Old Musings of a Distractible Mind

Farewell to Blogger

2006-11-13T11:23:00.001-05:00

My first post on this blog was on 5/21, so this is almost my 6-month anniversary. I am making the jump to WordPress due to my troubles with Blogger Beta. There are also some cool features I can do on the new website - WordPress is much more customizable.

As I say farewell to Blogger, I will take the opportunity to reflect on my experience in blogging. It has become a quite substantial part of my life and I have "met" quite a few very interesting people. Aside from the obsession I have had to fight, the experience has been wonderful.

This is my 119th Post. Most of my posts have been, um, an outlet for my sillier side. I am glad everyone has enjoyed my humor - or at least you all have been quite polite. Here is a rundown of my oddities so far:

22 posts have been about animals
4 posts about beer
3 posts on random questions (hah, that makes 4)
5 posts on monkeys
4 on Pluto's demotion
4 on Stupid people
Many posts (at least 10) on conspiracy theories I have regarding dogs, cows, and monkeys. I anticipate more on my new blog.
38 posts are labeled as "personal musings." Some of these are serious, others are not.
15 posts are medically oriented.
I have posted twice on grand rounds, twice on pediatric grand rounds, and once on Cathy's Friday blast.
I did 2 posts on small towns - it took a lot of research, so I am not sure I will revisit that one.
11 posts were about family
5 posts were about my trip to Mississippi

My first comment was by The Laundress - thanks for your faithfulness! My most commented on post was "All Ears", which got 11 comments. My most commented on silly post was "The Cow Conspiracy Unravels." My most popular post was undoubtedly "Random Questions," since it brought a substantial percent of my entire hits (maybe 20%). Shout out if you came to this sight via the "Random Questions" route. I always wondered if some folks drawn via that route became regular visitors.

My blog traffic really took off when I got a shout from Moof. Thanks Moof!

My personal favorite posts are:

Good Eater Award
The skinny on Twinkies
The Shortness of Life (on a patient who committed suicide)
The whole Pluto Saga
Bring your Mamma, Buy a Llama
Questions about Random Questions.

I have had 5527 visitors as of today, and I am a slimy mollusc (and proud of it).

OK, that is enough for now. Thanks again for putting up with me. I'll see you on WordPress!

Rob (Random Questions)

ONE MORE POST HERE

2006-11-13T10:42:00.000-05:00

Please, please, please re-direct any links to my new blog at http://distractiblemind.ambulatorycomputing.com. So far only 4 have done so.

Scandinavian shenanigans

2006-11-11T20:46:00.000-05:00

Minnesotans should be worried (Laundress, you can be worried too). There is big trouble afoot in Scandinavia. People and animals are going nuts. Now, I know that Scandinavians talk kind of funny, but they must really talk funny when they are drunk...

Drunk Norwegian Breaks Into Prison

OSLO, Norway - In a different kind of jail break, a very drunk young man surprised prison guards by breaking into their northern Norway jail. "You might say we were a bit perturbed to find this person on our turf," prison warden Geir Broen said on the state radio network NRK on Monday.
Broen said the district prison in the Arctic town of Bodoe is rebuilding its outer fence, and that the man broke through a section of temporary fencing.
The weak fence is of no help to real prisoners seeking a way out, since they are confined within the walls of the jail compound.
The Norwegian, identified only as being in his 20s, was apparently was trying to find his way home after a Friday night party.
"I don't think this guy knew where he was, and he was pretty well under the influence," Broen said on the radio.
When police came to pick up the man to take him home, he told them he thought he was in Moerkved, a neighborhood about 6 miles east of the prison.
"I guess you could say this was notable day in the history of the Bodoe Jail," Broen said. "But I hope we don't have many similar incidents in the future."

I wonder if this man has a fence with barbed wire around his house. That would make it easy to confuse with a prison. Please note that this guy was 6 miles off. Was someone playing a trick on him, letting him off in Bodoe rather than Moerkved. I have always told my patients: Don't get your Bodoe confused with your Moerkved. It will really get you in trouble.

But it is not just the 20-somethings that are getting drunk. Wild animals are getting in on the act:

Drunken elk terrorizes Swedish schoolchildren

A drunken elk is terrorizing children at a school in southern Sweden.
"That could be the problem. We could be dealing with a boozy elk," Jan Caiman, a police officer in Molndal, told the national news agency TT.
The elk was probably eating fermented apples in a garden and had become inebriated, Caiman said.

Elk can weigh as much as 500 kilos (1,100 lb) and personnel at the school described the erratic male as "completely mad".
"The children are really scared," the receptionist at the school near Molndal in southern Sweden told the Gothenburg Post.
Caiman said police had contacted hunters and that if the elk did not calm down, it could be shot.

Talk about a party crasher. This elk, probably hanging out at the local Elk's Club, gets smashed and starts picking on kids. Perhaps he was looking for a designated driver and just got confused. Perhaps he was looking for a zoo to break into.

Certainly this teaches me a lesson about leaving fermented apples in my back yard. I was wondering why the squirrels were acting so odd. So were my kids, now that I come to think of it...

The final chaos is caused by a mutant pig:

Swedish woman pursued by wild boar

NYKOPING, Sweden, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A Swedish

woman looking for her cat found a wild boar instead, or it found her.
Sara Andren of Nykoping, southwest of Stockholm, told The Local the boar was "big and disgusting" and sounded "like a cross between a pig and a wolf."
Andren said the boar appeared as she searched some bushes. Since she was not sure of how to react, she began running.
"I don't know how far I ran but I kept going until I was completely out of breath," she said. "When I turned around the boar had given up the chase."

Andren enlisted the help of a male friend before she resumed the search for her cat.
"He heard more grunting noises from the bushes, so there must have been at least one other boar. They don't usually travel alone," she said.

A cross between a pig and a wolf? That would be a wig, or polf. It obviously found her attractive and probably just wanted to exchange e-mail addresses. I am sure many of the women of this world have been chased by wild bores at parties. Beware. They are just wolves in pigs clothing.

Try as I may, I cannot find any dirt on Denmark. I suppose they are too busy ice skating,

making danishes, or offending all Muslims.

Extra points if you can figure out why this picture is here.

Scylla and Charybdis

2006-11-08T09:02:00.000-05:00

"So, hon...what'll it be today."
"What are your specials today?"

"We just got a shipment of personal responsibility in. It's really healthy (not one bit of trans-fat) and real satisfying. There are some folks here who religiously have this one. Oh yes, and it's free of charge."

"Sounds great. I'll...."

"Hold on there, sugar! There is a catch to this one."

"A catch?"

"Yeah. You have to eat all of it. If you don't eat it all, then you have to pay $100, and it's a big plate! Plus you have to keep coming back every week and get it again or we charge you another $100."

"$100??? How can you charge me for not eating it?"

"It's our restaurant. Can't we do what we want?"

"I guess so. What else is on the menu?"

"Well, one of the standard American favorites is individual freedom."

"Tell me about that."

"Well, baby, you get to eat as much or as little of it as you want, and the taste...oh, honey, it is sweet!"

"Sounds great! Ummm.... is there a catch?"

"You guessed it, darlin'. It's loaded with carcinogens, trans-fats, thimerosal, and synthetic estrogens. You will probably die young if you have this one."

"Hmmm...I guess I don't feel hungry."

There is a war going on between personal responsibility and individual freedom. This is nothing new - anyone who has raised teenagers can tell you that - but the venue it is taking is new. The raging battle has reached into the doctor's office.

A recent set of editorials in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses a plan put forth to improve the health of Medicaid recipients. The first article by Robert Steinbrook, M. D. outlines the nature of the plan:

The redesign of the West Virginia Medicaid program has recentlybecome a leading but controversial example of efforts to rewardpersonal responsibility. West Virginia has a population of 1.8million; as compared with the United States, it has a higherpercentage of residents with Medicaid coverage and near-pooror poor incomes (see graphs). In May 2006, the federal governmentapproved the state's plan to provide reduced basic benefitsto most healthy children and adults who are eligible for Medicaidbecause of low income while allowing them to qualify for enhancedbenefits by signing and adhering to a "Medicaid Member Agreement." The enhanced benefits include all mandatory servicesas well as additional age-appropriate services that focus onwellness. Examples include diabetes care beyond basic inpatientand outpatient services, cardiac rehabilitation, tobacco-cessationprograms, education in nutrition, and chemical-dependency andmental health services. Under the basic plan, prescriptionsare limited to four per month; under the enhanced plan, thereis no monthly limit. According to Nancy Atkins, the commissionerof the Bureau for Medical Services in the West Virginia Departmentof Health and Human Resources, the goals of the redesign areto streamline administration; tailor benefits to specific groups;coordinate care, especially for members with chronic conditions;and "provide members with the opportunity and incentive to maintainand improve their health."

To remain in the enhanced plan, members must keep their medicalappointments, receive screenings, take their medications, andfollow health improvement plans; West Virginia will monitor"successful compliance with these four responsibilities."³ Memberswhose benefits are to be reduced because they have not met thesecriteria will receive advance notice and have the right to appeal.Those who meet their health goals will receive "credits" thatwill be placed in a "Healthy Rewards Account" to be used forpurchasing services that are not covered by the Medicaid plan.Although details about how these accounts will work and whatservices will be eligible for purchase are forthcoming, theservices might include fitness-club memberships for adults orvouchers for healthful foods for children. In July 2006, transitionto the new plan began in three West Virginia counties; the programwill eventually include about 160,000 people — or abouthalf the state's Medicaid beneficiaries. Beneficiaries who are65 years of age or older or who have disabilities will retaintheir current level of coverage, as will some others, such aschildren in foster care. (NEJM 355:8 pg 754)

The plan seems sound: give patients motivation to change by enhancing their benefits if they do achieve certain goals that will lead to improved health. But there is a problem with this:

There are many reasons why patients might not comply with medicalrecommendations. These include poor physician–patientcommunication; side effects of medication; advice that is impracticalto follow for reasons that include job responsibilities anddifficulties with transportation or child care, psychiatricillness, cost, the complexity of the recommendations, or thelanguage in which they are communicated; and cultural barriers.⁵Patients who may benefit from additional services, such as diabetescare, education in nutrition, or chemical-dependency and mentalhealth services, include many who might have difficulty withcompliance, thus increasing the likelihood that they will notbe eligible for these services under the West Virginia program.Moreover, as compared with elderly Medicaid beneficiaries andthose with disabilities, healthy children and adults are inexpensiveto cover. Any savings for these groups could be offset by thecosts of administering the changes in Medicaid or by increasedcosts for mandatory services for patients who remain in thebasic plan.

In a subsequent article, Gene Bishop, M.D. and Amy Brodkey, M.D. underline the difficulties more succinctly:

Mary Jones is your 53-year-old patient with diabetes and obesity.These conditions developed after she began to take an atypicalantipsychotic drug for schizophrenia. Jones signed a treatmentcontract stating that she will keep all her medical appointments,attend diabetes education classes, and lose weight. She attendedone class but became paranoid and left halfway through it, andshe has gained 5 lb. You gave her educational materials to read,but you have discovered that she doesn't understand them. Shehas just missed her second consecutive appointment with you;last time, she didn't have bus fare. Neither her glycated hemoglobinnor her blood lipids are at target levels. You are now legallyobligated to report this information to your state Medicaidagency, and Jones may lose her mental health benefits and someof her prescription coverage as a result. (NEJM 355:8 Pg. 756)

They go on to raise what is, to me, the crucial problems:

The plan makes explicit the belief that persons must behaveaccording to set norms in order to deserve health care and healthinsurance. What physician has not sighed in frustration overthe patient who continues to smoke after angioplasty? Yet whilepromoting healthful behaviors, we continue to offer care. TheWest Virginia plan risks the application of an actuarial valueto every behavior. Is riding a bicycle to work good for yourhealth because of exercise or bad for your health because ofthe risk of accidents? Is it irresponsible to refuse to takea medication if it makes you ill and you cannot reach your physicianto ask for advice?

The plan asks physicians to violate all three fundamental principlesenumerated in the Physician Charter on Medical Professionalism:the primacy of patient welfare, the principle of patient autonomy,and the principle of social justice.⁵ It raises potential conflictsby placing physicians in a reporting situation in which thepublic health is not at issue, possibly asking them to harmtheir patients or their relationships with patients. As physiciansbecome agents of the state, poor patients' distrust of the medicalsystem can only increase. Although the plan's member agreementmentions the patient's right "to decide things about my healthcare and the health care of my children," it does not recognizethat noncompliance can be an expression of disagreement withthe physician. The plan promotes discrimination not only onthe basis of socioeconomic status, but also on the basis ofdiagnosis: surely, people with mental illnesses who have troublemanaging activities of daily living such as keeping appointmentswill be discriminated against under a plan that rescinds theirmental health benefits because of such lapses.

So here we are stuck between Scylla and Charybdis, either being sucked down by the self-indulgent waste of individual freedom or eaten by the dragon of legislated personal responsibility.

This is a problem basic to this country. The conflict is always between the individual freedom (championed by the libertarian) and governmental control (championed by the socialist). Clearly there are pitfalls in both, but where should we end up?

So, Sugar, what'll you have?

3 More Posts on this Site

2006-11-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

Please turn your links/bloglines to http://distractiblemind.ambulatorycomputing.com. Time is running out! Call now and you will get a set of Ginsu knives!!

A Hideous Tail

2006-11-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

OK, since my last post was so serious, I will ease up a little. OK, a lot. I want to discuss the serious issue of Wedgies.

