‘Dolemite’ remake in the works…

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that a remake of the 1975 blaxploitation hit DOLEMITE is underway.

The original film was built around foul-mouthed comedian and rap pioneer Rudy Ray Moore and his alter-ego who joined forces with a squad of kung fu-fighting girls in order to bust up baddies and reclaim a nightclub.

DOLEMITE spawned the sequel THE HUMAN TORNADO in 1975. Moore starred in a couple other blaxploitation films thereafter. In 1999, he teamed up with cult kung fu moviemaker Robert Tai to produce SHAOLIN DOLEMITE. This oddball production combined footage from Tai’s zany martial arts epic NINJA: THE FINAL DUEL with new dubbing and comedy inserts from Moore. In 2002, Moore starred in the ultra-low budget RETURN OF THE DOLEMITE.

The remake will be directed by Bill Fishman (TAPEHEADS) who bought the rights. He’s currently in the initial casting phase. Talks have already been held with several comedy and hip-hop stars including Snoop Dogg.

Moore will act as executive producer on the remake and may possibly play a role.

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Training docs to examine private parts

Mannequins help give medical students a hands-on education

CHICAGO – Dr. Carla Pugh seems an unlikely patron of porn shops.

But that’s exactly where Pugh, an assistant professor of surgery at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, procured some of the male body parts she uses to train medical students about human anatomy.

Pugh, 41, has patented technology that combines portions of fully formed anatomical mannequins with computers to teach medical students to do exams on the body’s most private and sensitive areas — genitalia, breasts and rectums.

These are the exams, she said, that students are often most afraid of and that many medical school instructors, themselves often long-time practicing physicians, still find to be a source of embarrassment.

“We’ve got big issues in the U.S. with sexuality,” Pugh said in an interview during a break from teaching first-year medical students. “These guys have to be able to do it and act professional, so that adds a lot of pressure.”

Getting supplies to build the models was no easy task. Medical education has largely glossed over such training, limiting demand for products in the industry. In some cases, erotica was the only option, she said.

The simulators are a far cry from the flesh and bones of a living, breathing person. But they are close enough to the real thing to let students know whether their touch is too rough, too soft or if they’ve missed a key spot entirely.

Not the real thing
In traditional medical training, students often go straight from textbook to exam room with live patients, where they observe skilled doctors in action. Questions are asked later.

“Guess what?” said Pugh. “They’re sweating bullets because they haven’t had a scenario where they can talk about it comfortably, safely and with someone who is more knowledgeable.”

During the Northwestern class, training is hands-on. Simulators are arranged at various stations according to exam type. At the prostate station, for example, several models of the male posterior are arranged on a table in various positions.

Inside each plastic model — yes, they have a fully formed anus and rectum — are paper-thin sensors that measure a student’s touch and send individual readings to an attached computer monitor.

Students show up at the station for a brief overview from an instructing physician and then moments later, fingers are inserted, line readings from sensors go up and down on the computer screen, questions are asked and answered.

Scatological humor is inevitable. An instructor assures a student that, yes, you can tell a patient it’s OK to pass wind if necessary during the exam and ask for a warning first.

Time is called and students move on to the next station. On another table, several examples of the penis, circumcised and not, limp and erect, await another round of students, who smile nervously.

Dr. Sudha Rao, a pediatrician, prepares to give an overview of the proper methods for performing an examination of the penis.

“It’s very helpful,” said Rao of the anatomical models. “I think they’re fantastic to be able to show a young student who is starting out.”

Playing with dolls
Pugh began performing “surgery” on her dolls as a child, transplanting eyes and limbs with a sewing kit borrowed from her mother. Since then, she said she has always maintained a hands-on approach to medicine.

She was disappointed with the level of feedback she received while doing her own surgical training in medical school at Howard University in Washington.

“It frustrated me because I was unsure,” said Pugh, one of fewer than 400 black women surgeons in the United States. “I didn’t have the level of access to the human body that I wanted.”

She came up with the idea for the technology while working on a doctorate in education at Stanford University and obtained a patent for the sensors and data accumulation technology in 2001.

Pugh formed a licensing agreement with Medical Education Technologies Inc., a company specializing in medical training products, in early 2003.

