This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973. (via sonicbloom11)
Sad Story: UK resident Eamonn Kilbride collapsed during his office Christmas party while mimicking the “Gangnam Style” dance made famous by South Korean superstar PSY. The IT manager and father of three was with his wife, who was celebrating her birthday that evening, and was described by her as the “life of the party.” Kilbride is survived by his wife Julie and three children Laurajade, Jack, and Conor. (Photo via YouTube/PSY) source
This is a significant shift in the presentation of this fungal infection, and quite concerning. An epidural abscess is very serious. It’s not something we expected.Dr. Lakshmi K. Halasyamani, chief medical director at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital • Speaking of a worrisome development regarding the U.S. meningitis outbreak, which has now afflicted more than 400 people across the country. The infections were the result of vials of an injectible steroid, intended for back pain relief, being tainted with a meningitis-causing fungus. Now, some people just recovering from the initial health horror have been stricken with an “epidural abscess” — about a third of the 53 meningitis patients at Dr. Halasyamani’s hospital. The abscess forms where the tainted injection was administered, in this case near the spine, underneath the skin, and untreated can cause another bout of the lethal disease. Medical experts were particularly surprised to find abscesses that had formed even while patients were actively undergoing treatments to combat the fungus. source
Yeah, he’s getting investigated for ethics violations. Apparently, doctors aren’t allowed to sleep with their patients (original story here).
Paul Ryan’s convention speech mashed up with clips from a P90X video. Brilliant.
We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.Mitt Romney today. Actually, about 26,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance, so Romney is flatly wrong (and, in our eyes, being a bit disrespectful to about 26,000 American families). He also said that “we don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack.’” source
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60 afflicted by fungal meningitis in U.S. outbreak
7 people killed by the outbreak to date
To date, the meningitis has been detected in nine states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia. The CDC says the outbreak has been linked to steroid shots intended for back pain, and urges proactive steps by those who received the medication: “All patients who may have received these medications need to be tracked down immediately. It is possible that if patients with infection are identified soon and put on appropriate antifungal therapy, lives may be saved,” said the CDC’s Dr. Benjamin Park. source
Comedian Tig Notaro’s Legendary Set Now Available Through Louis C.K.
Louis CK’s e-mail regarding this was epic. An excerpt:
Well, Tig is a friend of mine and she is very funny. I love her voice on stage. One night I was performing at a club in LA called Largo. Tig was there. She was about to go on stage. I hadn’t seen Tig in about a year and I said how are you? She replied “well I found out today that I have cancer in both breasts and that it has likely spread to my lymph nodes. My doctor says it looks real bad. “. She wasn’t kidding. I said “uh. Jesus. Tig. Well. Do you… Have your family… Helping?”. She said “well my mom was with me but a few weeks ago she fell down, hit her head and she died”. She still wasn’t kidding.
Now, I’m pretty stupid to begin with, and I sure didn’t know what to say now. I opened my mouth and this came out. “jeez, Tig. I. Really value you. Highly.”. She said “I value you highly too, Louie.”. Then she held up a wad of note-paper in her hand and said “I’m gonna talk about all of it on stage now. It’s probably going to be a mess”. I said “wow”. And with that, she went on stage.
I stood in the wings behind a leg of curtain, about 8 feet from her, and watched her tell a stunned audience “hi. I have cancer. Just found out today. I’m going to die soon”. What followed was one of the greatest standup performances I ever saw. I can’t really describe it but I was crying and laughing and listening like never in my life. Here was this small woman standing alone against death and simply reporting where her mind had been and what had happened and employing her gorgeously acute standup voice to her own death.
The show was an amazing example of what comedy can be. A way to visit your worst fears and laugh at them. Tig took us to a scary place and made us laugh there. Not by distracting us from the terror but by looking right at it and just turning to us and saying “wow. Right?”. She proved that everything is funny. And has to be. And she could only do this by giving us her own death as an example. So generous.
Worth repeating: ”She proved that everything is funny. And has to be. And she could only do this by giving us her own death as an example. So generous.”
Put down the phone and walk! Teen pedestrian injuries on rise
(Photo: James Whitaker / Getty Images)
Many of us have done it — checked our phones to read a new text or send a quick tweet as we stroll down the street. It only takes a few seconds, right? And while we know we should watch where we’re going, we think, worst case: we’ll bump into the person in front of us, or trip on the sidewalk.
But experts are blaming texting and walking on the rising number of pedestrian injuries and deaths among teens. Walking safely, they say, is, in fact, a two way street: it requires the focused attention of both pedestrians and drivers.
True story: A New Jersey town actually banned this practice.
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