Jade Goody dies

[redgaz26]

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Who cares what she said or did. She has left behind two sons.
That's all I'm saying!

 

[RedTomato]

I was unaware until a friend told me last week that there is currently debate in the UK about the raising (or at least not reducing) the minimum age for smear tests for cervical cancer.

This is a very difficult issue. There is actually some evidence that too much screening can cause greater harm, in terms of creating more false positive alarms that lead to more unnecessary operations, which carry their own risks.

1. Suppose a test for cancer is 99% accurate.
1. Suppose that 1 in a million people are correctly detected by the test to have cancer.
3. Suppose 10 million people are screened.

Then out of 10 million people, there will be 10 correct identifications, and possibly 10 lives saved. (Not neccessarily - these 10 cases might have been detected and treated by other methods at a later stage)

But about 100 000 people will have received a false positive result, leading to worry and stress, and further investigations.

Suppose these further investigations are 99% accurate.

Then 1000 people will receive a wrongful confirmation / final diagnosis of cancer. They will receive unnecessary operations, have body bits chopped off, suffer life altering operations, possibly some deaths from mistakes in the theatre, suffer huge stress, possibly suicidal, affecting jobs, family, mental health etc.

Compare that 1000 people wrongfully confirmed to have cancer to the 10 correct cases, and suddenly the decision to massively extend screening to low risk groups isn't so easy.

(I wonder what Macrumors maths god Doctor Q will say about my use of statistics ?)

There's a very good article by the BBC explaining risks :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7910011.stm

Hope that clarifies some issues. This isn't meant as a criticism of Jade Goody. She is perfectly within her rights to come down heavily on one side of this topic, and I do admire the work she's done to raise the profile of cervical cancer. I'm sure she knew full well nothing is ever that simple.

RedTomato

 

[yojitani]

I never really understand the public fascination for characters such as Jade Goody, but she made the most of the phenomenon anyway. She was fortunate enough to make enough money to provide for her children and maybe her children's children.

I hope that whoever is the executer of her will manages things such that the children don't suffer from some messed up family member. Her children have a grand opportunity.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Here's an article that I think people who have dissed her should read.

The offspring of two drug addicts, she was given her first joint at the age of five, watched her father inject heroin (he later served four years for robbery before dying of an overdose at 42) and helped care for her periodically violent mother after she lost the use of her arm in a motorbike accident.

Goody was catnip to the tabloids. They denounced her for her loudness ("Lob the gob!"), for being overweight (references to "Miss Piggy" abounded) and, after a now-infamous conversation with another housemate about whether "East Angular" was abroad, for being thick. Many of the broadsheets deplored her vulgarity and the high profile she was gaining despite her palpable lack of talent.

Presenters such as Dominik Diamond called her "a nasty slapper" and Graham Norton had a wonderful time working the pig angle in every opening monologue to his show for the duration of Jade's stay on Big Brother. Pulsing underneath it all, however, was the distinct throb of fear.

Because despite the supposed democratisation of television, the truly uneducated, those marked by true poverty and deprivation, rarely appear in our light entertainment schedules. And suddenly, there was Jade, an unapologetic and unadorned symbol of all sorts of uncomfortable truths that we choose to face through the occasional well-chosen documentary.

What the media reaction showed was quite how far we had yet to travel down the road towards social equality. Because Jade wasn't thick. The street smarts she would show in managing her subsequent career would be proof of that. She was woefully uneducated, but damning the school system that left her unable to decide whether Rio de Janeiro was a place or a person wouldn't have made such good copy. First she was failed by her family, then by the school system and then by the collective imagination.

Whether the accumulation of financial capital makes up for the million major and minor difficulties and humiliations a dearth of social capital brings about is an unanswerable question. Perhaps Goody would have wearied of the fame game and come to regret her willing involvement with it. We are meant to see any kind of pact with those who garner us fame and riches as a pact with the devil. But perhaps it isn't always. Perhaps if you are born into a world you never expected to have much control over, people paying to add their contribution to the chaos doesn't seem too bad an offer.

In the Living documentary, Goody curls up, in pain and nauseous, on the back seat of her producer's car as she is taken home – alone, since Tweed is in prison and her mother ever more of a hindrance than a help – after her first bout of cancer treatment.

She prattles as unceasingly as ever, eternally unreflective ("If you ask me why I'm crying, I don't know, I'm just up and down"), and unwittingly exposed. She doesn't like to ask friends to come with her to the hospital, she says. "But if it was the other way around, I'd be up there no problem, so maybe I should let them …"

That she keeps her friends away when times are tough is a relic of her early enforced self-reliance and in that moment, the camera watching her seems to be a substitute for the support network most of us would fall unthinkingly back on at such a time and which Jade had never had and still did not.

