal assistant Siobhan and this relationship is ultimately destroyed due to his inappropriate sexual expectations and a blurring of professional boundaries. The only option left for Michael after Rory's death and Siobhan's departure is professionally authorized companionship with his male personal assistant, who suggests Michael attend classes at the local university. Despite the catchy tag line of, "Live life like you mean it," the film fails to offer meaningful agency to any of the characters, instead conventional methods of representing disability in film are employed.
Here Mitchell and Snyder's ideas about "narrative prosthesis" can help to provide a useful framework for examining representation within Rory O'Shea. Narrative prosthesis is defined as:
...situating a discussion about disability within a literary domain while keeping watch on its social context. The phrase tries to capture the myriad relations between the literary and the historical...it acknowledges that literary representation bears on the production and realization of disabled subjectivities (2001: 9).
Narrative prosthesis allows for the examination of representations of disability within the film. This examination simultaneously seeks to understand to what extent the disabled characters' disability status furthers the plot while at the same time this examination also attends to how lived experiences of disability outside the text mirror or contradict the representations. Rory O'Shea has disabled characters central to the plot; a plot that has actions many disabled adults living in nursing homes cannot achieve: moving out into the community. Instead of arguing throughout for increased resources to enable more disabled people to live in homes of their own, the film instead transforms the character of Rory to become a kind of "narrative prosthesis." Rory becomes a metaphor of the will to live independently and as a result Rory's death signifies the passing of this metaphor onto Michael thus continuing the prosthetic relationship between film and disability as Michael becomes the new metaphor of transgressing impairment in order to live a more fulfilling and independent existence. Disability or rather the disabled characters in the film are translated into images of independence for the nondisabled viewer to be inspired. Any realness of living as a disabled person is mitigated by this act of metaphorization; narrative prosthesis has continued. Through an examination of the characters of Rory and Michael, this paper seeks to determine to what extent disability and its representation further the prosthetic movement of manifestation.
Employing the Jerk: The Emotional Responses to Rory's Life
Linda Williams in her influential essay on body genres in film utilizes the term "jerk" to explain pornography ("jerk off"), horror films ("fear jerker") and melodrama ("tear jerker"). Premature death with disability, or rather "because" of disability invokes pity and emotion resulting in "viewers feel[ing] too directly, too viscerally manipulated by the text in specifically gendered ways" (Williams 1991:271). This manipulation that Williams refers to results in an emotional response to actions by disabled bodies within the film. Snyder and Mitchell use Williams's ideas about melodrama and the emotional responses that disability can create, "disabled bodies have been constructed cinematically and socially to function as delivery vehicles in the transfer of extreme sensation to the audiences" (2006:162). Actions that perhaps mundane if done by nondisabled characters, such as moving into apartments or seeking sexual partners, are seen as emotionally charged in this particular film, a sign of the totalizing effect disability can have on a character's development. Any success is read as overcoming while any defeat (even bodily) creates pathos. The goal of this film and perhaps others alike is "measured by the degree to which the audience sensation mimics what is seen on the screen" (Williams, 1991:270). If the nondisabled audience feels emotional after Rory's death then the film becomes a success.
Critical responses to this film have centered on the emotional impact that the overcoming and death sequences have on filmgoers. Neil Smith reviewing the film for the BBC opens his review this way:
'It'll all end in tears,' mutters Siobhan (Romola Garai) as she accepts a job caring for the disabled heroes of Irish comedy-drama Inside I'm Dancing [Rory O'Shea Was Here]. True enough, director Damien O'Donnell adds a healthy dose of saline sentiment to his engaging tale of disadvantaged Dubliners striking out on their own (Smith, 2004).
The plot of disabled men moving out into the world on their own is a theme many reviewers have pointed to as justification for the emotional response of the film. Perhaps these responses are referenced in Williams's ideas of the melodrama, "considered as a filmic mode of stylistic and/or emotional excess that stands in contrast to more 'dominant' modes of realistic, goal-oriented narrative" (1991: 269). In Williams's terms the film becomes a "male weepie", a buddy film that has two male characters "breaking the taboos against male-to-male hugs and embraces" (1991:276).The plot of two men moving out an institutional setting is set up as "realistic" and "goal-orientated narrative" that is emotionally charged, a melodrama, overcoming narrative or "weepie" (Williams 1991:269). Another less than diplomatic reviewer for the Philadelphia Weekly faults the plot as playing on traditional narratives of disability to invoke an emotional response:
The problem with Jeffrey Caine's screenplay is that it at first allows Rory to be a prick -- thereby demanding that we see the handicapped as people, complete with their own faults and attitude problems. (Like the scabrous work of Larry David and the Farrelly brothers, this film initially engages the disabled as fair game.) But then along comes a cough fraught with more foreshadowing than that nasty hack Kate Winslet let loose in Finding Neverland, and suddenly Rory O'Shea is no longer just an arsehole- but a treacly emblem of free spirits everywhere. This problematic individual is quickly reduced to cheap, symbolic chump change. Pale martyrdom ensues, and an interesting arsehole gets dulled down and sanctified according to trite Hollywood formulas. Yawn (Burns, 2005).
Burn's passionate review of the film and specifically the film's treatment of Rory's death and its meaning are reminiscent of previous representations of disability and death to invoke emotion and inspire those left behind. Even the New York Times review by Manohla Dargis begins with:
Stuffed with treacle and moral uplift, the new Irish film Rory O'Shea Was Here sounds sweet enough to rot your teeth. Consider the possibilities and try not to wince: two physically disabled young men break free from institutional confines and wheel their way into the good graces of all they encounter (Dargis, 2005).
Again this review is further evidence that the plot of disabled men living alone with adequate assistance is too drastic to be taken seriously without tremendous emotion, despite the reality that many disabled individuals do live in independent living situations with impairments more severe than Rory and Michael. The Chicago Tribune review of the film calls the film a piece of "bad drama" that moves the audience to "tears- shame tears, cries in the dark that we'd rather no one know about, ever" (Benedikt, 2005).
Unlike some representations of disability in a film such as Million Dollar Baby, Rory O'Shea does not provide a "before disability" plot but rather we are introduced to our characters as "broken" bodies, which are already positioned in the melodramatic genre. I would argue that for this reason the death of Rory is not seen as significant like Maggie's but rather as a cruel and intentional ploy to elicit emotional responses from the audience such as "sadism" and "masochism" (Williams, 1991:280-281). There is no mourning for Rory's lost ablebodiness as perhaps there is when Maggie becomes paralyzed. Although Williams here is primarily arguing about the role of pornography and horror films and the objectification of women that results in watching these films, I would argue that Williams's ideas about the role of the melodrama in drawing out emotional responses is a large part of the reason that films like Rory O'Shea Was Here are not seen as critically acclaimed films but rather guilty pleasures and tear-jerkers. Snyder and Mitchell argue that the nature of melodramas includes:
...excessive sensation produced often hinges upon the cultivation of the fear of disability... Such films appeal to viewer concerns about the maintenance of bodily integrity, and thus, the production of disability serves as a site of visceral sensation where abject fantasies of loss and dysfunction (maimed capacity) are made to destabilize the viewer's own investments in ability (2006:165).
As nondisabled people see the disabled characters in the film ideas about personal loss and ability interact with their "fear" of disability. An emotional response to the narrative prosthetic bodies within the film not only determines the success of the melodrama but also reinforces ideas about the cultural meaning of disability.
Problem Bodies All Around
In an attempt to understand how the characters of Rory and Michael elicit emotional responses, Nicole Markotic's innovative ideas about the problem body can help explain the emotional reactions to this film. Markotic argues:
So as not to prioritize the disabled body and thereby elide other equally critical factors determining the body, I shall use the term problem body to address variable determining factors defining the problematic relationship between 'normal' and 'abnormal' bodies. So the disabled body is not merely added as the next overlooked critical frame to the burgeoning literature on the body, nor does the problem body isolate the discussion to focus on either this [adjective] body or that [adjective] body (1999:7, original emphasis).
This film positions a multitude of bodies that could be read as "problem bodies." We see Rory's body as the problem body -- he has always been disabled- and his death creates pathos. When watching the film, the nondisabled audience members are comparing Rory and Michael's bodies to Siobhan, other non-disabled characters in the film and their own personal understandings of what disability means. Since Rory is seen as broken and deficient, a kind of prosthesis of disability — I would argue audience members can see his successes as inspirational while his death discouraging. Williams' discussion of Italian critic Franco Moretti on the role of shedding tears in literature helps to illuminate how Rory O'Shea works to deliver the emotional effect of the melodrama:
Italian critic Franco Moretti has argued, for example, that literature that makes us cry operates via a special manipulation of temporality: what triggers our crying is not just the sadness or suffering of the character in the story but a very precise moment when characters in the story catch up with and realize what the audience already knows. We cry, Moretti argues, not just because the characters do, but at the precise moment when desire is finally recognized as futile. The release of tension produces tears- which becomes a kind of homage to a happiness that is kissed goodbye (1997:279).