From the Wikipedia:

Wedgie - The wedgie is a joke maneuver or prank performed to humiliate someone. It is inflicted when an individual, or group of individuals, grab the underwear of the victim from behind and pull up, causing the underwear to wedge between the buttocks. A wedgie could also mean when a person's undergarments get folded up and 'ride up' between the buttocks, causing discomfort and annoyance. Can be caused by bad posture, awkward sitting or tight underpants such as thongs.

I was not aware, but there is a lot to know about wedgies. The history of the wedgie from The Wedgie Page is as follows:

Wedgies are a part of the anals of our history. Its a male domination and coming of age ritual. They date back to the Egyptians and have been represented in cave paintings, hieroglyphics and Aztec frescos. Philip of Macedon encouraged his son after a cruel wedgie at school--that boy grew up to be Alexander the Great. They say Michelangelo gave pope Paul the 3rd a wedgie. Also, Henry Duke of Richmond gave one to Richard III during the 1485 battle of Bosworth Field. Upon the arrest of Alven "Creepy"Karpis in 1936, J Edgar Hoover hiked Karpis' boxers up to the nape of his neck. Among Presidents, Nixon, Bush and both Roosevelts got wedgies in their youth while Jackson, Lincoln, LBJ and Clinton gave them. Among baseball greats Ty Cobb and Pete Rose were notorious givers of Wedgies.

An ancient Persian wedgie joke c.350 BC goes something like this: A man comes back from the marketplace with 2 black eyes. His wife asks what happened. He says "It was crowded and a fat lady on line in front of me had part of her robe in her buttcrack. To be polite I tryed to pluck it out. Then she hit me." The wife asks how did he get the 2nd blackeye. The man says "Since she was upset I then tryed to put it back the way she had it." This joke was documented authentic over the years by such luminaries as Bosworth and Samuel Peeyps. Clearly the noble wedgie is part of our history and humanity.

Wow. I never knew that Abraham Lincoln was a giver of wedgies! Being so tall, he would have given quite effective ones.

The website goes on to describe the different types of wedgies:

The Classic--we all experienced it

The boy getting it: Shame. Disgrace. Anger. The boy giving it: Wrist action. Speed. Grace. My tormentor from grade 5 - 9 was a fat bully named Raymond Chavez. The worst part about it (unless a girl was there) was never the laughter. It was explaining the skid marks to my mom

Hanging wedgie
Only once I got this. I drank to much beer at a carnival and my friends put me on a chain link fence in the parking lot by my elastic. I woke up and dug my heels in the fence so it wasn't? that bad. I puked on my friends head so I got even
Accidental wedgie
Getting out of a car to fast with the seatbelt the wrong way, clipping suspenders to the wrong layer, or running from a tornado and getting caught on the screen door handle--its all the same

Locker Room Wedgie

Associated with supplementary humiliation-like in Breakfast Club when Charley Sheen admitted taping a boys cheeks together after a wedgie. The best part of the movie is when he felt so bad about it afterworld he cried.

Power Wedgie

Same as above but with the Wedgie Master using 2 hands. Usually accompanied by wet towel snaps to the visibly remaining part of the buttocks.
Fudgie Wedgie

Self explanatory. Any wedgie with an abundance of brown pulpy matter as a result (and not just a regular dry skidmark).

Centrifugal Wedgie

The worst of all. I got this one at age 9. I was staying at my grandfathers house in Texas.He caught me in the barn doing something bad. He hiked my underwear up then stuck his arms out stiff. He twirled

me around and around in a circle in front of him till my feet came off the floor-I spun around by the centrifugal force. After 7 or 8 times around he let me go- I flew across the barn an landed face first in dog doo. Centrifugal wedgie was also Popularized by

Dilbert who calls it a twirling wedgie. The way things turn out today my grandfather is in a wheelchair and I take care of him.

He forgot what we called the snuggie. A snuggie is a wedgie given in the front, not the back. There is nothing much snug about it.

I have a little brother who was 10 years younger me. We went to the Adirondacks in upstate New York one summer and climbed the highest mountain in the state, Mt. Marcy. He was about 8 years old at the time. When on the summit, we gave him a wedgie and proclaimed that on this day he got the highest wedgie in New York State. Some weeks later we presented him with a certificate proclaiming that on this day he did receive the highest wedgie in New York - a certificate that I found in his possession 10 years later. I am sure he treasures it.

While giving my brother a wedgie did nothing to harm my relationship with him, here is an interesting article about the possible negative consequences of giving a wedgie.

Montana principal returns after 'wedgie'

Tue Oct 24, 7:59 PM ET
The principal of Park High School returned to school Tuesday after a six-day suspension for giving a student a "wedgie." The Livingston School District Board held a special meeting Monday and approved Superintendent Hannibal Anderson's recommendation that Principal Eric Messerli be allowed to return to work.

"It has been clearly recognized and stated that the behavior is inappropriate, unprofessional and unacceptable," Anderson said.
Messerli's behavior "warrants substantial disciplinary action" but was not sufficient grounds for a recommendation for termination, he said.
Messerli was suspended for two days without pay and four days with pay for grabbing a Park High senior's soccer jersey and pulling it over his head and giving the student a "wedgie" by pulling up on the waist band of his underwear. The incident happened on Oct. 5 at a junior varsity soccer game.

Messerli cried Monday as he read a statement to the board and the public.
"I've made mistakes in my life, but none have had the impact that this one has had," he said.
He said his first reaction was to resign, but he wanted to "tackle this mess" head on.
"I want to live in a world where we don't have to hide when we screw up," he said.
Public comments about Messerli, voiced by students, parents and community members, ranged from reprimand to encouragement.

"What could be better than showing how you bounce back after a mistake?" community member Brad Snow said.
"The days of a school staff person laying hands on a student are long gone," said a woman in the audience.
Park High Vice Principal Bob Stevenson and girls' soccer coach Nate Anderson, who both witnessed the Oct. 5 incident, expressed support for Messerli. They said his actions were a mistake, but they were done in an effort to joke around with the student.

"It was meant in playfulness," Anderson said.
Others, including trustee Greg Brainerd, said Messerli's trying to be on equal level with students was the problem.
He attributed the incident to "loss of
traditional authority structure," which he believes should be re-established in the school system.

Anderson said Messerli also received a letter of reprimand.

I personally think that Mr Messerli should get a Centrifugal Wedgie as his punishment for this crime. I assume he was briefed on the nature of the charges. I am sure he was the butt of a lot of jokes. They must have been all sorts of wise-cracks. They were going to send him off on a rocket to Uranus. After all this press coverage, he must really be pooped. He probably got really behind on his work. He should pursue another carear.

The End.

Disgraced

2006-11-05T13:14:00.001-05:00

Many of you know I am a person of faith, specifically a Christian. While I don't hide the fact, I am not interested in blogging as a ploy to persuade anyone to my faith. Obviously if I believe it, I think it is true, but that is not the purpose of what I do here on this blog. I just try to be myself in whatever shape that takes.

Recent events, however, prompt me to comment as a person of faith. Please be aware that this post is simply a statement of my perspective and not an attempt to convince anyone one way or the other. I am delighted at the variety of backgrounds of people who come and read this blog, and want to continue in this way. I have no intent on starting a religious debate; I just think it is important for me to share my perspective on a recent news item.

Everyone has undoubtedly heard of the situation with the prominent pastor Ted Haggard and the allegations of using a homosexual prostitute and buying crystal meth. While these are still just allegations, the more that I read, the more it seems likely that many of them are true.

First let me say that since he is a leader in the Evangelical church and a renowned preacher, he is held to a higher standard (which is spoken of in 1 Timothy). Hence when he falls like this he is judged more severely. I think this is appropriate. When you broadcast your opinions and set yourself as an example for others, you must take great care to live by what you say. He clearly demonstrated hypocrisy in these actions and should never have been in the positions he was in if he had these personal struggles. He is to blame for this because he should have stayed away from the public life while he tried to make is life consistent with his beliefs. Any criticism he receives from the public is, in my opinion, well-deserved.

Secondly, as a person I do not judge him for the struggles he has. Everyone has areas in their lives in which they struggle to do what they know to be right. Many of my patients struggle with drugs, alcohol, abusive relationships, obesity, and other things they know they should not be doing, yet continue to do. He is a human like everyone else and I believe that God can forgive him still, despite the degree of his sin. After all, David, the most prominent king of the old testament and a man who has the label "a man after God's own heart," slept with another man's wife and then murdered her husband to cover this up when she got pregnant. Paul, the greatest writer of the New Testament, was persecuting Christians and having them put to death before he was converted. Mr. Haggard is no worse than these men and so can be restored to right standing with God.

Finally let me say that this event displays what I believe to be the sad state of the Evangelical church in America. The church has largely abandoned the example of Christ and has bought into the cultural obsession with success and personal fulfillment. Jesus would not be among most of the church-going Americans, rather he would be among the poor, the outcast, the simple-minded of this world. I think he would be quicker to befriend the accuser (the male prostitute) of Mr. Haggard than he would have Mr. Haggard himself. The church has become a place for "good" people and not a healing place for the hurting. The church has become a place where you have to hide your struggles and not a place where you can overcome them. The church has become a place where the sins of others are judged, not a place of forgiveness and love. The church has become a place for "self-help" and personal fulfillment, not a place where a community of weak people become a strong body. I have much more hope for the persecuted Christians in China than I do the comfortable Christians in America. Theirs is a far more solid faith than ours.

I often tell my patients: "we are all idiots in our own ways." Like them, I struggle with my own bad tendencies and have really hurt those around me. My hope is that this admission on my own part will let them know that I am not judging them as being worse than me. My hope is that American Christians won't simply dismiss Mr. Haggard as a "bad man," but instead that his fall would cause us to examine what we are as a church and become the church that I believe Christ intended us to become - one in which the prostitutes and drug users are not shunned, but where they can be accepted as people and loved like Christ did while he was here.

End of Sermon

Rob

5 Posts and Counting (Random Questions)

2006-11-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

I have decided that I will change my blog to http://distractiblemind.com - (it does re-direct temporarily to http://distractiblemind.ambulatorycomputing.com, but just ignore that). I will do posts on both sites for the next 5 posts, then make the change.

Please re-direct your links to that site.

Thanks SO MUCH for your support.

Rob (Random Questions)

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).

2006-11-03T14:04:00.000-05:00

There have been some more signs of the apocalypse. Yes, we have animals going wild - driving cars, harming people, flying at police cars, etc; but now we have people going nuts.

Indians protest as police accuse infant of robbery

Hundreds of people protested in a remote village in eastern India after police arrived to arrest a three-month-old boy for robbery, police and witnesses said on Friday.
The infant's name was subsequently dropped from a list of people accused of robbing bus passengers last week, according to Sunit Kumar, senior police officer in the town of Muzzafarpur in the poor and lawless state of Bihar.
"We will conduct an investigation to find out how this happened in the first place," Kumar told Reuters by telephone.
Villagers were angered when a police team arrived with a list of accused, including the boy.
"How could our little Praveen be named an accused?" said Shakila Devi, the child's mother.
Kumar said the boy may have been named by the complainant "with a malicious intent".

I don't think they should sell this child short. The child's last name is Devi. Is that short for "deviant" or "devil??" I am with Mr. Kumar, being quite suspicious of this child of having a "malicious intent." This child, apparently, is totally out of control - crying all the time, demanding to be fed, not even using the toilet properly. I don't think this child is mature at all, and probably would not have a second thought of robbing a bus. I have it on good authority that this bus is also known as "The Pacifier Express."

A second story also has caught my eye:

Thieves have their cake but can't eat it

BERLIN (Reuters) - Two men broke into a supermarket depot in Germany and left with just a cake, authorities said on Tuesday.

"Sometimes people just come up with crazy ideas," said Hermann Schwichtenberg, a spokesman for police in the northern town of Itzehoe. "Now we've seen everything."
Police arrested the two men, aged 29 and 41, shortly after the late
night break-in and recovered the stolen cake. A search of the men's flat uncovered no more loot.

I wonder what kind of cake it was, German chocolate? This is clearly a case of a sweet tooth gone bad. Couldn't they just steal enough money to buy the cake? Was there a baby with them? Why wasn't the baby charged? My head swims with questions.

OK, now one last interesting new criminal activity:

Judge to Rule if 'Meowing' Is Harassment

JEANNETTE, Pa. (AP) - Meow. A district judge has been asked to decide whether that word is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment. Jeannette police charged a 14-year-old boy for "meowing" whenever he sees his neighbor, 78-year-old Alexandria Carasia.

The boy's family and Carasia do not get along. The boy's mother said the family got rid of their cat after Carasia complained to police that it used her flower garden as a litter box.
The boy testified Tuesday that he only meowed at the woman twice. Carasia testified, "Every time he sees me, he meows."
The boy's defense attorney, David Martin Jr., argued that the charge should be dismissed.
"This should never have been filed," Martin said. "This is not something that police should be wasting their time with or wasting the court's time."
Jeannette District Judge Joseph DeMarchis decided to wait 90 days before ruling. DeMarchis said his decision will be based on how the boy and his neighbor get along in the meantime.

This is a true sign of the degeneration of our youth. To think that a 14-year-old delinquent would Meow at an innocent 78-year-old woman just riles me up! First it is drugs, then petty theft, then vandalism, and now....Meowing?? What has the world come to??