In that moment, the question of exploitation does not arise. What we are doing is bearing a kind of witness to someone struggling against the odds as, she must have felt, she had been struggling all her life.

 

[SFStateStudent]

+1 ^^^ Thanks BV, the article helped to see that side of her that is many times overlooked, b/c society only wants to see what makes headlines, (if it bleeds, it leads mentality)....

 

[steviem]

Lets not forget that another mother lost her child on mother's day. This time, he just collapsed on a Rugby pitch, totally unexpected and a tragedy. He was only 21.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7928334.stm

It is sad what happened with Jade, but what is even sadder is that because Max Clifford was behind the publicity, I can't help the doubt that she really died on Friday or Saturday and he witheld the news until Sunday, just for the publicity of it being on Mother's Day. My heart goes out to her kids, she did try her hardest to provide for them. As for Jack Tweed, well, the less said about that scumbag, the better. Let's hope he isn't involved in those kids lives from now on.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I can't help the doubt that she really died on Friday or Saturday and he witheld the news until Sunday, just for the publicity of it being on Mother's Day.

You're far too cynical. There are such things as coroner's reports.

 

[thecritix]

You're far too cynical. There are such things as coroner's reports.

He's got a good point though hasn't he...

Have you seen facebook? Springing up with RIP Jade Goody..

are these people just stupid or what..

I'd trade 10 mings like her to save a little orphan in africa or anyone else.

Goody only cared about cervical cancer when she had it, same as almost everyone else does.. I wonder how much money she left to Scumbag Tweed and how much she left to Cancer Research UK?...

I hope her children get brought up by someone other than Tweed (no doubt they will now Tweed will be off the scene very quickly)

 

[Blue Velvet]

are these people just stupid or what..

Why are you so full of hate? What makes you think you're better than them?

 

[és:]

Shame she died, just like anybody else with that dreadful disease. Shame for her kids.

Whilst I wouldn't have done it myself, I can understand why she publicised everything. If anybody is to be criticised for it then it should be the media and the people that create the interest. She was simply milking it for money. Tacky and undignified in my opinion, but it was her choice and it was an understandable one.

 

[Kardashian]

I'm sorry I just can't stand how hypocritical everyone is being.

She's a racist! Does no one now remember the Shilpa Shetty incident?

You shouldn't speak ill of the dead - but this is in her defense.

She was uneducated, which in a way was part of her childlike charm, she had a delusional innocence about her. She said things without any nastiness or intent to hurt, she just didn't think about what she was saying, or rather, what it could be perceived as. What she said about Shilpa was nothing but a low class, uneducated 'joke', which I kids who were probably 13 or 14 laughed at as they probably do the same thing on the playground in this day and age.

Jade was also 1/4 black, so it would be very stupid of her to be a true racist. Not once did she ever say (that the public know of) a racist remark with utter intent to hurt someone.

It's incredibly sad, and it shouldn't distract from other cancer sufferers' pain but at least she's shown people you can see it through until the end - and not to give up, even when the chips are down. For this, I applaud her.

As well as providing what I hope is a bright future for her sons, she has raised awareness to a group of people who didn't think they could get cancer.

If you're bitter for her 'milking' her publicity, think of it this way: the money she earned she can't take to her grave. The 'fame' she earned, she can't take to her grave. But what she can leave behind is stability for her boys: a home, money in the bank, an education - security and 'luxuries' she never had. For this, I applaud her.

If her "milking" her illness causes another 20-something to get checked out, and survive, she's done something good.

Many cancer sufferers stick to the taboo that its a shame and it should be kept silent. Jade showed that this isn't the case, and you should suck every bit of life until there's not a drip left.

R.I.P Jade, wherever you are. You've left this earth doing all you could as a mother to the bitter end - and for this, no one can fault you.

And do to anyone here, or in the world, who knows someone with cancer, or who's battling/battling it themselves, good luck to you and your loved ones

 

[thomahawk]

i dunn like her... >_<

 

[Kardashian]

Meh. That argument gets trotted out every time someone you don't like gets a mention in the paper. We had a couple of days of weeping over Natasha Richardson in the broadsheets, and I didn't have a clue who she was.

Jade Goody took her chance and made the most of it. Reading some comments here, you get the idea that some would like the proles kept in their place... except very few here have had the upbringing she did:



I think it's a sad story, but it's helped persuade many more young women to have smear tests. It doesn't cost anything to have a charitable thought for her and her kids today.