Expressions of tears and similar responses create an impression that the film is not intended to be a realistic representation of independence but rather a trite and sugary reminder of our individual ability to transgress our bodily limitations and live with a freer spirit. The moment of Rory's death and Michael's "awakening" as a more independent man is the exact moment when the character's knowledge coincides with that of the audience, and much like Moretti's claim above, the audience recognizes that the narrative has been rendered futile as one character dies and the other fully symbolizes independence.
As a contrast to the apparent brokenness of Michael and Rory's bodies, Siobhan likewise is a problem body that helps to create the emotion in the film. Primarily Siobhan is set up as feminine and as a result of this femininity she is seen as predisposed to provide care labor, a role she does quite well in the context of the film. The inscribing of her gender as feminine and especially nurturing is combined with the sexualization of her character. Because she is sexualized and set up in the film in contrast to Rory and Michael, Siobhan's "problem body" is supposedly predetermined to be consumed in heterosexual relations. Markotic explains the relationship of femaleness to her ideas of problem bodies:
Whereas in normative discourse, 'real' bodies are conveniently used to express a corporate alliance or collective ideal, providing a shared agreement of what bodies mean, what bodies tend to mean for these writers is complicated textured layers that deconstruct previous givens at the same time as they conceive and reconceive how to write that "real" meaning. Such reconceptions or reconfigurations of bodies overly-coded by social determination are especially welcome when writing about female bodies- bodies that are always already coded with 'lack' and as 'other' (Markotic 1999:14, original emphasis).
Siobhan is "overly coded" as sexual in the film. Intended viewers of the film (largely heterosexual) become acutely aware of Siobhan's potential sexual nature. For viewers her femaleness not only signifies a labor of care but also her femaleness becomes "justification" for the objectification. In a similar way, the disabled male bodies are "overly coded" with a comprehension that their disability will comprise their masculinity. Their bodies will forever be problematic as "feminized" and potentially "asexual". Similar to the determination of Siobhan's body within the film to be sexualized, both Rory and Michael are also scripted to live a life of determination: death (for Rory) and new awakening (for Michael). Not only does it seem unlikely that these bodies can escape the trope of determination but also this same trope expects emotional responses. We expect Rory to die all throughout but still we are caught off-guard when he does. We do not expect Michael to be voted as President of Ireland but rather to learn a beneficial life lesson. These characters' problem bodies script out our emotional responses.
Consider one of the final scenes in the hospital. Rory has recently contracted pneumonia and the physicians have given him only days to live. Michael clearly distressed at the forthcoming loss of his friend participates in a vigil outside Rory's room. This is the only setting in the entire film where a character is linked with medical procedures pointing perhaps to the filmmaker's attempt to "free" disabled bodies from the purview of medicine. However, because the resolution of the plot occurs in the medical space, as I will explain below, all previous attempts to erase medicine in the film are broken, as Rory and Michael must re-enter the hospital space and its authority.
In this hospital scene Michael is situated next to Rory. Rory is lying down in his hospital room and he is receiving breathing assistance from a ventilator. As Michael approaches the bed, Rory exchanges some small talk with him but the mood quickly turns somber when Rory proclaims, "Rory O'Shea was here" to which Michael responds while pointing to his own chest "Rory O'Shea is here." Michael is portrayed as a character with a speech impediment due to a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. Throughout most of the film Rory serves as the interpreter repeating or rewording much of what Michael says. However at this point, partially because the audience has become familiar with Michael's speech style and because I would argue the director wants the audience to understand Michael's words, the "Rory O'Shea is Here" is delivered in a meaningful and direct manner, all while tears are forming in Michael's eyes. Rory receiving Michael's promise to keep him in his heart replies, "Michael you need nobody. You are your own man." It is at this point the central goal of the narrative becomes clear. Michael is learning how to become a man (problematic in its own right) as well as finding his own way in the world outside of Carrigmore. The violin begins to play, Michael starts to cry as he reaches out for Rory's hand and the audience begins to cry along with Michael. No wonder many reviews expressed dismay at the plot and its emotional appeal. Here lies another disabled character whose death is supposed to teach us a lesson.
Employing the Jerk-Off: Sexual Objectification of Siobhan
Along with the increased emotional response to the plight of Rory and Michael in the film, Rory O'Shea also utilizes increased sexual objectification of Siobhan in order to highlight the inappropriate sexual advances and desires of Michael. Within the film itself there are a few key scenes that signify the improper and potentially abusive sexuality of Michael combining with the continual objectification that occurs in the film of Siobhan's body, specifically her chest. One problematic review of the film describes the relationship between Michael and Siobhan as:
Michael clearly has it hard for Siobhan and probably believes this is his best chance in a life filled with older nurses and women who wouldn't give him a second look because of his condition. It's to the movie's strength that it doesn't reduce this area to just simplistic romanticized terms. There's a harsh reality awaiting Michael and we feel his pain even as he goes about expressing his love in the worst way (Childress, 2005).
The relationship between Michael and Siobhan does not end in a romantic pairing based on false pretenses, although such an ending advances a more multifaceted plotline. I am however weary of an analysis of Michael's affections that does not take into account his role in sexually objectifying Siobhan. My analysis below hopefully will point to Michael's part in the continual objectification of Siobhan.
Before I continue, however, with the exploration of the objectification of Siobhan within the film, I do want to acknowledge that the film has many tender moments between Michael and Siobhan that are not overly sexual, abusive or potentially threatening. The complex nature of the relationship between Michael and Siobhan not only drives the plot as the inevitable confession of feelings occurs but also the nondisabled audience views moments in which Michael and Siobhan are in arguably equals in a fulfilling relationship, included here are the moments in the film when they hang laundry together or practice pronunciation with the aid of a dictionary. Their relationship is complex and at times confusing given the many different roles that the characters are required to play or that are assigned to them: disabled, male, female, sexualized, carer, professional, friend, and interpreter. This potential conflict of interests between the personal assistant and disabled man points to how when multiple identity categories interlock previously oppressed people can begin to participate in the oppression of another (Razack 1998: 13-14). The film narrative demonstrates that despite Michael's marginal social status and Siobhan's objectification as a woman, the nature of the relationship results in reinforcing systems based oppression. Given the apparent complexity of the relationship between these two, it becomes even more painful to watch the sexualization and abuse of Siobhan.
Disabled Male Gaze
Because both Rory and Michael are wheelchair users, the camera often will shoot them at eye level, a camera angle that accentuates Siobhan's chest at the expense of showing any other part of her figure. Quite literally the camera appropriates most often Michael's gaze, what I will call the disabled male gaze, and this gaze continues to objectify Siobhan in her many entries and exits into the film's narrative progression (Mulvey, 1975:60-61). The idea of the disabled male gaze is very similar to the male gaze that Mulvey theorizes; however, there are a few key differences. Even though the disabled male gaze acts in objectifying Siobhan much like the male gaze but because the camera "takes on" Michael and Rory's viewpoint as disabled men, the largely nondisabled heterosexual audience not only sees the objectification through their eyes but also the audience in consuming the objectification through the disabled male gaze (by way of the camera) is given the chance to confront their biases and views about disabled male sexuality. What I mean is that instead of merely calling this gaze a male gaze, I intend to point to how this disabled male gaze becomes a device that allows for the nondisabled audience's consumption of Siobhan while creating distance from the disabled male bodies that are performing the gaze. The disabled male characters within the film are not allowed to participate in sexual relationships based on their male gaze (although Rory is alluded to as having past sexual encounters) but instead the heterosexual nondisabled audience becomes the "benefactor" of the male gaze while the film itself punishes the gaze through inaction.