On the other hand, maybe it is the boy's way of complementing the woman. Maybe he is saying that she is "the cat's meow." Our cat will meow when he is looking for us to pet him. Maybe this lady just needs to take the boy on her lap and scratch behind his ears. On second thought, maybe not.

So, now you have the clear picture of the impending fall of civilization as we now it. I hate to think about what will be next. Rest assured, I will be on the lookout.

Cool site

2006-11-02T08:59:00.000-05:00

Check out the Whitney music box. Really neat program - combining visual with musical.

Scary Cows

2006-11-01T22:54:00.000-05:00

My last post spoke about hairpieces and heart attacks. Well, now let's talk about hairpieces and cows. There is trouble afoot in Ohio:

State Fair Has A Cow About Bovine Hairpieces
- Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Three livestock exhibitors at last year's Ohio State Fair have been disqualified for allegedly outfitting their Holstein cows with hairpieces.
State Fair inspectors said the three glued or painted hair from another part of the animal or from another animal to create straighter backs on the cows and enhance their appearance in the show ring.
Kreg Krebs and his brother Kenneth of Fredericksburg, and Scott Long of Clayton, Mich., could be required to forfeit all winnings, said Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Melanie Wilt. The winnings had been withheld by fair officials.
Wilt said state inspectors at the fair discovered the fake hair when the cows were leaving the show ring on Aug. 10.
The men have 30 days to request a hearing in which they could present their cases to an independent hearing officer

I think they are also looking into the allegations of udder implants. This is a shameful practice and preys on the insecurities of cows. The inspectors became suspicious when they saw the cows' pictures on the "before and after" pictures for the Hair Club for Cows (HCFC). HCFC spokesman Harry Back responded, "It is not a toupee, it is a hair weave. Why don't you folks get this right?".

Also on the subject of cows:

Chilean taxi driver combats crime with cows

A Chilean taxi driver has come up with a new way to fight assaults: make your vehicle so conspicuous that nobody would dare try to rob you.
After being robbed several times, Juan Geraldo upholstered and covered every square inch of his car's interior with black and white spotted cowhides, including the steering wheel and ceiling. He then decorated the interior with stuffed toy cows, and added a horn that moos.
The visual effect is even more impressive at night, when the black and white taxi interior is set off from floor to ceiling by a flood of neon light.
"The effect was immediate. They haven't robbed me since," said Geraldo, who said the special effects also brought in more clientele and allowed him to expand his cab fleet from one car to nine.
The 46-year-old taxi driver with 27 years of experience completes the cow theme by dressing in a cowhide jacket and hat.

"The numbers don't lie, the cow cabs attract more clients," Geraldo said. "Today almost all of our business is with repeat customers."
Geraldo said about 80 percent of his clients are women and that he gets calls from television personalities, former government officials and for children's birthday parties.
Although he has rejected an idea suggested by some to rent out the cow cabs for amorous encounters, he is trying to patent his idea and is keen on coming up with other variants.
"Some would love the idea of a zebra cab or a lion cab," said Geraldo. "It's a question of using your imagination."

OK, so making a fool out of yourself in a cab can keep criminals away. Hot news. The cow costume he was wearing and his propensity for squirting milk at his passengers has also had an effect on would-be robbers.

Let me suggest a few other options:

An Emu cab
A Tick cab (Scabies would be good too).
A slug cab - that would scare them off - it could leave a trail of slime.
A parasite cab (with Parasite Pals decorating it)

Finally:

Flying Cow Leaves Two Police Cars in Flames
Talk about a wild night near Seguin. A cow came flying out of its trailer, sent DPS and police scrambling, and left two police cars going up in flames.
"It was almost hard to believe," said Detective Sergeant Maureen Watson. She has been in law enforcement for 15 years, and says she "never had a day like this. I mean the best way to characterize this it, is it's bizarre. It's really really strange."
It's strange because it started out with a truck towing cattle, and ended in fire.
Watson told News 4 WOAI, "We believe the gate of the cattle trailer came open, and the cow, for lack of a better phrase spilled out onto the Interstate. It was pretty chaotic for a while."
Several cars hit some of the cows. One cow died. DPS troopers called for backup.
That's when one officer was nearly run down by a speeding truck, carrying two illegal immigrants inside.
Seguin Police were out looking for those illegal immigrants. They parked their cars in the hot grass, burning two of them including that brand new 2006 Crown Victoria. Watson said, "Well, all of a sudden, another officer who'd arrived on the scene, alerted the sergeant that there was a fire."
Everything inside was destroyed, including tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment designed for the patrol cars.
"You start off with kind of a bizarre accident with these cows spilling onto the interstate. That leads to other accidents, that leads to a car chase, that leads to a foot chase," Watson recalls.
The two mexican immigrants, ages 21 and 23, are in custody for illegally entering the country and evading arrest. Watson says they have replacement cars for now, but hope the city council will vote to get new cars soon.

Egad! Flying cows destroying cars?? I won't be able to sleep tonight. The question for me is if this is merely an accident or if these are suicide bombers. I mean, why would the cars explode? These cows were probably packing plastic explosives in their bells. We know about the conspiracy that they have mounted to take over, so here is more evidence of the plot.

There are a couple of interesting statements in this article:

What does he mean by "almost hard to believe?" Does that mean that it is actually easy, but with just a little bit of oddity would push it over the edge?
What does this mean: "and the cow, for the lack of a better phrase?" What other phrase would be better? Bovine? Mooer? Evil conspiracy accomplice? Minion of Satan?
Then they say that one cow died, but they called for backup. Why call for a backup cow? I thought they were part of the problem!
Was the speeding truck carrying illegal immigrant cows? I did not know there was immigration policies for cows. Are they trying to sneak across the border? From Canada to Wisconsin??

So there it is. More cow info. Now you can live a rich and fulfilling life (although you will always look at this moment as the pinnacle).

Wal-Mart Gets Something Right

2006-10-31T13:55:00.000-05:00

Much has been said negatively about Wal-Mart - and much if it is deserved. They have driven out competition through aggressive marketing tactics, etc. They have pretty much put an end to the "mom and pop" store.

I also really hate that little smiley face that dances around and lowers prices.

The most recent thing they have done, however, could have real big positive effects. Effective last month, they are charging only $4 for a long list of generic prescriptions. Our local Wal-Mart has begun doing this and the response has been huge. Patients are all wanting these generic medications if possible. Other pharmacies (like Kroger) have matched these prices. Overall, the savings to patients will be great, making more drugs affordable for more people. I have done my best to try to use medications from that list when possible.

I am well aware that this is a ploy to get more people into their stores to buy other things - that is the same ploy many of the chain pharmacies use. But it is refreshing to see prices dropping rather than going up.

Generic drugs are generally overpriced. Why should a company who spent little to no money on development of a drug still charge even half of the price of the branded drug? Why? Because they can. Hopefully this move by Wal-Mart will force them to come down to a more reasonable level in their prices.

You are what you wear

2006-10-29T22:54:00.000-05:00

Halloween is coming. As a parent, this has caused great stress in the past. Figuring out what consumes to wear for the kids was a very time consuming task for us. My wife is very creative, and hence she wants to do a "good job" on the kids' costumes. This makes us very frantic just before Trick or Treating.

Here are some sad stories about wearing abnormal things:

Man in Chicken Suit Cries Foul Over Abuse

To Steven Turnage, it was bad enough to
dress up in a chicken suit and stand along
a city street in 105-degree heat. Having passers-by shoot bottle rockets at him has him crying foul.

"People don't take this costume seriously," said Turnage, who wears the suit to promote a fast-food restaurant. "They need to understand that there's a human
underneath that suit. It's getting to the point where this is really a dangerous situation."
One rocket nearly hit him in the eye and another burned part of his suit. Police have heard Turnage's complaints but haven't issued any citations.
"Obviously it is against city ordinance to shoot fireworks inside the city limits," police spokeswoman Amber Dillon said.
Turnage said that during the two weeks he has worn the chicken suit people have thrown smokeless tobacco cans at him and tossed frozen drinks. After a bottle rocket attack, he called police.
"It's challenging," Turnage said. "You've got to be very dedicated and have a high tolerance for heat. You almost have to have a calling from the Lord to do this type of work."

OK, I have to say I do feel for this guy. It is bad enough to be humiliated by wearing a chicken suit, but to be shot at with bottle rockets? You may see that as a message from above that maybe you should change your line of work.

He did make some interesting comments, such as: "People don't take this costume seriously."
Well, I would hope not. It is a giant chicken suit, and to take it seriously would mean that they thought he really was a giant chicken. Perhaps they did take it seriously and the bottle rockets were an attempt to protect themselves from an evil mutant chicken.

The second comment worth noting is, "You almost have to have a calling from the Lord to do this type of work." This has serious theological implications. Does God call people to wear chicken suits in 105 degree weather, or does free will allow man to do things that he probably thinks are a bad idea? I'm sure somewhere there is a Sunday school teacher saying: "If you are going to wear a chicken suit in 105 degree weather and be shot at with fireworks, be the best man in a chicken suit in 105 degree weather (partially on fire) that you can!" I don't know if that works in with my theology. I don't see this situation as a means to get to heaven, it is more a foretaste of hell.

Oh yes, and note that he had smokeless tobacco thrown at him. Guess what part of the country he is from. Yes, it is the South - Arkansas. I wonder if it was snuff.

Story #2:

Clown Is Running for Mayor of Alameda

ALAMEDA, Calif. - A real clown is running for mayor of

Alameda, and even his sister won't vote for him.
Kenneth Kahn, 41, a professional joker known as "Kenny the Clown," admits he's running a long-shot campaign for City Hall's top spot. Kahn has not previously run for an elected position and has never sat on a public board.
"People ask me, 'Do we really want to elect a clown for mayor of the city?'" he said. "I say, 'That's an excellent question.'"
Kahn's mother, Barbara, said her son doesn't have a chance, and Sylvia Kahn, a teacher, said her brother's candidacy is a "mockery of our system."
"I don't think it makes any sense, because, to me, running for mayor is not where you

start as far as community involvement goes," she said.
In November, the funnyman who graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, faces incumbent Beverly Johnson and City Councilman Doug deHaan.

It would be easy to run against this guy. All you would need as a campaign slogan is: "Don't vote for that Clown!" I wonder if he has a son named Genghis.

Last, but not least:

Man Who Claims Toupee Caused Attack Sues

A man who claims he had a heart attack during a dispute over an ill- fitting hairpiece that didn't match his hair color is suing the wig shop.

Paul Lewis claims he suffered a heart attack after refusing to pay for the hairpiece that was not only the wrong size but also the wrong color. He is seeking more than $15,000 in damages.
Lewis filed a counter lawsuit in Superior Court after Paula's Wig Boutique of Orange filed a small claims action seeking $1,200 in payment for the hairpiece.
Lewis claims he fell ill in December 2004 after Paula Wood, the owner of the wig shop, threatened to call police because he refused to pay, according to court records.
Lewis told the Connecticut Post that Wood sold him the hairpiece in a darkened room and he didn't realize it was the wrong color until later. He said he put a stop payment on a check he issued to the shop.

Wood said she has no idea why Lewis suffered a heart attack over the incident and added that he was so happy with the hairpiece when he left the shop that he "hugged me and thanked me."
She added that her shop is brightly lit and Lewis left with the hairpiece during the day.

This is a fascinating story. I would think that the guy in the chicken suit would be the one with the heart attack. The guy is balding and probably rotund. He got a hairpiece and it looked bad - now that's a shocker. He blames the bad-looking hairpiece for his heart attack, failing to mention the "Monster Burger" he had on the way from the shop. I guess people started shooting bottle rockets at him because they "took it seriously" and thought he was being attacked by a rodent. Now that would make a heart attack more likely.

Having a bad hairpiece is not always a curse. I looked toupees up on Wikipedia and it had pictures of William Shatner and Donald Trump. It didn't stop them, did it?

So I end this post talking about Halloween consumes. When I was five, my mother got me a Satan costume. Now, I was a hyperactive boy (looking back, I clearly would have been medicated in today's culture), but Satan?? Hmph. It did glow in the dark, though, and I thought that was pretty cool.

Some people get consumes for their pets (see below). I don't know, but it always appears to me that the animals are really humiliated by the whole thing. Maybe they should have a heart attack and sue. Maybe they should shoot bottle rockets at their masters.

Happy Halloween! (Random Questions).

Rob

At the Movies

2006-10-29T08:06:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine recommended I get the movie Danny Deckchair. We watched it last night and I have to say that I highly recommend it. It is a very nice romantic comedy from Australia with enough silliness to make it not just a "Chick Flick."

Here are some other less-known movies that I would recommend:

Mystery Men - With Ben Stiller. Very funny (and odd) movie about some non-mainstream superheroes.
What's up Tiger Lilly? - by Woody Allen. This was one of his very first movies. He takes a cheesy Japanese movie and dubs it with a plot in English that has nothing to do with the original script. The main character is named "Phil Moscowitz" - a common Japanese name, and they are after the famous egg salad sandwich recipe.
The Frisco Kid - with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford. This gem is about a polish Rabbi who has to cross the US during the wild west days to bring a Torah to the San Francisco Jews. He meets up with a rough cowboy (Harrison Ford - well before Star Wars) who feels obligated to help the helpless Rabbi.
Galaxy Quest - with Tim Allen. You probably know this one, but it is one of my favorites. They do such a great job mocking the Sci Fi genre. I have watched this several times.
The Manchurian Candidate (the original) - with Frank Sinatra and the "Brat Pack." The newer one is very good, but the original is well worth seeing even if you have seen the latter one.