BV, I know we've had our differences but I applaud you for that post.

Its true, for someone like Jade to come from her below humble upbringing, to where she was this time last year, was a true triumph to her - however she did it. She strived for better, and succeeded.

Its nice to know some people around this forum can write something 'nice'.

To those of you who have been offensive in this thread, of which there are many, surely you have better things to do on a Monday morning than speak ill of a lady who has just passed, leaving 2 little boys behind. Imagine if they stumbled upon this thread. Shame on you.

 

[Kardashian]

I was unaware of just how awful her childhood circumstances were. That's quite a journey.

Exactly. I think before people blast her they should either research her life and how far she'd come, or not say anything at all.

What BV posted was an incredibly small fraction of what her upbringing what really like. She had a true rags to riches story, which sadly, ended far too abruptly.

 

[Kardashian]

He's got a good point though hasn't he...

Have you seen facebook? Springing up with RIP Jade Goody..

are these people just stupid or what..

You should be utterly ashamed at yourself. You're filled with such anger. How you could write something like that is beyond me. The woman has just died. Another human being.

I'd trade 10 mings like her to save a little orphan in africa or anyone else.

I'd pitty the Africans. They have enough problems without being around such a nasty person.

She might have been uneducated, but she could never speak so horribly about someone.

I'd much rather 10 'mings' like Jade Goody than a horrible person like yourself.

I hope her children get brought up by someone other than Tweed (no doubt they will now Tweed will be off the scene very quickly)

Before you go shooting your mouth off, they are still in contact with their biological father, who, from what I've read, will have custody.

Jack is a 21 year old boy/man. His wife has just died. Have some respect. I hope you have trouble sleeping tonight - if you had the slightest bit of humanity, you'd think about the disgusting things you've just written.

i dunn like her... >_<

So why bother posting? I'm sure no one on this forum is overly fussed with whether you like her or not.

 

[Cabbit]

i can't believe so many sing praises of such a horrible human, you call her a martyr and a hero when all she was lower class trash and racist at that. And not only this but how do you think her children will feel when there picked on by there friends cos mummy died on tv.

Reminds me very much of that one that went round the 3rd world telling people aids does not exist but later died by aids. The fewer of these people about the better it is for the world and hopefully future generations will be better educated so that people like this wont crawl out the wood works again.

 

[Blue Velvet]

i can't believe so many sing praises of such a horrible human, you call her a martyr and a hero when all she was lower class trash and racist at that. And not only this but how do you think her children will feel when there picked on by there friends cos mummy died on tv.

How dare you call someone lower class trash. Who do you think you are? And even Shilpa Shetty herself said that she wasn't racist so why do you think she was? Your contempt is disgusting.

In her short life, Jade showed how as Britain has spiralled into one of the most unequal and immobile societies on earth, we have begun to openly jeer and sneer at the people trapped at the bottom. We gleefully seized on her as "proof" that the people rotting on abandoned estates were not there because of the grim accident of birth, but because they were stupid and ugly and bigoted. And all we proved – with unwitting irony – was our own stupidity and ugliness and bigotry

.

That summer, a string of images of white, working-class women presenting them as bestial imbeciles dominated our screens. Vicky Pollard – a single mum so thick she swaps her baby for a Westlife CD, played by a multimillionaire private schoolboy – was becoming a national icon. A chaotic single mum established Wife Swap as one of our favourite shows. Words of straightforward snobbish abuse – "chav" and "pikey" – were becoming acceptable again.

Go to any extremely unequal society, say, South Africa, or South America, and you will find a furiously suppressed sense of guilt. It's hard not to ask, at the back of your mind, "Why am I here in this mansion, while they are in the slums?" This guilt is resolved one way: by convincing yourself that the poor are sub-human, and don't have feelings like you and me. Oh, the people in the barrios and townships? They're animals! They stink! They're stupid! Jade and Vicky and the labelling of the poor as "chavs" filled that role for us. They know nothing! They are repulsive!

Nobody wanted to stop and ask: why doesn't Jade know much? Here's why. Her mother was a seriously disabled drug addict, so Jade didn't go to school much because she stayed at home to look after her. From the age of five, she was in charge of doing the cooking and ironing and cleaning. Jade explained: "As early as I could remember, I'd spent my whole life trying to protect my mum, frantically hiding the stolen chequebooks she used to have lying around the house when the police barged in on one of their raids; desperately denying to the teachers at school that she'd hit me for fear of being sent to social services."