Specifically when Siobhan is doing various job-related duties such as transferring Michael or helping him feed himself, the camera focuses on her segmented body in a similar sense that Mulvey describes as, "taking other people as objects, subjecting them to controlling and curious gaze" (1975:60). The continual disabled male gaze of the camera forces viewers to "learn" more about Siobhan's body as a sexualized object instead of Rory and Michael's bodies traditionally objectified through medical interventions and modes of rehabilitation. Disabled people often report feelings of drastic violence and objectification by medical professionals sometimes even being photographed or paraded naked in front of a group of medical students or other professionals. I would argue that this film does not acknowledge the history of these narratives of objectification and instead chooses to employ familiar methods of objectification of the female body by way of the male gaze. Despite freeing Michael and Rory's bodies (for the most part) of medical authorities and gazes in the film, these two characters continue with the help of the camera to exploit the female form of Siobhan, a move consistent with Mulvey's argumentation that, "Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium" (1975:63). What is of note in this film is the repeated objectification of Siobhan while at the same time denying and even punishing Michael for his sexual desires. Instead of rewarding him or sanctioning this union, the film still allows for the objectification (apparently for the nondisabled heterosexual viewer's sake) while denies any potential for sexual union with disabled and nondisabled characters. Eunjung Kim in her analysis of disabled men in cinema remarks that:
The cultural location of gender in able-bodied norms creates a gap between individuals with disabilities and their cultural mapping to be fully gendered. Film representations of disability seize the imagined desire to fill this gap as if the narrative can rehabilitate its characters with the gender qualifications they pursue. Sexualization has therefore succeeded, to some degree, in transforming disabled people into (heterosexual) disabled men or women, thereby reflecting a tendency to think of gender expressed in normative sexual practices (2003: 3).
Kim's analysis is that when sexual actions occur in the film often these actions are seen as rehabilitative and transformative of disabled people by forwarding heterosexual desires. Although Rory O'Shea does not allow for any sexual pairings to occur for the disabled men in the film, the gaze of Michael still creates a desire within him, perhaps even "transforming" him to a more appropriate representation of masculinity, although the gap between his masculinity and heteronormativity is reaffirmed. The gaze of the disabled male is assumed as innocent — that disability fails the action to be recognized sexually. Disability only disqualifies his authority to act, not his desires. Within the film we see Michael's increasing sexual attraction to Siobhan as situated in pubescent terms: his virginity and lack of knowledge as to how to express his emotions is judged as benevolent. This benevolence only continues, however, until Michael sexually harasses Siobhan (discussed below), once this occurs, the disabled male gaze morphs into strictly a male gaze although disability hides its violating nature from the viewers.
The disabled male gaze upon Siobhan's body is not further actualized through action. Instead when Michael confesses his love to Siobhan, in an equally emotional scene similar to the hospital scene described above, Siobhan reappropriates Michael's love as "gratitude." Essentially Siobhan is unable to consider Michael as potential partner and responds, "I am paid to do what I do for you. That's my job. That's not love. And what you feel for me is not love either. It's gratitude." Michael's attempt at expressing his feelings vocally to Siobhan only create further distance between the two of them, and she shortly quits her position as personal assistant to Rory and Michael. Her replacement is a black male (another problem body in the film), assuming that there is a non-threat of sexual attraction between any pairings of these men who are left after Siobhan's exit. Although the film clearly endorses heterosexual pairings within the film there is still no possibility of a meaningful sexual pairing between a Michael and Siobhan.
Politics of Personal Assistants and Sexuality
Previously in the narrative of the film, however, there are a couple of scenes that lead up to the act of sexual violence enacted by Michael on Siobhan's body. In both scenes I would argue that Michael is punished in the film narrative for his transgressions. The first occurs quite early on after Siobhan decides to work for Michael and Rory. She is giving Michael a shower, a highly personal experience for anyone and the camera focuses on Michael's soap covered body as Siobhan helps to clean him. Apparently at some point in the shower process, a touch (strictly professional but still caring touch) occurs and Michael becomes aroused and has an erection. Although the camera does not focus on his penis, the viewer becomes acutely aware of Michael's arousal through a pained look on his face and then in the next sequence of the film Siobhan rushes out of the apartment because she is uncomfortable at what just transpired in the shower room. Although Rory chides Michael for his erection, the nondisabled audience takes the humor of the situation as a sign that something is developing between Michael and Siobhan but that ultimately any potential pairing will not work out because of the incompatibility of their desires; Michael is aroused and Siobhan leaves the apartment space. In a situation in which Michael's identity as a disabled male collides with Siobhan's sex, both characters are placed in an uncomfortable location. Michael becomes aroused in the highly personal space of a non-private shower while Michael's erection reminds Siobhan of her identity as a female, a sex object for many. This scene points to the potential conflict that intersecting identities can create as well as representing the politics of personal assistants.
The other more explicitly violent sexual encounter between Siobhan and Michael occurs at a costume party. At this point in the film, it has become obvious that Michael is attracted to Siobhan, so much so that she is beginning to catch on to his advances. At the party Michael asks Siobhan to dance with him — and almost immediately she becomes uncomfortable as Michael literally grabs tightly on to Siobhan's body and puts his face into her clothed breasts. As Siobhan tries to create more space between her and Michael, his grasp gets even tighter. Finally, after a few moments of this violent and painful interaction between this pair, another man, Declan, who is a past lover of Siobhan steps in and frees her from Michael's grasp. Unlike previous scenes where there has been some ambivalence about Michael's actions in this sequence he is clearly transgressing Siobhan's body in a violent and inappropriate manner. This uncomfortable scene displays how Michael uses his body (and position in his wheelchair) to perpetuate the abuse on Siobhan. By placing his face in her chest and grabbing on tightly the viewer sees how Michael's sexual desire and disability status combine at this moment to create a sexually abusive situation.
The harassment or assault that occurs between Michael and Siobhan within the film is difficult to put to words. Primarily since harassment or more appropriately assault and abuse assume an ablebodied perpetrator, what happens between Michael and Siobhan becomes complicated to put into more familiar terms of sexual objectification. Even though the interaction between Michael and Siobhan is most likely read as benign or at the very least misguided by some disabled and nondisabled viewers of the film, there still is some level of abuse inflicted by Michael onto Siobhan. Perhaps my choice of words to describe these moments in the film fails me; however, I consider that the interaction between Siobhan and Michael at the costume party to be extremely problematic and violent. Maybe the goal of the film is to make the viewers feel upset and perplexed about this interaction?
Although the film does not offer any solution to these acts other than to have Siobhan leave the narrative, I would guess that many viewers of the film are simultaneously relieved that Michael and Siobhan will not have intercourse but also dismayed that she is leaving the narrative and so any future objectification by the camera will cease as well. Although Siobhan returns briefly to the narrative when Rory is ill, she is clearly nonsexualized and is essentially only an interpreter for Michael when he applies for the independent living grant on behalf of Rory- another symbolic gesture that creates an emotional response from the audience. Michael and Siobhan are able to patch up their relationship at the end, although no real meaningful apology or resolution occurs between the two of them. Instead, Michael talks in the abstract about respecting others, individual rights and learning from mistakes.
All we are left with is the hope that is confirmed in the hospital scene: that Michael will continue to live outside of institutions and find out successful ways to navigate the world. The threat of a sexual encounter between Michael and Siobhan has been avoided and the audience is fairly certain at the end of the film that Michael will continue on his path of self-actualization. All is well in the Rory O'Shea Universe, or as one reviewer called it "heaven on wheels" (Puig, 2005).
Conclusion: The Politics of Disability Representation
Rory O' Shea demonstrates how multiple "problem bodies" combine in not only generating emotional responses under the guise of melodrama but also how these multiple identities, which previously might have been oppressed, can maintain that original oppression from white able-bodied norms while participating in a new domination of alternate identities. Notwithstanding representing disability as a narrative prosthesis, Rory O' Shea provides an appealing narrative of conflicting and competing agencies of characters as they navigate the space of the film narrative.
It is my hope that this essay examined the nature of disability representation in Rory O' Shea while maintaining a critical lens aimed at other identities being represented in the film. Even though the film could be seen as challenging traditionally held beliefs about disabled people living alone in the community or maintaining independence, the resolution of the film helps to reinforce more conventional representations of disability that result in death or inspirational life changes. What this film does put forth is that Michael, with the aid of the camera, participates in the continual objectification and potential abuse of Siobhan, while Siobhan's status as an able-bodied woman results in increased power over the disabled men. This examination of how disabled characters can participate in the objectification and subjugation of other characters of marginalized identities based on their gender is important to consider. Disability or the status a disabled person is given within the film can hide how this mutual objectification happens; however, the reality of this power dynamic still occurs even if the potential biases of the audience members deny the agency of the disabled characters in furthering this abuse. Nevertheless, Rory O' Shea maintains that these potentially competing identity categories can participate in reinforcing the marginalization of others.