Any other recommendations?

Should I Change?

2006-10-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

I have mentioned that I was getting frustrated with Blogger Beta and set up another blog site. Now I need to know from as many people as possible if I should make the change. The benefits of changing include:

Getting away from the frustrations of Blogger Beta, although these have gotten some better over the past few weeks.
More plug-ins and widgets on WordPress that are kind of fun (like the polls).
The look and feel of the other site is different. I kind of like the full-screen rather than the limited width of Blogger.

The disadvantages of changing are:

I am just getting a regular flow of people here (Random Questions) and that will inevitably decrease when I change.
Blogger has improved some already.
Most of my readers are in Blogger as well, so profiles are more easily seen.
Everyone would have to change their links.
I may be changing just because I like to change and not because things are really that bad (I have a tendency of doing that).

So I want to know if this is a good idea, OK idea, no change, or a bad idea. Please let me know.

Questions about Random Questions

2006-10-26T16:00:00.001-04:00

I have recently noted (in my obsession with my stats) that I have been getting a ton of people coming to my blog via a Google search for the words "Random Questions" (because of a previous post entitled "Random Questions." Now I am not really sure why you would do such a search, but it has been very curious to me that this has gone on (From the Google search of "Random Questions").

I sent an e-mail to the folks at Sitemeter, and they said that I was #1 on the Google search for "Random Questions." When I looked, I had somehow slipped to 4th.

So what I figure has happened is that the more people coming to my site via that search, the higher I go on the "Random Questions" Google search. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the ranking gives me more hits, and the hits give me a higher ranking. Being totally consumed by these stats, I figure it is a good thing to be high on the list for "Random Questions." That is why I am using the term "Random Questions" so frequently in my post. I intend on becoming a "Random Questions" tycoon, building a "Random Questions" empire based on being #1 on Google for "Random Questions." Once I have conquered the "Random Questions" market (I intend on burying the other "Random Questions" sites), I will go after other phrases (such as "Random Thoughts," "Arbitrary Questions," and "Questions that are Random"). I should be able to generate a huge revenue with the thousands of hits per day from the "Random Questions" searches along with the other non "Random Questions" searches.

I will do my best to keep in touch with my loyal readers once I become a "Random Questions" tycoon. You can tell everyone you knew me before I made my fortune on "Random Questions."

Any Questions?

Publish or Perish

2006-10-26T06:49:00.001-04:00

In the academic world, this phrase refers to the need to be publishing articles in Journals to be able to keep one's job as a professor. Grant money often depends on a person's ability to be "productive" in their research and produce concrete results. There is even pressure to not just get "ordinary" results, but something "exciting," causing people to falsify those results to get the money and recognition they need.

To some extent, I feel that way about blogging. I have been doing this for about 6 months now and have had modest success with some regular readers. But if I now have a fear that if I don't continue to put out regular blog entries, I will lose my readers. I find myself obsessing on the numbers of my site meters, hoping to pump them up by some wonderful new post (that is even at the back of my mind on this post).

The funny thing is that I went for 44 years without ever blogging and did just fine. I did not know any of these people I now blog for and still don't know many of them. I have greatly enjoyed doing it and have to some extent become addicted to checking out others' blogs regularly (yes, Dr. A, I am thinking of joining BA). There is no real pressure for me to do this, aside from that which I put on myself. I have a need to entertain others and to be liked in the blogging realm.

I guess it is the "class clown" in me that wants to garner the attention of others. It is not necessarily a bad thing, in that my focus on the response I get out of others is the same thing that lets me be empathetic toward my patients. But it is curious to me how I start to get worried if I have not "published" recently. I would feel a great loss right now if I did not have people reading what I write. I am sure there are many of you who feel the same way.

Is it bad? Not at all. It is just amazing to me how powerful that need to maintain my readership can be. I greatly appreciate those who regularly come by this blog. Thanks for reading my goofy stuff, but also responding when I do this kind of thing. It has been quite nice to rub elbows with people I would have otherwise have not met and who are very much unlike me. The blogging world is a nice community and I am glad I am in it. I will understand if you need breaks from blogging from time to time, and promise to not hold it against you if you need to take a break.

Rob.

Whatever You Say...

2006-10-24T18:16:00.000-04:00

From Monty Python's Life of Brian:

Brian: 'Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, you don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for yourselves! You're ALL individuals!'

The Crowd (speaking in unison): 'Yes! We're all individuals!'

Brian: 'You're all different!'

The Crowd (in unison): 'Yes, we ARE all different!'

Man in crowd: 'I'm not...'

The Crowd: 'Shhh!'

I think it is important to follow instructions, but there are two stories recently that highlight the extreme of this:

Driver obeys navigation system, no matter what

An 80-year-old German motorist obediently following his navigation system ignored a motorway "closed for construction" sign and crashed his Mercedes into a pile of sand further down the road, police said Monday.
"The driver was following the orders from his navigation system and even though there was a sufficient number of warnings and barricades, he continued his journey into the construction site," a police spokeswoman told Reuters.
"His trip finally ended when he wound up crashing into a pile of sand," she added.
The driver and his wife escaped uninjured from the collision, which occurred on a motorway near Hamburg.

The funny thing here is that he went through barricades and kept on going. What did he think would happen if he did not obey?

I thought this was humorous, but then today the following article appeared:

Obedient driver follows orders, crashes car

Mon Oct 23, 8:17 AM ET
A German motorist followed the command "Turn right n

ow!" from his navigation system and crashed into a small toilet hut by the side of the road -- about 30 yards before the crossing he was meant to take.
The overly obedient 53-year-old from Freiburg drove his sport utility vehicle off the road onto into a building site, up a stairway and into the small toilet shack, police in the eastern town of Rudolstadt said Sunday.

It caused 2,000 euros ($2,500) worth of damage to the stairway, 100 euros damage to his car, and he was also fined 35 euros.
Earlier this month an 80-year-old motorist also chose to follow his navigation system and ignored a "closed for construction" sign on a Hamburg motorway. He then crashed into a pile of sand but neither he nor his passenger were injured.

Initially I thought this was the same article, but this is a much younger person. This guy actually drove up some stairs.

Here are some observations:

Note the German propensity for following orders (I am German, so I can say that). We Germans like things to be orderly and so tend to like strong authority. It is only natural that this happened in Germany.
I wonder if the navigation systems in Germany speak with a more commanding tone than those in the US. "Dumkopf! Turn Left! Now!!!"
That's one special SUV that can go up stairs!
What is a toilet shack? What is it doing along the side of the road?

Now, I have had my own problems with these navigation systems. I was in Oregon on a business trip and decided I wanted to get a car with a navigation system. All was going well, and I decided I needed to go to Wal-Mart. When I punched Wal-Mart into the Nav System, it told me the nearest one was in Las Vegas (about 900 miles away!). On the bright side, I did have very good directions to that Wal-Mart. I'm sure it had slot machines in it as well.

On the same trip, we were trying to get to Crater Lake and it gave me directions down a dirt road that had trees across it. When you turn around and try and find another route, it keeps reminding you that you are going the wrong direction. Obviously the technology needs some work.

Maybe this is why the dogs crashed their cars...

A Round by any other name is not so Grand...

2006-10-24T16:54:00.001-04:00

Yes, it is time for Grand Rounds. Bob Coffield at Health Care Law Blog has done a bang-up job on GR with Grand Rounds 3.5: A visual Tour.

The problem for me is, between reading this and Pediatric Grand Rounds, I don't have much time to see patients. Oh well, they can wait....

On a brighter note, once more there is nothing about monkeys in Grand Rounds.

Grand Rounds, Jr.

2006-10-23T13:09:00.000-04:00

Get out of your Tree! Pediatric Grand Rounds are now ripe and ready for your edification at The Wait And Wonder. Moreena highlights the scary parts of medicine - doctors who are clueless at times - but overall gives a very positive spin on our grand profession.

I am happy to say that there are no posts about monkeys. At least there is one area where these evil critters have not taken over.

Watch your head!

2006-10-21T12:41:00.000-04:00

I have previously written about falling dogs as a risk we all have to face in life, but I was unaware of other things that are falling and causing significant damage.

The first story comes from Germany:

German cottage destroyed by meteor

Fri Oct 20, 10:28 AM ET
A fire that destroyed a cottage near Bonn and injured a 77-year-old man was probably caused by a meteor and witnesses saw an arc of blazing light in the sky, German police said on Friday.
Burkhard Rick, a spokesman for the police in Siegburg east of Bonn, said the fire gutted the cottage and badly burnt the man's hands and face in the incident on October 10.
"We sought assistance from Bochum observatory and they noted that at that particular moment the earth was near a field of meteoroid splinter and it could be assumed that particles had entered the atmosphere," he said.
"The particles usually don't reach the surface because they disintegrate in the atmosphere," he added. "But some can make it to the ground. We believe this was a bolide (meteoric fireball) with a size of no more than 10 mm."

OK, so I am to believe that bolides are falling on us, and that a 10mm one can burn down a whole cottage? And just what is a field of meteoroid splinter? I was not aware meteors could get splinters. Perhaps that is why they send bolides down on us, because they are angry about the splinters they get from fields. I don't know, the whole thing is a little confusing. I hope this bolide phenomenon is restricted to Germany.

I am wondering now about when my son claimed his homework was destroyed by a small meteor. I gave him 2-years of hard labor for that lame excuse. I guess maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Hmmm....

While that is somewhat disturbing, the second story hits a lot closer to home:

Toilet ice rips hole in couple's roof

Sat Oct 21, 7:57 AM ET
CHINO, Calif. - An elderly couple believe a chunk of blue ice from the holding tank of an aircraft toilet ripped a hole in their roof and destroyed a bed.
William McElroy was watching a movie with his wife, Evelyn, when the ice crashed into the house Wednesday night.
"It was a huge crash. It shook the whole building, but we thought it was a car," McElroy said. The couple went outside to investigate
but found nothing, so they returned to finish watching the movie.
They didn't discover the chunk of ice on the bed and the 2-foot-wide hole in the ceiling until Thursday morning.
"I think we had somebody extra looking over us," Evelyn McElroy said.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said Thursday if the offending chunk of ice is from an airplane, then it is likely the cause of a leak in a holding tank of the aircraft's bathroom.

Blue ice occurs when waste leaks from a plane's bathroom onto the outside of the plane and freezes at high altitudes. The liquid begins to thaw as the plane descends, Gregor said.

This is far more disturbing. First off, it happened in California, so we cannot write it off as a Germanic problem. WE ARE ALL AT RISK FOR THIS!!

The second obvious thing is that it is "from the holding tank of an aircraft toilet." Read between the lines: POOP AND PEA IS RAINING DOWN ON US FROM THE SKY!!! (I suppose the right term here would be hail, not rain).

The most disturbing part of this is that it was big enough to tear a 2-foot hole in the roof of the house and ended up on the bed. I have heard of bed-wetting, but this is really taking it to the extreme! It was big enough to shake the whole building!

So the situation is this: we have large chunks of human waste raining down us from the sky, capable of tearing holes in our roofs and doing who knows what else. This is a dire set of circumstances for which we should be called to alarm. Why is the FAA so casual about this? We should be finding ways to protect ourselves from these falling "poolides" (I made that word up myself!), but what should we do? If our roofs are not strong enough, then what can we do??

Let me make a final comment here about the statement of Mrs. McElroy. She felt that they had "somebody extra looking over us." I hate to say it, but it was not their face that was pointed at her.

Nothing to do with the story...I just found this humorous

Wellness

2006-10-19T12:46:00.000-04:00

My older brother, who is an ecologist (a limnologist, to be specific), once told me that he was sick of hearing people talk about the "balance of nature." He went on to point out that the natural world is in a constant state of flux - anything but balanced. Scientists believe, for instance, that when trees came into existence, they caused nearly 95% of the species present at the time to go extinct. This is not to say that you should not be responsible with the natural world we live in (he is, after all, an ecologist), but it points out the fluid nature of things; the only constant is change in our temporal world.

There is a school of thought in certain circles that embraces the idea of wellness much in the same way that certain naturalists embrace the balance of nature (see http://www.wellness.com/ and http://seekwellness.com ). Much of these ideas are put forth my more alternative practitioners (such as Andrew Weil, MD) in the guise of mainstream medicine.

Wikipedia (the ultimate source of all reliable information, of course) divides wellness into two different definitions:

Alternative Medicine - Wellness is generally used to mean a healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of well-being.
Mainstream Medicine (under the heading health) - In any organism, health is the ability to efficiently respond to challenges (stressors) and effectively restore and sustain a "state of balance," known as homeostasis. Sickness is merely the absence of health. All organisms, from the simplest to the most complex, reside on a spectrum between 100% health and 0% health.

