SELF-IMAGE
"A Matter of Size" (Menemsha Films)
At 341 pounds, Herzl, the protagonist of the Israeli movie "A Matter of Size," is quite overweight. Most people's impulse would be to lose the weight, but Herzl (Itzik Cohen) goes the opposite direction and becomes a sumo wrestler. While probably not advisable when it comes to cholesterol or blood pressure, Herzl's refreshing rejection of the dieting culture leads him to self-acceptance. This charming comedy, in Hebrew and Japanese with English subtitles, is showing at the Avalon Theatre in Northwest Washington.
NURSING
Beyond compassion
"When Chicken Soup Isn't Enough"
(Cornell University Press, $24.95)
This anthology of 70 first-person essays about nursing starts out with a feisty introduction by editor Suzanne Gordon slamming the stereotype of nurses "as modern angels endowed with extraordinary powers of empathy and compassion" rather than health-care professionals who benefit from education and job experience. One chapter is called "Excuse Me, Doctor, You're Wrong"; another is "Choking on Sugar and Spice: Challenging Nurses' Public Image." Elizabeth Kozub, identified as an intensive care unit nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital, describes standing up for all kind of nursing caregivers at a Thanksgiving dinner where someone made an ignorant remark about midwives. "I couldn't just let his comment stand," she writes. "Nursing needed to be made visible here, and I was the only one who could do it."
-- Rachel Saslow