Sherene Razack illustrates perfectly what happens in Rory O' Shea as well as the importance of constantly examining how interlocking systems dominate each other:
Identifying as part of a marginalized group allows each of us to avoid addressing our position within dominant groups and to maintain our innocence or belief in our non-involvement in the subordination of others. Knowing the difficulties involved in confronting our own role in systems of domination, we may find that being anchored on the margin is more preferable. Yet, if we remain anchored on the margin, the discourse with women subordinated to ourselves stops, and various moves of superiority, notable pity and cultural othering prevail. We become unable to interrogate how multiple systems of oppression regulate our lives and unable to take effective collective action to change these systems (1998: 132).
Confronting multiple systems of oppression can occur once complete recognition happens about how people within multiple identity categories participate in the subordination of others. Even so, recognizing disability in film studies is not as common outside disability studies circles. While recognizing disability as an important factor of filmic grammar which is connected with the social reactions to disabled people's lives and experiences is crucial, it is equally important to not undermine other social/political relations displayed through bodily markers of race, gender, and class.
Benedikt, A. (2005, February 18). Rory O'Shea Mines Cheap Tears from Cliches. The Chicago Tribune.
Burns, S. (2005). Review of Rory O'Shea Was Here. Online: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.phd?id=9002. No longer online.
Childress, E. (2005). Review of Rory O'Shea Was Here. Online:
Dargis, M. (2005, February 4). An Irrepressible, Irresistible Rebel on a Roll. The New York Times.
Haller, B. (2006). Review of Rory O'Shea Was Here. DSQ, v. 26, n.2.
Kim, E. (2003 June). Medicalizing Sexuality, Sex Surrogacy, and South Korean Contexts. Revised manuscript. Paper presented at the Society for Disability Studies Annual Conference, Bethesda MD.
Longmore, P. (1987). Screening Stereotypes: Images of Disabled People in Television and Motion Pictures in Images of the Disabled, Disabling Images. A. Gartner and T. Joe (Eds.) New York: Praeger: 65-78.
Markotic, N. (1999, Winter). Coincidence of the page: Introduction to a special issue on the Problem Body. Tessera, v.27: 6-15.
Mitchell, D. and Snyder S. (2001). Narrative Prosthesis: Disability and the Dependencies of Discourse. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema in Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. S. Thornham (Ed.) New York: New York University Press: 58-69. (1999)
Norden, M. (1994). The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
O'Donnell, D. (2004). (Director) Inside I'm Dancing [Rory O'Shea Was Here] [Motion Picture] Working Title and Momentum Pictures.
Pointon, A. and Davies, C. (Eds.). (1997). Framed: Interrogating Disability in the Media. London: British Film Institute.
Puig, C. (2005, February 3). Rory is heaven on wheels. USA Today.
Razack, S. (1998). Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Smith, N. (2004). Review of Inside I'm Dancing. Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/10/07/inside_im_dancing_2004_review.shtml
Snyder, S. and Mitchell, D. (2006). Cultural Locations of Disability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Williams, L. (1991). Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess in Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. S. Thornham (Ed.) New York: New York University Press: 267-281. (1999)
This project is the product of a collective intellectual process fostered in me by many more established film theorists around me. I am in debt to Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell for introducing me to the world of disability film and encouraging my exploration. I am grateful to Virginia Wright Wexman for shepherding me through the process of incorporating feminist film theory into my examination of disability in film. Thanks to Nicole Markotic for giving me the courage to put my work out there and I appreciate the assistance Eunjung Kim has given me as I continue exploring intersections of feminism and disability studies. Finally I am especially appreciative of the anonymous reviews I received on an earlier version of this essay, the editorial help given by Beth Haller as well as the guidance given by Sharon Snyder on the revision process.
1 The film was
released as Inside I'm Dancing in the United Kingdom and Ireland, while
the film was titled Rory O'Shea Was Here for the U.S. release. Both titles speak of central components of the plot, whereas the dancing points to a scene where Rory and Michael are dancing at a club while the "was here" highlights the ending in which Rory dies in a hospital with impairment related complications. Directed by Damien O'Donnell.
Copyright (c) 2006 Michael Gill
Beginning with Volume 36, Issue No. 4 (2016), Disability Studies Quarterly is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license unless otherwise indicated.
If you encounter problems with the site or have comments to offer, including any access difficulty due to incompatibility with adaptive technology, please contact the web manager, Maureen Walsh. Disability Studies Quarterly is published by The Ohio State University Libraries in partnership with the Society for Disability Studies.


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Neo2111 wrote:i picked this case up at the weekend from tesco: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kit-Universal-B ... B00GDAETHQ
Works brilliantly. The case could have done with being a few mm bigger each side but i'm pleased with the purchase so far. Keyboard synced to the Linx8 immediately with no issues. Will post some pictures of it later today.
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Hi all, can anyone point me to a theme in which the main menu is a vertical menu in the left sidebar and is a fly-out menu? I would be most grateful for any help locating such a theme, as I need it for a job.
Hello. Take a look on Foundation theme in my portfolio Thanks!


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What is the Best/ Easiest Way to Prevent Water Marks
I have a black car and just cannot find a way to stop theses horrible water marks as I dry the car. I don't want any complicated expensive time consuming methods, just a quick and easy way to prevent/minimize this. Thanks.
what is your process and what products are you using?
I wash with a regular car wash soap, buckets, sponge and then dry with microfiber towel. Simple.
I sometimes try to get out the water marks with mothers quick detailer.
where do you live? what type of water and are you washing in the sun?
Are you getting new ones each time you wash?
In that case I may suggest waterless wash - http://www.3dproducts.com/Waterless-...tml?a_aid=8013 - or similar type products. Wash your wheels the traditional way and use waterless for paint/window.
Can't come up with anything simpler. I hope you find a solution.
The detail person at a shop that I worked at would use the dishwasher anti water spot stuff (drawing a blank on what it's called)in his wash bucket . It seemed to do a fine job.
Is this the gel that comes with the cascade dishwasher stuff? And do you put it in the rinse water?
Dishwashing detergents (Dawn, Cascade, Rinse Ad, etc) contain emollients; an ingredient designed to protect a person's hands, by keeping them soft and prevent cracking and drying. However emollients make the paint surface more difficult to dry and leave an oily residue, this thin film, which also aids 'sheeting' from glassware.
The problem is that these emollients do not rinse away and you are left with a thin film on the vehicles paint surface, which will negatively impact polymer cross-linking and its durability. They also contain Diethanolamides, which act as foaming agents or as emulsifiers
I too have a black car (Volvo), and even with soft water, I still get some light water stains on the flat surfaces (hood, top, trunk lid) after washing. I dry as quickly as possible (microfiber cloth) and typically put on a light coat of wax/quick detailer to eliminate the spots that remain. I think black paint shows water marks whether hard or soft water, if the water sits too long on the surface. Have also found that the more wax on the surface, the less water tends to stain. My E34 is Alpine White and is so much easier to wash/wax.
I would use a leaf blower to dry the car and get any leftover water (if any) with a quick detailer/spray wax and a waffle weave towel.
I will try the leaf blower method but i suspect it will still eave spots.
Any other methods, techniques from the experts?
Not an expert, but....
It sounds like the the root causes of the spots are:
1) minerals in the water
2) drops of water are being allowed to dry on the car
To keep it simple, fix those issues by drying faster and if possible using better water.
Some ideas...
- Change your process to dry as quickly as possible after rinsing, make sure you're not leaving the car wet and spotting while doing wheels, etc. Do wheels first with a separate bucket.
- use technique called flooding the panel to dry, check YouTube for examples
- ensure quality wax/sealant is on the car
- use a quick detail spray or spray wax as a drying aid
- If all else fails use a rinseless wash like ONR, and use the Gary Dean method with distilled water instead of water frm your hose (see YouTube again for details on this...)
I use distilled for rinseless, even though my hose waters not too bad. About $1.50 a wash, cheap insurance!
Won't a clay bar remove water marks??
Clay only removes what is on TOP of the paint. These mineral deposits are in the paint. Polishing is the most effective way I have found
Once you are done with the rinse, get some detail spray on there, quickly.
I use Adam's products, and their detail spray breaks down the harsh chemicals in the water, so you don't have to be in a hurry to dry.
Just give the car a good dose of it immediately after rinsing, and you can relax. The detail spray will help soak up the water, making drying 75% faster.
This stuff is amazing.
Distilled water is a good score. Use the leaf blower to minimize the amount of towel- contact with the paint, as this helps prevent potential swirls. Make sure to always wash and dry the car in the shade. Be very quick about drying too. Spritz the car with quick detailer as you towel-dry any areas, as this lubricates the surface and towel, helping to minimize potential swirls.
walmart sells in line RV water filters that you can use on your hose to help minimize minerals.