These definitions beg the question: does wellness really exist? Is our goal as physicians to promote wellness, or simply more wellness? I believe that wellness is a concept, not a reality. It may be worthy of our striving, but accomplishing this is not possible. Here are the reasons I think this is the case:

I disagree with the Wikipedia definition of Homeostasis as a "state of balance." I prefer the dictionary definition: The ability or tendency of an organism or cell to maintain internal equilibrium by adjusting its physiological processes. The body does everything it can to get to a state of "balance," but there are constantly forces moving it out of balance. Even if balance were achieved, it would soon be out of balance again.
Aging - Aging is the continuing process of anti-wellness. Everyone dies due to a process that is built in to the DNA itself. This is true for every organism. Could wellness really occur when aging is happening. Even children aging, growing bigger and stronger, are in a state of unbalance (as witnessed by my 13 and 14 year olds!). The implication of growth in a child is that the current state needs to be changed. It is pathologic when change stops happening (growth delay, etc.).
All of nature goes against this. Organisms ultimately die, and this happens because the need for increased diversity and the need for adaptation to environmental changes. We do not exactly fit into our environment, and so there is a homeostatic force on a ecologic basis that pushes toward adaptation to these environmental mismatches.
Entropy - This is the tendency of things to become increasingly disordered. Although the evolutionary trend toward increasing complexity goes against this in a small area, the overall force is toward disorder. This is one of the laws of thermodynamics (and not one of the suggestions of thermodynamics).
It is immeasurable. Conceptually it is impossible to prove wellness, even if it were reached. Some of this has to do with the concept of observer effect (as displayed in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). If we measure something, we change it by our act of measurement. This means that if homeostasis is actually attained, it will be disrupted when we assay for it. On a more basic level, however, science deals with disproof much easier than proof. To prove wellness, you have to disprove all forms of illness. This is simply impossible.

Aside: My father is a physicist, and one of his favorite signs he saw was one that read "Heisenberg may have slept here."

So what does this mean for physicians? I think it has a big effect on how we approach problems. Problems are normal and certain problems are physiologic. A good example of this is the rebellious teenager. When a person is transitioning from the dependency of childhood to the independence of adulthood (both relative), there is a period of increased disorder as this transition is made. The child acts up, but does so to some extent to make this transformation. As a parent, we do not always see this behavior as pathological (as annoying as it can be). If this disorder is not present, it is a sign of problems. Our goal as physicians is to oversee this disorder and discern if there is any signs of "abnormal disorder." This poses a great challenge, but is a very important lesson to teach parents. Expect challenges.

Another area of application is in the psychologic realm. We want everyone to be happy all the time - it is part of our natures. Yet we do very poorly when we do not go through hard times. Again, a good example is the "spoiled" child. If a child is given everything they want, they will become a pathologic personality. If a parent does not cause the child to go through sadness and anger, then they are harming the child. I always tell parents that our primary goal is not to make our children happy. Our primary goal is raise good children. If you raise a child with happiness as the primary goal, you will make them neither good nor happy. If you raise them to be good, then they will (more likely) be both.

Treating depression is always a challenge for me. Sometimes I think people are pathologically trying to avoid pain, when that may be what is best for them. But it is very hard for me to be the one to decide what they need in this arena. I do think that sometimes I am doing them a disservice to treat their depression. We need pain to allow us to grow emotionally. Pain is just evidence that we are not yet where we need to be. I use the analogy for patients of chest pain. If we seek simply to treat the pain and ignore the cause of the pain, we can kill the patient. We need to be able to feel pain so that we can know when something more serious is going on.

This is a line that all physicians must draw. To some extent, we are managers of pain, and not promoters of wellness. I do think that wellness as a goal has some merits, but I think that sometimes we "lose the forest for the trees" by not paying attention to the discreet details of illness prevention. There is no balance, just homeostasis. As we help people we need to keep in mind that we are ultimately here to relate to our patients as they go through life and not treat them as a project to complete.

You've got Questions? We've got Answers

2006-10-19T05:21:00.002-04:00

The Answers to our quiz from yesterday:

The 100 Years War lasted 116 years.
Panama hats are made in Ecuador.
We get Catgut strings from Sheep and Horses.
The Russians Celebrate the October Revolution in November.
A Camel hair brush is made of Squirrel Fur.
The Canary Islands are named after Dogs.
King George IV's first name was Albert (very good, jmbree!)
A Purple Finch is Crimson.
Chinese Gooseberries are from New Zealand.
The 30 Years War lasted....30 years.

So how did you score? Grade yourself on the following scale:

If you got 10 correct - Go away now! You are one of those people who really annoy me.
If you got 8-9 correct - You are a friggen' genius and are clearly having your IQ lowered by reading this blog. Go read Clark Bartram's Blog... now there's a smart feller.
If you got 5-7 correct - Stand up, jump up and down, spin around three times, and shout the words "Bowling Pin" at the top of your lungs.
If you got 3-5 correct - Treat yourself to a bowl of Campbell's Chunky Soup. It's good and it's good for you!
If you got 1-2 correct - You probably are at the IQ level at which I am aiming this blog. My deepest condolences!
If you got none right- You should be running for elected office. You are a perfect candidate for a government job. You may also find good work on a computer for an HMO, telling doctors which procedures they can and cannot do.

Elementary, my dear blogees

2006-10-18T11:11:00.000-04:00

OK, here is a quick quiz I want you to take: Questions:
1. How long did the Hundred Years War last?
2. Which country makes Panama hats?
3. From which animal do we get catgut?
4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? 5. What is a camel's hair brush made of? 6. The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? 7. What was King George VI's first name? 8. What color is a purple finch? 9. Where are Chinese gooseberries from? 10. How long did the Thirty Years War last?

Seems obvious? You would be shocked at how many people could not answer these questions correctly.

I will post results tomorrow.

Ground Rounds...er...Grand Rounds is up!

2006-10-17T18:18:00.000-04:00

Open wide!

The Ever-entertaining Kim at Emergiblog, ER nurse extroardinarre, serves up a very full edition of ground rounds. The meat of the matter is that you should not grill me about the contents. Just flip on over to her website and dig in. If you don't you'll be in a pickle to ketchup with all of the content. Lettuce enjoy her wonderful job (although no one from the Mayo clinic had input).

And you can get a cup of Joe while you are at it!

One Too Many

2006-10-16T22:23:00.000-04:00

There are many studies on the effects of alcohol on a person's health. Alcohol is a serious problem in the world, causing much pain and suffering.

On a lighter note, alcohol can make people do really stupid things:

Woman charged with drunk horse riding

Tue Oct 10, 5:19 PM ET
Well, that's a DUI of a different color. Heather Darnell, 22, of Mountain City, Ga., faces a drunk driving charge after she steered the horse she was riding onto the highway and tangled with a car, authorities said. Darnell also was cited for entering a traffic lane.
She remains in fair condition after being airlifted to the Gwinnett Medical Center in Lawrenceville, Ga.

The horse apparently survived, officials said.
Three people who were in the Pontiac Bonneville that struck the horse Friday night were treated at Mountain Lakes Medical Center in Clayton, Ga., and released: Ancella Gragg, 32, of Lakemont, Ga., who was at the wheel; and a 13-year-old girl and 9-year-old boy.
Trooper Anthony Coleman said Gragg did not see the horse until too late and was unable to avoid hitting it.
"If it's on the public right-of-way, you're under the same jurisdiction as if you're in a car," Coleman said.

I am pleased to say that this fine specimen resides in my home state, Georgia. Riding the horse while smashed is a favorite pastime in the Peach State. We sometimes like to get the horses drunk as well. The madcap adventures never stop!

Seriously, this lady ought to realize that she needs to call a cab with a large trailer whenever s

he has had too much. Someone should have taken away her saddle so she couldn't go. Now she gets her horse license suspended. Too bad!

I did find this website, which features a beer-drinking horse. The Clydesdales drink him under the table every time.

Here is a novel solution to a problem:

Man Eats Underwear To Beat Breathalyzer
A Stettler man tried to eat his underwear in the hope that the cotton fabric would absorb alcohol before he took a breathalyzer test, provincial court heard this week.
David Zurfluh was subsequently acquitted of a charge of impaired driving because he blew a .08, the legal limit.
But the testimony broke up people in Judge David MacNaughton’s provincial court

here Thursday afternoon.
Mr. Zurfluh was collared by RCMP Const. Bill Robinson after he ran from his vehicle, which had been seen weaving down the highway.
While sitting in the back of the patrol car, Mr. Zurfluh tried to eat his shorts, Const. Robinson told the court.
Mr. Zurfluh said he ripped the crotch out of his shorts, stuffed the fabric in his mouth, then spit it out.
A class of law students from William E. Hay Composite High, in court as observers, was removed by the teacher when testimony enlivened the proceedings. The Grade 11 and 12 students had difficulty maintaining composure.
"People were leaving the courtroom with tears in their eyes, trying not to laugh," said

RCMP Const. Peter McFarlane.

So Dave, what is it, boxers or briefs??

Oh boy, this one is loaded. You could say that he was short on brains. You could say he wanted a brief snack. You could say he had his daily allowance of fruit (of the loom). Perhaps he mistook the jingle for: "Wait till we get your Hanes in you."

So here is the scene in the courtroom:

Judge: "Mr Zurfluh."
Bailiff: "Gesundheit!"
Judge: "Mr Zurfluh, what did you eat under there?"
Zurfluh: "Underwear?"
Audience: "Yuck, Yuck, Yuck!"
Zurfluh: "No, seriously...."

I suppose these High School students were very impressed by this demonstration of the powerful mind-numbing effect of alcohol.

Finally, from the wonderful state of Wisconsin:

Milwaukee is named 'Drunkest City'

MILWAUKEE --Milwaukee has been ranked by Forbes.com as "America's Drunkest City" on a list of 35 major metropolitan areas ranked for their drinking habits.
Forbes said Tuesday it used numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to rank

cities in five areas: state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism.

Minneapolis-St. Paul was ranked second overall; followed by Columbus, Ohio; Boston; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Cleveland; Pittsburgh and then Philadelphia and Providence, R.I., in a tie for ninth.
Rick DeMeyer, 28, said Wednesday as he was celebrating his birthday at G-Daddy's

BBC he could understand Milwaukee's ranking.
"I have had people stay with me from London and Chicago, and they can't get over how much we drink," he said. "I guess we do."

But officials at Visit Milwaukee, the area's conve

ntion and visitors bureau, contend

that the city has come a long way in ridding itself of its beer-guzzling image.

Milwaukeeans have plenty of other ways to entertain

themselves without drinking alcohol, said Dave Fantle, a spokesman for the group. He noted a new convention center and baseball park had been built and the Milwaukee Art Museum expanded in recent years.
"We've gone from Brew City to new city," he said.

This really comes as no surprise to me. There is no way that anyone sober would wear cheese on their head and take their shirt off in -20 degree temperature. There is no way that fans would willingly pay to watch the Brewers play. There is no way people would dress up in costumes like various types of sausage and race around the stadium.

So this causes me to ponder several other questions:

Are people in Milwaukee allowed to ride horses?

Are underwear sales brisk in Wisconsin?

Is G-Daddy's BBC a Hapnin' joint?

Can people find their way to the art museum, or do they just stand and stare at graffiti saying "Whoa. I love abstract art."?

Finally, let me ask my readers, who would you rather spend an evening with (and why)?

Heather Darnell, the drunk equestrian.

David Zurfluh, the brief gourmet.

Rick DeMeyer, who has a daily birthday party at G-Daddy's BBC.

Dave Fantle, the guy who made the lame "Brew City to New City" comment.

Polls are now open...

Blogger Beta?

2006-10-15T23:46:00.000-04:00

I Hate Blogger Beta!

I have to try twice every time I post a picture. It messes up with other programs and forces me to use a long log-in every time. It is far more limiting than the regular blogger was.

So....

Tell me what you think about my possible new home. I will eventually be moving my blog to distractiblemind.com, but it is temporarily parked with my other blog. Unfortunately I can't import from Blogger Beta because it is so "unstable." I like the tools with Wordpress better (and have been using the new Microsoft Windows Live Writer (beta too - will I ever learn?) and I like it a lot.

Ben Stiller is "Mr. Furious"
I am now "Dr. Furious!"

Emu Brute?

2006-10-15T23:38:00.000-04:00

I like to have fun at the expense of others. I'll admit it, I like to point and laugh. Well, that really only applies to dangerous animals who get what is coming to them. That makes me smile.

Police kill emu that bothered motorists

Packing 100 pounds on its 5-foot frame, the big bird gave police in this St. Louis suburb a mighty run, confounding them all six times someone reported the ostrich-like beast bugging motorists last weekend along busy Illinois Route 3.
Police finally caught up to the claw-footed menace Monday and ended the ruckus once and for all, cornering the emu, a cousin to the ostrich, and shooting it dead out of fear it'd again wander into traffic and kill someone.
Two days later, police on Wednesday still were pecking away at the vexing question: Where did the bird come from?
"We figured someone would call and say, `That's my bird!'" Police Chief Rich Miller said. "But we still haven't heard from anybody."
Raised for their eggs, oil and protein-rich lean meat, emus — at least the errant variety — have become a bit of a trend in southern Illinois, where they're not native.
In June, police in Carbondale, about 100 miles south of Granite City, needed five shotgun blasts and three rounds from a rifle to dispatch one of the flightless birds after cornering it in a residential area, where it was said to have even pecked on a home's window.
In both cases, police say they had no other recourse in dealing with a species known to be elusive — they're capable of moving up to 35 mph — and aggressive with anyone who gets too close.
"We figured that sooner or later our luck was gonna run out" and the emu here would cause a traffic wreck, Miller said. "If we had some way to catch it, somewhere to take it, that'd be fine. The ability for us to be second-guessed is always out there, but we decided (Monday) that now is the time to end this."
Carbondale police haven't said publicly if they ever tracked down an owner of the emu they killed, and messages with those authorities Wednesday weren't immediately returned.
Miller said Granite City police had heard rumors that someone near nearby Interstate 270 might be raising the birds, though that's not been confirmed. The American Emu Association's Web site shows no local breeders of emu, whose oil is used in cosmetics and lotions.
Clay Nielsen, a Southern Illinois University wildlife ecologist more versed about cougars and armadillos taking refuge in the state's wilds, said such wayward emus likely were former captives by breeders or families keeping them as pets.
"Throughout the Midwest and South, there have been many reports of animals on the loose," Nielsen said. "Whether they can survive long in the wild, I'm really not sure."
There have been other recent reports of errant emus elsewhere. On Oct. 5 near St. Albans, W.Va., one of the big birds wandered onto an elementary school's grounds, was caged and given to a doctor who agreed to release it on his farm. And in Wisconsin last week, an emu found wandering one town's streets was tranquilized by a veterinarian and returned to its owner after police efforts to halt the bird with a stun gun didn't work.
Meat from the emu slain here was being processed by a Granite City police officer who hunts and would be donated to local food pantries, Miller said.