Her pelvic exam simulators are already on the market at prices ranging from $16,000 to $20,000 each, and are used by more than 60 medical and nursing schools around the country. The prostate exam simulators used in the class as well as those for breast exams are still in prototype form.

Any help in these often taboo topics will make the first clinical encounters with a patient’s private parts a little easier for medical students like 28-year-old Meredith Hirshfeld at Northwestern University in Chicago.

“It’s the first time we’re doing something invasive,” she said. “It’s nerve-racking.”

If you were to pick only one person to be a lesbian….

See the responses HERE.

The Grinch was spotted in Japan over the weekend…

Peachy Keen: The Willie Nelson Flavor

Willie Nelson and a Brief History of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

Oh happy day! Ben & Jerry are presenting us with a whole new flavor to drool over. Yes folks, today marks the street date for Willie Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler (peach ice cream with cinnamon sugar shortbread pieces). With the new creation, Willie joins the ranks of progressive pop culture icons Jerry Garcia, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Wavy Gravy and, most recently, Stephen Colbert, all of whom have been awarded their very own tailor-made ice cream flavors.

The question on hardcore ice cream enthusiasts’ minds (besides “where’s a spoon?”) is: Do Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (the founding fathers of the Vermont-based ice cream empire) actually decide who’s worthy of a flavor themselves? And perhaps more importantly, who determines that Jerry Garcia’s namesake batch consists of cherries and fudge flakes while Wavy Gravy’s concoction is caramel, cashew and Brazil nut ice cream? When you think of Trey Anastasio, is chocolate ice cream with “gooey” marshmallow, caramel and fudge really what comes to mind? We took it upon ourselves to find out the answers to these probing questions so that you could spend less time pondering them and more time eating Peach Cobbler while rocking out to “I Gotta Get Drunk.”

We talked to Sean Greenwood, a spokesperson at Ben & Jerry’s corporate offices in South Burlington, Vermont, who told us that artists are deemed flavor-worthy on the basis of their humanitarian efforts. The more do-good, environment-friendly, help-the-kids-in-Africa stuff you have on your resume, the better the chance that the folks at B&J will consider you for your very own ice cream. According to Greenwood, Ben’s and Jerry’s personal musical tastes have nothing to do with it. So banish those visions of the burly guys concocting ice cream flavors while listening intently to their iPods.

Greenwood tells us that tasty collaborations have come about in all sorts of ways. Hippie icon Wavy Gravy, for example, was an obvious inspiration for the Vermont duo because of Wavy’s association with Woodstock. After all, says Greenwood, “Ben and Jerry are hippie guys [that] grew up in that peace love kind of time.” Cherry Garcia was originally conceived by a female Deadhead in Maine who wanted to express her love for the Dead and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. She mailed her idea for the name in to Ben & Jerry’s home office on an ice cream lid, and the B&J masterminds jumped on it. Phish Food was more of a neighborly gesture, says Greenwood, recounting the tale of how Cohen leaned over his back fence one day — his backyard was adjacent to Phish headquarters in Vermont — and thought, “Hey, maybe we should think about doing a flavor…” Too bad Ben’s neighbor at the time wasn’t Britney Spears; we might have had a delicious Nutty White (Trash) Chocolate flavor to enjoy.

Ben & Jerry (the company) always come up with flavor prototypes before formally approaching people they want to collaborate with, but the artists have the final say when it comes to the name and core ingredients of the ice cream that they think will best represent them in the freezer aisle. Apparently, Stephen Colbert thought he was more of a waffle cone guy kind of a guy when he veto-ed a cinnamon bun flavor for his American Dream ice cream. When Jerry Garcia was asked how he felt about cherry for his flavor, he allegedly said, “As long as they’re not naming a motor oil after me, I’m fine.” Willie’s flavor took after the Southern style peach dessert because, according to Greenwood, “Willie is a downhome Texan Americana guy.” When they floated the peach idea by Mr. Nelson, his response was appropriately laid-back: “Groovy!” he reportedly drawled.

Sadly, there are no new collaborations on the horizon at this time, although apparently B&J has been approached by “artists from the top twenty rock and roll bands ever” — whomever they may be — to create flavors named after them. Our humble guesses? Peanut Butter and Pearl Jam, or possibly Tropical John Melon-Camp. (We won’t be quitting our day jobs.)