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Health impact assessment of air pollution in megacity of Tehran, Iran
- First Online:
- Received:
- Accepted:
- Cite this article as:
- Naddafi, K., Hassanvand, M.S., Yunesian, M. et al. J Environ Health Sci Engineer (2012) 9: 28. doi:10.1186/1735-2746-9-28
The aims of the present study were to provide quantitative data on the impact of air pollution on the health of people living in Tehran city, the most populated city of Iran. The approach proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) was applied using the AirQ 2.2.3 software developed by the WHO European Centre for Environment and Health, Bilthoven Division. Concentrations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter of aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 μm (PM10) were used to assess human exposure and health impacts in terms of attributable proportion of the health outcome, annual number of excess cases of mortality for all causes, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The annual average of PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3 in Tehran were 90.58, 89.16, 85 and 68.82 μg/m3, respectively. Considering short-term effects, PM10 had the highest health impact on the 8,700,000 inhabitants of Tehran city, causing an excess of total mortality of 2194 out of 47284 in a year. Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone caused about, respectively, 1458, 1050 and 819 excess cases of total mortality. Results indicate that the magnitude of the health impact estimated for the city of Tehran underscores the need for urgent action to reduce the health burden of air pollution.
KeywordsTehran air pollution Air Q software Health impact assessment Mortality Morbidity
Exposure to air pollution can cause both acute (short-term) and chronic (long-term) health effects. The acute effects of air pollution on human health were amply proven in the 20th century, when severe air pollution in Europe (Meuse Valley and London) and in the United States (Donora, Pa) caused deaths and disease in hundreds of thousands of people [1, 2]. This episode has demonstrated that high concentrations of air pollution lead to an increase in mortality [2] and morbidity. In later studies, investigators found that levels below even current air pollution guidelines are associated with adverse effects on health [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13] and air quality standards may not be protective enough for the most sensitive groups [14]. In addition, even though pollution due to combustion fuels has fallen dramatically in recent years, emerging pollutants such as O3 and NOX, and changes in the composition and size distribution of particulate matter, have become important in the health effects of air pollution [3, 15].
The city has a capacity for 700,000 registered cars yet 3 million roam its streets on a daily basis. Compounding Tehran's air pollution problem is its geographical location. With the location of 35° 41' N - 51° 25' E and altitude of 1000–1800 meters above mean sea level, Tehran is located in valleys and is surrounded on the north, northwest, east and southeast by high to medium high (3800–1000 m) mountain ranges. The mountain range stops the flow of the humid wind to the main capital and prevents the polluted air from being carried away from the city. Thus, during winter, the lack of wind and cold air causes the polluted air to be trapped within the city.
These concomitant conditions make Tehran as one of the worst areas in the world for atmospheric pollution with many days exceeding air quality standards during each year [17]. Because of the air pollution in the Great Tehran area, morbidity, mortality and symptoms emerge. At the moment, the concentration of these pollutants is higher than the standard level most of the time which means that they have numerous effects on the health of Tehran citizens [8].
Up to now the human health endpoints of air pollution has not been quantified in Tehran. The main aim of this study was the quantification of the short-term health effect of air pollutants for people living in Tehran, by using World Health Organization (WHO) approach.
Materials and methods
AirQ software
Where AP is the attributable proportion of the health outcome, RR is the relative risk (RR) for a given health outcome, in category "c" of exposure, obtained from the exposure–response functions derived from epidemiological studies and P(c) is the proportion of the population in category "c" of exposure.
Where IE is the rate of the health outcome attributable to the exposure and I is the baseline frequency of the health outcome in the population under investigation.
Where NE is the number of cases attributed to the exposure and N is the size of the population investigated.
Relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI), and corresponding reference, implemented in AirQ 2.2.3 software and used for the health effect estimates
Health endpoint
RR (95% CI) per 10 μg/m3
Total ICD-9-cmb <800
1.003 (1.002–1.005)e[21]
1.003 (1.002–1.004)c[22]
1.006 (1.004–1.008)d[19]
1.004 (1.003-1.0048) [23]
Cardiovascular ICD-9-cm 390–459
1.005 (1.002–1.007)e[21]
1.004 (1.003–1.005)c[22]
1.009 (1.005–1.013)d[19]
1.008 (1.002-1.012) [24]
Respiratory ICD-9-cm 460–519
1.013 (1.007–1.015)e[21]
1.013 (1.005–1.020)d[19]
1.01 (1.006-1.014) [24]
HAf Respiratory Disease
1.008 (1.0048-1.0112) [20]
HA COPDg
1.0026 (1.0006-1.0044) [22]
1.0044 (1–1.011) [25]
HA cardiovascular disease
1.009 (1.006-1.013) [26]
Acute myocardial infarction
1.0064 (1.0026-1.0101) [27]
Exposure assessment
Air concentrations of the selected pollutants in the area of interest were measured by Tehran Air Quality Control Corporation (TAQCC), Iran, using 25 permanent monitoring stations (Figure 1). Finally, the air pollutants data from the permanent monitoring station of Tehran city from January 2010 to January 2011 year were used.
There are 25 stations for the measurement of air pollution in Tehran, but some of them, based on WHO Criteria for Air Quality Health Impact Assessment, had an invalid data for assessment. Finally, data from 7, 10, 11, 13 and 13 stations located in north, west, south and central parts of Tehran that were consistently active during the study period for, respectively, PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3, were used.
For all the pollutants, the parameters required by the software (annual and seasonal maximum and annual 98th percentiles) were obtained and concentrations were recorded to 10 μg/m3 categories, corresponding to equivalent exposure categories. For O3, data were expressed as an 8 h "moving average"; for NO2, as a 1 h average concentrations and for SO2 and PM10 as daily averages.
Exposure was estimated considering the city of Tehran as single agglomerate, with a residential population 8,700,000 people. The software assumes that concentrations measured are representative of the average exposure of the people. For example, if on 5% of sampling days concentrations were between 10 and 20 μg/m3, it was assumed that people were exposed to the corresponding concentration for 5% of their time.
Summary of the concentrations of air pollutants, and meteorological variables, Tehran (2010–2011)
Mean (SD)
No. of station
No. of days
PM10, Annual 24 h (μg/m3)
90.58 (41.99)
SO2, Annual 24 h (μg/m3)
89.16 (29.27)
NO2, Annual 24 h (μg/m3)
85 (24.183)
O3, Annual 8 h (μg/m3)
68.82 (40.48)
Temperature (°C)
19.68 (9.87)
Relative humidity (%)
38.87 (16.45)
The highest PM10 concentration was detected in the summer period with maximum value of 329.95 μg/m3. For O3 the maximum 8 h average concentration was 187 μg/m3 detected as expected in summer, while the maximum NO2 and SO2 concentrations, respectively, 163.85 and 313.27 μg/m3 were detected in winter.
The obtained results show that annual average of PM10 in Tehran was 1.3 times the world's average (71 μg/m3) [17] and 4.5 times the guideline values prescribed by the WHO [28]. Also the annual average of NO2 in Tehran was 2.1 times the guideline value prescribed by the WHO [28].
Estimated attributable proportion (AP) expressed as percentage and number of excess cases in a year due to short-term exposure above 10 μg/m3for PM10, SO2, O3and NO2
Health Endpoints
Air pollutants
AP (uncertainty range)a
No. of excess cases (uncertainty range)a
Total mortality
4.6 (3.14-6)
2194 (1486–2880)
3 (2.33-3.67)
1458 (1102–1739)
2.2 (1–2.93)
1050 (705–1389)
1.73 (1.16-2.85)
819 (549–1349)
Cardiovascular mortality
6.8 (3.89-9.35)
1367 (738–1916)
5.98 (1.56-8.7)
1202 (315–1751)
2.93 (2.22-3.64)
591 (446–733)
2.85 (1.16-3.95)
574 (233–794)
Respiratory mortality
9.53 (3.89-13.95)
402 (164–588)
7.73 (4.55-10)
310 (192–422)
7 (3.4-8)
299 (143–341)
Hospital Admissions Cardiovascular Disease
6.8 (4.64-9.53)
2580 (1760–3617)
Hospital Admissions Respiratory Disease
6.09 (3.74-8.32)
6677 (4107–9126)
Hospital Admissions COPD
2.79 (0.3-6.64)
247 (27–586)
4.80 (2.52-7.09)
424 (222–626)
3.38 (0–8.04)
298 (0–710)
Acute Myocardial Infarction
4.84 (2.02-7.43)
556 (233–854)
2.65 (1.12-5.97)
305 (129–687)
This paper offers a study case using the WHO approach to assess the impact of atmospheric pollution on human health for people living in Tehran, one of the most populated areas in the world, where the geographical features make the air quality among the worst in the world. The impact was estimated as the increase in all-causes, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality, and hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, COPD and acute myocardial Infarction for short-term exposure.