So Emus are cropping up out of nowhere recently. I have yet to see one in my back yard, nor have I treated someone for an emu-induced accident, but it is only a matter of time. This ubiquitous bird seems to be getting as common as ants, covering the Midwest with a plague of large birds which cause poor innocent motorists to wreck.

I think Laundress should be alarmed, as now they are cropping up in Wisconsin as well! Do Emus like Cheese, Brats or Beer? They seem like the beer swilling type, these scoundrels!

I doubt they are part of the sinister plot of the dogs, monkeys, and cows. They don't seem to be cunning. I think Emus are basically loose-cannons, the vagabonds of the Midwest causing terror and pain wherever they tread.

This Emu is where it deserves to be: behind bars!

Good News

2006-10-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

I have posted previously about the emotions of being a doctor, bringing the stress home, and when patients make the ultimate bad health decision. That makes it seem like all of my days are bad - they aren't. It makes it sound like I have second thoughts about being a doctor - I don't. There is no other job I can see myself doing.

But despite that, it helps to be able to have good days to offset the difficult ones. I had the opportunity lately to give good news to some of my patients. That good news followed the sinking feeling of potential bad news in both instances.

The first was a 37 year old gentleman who I had cared for the past 10+ years (both him and his family). He came in to see me for a testicular mass. Normally, testicular cancer only affects men in their 20's. Since I trained at Indiana University, home of Larry Einhorn - the doctor who discovered cis-platinum - the cure for testicular CA. This is where Lance Armstrong went for treatment of his cancer. This patient came in with a lump on his one of his testicles, worrying if it may be cancerous. Palpating it, I could not deny that it was worrisome. I sent him to get a testicular ultrasound which soon came back as "worrisome."

Then I had to make the phone call I never like to give. I called the patient and told him: "I want you and your wife to come in to talk to me." They knew what this meant. It meant that there was bad news.

I never beat around the bush when they are in the office - they know what I am going to say: "the ultrasound showed something very suspicious of cancer. I am going to send you to a urologist and he is going to set you up to have the testicle removed." I reassured them that even in the worst-case scenario, testicular cancer has a good prognosis. I knew this did not mean much to them; cancer is cancer.

My nurse, whose husband had testicular cancer at the same age, told his wife that if she could do anything for them, they just needed to call. Since he was in his upper 30's, the most common cancer is seminoma. When I trained, this was a little harder to treat than the germ-cell tumors common at younger ages. This is what my nurse's husband had, and it became metastatic after the first round of treatment. He required fairly aggressive chemotherapy, and is now a cancer survivor.

The day of the surgery, we got a call from the urologist - the diagnosis was teratoma, a benign tumor. Who knows how long it had been there, but it had probably gone from a germ-cell tumor to full maturity as a teratoma. Germ-cell tumors are similar to stem cells in that they can develop into many kinds of tissue. Teratomas are tumors resulting from the full development of germ-cells into mature non-cancerous cells. In women, these are the tumors that can contain hair and teeth. I once heard a joke that to diagnose a teratoma in women, you put some ice to the abdomen and use your stethoscope to listen for chattering teeth.

The end result: good news.

My second patient was a 65 year-old gentleman who was new to the practice. He said he had been having lower abdominal pain on the left, which he suspected was a hernia. Upon exam, he had a large mass in the left lower quadrant. It is really hard to know how to respond when you find something significantly worrisome on exam. I asked him if he had noted the mass and he said he had. I told him that this was worrisome, but we had to get a CT scan to figure out what it was.

There is not much good that it can be when there is a mass like this. I went over the possibilities - certainly there was cancer as a possibility, but maybe it was just an intestinal obstruction causing what felt like a mass. It was not real tender, so I doubted that an infectious etiology was the cause.

I usually do what I can to minimize the wait for patients in this circumstance. It is tough to say, "I think it could be cancer, but you have to wait until next week to find out." I know that every night of waiting will be sleepless, so I get it the test as quickly as possible. Yesterday I got the surprising news that the CT scan showed "probable diverticulitis." This was a shock to me, as diverticulitis is usually tender to touch on exam. But he reminded me when I called him that he was on antibiotics for his prostate. This was a phone call I was glad to make.

There is a great honor to be able to stand by people during their hardest times. I really find it is one of the more satisfying parts of what I do. But it sure feels good to take a big weight off of people's shoulders. It sure feels good to give good news.

Superstition

2006-10-13T06:31:00.000-04:00

Today is Friday the 13th.

Yaaaaaa....!!!! Everybody run for the hills!!!

C'mon, it's just a day, right? Superstition abounds in the human heart. Even though we all realize it is just another day, it doesn't hurt to play it safe, don't you think?

Have you noticed that many buildings don't have a 13th floor? Well, they do have a 13th floor, they just call it the 14th floor. Based on Otis Elevators, nearly 85% of high-rise buildings don't have a 13th floor. In China, some buildings don't have a 4th, 14th, 24th, etc. floor because the word for 4 sounds a lot like the Mandarin word for "death."

So why Friday the 13th? Oldsupersitions .com reports:

Friday the Thirteenth - The Scandinavian's believed that the number 13 was unlucky due to the mythological 12 demigods being joined by a 13th, an evil one, who brought misfortune upon humans. It was also said that Christ was crucified on Friday and the number of guests at the party of the Last Supper was 13, with the 13th guest being Judas, the traitor.

I never knew that!

Here's another explanation:

There is a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. Balder died and the Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned.

Other Common Superstitions:

Walking under a ladder brings bad luck
Breaking a mirror brings 7 years of bad luck
A black cat walking in front of your path brings bad luck.

So this begs the question: is there any such thing as luck? Certainly from a human perspective it seems that some people seem to have better things happen to them than others. It also seems that there are times that just the right thing happens at the right time. I guess it depends on your world view. If you believe in providence and/or predestination, you believe God controls everything. If you are an atheistic naturalist, you think it is all random. Most people fall between these two and think there are some forces unseen that affect our day-to-day. Astrology is a good example of this.

Which reminds me of a joke:
Q: What did the Calvinist say when he fell down the stairs?
A: "Whew! I'm glad that's over with!"

OK, so I don't really want to get into a debate on the subject, but want to go into some of the stranger superstitions. So here are some odd superstitions:

It is unlucky to let a pig onto a fishing boat because it will mean that there'll be no catch. I will try to remember that the next time I am tempted.
It's bad luck to say the word "pig" while fishing at sea. What's with pigs and boats?
Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog. What if the dog is driving the ambulance?
To cure a cough: take a hair from the coughing person's head, put it between two slices of buttered bread, feed it to a dog, and say, "Eat well you hound, may you be sick and I be sound." Huh? Isn't that completely obvious??
Cows lifting their tails is a sure sign that rain is coming. I'd say it is the sign of a bad smell coming.
Pictures of an elephant bring luck, but only if they face a door. Does the elephant have to face the door, or the picture? What if the elephant is standing sideways in the picture. Do french doors count?
The dried body of a frog worn in a silk bag around the neck averts epilepsy and other fits. Hey, how come they never taught us that in Medical School?
If your nose itches, someone is coming to see you. If it's the right nostril, the visitor will be a female, left nostril, male. What if you have three nostrils?
A wish will come true if you make it while burning onions. Yeah, if your wish is that everyone would go away.
A spider is a repellent against plague when worn around the neck in a walnut shell. And that, my friends, is why I have never gotten the Plague!
If a woman sees a robin flying overhead on Valentine's Day, it means she will marry a sailor. If she sees a sparrow, she will marry a poor man and be very happy. If she sees a goldfinch, she will marry a millionaire. If she sees a cockroach flying overhead, she'll marry a lawyer. If she sees a cow flying overhead, it means she is about to get hurt.

I had a chief resident who really thought that there was some sort of cosmic event that happened when you said "gosh, it's really slow tonight" that caused it to become busy. I would tease him, saying "gosh, we haven't had six codes in the same night for a long time!"

Any other odd superstitions?

I'll get the Special...

2006-10-12T08:11:00.000-04:00

I have previously posted about interesting use of recreational drugs. Now it seems there is a growing trend in the fast food industry related to this:

Police find burgers sprinkled with pot

Three workers at a Burger King restaurant were arrested after two Isleta tribal police officers discovered that the hamburgers they ordered were sprinkled with marijuana.
The Isleta Police Department officers ate about half of their burgers Sunday before discovering marijuana on the meat. The officers used a field test kit to confirm the substance was pot, then went to a hospital for a medical evaluation.
The three Burger King employees — Justin Armijo, 19; Robert Nuckols, 21; and manager Joseph Ledesma, 33 — were arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and aggravated battery on an officer, a felony.

This brings new meaning to the old expression "Have it your way." It seems to me that this is a clever ploy to get repeat business. Once these customers start consuming these burgers regularly, they will find they start to have a really strong craving for more burgers. It is a marketing stroke of genius!

One clue that this may not have been a BK on the "up and up" was the "Rastafarians Welcome" sign in front of the restaurant, as well as the Bob Marley music playing over the PA system.

Once the burger joints get an idea, the Mexican restaurants are soon to follow:

Woman accused putting drugs in burrito

A woman who brought a burrito to a friend in jail has been accused of using the burrito to try to smuggle in heroin. Rosemary Gonzales, 42, is charged with bringing contraband into a place of imprisonment. Bond was set at $5,000.
Corrections officers found a hypodermic needle inside the burrito that Gonzales brought Tuesday to a female inmate at the Rio Arriba County jail, according to a report filed in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court.
Officers rinsed off the needle and discovered a brown substance that later tested positive for heroin, the report said.

Now I have heard of a "super value meal," and it is common practice to have a "kid's meal" with a prize inside, but since when have they been offering "inmate's meals??" The slogan would go: "Get a hypodermic needle free with every burrito purchased." Well, I suppose they'd get repeat customers.

Finally, after you have had your hamburger and burrito, you need some dessert to cap it off:

Green substance not pistachio ice cream

The ice cream container had a green substance in it, but it wasn't pistachio. Jackson
County's sheriff's office said a woman was arrested Sunday for trying to bring
marijuana hidden in an ice cream container to an inmate.
Lacheral Williams, 27, was charged with the introduction of contraband to a correctional facility after she was searched by an employee at Sunland Pathways, sheriff's Major John Dennis said.
Authorities said they found "a green leafy substance" in a pint-sized ice cream container Williams had brought with her when she came to visit a resident of the forensic unit for developmentally disabled offenders.
No one else was charged because the marijuana never made its way to a resident, authorities told the Jackson County Floridan.
The 34-bed Sunland Pathways facility is surrounded by a fence with razor wire, and is meant for offenders who have been judged high-functioning but borderline entally
retarded.

So at Baskin Robbins, the Flavor of the Month is "Ganga Surprise." There is not a mention of there being a hypodermic needle included when you purchase, so the Mexican places have a leg-up on the ice cream shops - certainly with the inmate population.

Finally, here is just another Really Stupid Person story:

Man allegedly tells police he stole pot
A man who police say was caught with two pounds of marijuana allegedly told officers the drugs weren't his because he stole it.
Bradley Robison, 18, of Cedar Rapids, was charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and failure to affix a drug tax stamp.
When police found him with the marijuana he said he had stolen it from a nearby business that he had just broken into, court records show.
Linn County Attorney Harold Denton said it doesn't matter how Robison got the marijuana — only that he had it.
"If you steal it, you steal it and you possess it," Denton said. "It's a double whammy."
Robison was caught by officers after they saw him running from the area early Tuesday morning, police said.
A burglary charge was being considered but had not been immediately filed.
The investigation also led to a possession with intent to deliver charge being filed against Ruban Rivas, 36, no address given, for allegedly having the marijuana at the business that Robison broke into, court records show.
Both men were taken to jail but later released.

Well what can I say? Is this proof enough for us to show that drugs kill brain cells? What did he expect the police to say, "Oh, I didn't realize you had stolen the pot. Having drugs is OK as long as you steal it. You may go."?

They never mentioned what kind of store he stole it from. I wonder if it was a Burger King? One thing is for sure, he has a long career ahead of him in the fast-food industry.

Stick to it

2006-10-11T08:24:00.000-04:00

I learned to draw silly faces while in boring classes. I remember doodling endlessly in certain classes to pass the time. I would say that I was paying attention, but the fact is, I never did all that good in these boring classes. Fortunately, I was able to overcome my doodling and get into medical school.

To my delight, I found that this odd talent could be very useful in pediatric practice. I now put young children at ease by drawing a silly face on a tongue depressor and making it kiss them on the nose. This usually gets a smile and gives them something to play with. Some kids have kept these sticks for months after I gave them one. Others ask for different faces on both sides of both ends (I am not talented enough to draw 4 different pictures like this, but I do my best).