Her father treated her even worse. He stashed a gun under her cot, and her first memory was of him shooting heroin in her bedroom, his eyes rolling back and his body juddering. Eventually, after periods in and out of prison, he was found dead from an overdose in the toilet of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "He died without a single vein left in his body," Jade said. "In the end, he'd injected every single part of it and all his veins had collapsed, even the ones in his penis."

Despite this, Jade always worked, in shops, for minimum wage, and stayed away from drugs (apart from weed). She applied for Big Brother because her mum was sinking into crack addiction, and she couldn't think of any other way to avoid witnessing it. To the end, she was terrified of matches, and couldn't bear to have tinfoil in her house, because they reminded her of crack.

And so she appeared in British public life, and we jeered and howled and held her up as a poster-girl for "the underclass".

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...ed-the-brutal-reality-of-britain-1651722.html

 

[Kardashian]

All she was lower class trash and racist at that.

This is a joke, right?

You're supposed to be educated (or I'm hoping so from the way you've picked on this poor soul) - yet you're judging someone for being lower class?

You can't help what family or background you've been born into my dear. You need to wake up and stop trying to be Judge and executioner. She was not a racist.

The fewer of these people about the better it is for the world and hopefully future generations will be better educated so that people like this wont crawl out the wood works again.

Crawl out of the woods?

Her family failed her. The education system failed her. Education has to be taught, you're not born with intelligence, and tact. Your post is an incredibly good example of this.

How is someone with two junkie parents, no money, and no education supposed to be intelligent and conduct herself in a lady like manor, like yourself?

Sure, some people manage to, but very rarely.

From someone who 'crawled out of the woods' who was 'lower class trash', she did very well for her and her boys, M'Lady. (I thought I'd use your title, so you're not associated with lower-class trash)

 

[barkmonster]

And the world's smallest violin goes to...

Jade Goody

She was an openly racist, gormless, repulsive media whore who did NOTHING of any genuine worth to justify the massive amount of pubic attention, not to mention money she'd accumulated since that awful show made her famous.

I was only saying on Friday night that when she dies, it will be the first time a celebrity like that had ended up dying for a change and I hope Kerry Katona gets the Ebola virus next because I'm sick of hearing about these nobodies and they're crap all the time when there's so many people of genuine worth to millions of people like Bill Hicks, John Lennon etc... that the world could still continue to learn from, be entertained by and have a genuine reason to miss.

Also, she "Did a Christopher Reeve" and only started drawing attention to cervical cancer when it was affecting her. I didn't see her tirelessly campaigning for anything apart from more publicity when I was in supermarkets and saw her "boggle off Labyrinth" face on the cover of those magazines they parade round the check outs next to the mints, chewing gum and £2.99 DVDs.

The "but she has 2 kids" angle is pointless, if she'd never being on big brother, someone would have nailed her when they're too drunk to know any better.

There's billions of people in the world already and I see ugly chavs with 2 kids all the time, it's how they get a free council house for doing NOTHING with their lives then get to sit on their backside at the tax payers expense while they chain smoke and feed their spawn on a diet of chips, Iceland pizza and profanity till they're just another pair of scrotes hanging out on the streets who get a "free ride" off some ugly chav so she gets a "free ride" for 18 years afterwards and the cycle of ignorance is complete.

It's a shame Jade had such a bad childhood but you can guarantee there's people out there who've had the same or an even worse experience and they're going to struggle their entire lives without a shred of sympathy or public awareness on the scale Jade received.

They say things always happen in 3s so here's my predication if this really is a sign that the tides are turning and the cull of the worthless celebrity has begun:

Nickel back will have a fatal plane crash/tour bus incident

It will somehow involve Bass Hunter.

 

[arkitect]

Myself, I have no problem with Jade Goody. Didn't know her personally, what I did know about her is what I couldn't — literally — avoid reading or hearing.
She came from a seriously disadvantaged background and went on to grab any chance that came along and ended up a reasonably well-off woman who had provided for her children's future.
All par for the course in good ol' celebrity mad Britain… and who could find fault with that?

But how many people here weeping on street corners and internet forums realise just how much they had been manipulated by the UK media?

Whipping the masses of readers and viewers into a froth and frenzy from Big Brother through to "Celebrity" Big Brother onwards and downwards to India and then heavenwards to sainthood with the final chapter: Cancer.

I am old enough to remember the Diana death. If you didn't "toe the line" and walked around with red-rimmed eyes you feared lynching.

Today may as well be 1997.
Yesterday's "racist, pig-faced waste of blood and organs.…" (Jeremy Clarkson) is today's "courageous woman" (a "saddened" Gordon Brown — luckily this time he got her name right.)
Jade Goody lived by the media and she died by the media.
End.

Here's a BBC link… that pretty much sums it up.