Considering short-term effects, PM10 had the greatest health impact on the 8,700,000 inhabitants of Tehran city, causing an excess of total mortality of 2,194 out of 47,284 people in a year. The effect of SO2, NO2 and O3 on total mortality was an excess of about, respectively, 1458, 1050 and 819 cases in a year.
The AirQ software has been used by other investigators to assess the human health impact of PM2.5[15, 29] or PM10[30]. [15] estimated the human health risk in relation to air quality in two municipalities in an industrialized area of Northern Italy, the authors found that PM2.5 had the highest health impact on the 24,000 inhabitants of the two small towns, causing an excess of total mortality of 8 out of 177 in a year; also Ozone and nitrogen dioxide each caused about three excess cases of total mortality. [30] focused on short-term effects of PM10 in Trieste (about 200,000 inhabitants), a city in north-east Italy; For PM10 concentrations above 20 μg/m3, 52, 28 and 6 cases in excess, respectively, were estimated for total, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. These figures, if normalized to the population in Tehran (8,700,000 inhabitants), would result in a number of excess cases very similar to those reported for PM10 in Table 2.
In another study, [31] found in Milan (1,308,000 inhabitants), a big industrial city in the Po Valley, the central estimate of the number of excess cases attributable to PM10 was 677 for total mortality. In a study of PM10 and O3 impact on human health in 13 Italian cities, with about nine million inhabitants during the period 2002–2004, [32] it was reported that on average 8220 deaths a year, excluding accidental causes, were attributable to PM10 above 20 μg/m3. For O3 the effect was estimated at 516 extra deaths yearly. For short-term effects exposure to PM10 above 20 μg/m3 was responsible for 1372 extra deaths.
Results obtained from studies of health effects of air pollution in various parts of the world differ. Particulate matter is the pollutant with the biggest health effects in all of these papers, including the present study.
This study has several limitations. One of the limitations of this approach is that the health impact focuses on individual compounds without considering the simultaneous exposure to several, which is what actually occurs [15]. The health effects of atmospheric pollution are indeed the consequence of interactions between different air contaminants, and between these and other compounds of natural origin. Generally, in quantitative assessments of health effects, the interactions between different contaminants are not investigated as it would require a good knowledge of the mechanisms of toxicity for the different compounds, which is rarely available. In order to take account of co-exposure to different pollutants, it is often assumed that the health effects of individual compounds are additive. However the simple addition of the effects of the single pollutants would not be right because atmospheric pollutants are usually positively related.
A further limitation related to the exposure assessment is that the approach assumes that concentrations measured in specific sampling points are representative of the average exposure suffered from people living in Tehran. Another limitation is due to the RR estimates derived in studies of different populations in comparison to the one under investigation. In particular, while for PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3 the RRs were mainly based on studies on the European population. The transferability of the mortality effect estimates from the evidentiary (e.g., the US cohort) to the target population, however, is feasible if no compelling evidence that the target population and the evidentiary population differ in the response to the air pollution [33].
In conclusion, this study applied the AirQ software and the approach proposed by the WHO to provide quantitative data on the impact of PM10, SO2, NO2 and O3 on the health of people living in a certain area. The results are in line with those of other investigations and, despite the limitations, which are in common to similar studies, indicate that this method offers an effective and easy tool, helpful in decision-making.
The magnitude of the health impact estimated for the city of Tehran underscores the need for urgent action to reduce the health burden of air pollution. Local authorities, through policies that aim mainly to reduce emissions from urban transport and energy production, can achieve sizeable health gains.
The authors wish to thank Tehran University of Medical Sciences (grant number #11956) and the Institute for Environmental Research (IER) for their financial support for conduct of this study. We also thank Tehran Air Quality Control Corporation for providing us with pollutants concentrations data.
Supplementary material
Copyright information
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.


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Fusion Core
Fusion Core is our companion plugin that holds a tremendous amount of powerful tools and options. $75 value FREE!
Theme Options
Plethora of options neatly organized into sections that allow you to build websites without any coding knowledge.
Page Options
Powerful page options offer greater control over each page/post, allowing each one to have their own custom settings.
Fusion Builder
Fusion Builder is an intuitive page builder that provides "what you see is what you get" drag and drop page building.
Over 40 shortcodes along with hundreds of options give you complete control over your content and styling.
One Click Demo Importer
Easily import any of our professionally designed demos with a click of a button. No xml files, it's a beautiful thing.
Responsive Framework
Avada is fully responsive and adapts to every screen size. We obsessively test it all so your content looks beautiful.
Translation & RTL
Translate Avada into any language, or use one of our dozen included languages already complete. And it is fully RTL ready.
Site Width
Control the overall site width, main content area, single and dual sidebar widths with ease, using pixels or percentage.
Avada provides advanced header options like no other theme can. Quickly create the header of your dreams.
Multiple menu locations, Fusion Mega Menu with widgets, menu positions, customization options and more.
Avada includes Fusion Slider, Revolution Slider, Layer Slider & Elastic slider for easy slide building. $40 value FREE!
Page Layouts
Avada offers numerous page layouts and options to fit every situation, making it easy to complete your design vision.
Choose from 6 different blog layouts and have unlimited blog pages. Oh, and we also include a plethora of blog options.
Choose from 12 different portfolio page templates, dozens of options, unlimited portfolio pages and much more.
Avada is WooCommerce compatible and offers a unique design. Create & maintain an online shop with ease.
Need a forum? No problem, Avada is bbPress compatible and offers a unique design so you can setup a forum with ease.
Page Title Bar
Advanced page title bar allows you unique styles, images, and content globally or per page or post basis.
Advanced footer options allow for 1-6 column layouts, and a plethora of various customization options.
Use single, dual or no sidebars on any page or post you desire. Easily control the sidebar widths and positions.
Avada offers over 10 built-in custom widgets that can be used in sidebars, footer, sliding bar and mega menu.
Boxed / Wide Layout
Choose between boxed or wide layout. This can be a global selection for all pages, or single selection per page or post.
Unlimited Colors
Unlimited color choices! Color options are provided for each element using an advanced color selection tool.
Advanced Typography
Avada offers advanced typography options that give you full control over the type that displays on your website.
1-6 Column Support
Utilize columns all the way from 1 to 6 all throughout the site. And use any combination of those sizes.
iLightbox Included
The beautiful iLightbox is included with your purchase, making your images look stunning. $20 value FREE!
Custom Backgrounds
Custom image backgrounds can be uploaded to just about any area of the site, and are unlimited.
One Page Parallax
Avada allows you to create one page parallax sites and multi-page sites with ease. Choose one or both!
Parallax Effects
Everyone loves parallax scrolling effects, they are simply beautiful. Avada has advanced parallax options & controls.
Social Options
Avada has a full set of social icons and styling options that allow you to always share your precious content.
SEO Optimized
Avada is built with care allowing search engines to index the content of your site to achieve higher rankings.
Made For Speed
Avada is optimized for speed. Careful attention to detail and well structured code ensures a smooth experience.
5 Star Support
We know what it's like to need support. Our philosophy is to treat you as we would like to be treated.
Fusion Core
Fusion Core is our companion plugin that holds a tremendous amount of powerful tools and options. $75 value FREE!
Real Support. Real People.
We know what it's like to need support. Our philosophy is to treat you as we would like to be treated. With a hands on support center, online documentaiton and HD video tutorials, it's no wonder that some of our best reviews are about our amazing support.
Reviews From Around The Globe
People everywhere are loving Avada and we thrive off their feedback. With almost 10,000 ratings, Avada maintains an overall 5-Star rating.
"The ThemeFusion team provides excellent support, listens to their users & continually works to improve their product."
Stephen Cronin
Envato Quality Team Leader
"The theme you've been waiting for. The theme to end all themes."
ThemeForest Customer
"Just bought my 5th and 6th copies of Avada this weekend!!!"
Julie Larson
ThemeForest Customer
"Avada is the Swiss Army Knife of WP Themes. It does Everything!"
Collis Ta'eed, CEO Envato
Business Insider Australia 2013
"WOW – I dont know what else to say. This is the Best Theme I have ever seen. I am a full time web dev, this theme blows me away."