Much of pediatrics is about creating comfort. There are some children who scream no matter what you do. There was a period of time where I took care of several of these children who went to my church. The problem was that they would scream loudly whenever they saw me, even in church. This was somewhat annoying for me and very embarrassing for the parents. Most children, however are capable of being drawn in if you are creative enough.

For almost as long as I have practiced, I have had a Scooby Doo sticker on my stethoscope. This is a lot of fun for kids, making them less scared of this otherwise medically intimidating object. I have Scooby kiss their back and chest while I am auscultating their lungs and heart. This at least gets me a few seconds. Since I am also an internist, it is interesting to see the reaction from the older segment of my patient population. I have yet to hear complaints about it, but I doubt they would complain about it to me. I am who I am, however. I am not a formal guy (I posted earlier about wearing sandals), foregoing the tie and white coat for the more casual look. If patients don't like it, they can find another doctor. I have 5000+ who do like it, so I am satisfied.

Stickers are especially important. I am fanatical about having good stickers in the office. For boys, having Spider Man (more popular than Batman and Superman), Hot Wheels, and some sort of heavy construction equipment stickers is a must. For girls, Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, and Dora the Explorer stickers are equally important. A mini-crisis ensues if we are without these. For the 6-8 year old boys, I like to hand them a Barbie sticker and see their reaction. They treat it like it is coated with Ebola virus or radioactivity. The parents get a good laugh.

I often find that the younger children are more comfortable if you give them a sticker before starting your exam. Getting a gift can improve the visit considerably. I am also fond of tickling children. I have said that pediatrics is one of the only professions where you can tickle someone without being arrested. You have to pick and choose who you tickle, but doing so has gotten me labelled by some children as the "tickle doctor" (others have called me "doctor macaroni" for the fact that I find it in their ears).

The bottom line is that I like the kids to see the experience as enjoyable and even fun. I know that this is not always possible. Cleaning out ears and giving shots can greatly dampen my public relations efforts. Some children are not ever charmed. But it is the laughter and smiles that makes pediatrics so enjoyable for me, and such a nice contrast to my internal medicine practice.

We do not EVER give Precious Moments stickers
They are of the Devil!

A Child by any other name...

2006-10-09T15:55:00.000-04:00

I never knew it, but one of the hardest things to decide was what to name our children. The name sticks for the rest of their lives, so we took care to do the best for them we could. We chose fairly traditional names, but many choose to choose other types. I would group names in the following categories:

Traditional - These are biblical names or older names, like David, Jonathan, Elizabeth.

"Trendy" names - As a pediatrician, you see these waves of certain names come across. For a while it was Courtney, or Ashley. After that, the trend became naming girls with traditionally boy's names (Taylor, Michael)

Family names - Naming kids after parents or other family memebers. This is very common in the south. I actually never knew before getting here that many of the common nicknames were based on the "Number" after the name. For instance: Deuce, or Junior are for John Smith, Jr. Trey or Tripp for III. Corder for IV - that is one I had not heard much about.

Weird names - For some reason, people feel there are names that are "fun" to name their kids. I am not sure why they would do this, but they seem to put their desires ahead of what would be best for the child. A good example is as follows:

Sports fan names newborn son ESPN
Sat Oct 7, 9:16 AM ET
Leann Real promised her husband, an avid sports fan, that if they ever had a son he'd get to pick the name. ESPN Montana Real was born this week at Biloxi Regional Medical Center.
Rusty Real, of D'Iberville, chose ESPN (pronounced Espen) after the sports network and Montana after football legend Joe Montana.
Baby ESPN isn't alone.
Three others were cited in a 2005 report on tivocommunity.com about the network's 25th anniversary. They are Espn Malachi McCall in Pampa, Texas; Espn Curiel in Corpus Christi, Texas; and Espn Blondeel in Michigan.
"We were the talk of the hospital," Rusty Real said. "The nurses kept asking my wife if she was really going to let her husband name him ESPN. She said, 'Oh, yes.'"

What are they going to name their other kids, Food Network? Spice? Golf Channel? This really falls into the "get a life" category. I am well aware that there are a lot of kids down south named after Nascar Drivers (I had one kid named "Chase" after the Nascar Chase for the cup).

Some mythical names are infamous in the pediatric comminity that I am aware of are:

Orangejello and Lemonjello - accent is on the 2nd syllable.

Neisseria - Named after the bacteria that causes gonorrhea

Aquanet - Named for hairspray

Female - the myth goes "dad saw it on the band on the child's arm, and thought it was the name." Again, accent on 2nd syllable

I heard about a family with the last name of "Updegrave" and they named their kids Doug, Phill, and a few others I can't remember

A website with more names can be found here.
OK - now I want to hear some more stories in this way.

For Cathy

2006-10-06T19:00:00.000-04:00

A flash of anger went across his face. With no warning, Fred’s whole day had changed. What had started as a drive in the country had now turned into a visit to the dark lord himself. “How could this be? Why would this happen to me?” He thought.

Slowly he opened the door and walked to the front of the car. The cow lay dead in front and blocked his way to help. Fred shook his head and sighed. “I didn’t even hit it that hard. I thought I had stopped in time. What was that cow doing in the middle of the road anyhow?” The cow just lay there, silent, unmoving.

He had been warned about this, in a sense, by a dream he had just two nights before. In the dream he had been flying over the city wearing only his underwear and a bandana on his head. He was suddenly surrounded by a herd of cows – all flying chaotically around him. He swerved up, down to avoid them, but they kept on coming. In the background was the sound of barking. The barking was not the happy barking that greeted him at home in the form of his dog Sparky, it was an evil-sounding bark. The coldness of the sound froze him to his soul.

Boom! He ran into one cow, which fell to the ground. Boom! Another cow. Soon he could not avoid hitting cows and they each fell perilously to the ground, landing on homes, cars, and people. Screams rose from the ground as the cows continued to fall, but Fred could not avoid them. The sound of screams rose, but the evil sound of barking was never lost in the din.

Fred had awakened with a start and with the faint smell of bananas lingering in his head. What had this dream meant? He asked his wife, but she just suggested going up on his lithium dose. He asked his friend Harold, but he was distracted by some sad story about a dead llama in Oakland. Harold liked llamas a lot, so Fred knew he just had to find someone else to help.

Finally he went to his pastor, Brother Pete, who had played a very important role in Fred’s finding the job at the suction-cup factory. Pete would understand.

After having the dream related to him, Brother Pete scratched his chin and thought. “I remember when my brother Barney had a dream like this. Boy, was that ever a strange dream! He was covered in taco sauce and licked by cows and dogs who were singing Jewish folk songs.”

“Really? What happened to him after that dream?” Asked Fred.

“He was arrested for public nudity. Yeah, he was sleep walking and went out on the street and stripped naked so he could get the taco sauce off of himself and escape the cows and dogs. A neighbor saw him and called the police. They didn’t believe his story and thought he was some kind of drug addict.”

“So what does that have to do with my dream?”

“I have no idea,” answered Brother Pete, “but it sure was a hard thing to tell our mother why he was not there for Thanksgiving. Anyhow, I don’t think you have anything to worry about with this dream. People have dreams about flying cows and barking dogs all the time, and they are just fine. Really, it is one of my most common areas of counseling. I was going to preach my next sermon on it, using the text about the dog returning to his own vomit. It’s one of my favorite verses.”

Fred left Brother Pete more confused than when he came. Does everyone really dream about this? How come I have never heard of it before? He walked along the quit streets of the town thinking to himself. His quiet thoughts were interrupted with a sound.

“Psst! Hey, you…guy with the funny slouch.”

Fred felt indignant. “I don’t slouch! I have great posture!”

“Yeah, yeah, they all say that. Come over here!”

“Where are you? I can hear you, but I can’t see anything.”

“Over here, at the holly bush.”

Fred walked cautiously toward the bush and looked carefully. Two yellow eyes stared up at him from the bramble.

“Don’t come any closer. I can’t let them see me. I have some alarming news to tell you. You are being watched by some shady characters.”

“What, me?” asked Fred. “Why would they be following me?”

“You carry information that some very powerful people want to get hold of. Did you have a strange dream lately?”

“Well, yes. How did you know?”

“That’s not important,” replied the voice, still in a whisper. “That dream contained information that can put some very powerful people behind bars for a long time. They want to get you and I am here to tell you how to escape.”

Fred stood motionless. Was he to trust this strange voice and the strange information it gave him? How did it know about the dream? “Who are you?” Fred asked, hoping to get some glimpse of the face behind the voice from the bush.

“That’s not important. What is important is that you follow my instructions closely. Your life may depend on it. Tomorrow at exactly 2 PM, tell your wife that you are going to the grocery store and take your car out to Old Foonman Road toward the quarry. When you cross the old canal, turn right onto the dirt road that goes alongside the canal. Someone will be there to give you further instructions. That is all I can tell you. I am gone now!”

“Wait, I need to know more!” Fred cried out, but the voice was gone and only silence remained.

That night, he slept restlessly. Would he have another dream? Should he follow the instructions given to him by that mysterious voice in the bush? What about the Jewish folk songs?

He awoke that morning again smelling the faint odor of bananas. His wife was in the kitchen when he walked in. “I smell bananas. Are you cooking something?”

“Fred, have you cut back on your lithium again? I told you to stay on the dose doctor Richardson recommended.”

Fred ignored her remark about the lithium. It was always her way out of difficult questions. He was used to it.

When 2 O’clock came around, Fred nervously told his wife he was off to the store and left before she could make another comment about lithium. He drove cautiously down Old Foonman Road and across the old canal. He turned onto the dirt road. Where was the person with the instructions? Fred looked around to find this person. When he looked forward again, he was suddenly confronted by the imposing figure of a large cow. He slammed on his brakes, but could not avoid hitting it. The cow fell to the ground with a great thud.

As Fred surveyed the damage, he heard a rustle in the trees next to his car. From the woods there came the racing figure of a dog with a small monkey on its back. The monkey was wearing an army helmet and smelled vaguely of bananas. He heard a loud laugh and an evil-sounding bark as the dog leapt through the open door of his car. The cow suddenly jumped up and ran to the side of the road. The door slammed shut and the dog hit the gas.

“Wheeeee….! See ya later, sucker! They fall for it every time!”

This yell came from the lips of the dog. He recognized the voice. It was the same one who whispered to him from the bush the night before. The car sped off as the dog and monkey sped off down the dirt road in his car. Fred saw the car swerve to the left, then to the right. Finally the car flew over the bank of the canal and into the water.

Fred ran to the edge of the water and watched as the dog and monkey narrowly escaped from the car as it sunk to the bottom of the canal. “I told you not to trust the dog’s driving,” yelled the cow to the monkey, as the primate swam to the far side.

Fred’s head spun with the rapid events of the last minute. That dog had tricked him into bringing his car out here. The cow and the monkey were in on it too! That dog had lied to him so that he could steal his car!

He started sobbing quietly to himself. “What has my life come to? What will I tell my wife?”

He was an innocent victim of a lie told in silence....

Jim, is that you?

2006-10-06T16:51:00.000-04:00

Jim the Mediocre Emu just posted on this blog. Well, what happens but I open up my homepage and read this article:

Wayward emu captured at W.Va. school

2 hours, 2 minutes ago
No kids, that's not Big Bird from Sesame Street. It was an emu that wandered onto the Anne Bailey Elementary School grounds near St. Albans Thursday afternoon.
No one seems to know where the bird came from, but a Charleston doctor has agreed to take the bird to his farm and release it.
Kanawha County deputies came by and helped cage it after school officials called numerous agencies asking what to do about the bird.

I think this is more than just a coincidence. Emus just don't appear in West Virginia (that I know of). If there are any readers from West VA that know otherwise, please let me know. Is WVA the "Emu appearing state?" Does Jim have an explanation for me? I wan't to know!

THEN I get a blog post from Fergie the Consternate Alapaca, and this article comes around:

Judge dismisses alpaca paternity lawsuit

A judge dismissed a lawsuit filed over the paternity of a baby alpaca, but the ruling might not mark the end of the barnyard soap opera. Cathy Crosson sued in Monroe Circuit Court to get the owners of an Illinois breeding farm to disclose which of its male alpacas sired the year-old offspring of her prized female, Peruvian Lily of the Incas.
She accused Likada Farms, of Wayne, Ill., of improperly breeding Peruvian Lily and then refusing to identify the offspring's father. Without the male's name, Crosson said she cannot register or sell the young alpaca.
But Monroe Circuit Judge E. Michael Hoff said this week that Crosson's case was filed in the wrong venue. He said the out-of-state farm does not do enough Indiana business for the suit to be valid in Monroe County.
Attorney Bob Mann, who represented Likada Farms, was happy with the judge's decision to dismiss the case.
"We got what we asked for," Mann said.
However, because the case was dismissed without prejudice, another lawsuit can be filed. Crosson said Thursday that she plans to continue her court battle to discover the father of the baby alpaca.

It seems that Alpacas have relationship problems. First Fergie has problems with Steve Simmonshire, then Peruvian Lilly of the Incas gets intimate with a "non-approved" alapaca (presumably not of the Incas). This tryst could really complicate the royal line of the Incan Alpacas. I am sure that the tabloids are soon to get wind of this, as they have a love for royalty.