Greenwood does tell us that Ben & Jerry’s sent gratis ice cream to Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler last year when he was having throat surgery with a note wishing him a quick recovery. Apparently names such as Sweet Emotion and Living on the Fudge were discussed. Now that’s an idea good enough to eat!

Full Auto 2 – SHIPS 3/20…PS3/PSP

Play the free FLASH version HERE.

Full Auto™2: Battlelines revs up its engines as the next generation of high speed combat racing. The game is the sequel to the award-winning Full Auto — the new standard of vehicular mayhem.

In Full Auto 2: Battlelines, Meridian City’s various districts are turning into battle zones, rife with automotive destruction. Use explosive weapons, high-speed vehicles and skillful technologically-groundbreaking demolition of the environment to defeat your opponents and claim the city as your own.

Features:

• Destroy and conquer: Destruction matters in Full Auto 2: Battlelines! Destroy the city to block your opponents and discover invaluable new routes. Shoot everything you see to set off a massive variety of destructive chain reactions which affect both the environment and other racers.
• Five unique multiplayer game modes: Take up the gauntlet in arena and race-based multiplayer modes including Base Assault and Cat & Mouse. Engage in intense online multiplayer for up to eight players or fight and race against a friend in two-player split-screen mode.
• Single-player campaign: Battle to take control of Meridian City by conquering the six different districts and taking control of your opponents’ cars and weapons. You will need to build up your arsenal to win the ultimate battle. Enjoy hours of fresh gameplay in this story-based career mode.
• Choose and customize your weapons: Get behind the wheel of more than 25 cars, customizing them with 20 explosive weapons before entering into battle. Determine which weapon combinations and strategies work best against a variety of opponents.
• Unwreck: Rewind time to take another shot at a treacherous turn, avoid a deadly obstacle, or simply avoid enemy fire.

After spending the weekend with it, all I can say is that car racing was never better……

Metal Slug Anthology: Relive your childhood TODAY.

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1 in 5 women with lung cancer never smoked

More evidence that females are extra susceptible to secondhand smoke

Up to 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer have never smoked, U.S. researchers found in a study that suggests secondhand smoke may be to blame.

A survey of a million people in the United States and Sweden shows that just 8 percent of men who get lung cancer are nonsmokers.

“I have a lot of patients who have never smoked,” said Dr. Heather Wakelee of Stanford University in California, who led the study.

“And because of the stigma, people are embarrassed to speak out about their disease. They feel like as soon as they say they have lung cancer, everyone judges them.”

She said it is not clear why women may be more likely to get lung cancer even if they have never smoked.

“There is a lot of controversy over whether women are more susceptible to smoking at all, whether direct or secondhand smoke,” Wakelee said in a telephone interview.

More women exposed to secondhand smoke
Writing in Friday’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wakelee and epidemiologist Ellen Chang said they tracked the incidence of lung cancer in more than 1 million people aged 40 to 79. All had taken part in various studies of diet, lifestyle and disease, some going back into the early 1970s.

Some groups were mostly white women, such as an ongoing nurse’s study, while others included ethnically diverse groups, Wakelee said.

Among women who never smoked, the lung cancer incidence rate ranged from 14.4 per 100,000 women per year to 20.8 cases per 100,000. In men, it ranged from 4.8 to 13.7 per 100,000. Rates were about 10 to 30 times higher in smokers.

This would translate to about 20 percent of female lung cancer patients having been nonsmokers and 8 percent of males, they said. That compares with American Cancer Society estimates of about 10 percent to 15 percent for all lung cancer patients.

“That estimate has been thrown about without any hard data to support it. This data sort of supports it,” Wakelee said.

Chang said that because more men smoke than women, women may be more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, even when they are classified as never-smokers.

“We know that secondhand smoke does increase the risk of lung cancer so it’s likely that a lot of these cases we observe are attributable to that,” she said in a statement.

Smoking is by far the leading cause of lung cancer, but radon, asbestos, chromium and arsenic are also associated with lung cancer.

The American Cancer Society projects that lung cancer will be diagnosed in 213,000 Americans in 2007 and kill 160,000.

Weill Cornell Medical College last week said it was starting a lung cancer study of 5,000 people working in industries with a high degree of secondhand smoke exposure, such as flight attendants, restaurant workers and entertainers.

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