Marketing Monsters
ThemeForest Customer
"Avada is ThemeForest's smash-hit WordPress theme."
Envato Marketplaces
Envato in 2014 Report
"It's been purchased over 100,000 times and it's undoubtedly the most popular WordPress theme on the planet."
Craig Marolf, VIBE Digital Media
Envato Market Blog 2015
"It's the best selling WordPress theme of all time for a reason."
ThemeForest Customer
Current Trending Features In Avada!
As you've read above, Avada is packed with useful features. These features make it ridiculously easy for anyone to create stunning web sites. Check out below to find out what features are currently trending in our [num_of_users users=""]+ customer base!
Full Design Integration & Support For WooCommerce.
Avada includes integration for the most popular shop plugin, WooCommerce. Our custom design and unique shop shortcodes will allow your products to shine. Avada + WooCommerce makes it easy to have an online shop.
Fusion Builder Provides Drag & Drop Creativity.
Visually drag and drop elements to create unique pages using our intuitive Fusion Builder. We include dozens of builder elements called shortcodes, each with their own amazing customization options. Fusion Builder is not only useful, it's fun.
Flexible Layout Options To Fit Each Situation.
Avada includes multiple layout options for header, pages, blog and portfolio giving you maximum flexibility for design and setup.


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Route Grade Votings
Total votes cast 40
Adjacent Routes
20m. The continuous crack-line up the right-hand side of the face gives a fine, well protected pitch with enough large gear. It is all just a touch to wide for comfort.
The crux is definitely not well-protected unless you have very large gear - a no 3 camalot doesn't even come close. Would be HS 4b with huge cams/hexes, probably VS 4b without. Quite green and slippery near thye bottom, improves with height.
I didn't have anything larger than a no. 3 camalot, and definitely wouldn't give it higher than HS 4b...
Probably me being an old git but I thought that this was a a good VS with a Camalot 5. Without it I would have found it very scary. Great line.


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More employers are adopting a popular summertime perk: closing early (or even shutting down) on Fridays during summer. More than a quarter of companies polled by Hewitt Associates have turned to such summer work schedules, which typically run from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Most of these employers ask employees to work an hour or two longer on Monday through Thursday to make up for the Friday closing. For employees, the head start on the weekend is hugely popular and boosts morale. For you, it can save on costly overhead when business is traditionally slower.
The danger: Summer hours can present one less-obvious risk: Studies say more workplace accidents and injuries occur during the hot summer months.
Top reason: employees filling in on jobs for vacationing co-workers.
To help you prevent such injuries, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published the following:
Working Outdoors is a two-page fact sheet with advice on how to manage potential hazards for outdoor workers, including exposure to UV radiation, extreme heat, Lyme disease and West Nile Virus. Visit www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/working-outdoors-factsheet.pdf.
Heat Stress Card is a laminated fold-up card designed for supervisors and employees to carry in wallets (available in English or Spanish). It describes warning signs and symptoms of heat ailments, plus tips on early treatment. Review it at www.osha.gov/Publications/osha3154.pdf. Order free laminated cards by calling OSHA at (202) 693-1888.


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|By David Strom
Article Rating:
|November 11, 2013 10:16 PM EST
The days of having separate, dedicated networks for video, voice, storage, and general data applications are behind us. In the past, many IT departments had separate groups to manage voice and data, with separate wiring and infrastructures. They even used different vocabularies.
Many companies have been tempted by the notion that everything should be managed in one big happy converged infrastructure, with everything running through the same switches and wires.
To read why that may not be such a great idea, see my story posted in ArsTechnica today.
Read the original blog entry...
The current age of digital transformation means that IT organizations must adapt their toolset to cover all digital experiences, beyond just the end users'. Today's businesses can no longer focus solely on the digital interactions they manage with employees or customers; they must now contend with non-traditional factors. Whether it's the power of brand to make or break a company, the need to monitor across all locations 24/7, or the ability to proactively resolve issues, companies must adapt to...
Jun. 26, 2017 10:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,859
"Loom is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning into the entire log analysis process, from start to finish and at the end you will get a human touch," explained Sabo Taylor Diab, Vice President, Marketing at Loom Systems, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 20th Cloud Expo, held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Jun. 26, 2017 09:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,880
After more than five years of DevOps, definitions are evolving, boundaries are expanding, 'unicorns' are no longer rare, enterprises are on board, and pundits are moving on. Can we now look at an evolution of DevOps? Should we? Is the foundation of DevOps 'done', or is there still too much left to do? What is mature, and what is still missing? What does the next 5 years of DevOps look like? In this Power Panel at DevOps Summit, moderated by DevOps Summit Conference Chair Andi Mann, panelists loo...
Jun. 26, 2017 09:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,009
"Tintri focuses on the Ops side of the DevOps, which basically is pushing more and more of the accessibility of the infrastructure to the developers and trying to get behind the scenes," explained Dhiraj Sehgal of Tintri in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 20th Cloud Expo, held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Jun. 26, 2017 09:15 PM EDT Reads: 347
@DevOpsSummit at Cloud Expo taking place Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA, is co-located with the 21st International Cloud Expo and will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading industry players in the world. The widespread success of cloud computing is driving the DevOps revolution in enterprise IT. Now as never before, development teams must communicate and collaborate in a dynamic, 24/7/365 environment. There is ...
Jun. 26, 2017 07:15 PM EDT Reads: 1,151
You know you need the cloud, but you're hesitant to simply dump everything at Amazon since you know that not all workloads are suitable for cloud. You know that you want the kind of ease of use and scalability that you get with public cloud, but your applications are architected in a way that makes the public cloud a non-starter. You're looking at private cloud solutions based on hyperconverged infrastructure, but you're concerned with the limits inherent in those technologies.
Jun. 26, 2017 07:15 PM EDT Reads: 338
In the world of DevOps there are 'known good practices' – aka 'patterns' – and 'known bad practices' – aka 'anti-patterns.' Many of these patterns and anti-patterns have been developed from real world experience, especially by the early adopters of DevOps theory; but many are more feasible in theory than in practice, especially for more recent entrants to the DevOps scene. In this power panel at @DevOpsSummit at 18th Cloud Expo, moderated by DevOps Conference Chair Andi Mann, panelists discussed...
Jun. 26, 2017 07:00 PM EDT Reads: 825
A look across the tech landscape at the disruptive technologies that are increasing in prominence and speculate as to which will be most impactful for communications – namely, AI and Cloud Computing. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Curtis Peterson, VP of Operations at RingCentral, highlighted the current challenges of these transformative technologies and shared strategies for preparing your organization for these changes. This "view from the top" outlined the latest trends and developments i...
Jun. 26, 2017 06:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,833
The current age of digital transformation means that IT organizations must adapt their toolset to cover all digital experiences, beyond just the end users'. Today's businesses can no longer focus solely on the digital interactions they manage with employees or customers; they must now contend with non-traditional factors. Whether it's the power of brand to make or break a company, the need to monitor across all locations 24/7, or the ability to proactively resolve issues, companies must adapt to...
Jun. 26, 2017 05:45 PM EDT Reads: 453
"We focus on composable infrastructure. Composable infrastructure has been named by companies like Gartner as the evolution of the IT infrastructure where everything is now driven by software," explained Bruno Andrade, CEO and Founder of HTBase, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 20th Cloud Expo, held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY.
Jun. 26, 2017 05:15 PM EDT Reads: 392
Hardware virtualization and cloud computing allowed us to increase resource utilization and increase our flexibility to respond to business demand. Docker Containers are the next quantum leap - Are they?! Databases always represented an additional set of challenges unique to running workloads requiring a maximum of I/O, network, CPU resources combined with data locality.
Jun. 26, 2017 04:15 PM EDT Reads: 390
For organizations that have amassed large sums of software complexity, taking a microservices approach is the first step toward DevOps and continuous improvement / development. Integrating system-level analysis with microservices makes it easier to change and add functionality to applications at any time without the increase of risk. Before you start big transformation projects or a cloud migration, make sure these changes won't take down your entire organization.
Jun. 26, 2017 03:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,938
Cloud promises the agility required by today's digital businesses. As organizations adopt cloud based infrastructures and services, their IT resources become increasingly dynamic and hybrid in nature. Managing these require modern IT operations and tools. In his session at 20th Cloud Expo, Raj Sundaram, Senior Principal Product Manager at CA Technologies, will discuss how to modernize your IT operations in order to proactively manage your hybrid cloud and IT environments. He will be sharing bes...
Jun. 26, 2017 03:00 PM EDT Reads: 610
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks. We're in the midst of a wave of excitement around AI such as hasn't been seen for a few decades. But those previous periods of inflated expectations led to troughs of disappointment. Will this time be different? Most likely. Applications of AI such as predictive analytics are already decreasing costs and improving reliability of industrial machinery. Furthermore, the funding and research going into AI now comes from a wide range of com...
Jun. 26, 2017 02:30 PM EDT Reads: 1,547
In this presentation, Striim CTO and founder Steve Wilkes will discuss practical strategies for counteracting fraud and cyberattacks by leveraging real-time streaming analytics. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Steve Wilkes, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Striim, will provide a detailed look into leveraging streaming data management to correlate events in real time, and identify potential breaches across IoT and non-IoT systems throughout the enterprise. Strategies for processing massive ...
Jun. 26, 2017 01:45 PM EDT Reads: 1,567


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Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to try out a variety of different cloth wipe solutions – homemade, cubes, just add water, and ready to use. Some of the brands have worked great, some not so great and some work fine. In Part One we're going to cover the basic types of wipe solution and the pros and cons of each one.
Homemade Wipe Solution
Making your own cloth wipe solution is relatively quick, easy and inexpensive. There are quite a few recipes available online and on our blog to get you started. You can make them as simple as you want or you can use extras such as pure aloe vera gel or some nice smelling essential oils. You control exactly what you add – a huge plus if your little one has allergies or skin sensitivities. In the beginning we made our own in a huge batch every few days since the number of diaper changes for a newborn is huge and we went through a lot of wipes.
The positive of making your own is that you know exactly what is in it and you typically have all the ingredients you need right at home. The con of making your own is using oil. If you use oil in your solution, you will need to wash your cloth wipes separate from your diapers. Oil is nice in wipe solution as it helps the wipe glide better and gives a bit of moisturizing at the same time, but the oil can transfer to your diapers if you wash your wipes and diapers together.
Wipe Cubes
Wipe cubes are handy, all you need to do is add one or two cubes to two cups of hot water, let the water cool down and the solution is ready to use. Cubes are available in all sorts of different scents and formulas. It's always best to pick up a sample or two to try out first – to make sure that you don't encounter any sensitivity to a particular scent.
The positive for using wipe cubes is that the cubes travel well as there is no liquid to transport and with wipe cube solution, you can wash your wipes with your diapers. Definitely cuts down on a load of laundry. The downside of wipe cubes is that boiling water melts the cubes the best, but it takes time for the solution to cool down enough to use.
Read Cloth Wipe Solution 101: Part Two


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DIARY-Top Economic Events to June 2
May 24 (Reuters) -
For other diaries, please see:
U.S. Federal Reserve
Polling unit diary
Today in Washington
Political and general news
Index of all diaries
Major central bank events ** This Diary is filed daily ** ------------------------------------------------------------- TUESDAY, MAY 24 MADRID - 2016 IIF Spring Membership Meeting (to May 25). Speakers: European Central Bank Chief Economist Peter Praet, banking supervision chief Daniele Nouy, Single Resolution Board chief Elke Konig and Governing Council members Francois Villeroy de Galhau, Luis Maria Linde and Klaas Knot. MADRID - European Central Bank banking supervision chief Daniele Nouy speaks at the 2016 IIF Spring Membership Meeting - 1230 GMT. LONDON - Bank of England's Governor Mark Carney likely to appear before UK parliament's Treasury Committee to discuss May Inflation Report - 0900 GMT. BRUSSELS - Eurogroup meeting. BRUSSELS - EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager to meet Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna PARIS - European Central Bank board member Peter Praet speaks on "A view from the European Central Bank" at International Economics Symposium "Reigniting Global Growth: Headwinds and Tailwinds" organised by NABE/OECD - 0700 GMT. FRANKFURT - European Central Bank Financial Stability Report pre-release: Recent trends in euro area banks' business models and implications for banking sector stability - 0800 GMT. SYDNEY - Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens addresses a Trans-Tasman Business Circle boardroom briefing - 0305 GMT. HELSINKI - Bank of Finland Governor Erkki Liikanen to speak about monetary policy to Finnish parliamentarians - 0900 GMT. MADRID - Bank of Spain Governor Luis Maria Linde will deliver the opening speech of the Joint Seminar on Islamic Finance: "The Real Economy and the Financial Sector", organized by the Islamic Financial Services Board and the IE Business School - 0730 GMT. STOCKHOLM - Sweden's Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves will participate in Dagens Industri's annual banking conference and discuss the Riksbank's view of the current economic situation and monetary policy challenges.
WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 HOUSTON, United States - Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan participates in a moderated question-and-answer session before the Greater Houston Partnership Thought Leader Series - 1700 GMT. BISMARCK - Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari participates in conversation on the relationship between the energy sector and monetary policy before the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference - 1540 GMT. PHILADELPHIA, United States - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker speaks on the economic outlook before the Forum on America's Economy 2016 - 1300 GMT. MADRID - European Central Bank Chief Economist Peter Praet speaks at the 2016 IIF Spring Membership Meeting on "Monetary Policy Outlook" - 1030 GMT. LONDON - European Central Bank board member Vitor Constancio speaks at Session 2 "The International Monetary and Financial System - A European Perspective" at Joint Bank of England/FESSUD Workshop "Mapping the future of Finance" - 1030 GMT. BRUSSELS - Meeting of EU finance ministers. OTTAWA - Bank of Canada policy interest rate announcement - 1400 GMT. Continuación...


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Report, 2010. Executive Summary.This Executive Summary explains the rationale and objectives of the Right to Food Assessment Philippines. In addition to a short overview of the three studies in the assessment, the summary also provides a profile of hunger and an analysis of its underlying causes. Available only in English.
Report, 2010. Component 2/3.This second component of the Right to Food Assessment Philippines covers an assessment that will ascertain whether legal provisions are implemented to guarantee the right to food and to what extent the legal framework of the Philippines influences (positively or negatively) the food insecurity situation of the vulnerable groups. Available only in English.
Paper, 2010.This report provides background information about Bhutan and a summary of the essential elements of the right to food concept followed by an analysis of the household level food security status and its driving factors. Furthermore, an analysis of the policy, institutional and legal framework relevant to food security governance and accountability mechanisms at national and sub-national levels and future recommendations are provided. Available only in English.
Joint FAO-OHCHR Fact Sheet No. 34, 2010.This Fact Sheet explains what the right to adequate food is, illustrates its implications for specific individuals and groups, and elaborates upon State parties' obligations with respect to this human right. The Fact Sheet also provides an overview of national, regional and international accountability and monitoring mechanisms.Available in: English | Français | Español | 中文 | العربية | Nepalese
Flyer, 2010.This "Right to food in the cities" flyer focuses on the legislation of Mexico and the law on food security and nutrition in Mexico Federal district.Available only in English.
Right to Food Study, 2009.This Right to Food Study outlines a range of concrete examples to demonstrate that access to justice is possible and useful to protect the victims of violations of the right to food. The study also lays out the legal systems in which the access to justice is possible, and address the remaining gaps in other legal systems.Available in English, Français, Español, Português.
Right to Food Methodological Toolbox / Book 1, 2009.The Guide provides assistance as to how to integrate the right to food into the different levels of the national legislation. Furthermore, it describes ways to protect the right to food in the constitution, provides guidance on drafting a framework law and presents a methodology for reviewing the compatibility of sectoral laws with the right to food. Available in: English | Español | Français
Flyer, 2009.This flyer contains a short description of the 6 books in the Right to Food Methodological Toolbox: "Guide on Legislating for the Right to Food", "Methods to Monitor the Human Right to Adequate Food - Volume I/II", "Guide to Conducting a Right to Food Assessment", "Right to Food Curriculum Outline" and "Budget Work to Advance the Right to Food". Available in: English | Español | Français
Newsletter N°5 - February 2009.This newsletter aims to give a voice to the hungry and to all those who are involved in assisting their plight. It aims to strengthen governments in their efforts to make the right to food a reality for all. This Special Edition of the Right to Food Team Newsletter focuses on the outcomes of the Right to Food Forum, which proved to be a starting point for a progressive movement aiming at strengthening the implementation of the Right to Food. Available in English, Español, Français.
Right to Food Study, 2009.This paper focuses on the analysis of the right to food from an indigenous peoples' perspective and addresses the main issues of concern to indigenous peoples that crosscut the right to food. Furthermore, it analyses how right to food is relevant to indigenous peoples and how the implementation of the right to food can benefit them.Available only in English.
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