Perhaps just having a fancy name like Alpaca, Emu, or Llama goes to the head of the critter at times. I am still real loyal to llamas as a species, but all of this craziness has me scratching my head.

Some dogs go to heaven

2006-10-05T09:08:00.000-04:00

Holly (my informant) wants me to point out that not all dogs are bad. Take the following article, for example:

Dog and Goat Team Up to Save Farmer's Life after Cow Knocks Him into 'the Poop'
BENALLA (Australia) — Here's a news item that reads like a twisted version of "Old MacDonald".
Noel Osborne had a farm (e-i-e-i-o). And on that farm he had a cow (e-i-e-i-o). On Oct. 8, the cow apparently knocked him into a pile of manure, breaking his hip and rendering him immobile. He might have died if not for his faithful dog and pet goat who took care of him for five days until help arrived.
According to the Herald Sun, Mr. Osborne, 78, endured storms, cold nights and hot days as he lay incapacitated in the open field with severe injuries. He was kept sheltered by huddling between his goat "Mandy" on one side and his dog (also named "Mandy") on the other. For nourishment, he subsisted on milk from the goat.
(Too bad they weren't in a wheat field, or the dog could've fixed him some collie flour.)
Mr. Osborne describes his ordeal: after the cow had bumped him into "the poop," he called for help, but no one was around.
"I couldn't move," he says. "I yelled and yelled but nobody could hear.
"That evening the goat came and I was able to get hold of an old bottle and I milked her into the bottle and I was able to have a drink. She slept there beside me every night I was there."
The other Mandy (the dog) also curled up with him to provide warmth and reportedly brought him some old bones as he lay waiting for help ("No, Mandy —I said 'phone!' ").
Finally on Oct. 13, some friends stopped by Mr. Osborne's remote property and found him weak and delirious but still alive thanks to his four-legged pals. Thanks to an ample supply of goat's milk, Mr. Osborne's ba-a-a-ad experience did not end in feta-lity. He was taken by ambulance to Benalla and District Memorial Hospital and treated.

First, I would like to apologize about the stupid humor in this article. It is moderately nauseating. The point must be taken, however that the dog and goat are heroes. I don't know if the goat was a good influence keeping the dog from going to the dark side (kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi). But it heartwarming to see how the animals stood by their man. It is also apparent that the cow was not so influenced by the goat in a good way, trying to bump off the farmer.

A couple of other observations:

This guy named both his goat and cow Mandy. I am not sure if he was a big Barry Manilow fan prior to this, but he certainly is now. Since he is from Australia, I am surprised he did not name them all Bruce or Shiela. It is not clear in the article if the cow was named Mandy as well.
I hope a cow bumps the writer of this article into the "Poop" after writing this hideous article.
Rumor has it that this dog has subsequently been shunned from the secret dog society meetings and has not been able to get into a driver's ed class since this incedent.

Let me end with a tribute to these fine animals:

Yesterday's a dream
I face the morning
Crying on the breeze
the pain is calling, oh Mandy

Well you came and you gave without taking
but I sent you away,
oh Mandy
well you kissed me and stopped me from shaking
And I need you today, oh Mandy

Please, no weeping on the keyboard.

Ha, Ha, Mandy, I am going to drive a car when I grow up!

My informant

2006-10-04T05:29:00.000-04:00

Yes, Laundress, Holly is half Shar-Pei, half Yellow Lab. She has kept be abreast of any conspiracies she has caught wind of. She is highly dedicated to my wife (In fact, we finally understand the expression "dogging someone," as she never lets Terri out of her sight), and a good watch dog. Here she is contentedly sitting on the deck at the cottage up in Michigan (one of her favorite spots in the world).

Come on, you have trouble taking me seriously???

Planet of the Dogs?

2006-10-03T13:19:00.000-04:00

The evidence just keeps piling up:

Joyriding Dog Drives Garbage Truck into River
GREENVILLE, NH — Most dogs just tear up the trash. "Bear", a 3-year-old Newfoundland, went so far as to dump a truckload of trash—as well as the truck—into the Souhegan River.
Now that's what I call an overachiever.

Just after 4:30am on Thursday morning, a 10-wheeled trash compactor truck smashed through the guardrails on Adams Street and landed nose first in the river below. Behind the wheel, unharmed but rather excited, was the furry, four-footed perpetrator of the crime.

Again, if a baby were driving this truck, he probably would have done just fine (as outlined in a previous post). Why must people continue to be so trusting of these dogs?? They are overcome with a sense of power when left alone at the wheel. You might just as well throw a steak in front of them.

Equally scary...

Dog and Cows Steal Pickup Truck

ALVA, OK (USA) — According to an article in NewsOK, a gang of farmyard car-thieves pulled off the animal heist of the century when they cleverly liberated a man of his pickup truck. While one cow created a roadside diversion on Lyle Sneary's Oklahoma farm, prompting Mr. Sneary to exit his truck, "Rancher" the dog locked the doors and took off. Meanwhile, adding insult to absurdity, the rest of the herd of cows charged at the hapless man.

It would've been the perfect crime, except that the dog crashed the truck into a tree several yards down the path.

"That part of the day I was not real happy," says Mr. Sneary.

Some time after the incident, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Chris West stopped by the house and assessed the situation, reporting: "I'm going to have to revoke Rancher's driver's license."

Mr. Sneary describes how he and Rancher, a Blue Heeler, were feeding cattle in a pasture when the dog noticed a cow that was down. The two drove to the heifer, and Mr. Sneary left Rancher inside the pickup truck while he went to check on the cow.

He managed to get the cow back on her feet and fed her some hay. That's when the rest of the herd began to charge toward him, coming for the food.

The farmer started yelling and waving at the herd, causing Rancher to get excited inside the cab of the pickup truck. First the dog jumped on the automatic door lock, locking the vehicle. Then he jumped on the dash, knocking the gear shift out of park. Then he stomped on it.

When Mr. Sneary saw the truck moving, he jumped onto the sideboard and tried to reach inside the window to control the vehicle, but it was heading straight for a tree.

At the last instant, the man bailed out and rolled into a field where he watched his truck slam into the tree, smashing the front end.

The man and dog had to walk a mile and a half to a telephone so they could call Mrs. Sneary.

Lyle... you've got a lot of 'splainin' to do!

I think this is a picture of the dog flying out of the truck while

the cow watches on in horror

People think I am just going off the deep end on this consipracy thing, but THIS STUFF IS REAL!!! There is also another reference to the horizontal cow phenomenon seen in Belvidere, NE (pop 98). I suspect some sort of telepathic bond between the cows and the dog. It is clear that this was a well-planned event, even with the stampede of cows attacking the farmer (who is a blue heel...I think there is a cream you can use to get rid of that). Yet the brash overconfidence that the dog shows is evident as he once again crashes the truck.

Notice too that the man had his license taken away. It is commonly felt among the police that people should be held responsible for their dog's behavior. When a dog commits a crime, the owners are held negligent as having poorly trained the dog. The options here are that they should have trained the dog better to obey its master, or they should have first enrolled him in drivers ed.

Finally, the most scary news...

Man Shot to Death. Prime Suspect: Dog

(Date unverified) Bad Uracht, Germany
A German man was fatally shot in his car after a hunting expedition. Police found the murder weapon on the car seat where the man had apparently placed it.

Investigators believe the culprit to be the man's dog who evidently jumped on the gun when entering the car, causing it to discharge.
No witnesses could be found, and the dog is refusing to speak

This picture was found in the glove box of the car. Apparently the
police covered up the part about the monkey with the bazooka.
Yikes! That is scary!

The dog carried out his plan just like he wanted to. The only problem was that the man had the keys in his pocket, and a dog without opposable thumbs can't get a hold, so he was stuck to be
caught red-pawed at the scene of the crime.

As an aside, who would move to a town named "Bad Urach?" It is two miles away from Good Urach, which is much cleaner and has a working sewer system. Maybe the dog was just upset at living in such a bad town? I have to say, I couldn't blame him if that were the case.

Overall, this scares me to death. These dogs are getting bolder by the day. People and Llamas of the world need to band together and protect ourselves from this devious plan to take over.
I just hope the Air Force is keeping the dogs out of the cockpits of their fighter jets!

Here are a few more worrisome pics:

The cows, tired of the poor track record of driving dogs,
are trying other novel means of transportation.

"Okay, now you do that horizontal thing and get him
out of the truck and I'll take it from there..."

Bring your mama, buy a llama

2006-10-02T08:13:00.000-04:00

Wow. My life has just been shaken to the core. Read below:

Dead Llama Mystifies Oakland Officials
A dead llama found in the streets has left city officials wondering how the South American animal ended up abandoned in an urban area.

At first, East Oakland residents assumed the 400-pound animal with black and white spots was a horse and called the city's animal control department to report the find.

"At first it looked like a horse — all we saw was a head sticking out from a tarp," said Andrew Gordon, with Oakland's Animal Control Field Services. "But I looked at it closely, and I said, 'Look at the ears — that's a llama.' "

The llama's legs were tied up and it was covered with a tarp, but it appears to have died of old age, Gordon said.

Residents of the Oakland hills sometimes keep llamas, who are members of the camel family, as pets.

"I can't think of any reason someone would just dump it," he said. "People who have animals that good usually have money."

But Gordon said he probably wouldn't spend much time solving the mystery of the llama.

The animal doesn't seem to have suffered abuse, and since it wasn't branded he does not know where to start looking for the owners.

What they do not understand is the significance of finding a dead Llama in an urban area. Llamas are tremendously amazing creatures, inspiring great passion in many around the world. Why would this llama have died of old age in the middle of Oakland? I can see why someone might want to get out of Oakland as quickly as possible, but to die under a tarp? I think there is trouble afoot.

Here is another story about someone in Maine having their pet Llama named Ginger murdered. Well, a follow-up article reveals more startling news:

The llama plot thickens

Remember the slain pet llama in North Anson? Sure you do.

In the latest development in the case, the principal of School Administrative District 74 has been disciplined for showing students photos of the dead llama. Mary F. Adley convened an assembly and showed the photos to students on an overhead projector in an apparent attempt to get students to tell authorities whether they knew anything about the case. School authorities had been told that a Carrabec Community School student was under investigation for the crime and the photos were left with them — but not to share.

William "Fig" Newton, animal-control officer in Anson, said two juveniles were seen leaving the scene of the crime.
[SAD 74 Superintendent Regina P.] Campbell confirmed there was a tip from Newton that a seventh-grader was among Carrabec Community School students under investigation.

(Aside: William "Fig" Newton! As if this story could GET any better.)

Parents are upset by the incident and Newton says that the investigation has been compromised because of it. Parent Kimberly Collins of Anson in particular didn't find the presentation appropriate. "She showed photos on an overhead projector of an animal with its throat slit and its side gushing out," she said.

So kids are showing pictures of dead Llamas in school? I have heard about kids sharing bad pictures with each other, but this is not what I had in mind. I tried to find a follow-up on this article, but was unable. My suspicion is that the juvenile delinquents that perpetrated this crime have since moved to Oakland. If only William "Fig" Newton were on the case in Oakland!

What's so upsetting about all of this is the fact that llamas are the gentlest of God's creatures. How many times have you heard of a llama getting drunk or stealing a car? Never. Have you ever heard news about people getting killed by falling llamas? Of course not. I really believe that llamas are our best defense against the cow-dog-monkey conspiracy I have written about in previous articles.

Here are some facts I have learned about llamas:

1. Llamas have been used as guard animals. This sounds great, but the following article highlights the folly of this practice:

Some people are heavily promoting the use of llamas as guards for sheep and goats. They are ONLY talking about protection from single coyotes, not packs, coy-dogs, domestic dogs, wild pigs, bears, cougars, wolverines and wolves. Many of us feel using a llama as a guard is like offering predators an appetizer before the main course. I do not sell llamas as guards. I think the best protection you can get is a pair of guardian dogs to protect your herds of sheep, goats or llamas. And even guardian dogs have been killed by couger and bear. Good fencing is a must too, but even good fencing won't do the whole job. We all do the best we can, but sometimes it isn't enough. Following are a few stories of those who KNOW how vulnerable llamas are to attack by predators. And the most dangerous of all may be your neighbor's dog.

The article goes on to document the cruel murder of llamas by packs of dogs. Yes, dogs. Yet another bit of evidence as to the resistance to the conspiracy these gentle animals are offering.

2. Llamas like to sunbathe. This was news to me, and made me wonder how many times these sunbathing beauties are mistaken for dead llamas.

3. Llamas have been taught to square dance. A fascinating website describes one man's trek to find the famed dancing llamas (which are in Indiana, by the way).

The whole thing began in May, 1994. I was driving home from work while listening to the end of All Things Considered on National Public Radio. The last story they did that day was about a woman named Bea Kesling who runs a llama farm with her husband in Kokomo, Indiana. They raise llamas to sell as pets and farm animals, which was interesting but hardly newsworthy. But then the radio reporter uttered the words that changed my life: "She taught the llamas how to square-dance."

Yes, that's right -- square-dancing llamas. Square-dancing llamas? As described on the radio, people and llamas dance together as partners, and the llamas apparently love it. (Well, why shouldn't they?) The NPR report was publicizing an annual llama square-dance scheduled for Mother's Day. Why Mother's Day? Well, they had a nifty slogan for the event: "Bring your mama, buy a llama."

As I listened to this, I was laughing so hard I almost drove my car off the road. Without a doubt, this was the funniest, most wonderfully ludicrous thing I'd ever heard of. In my mind I pictured big animals doing fancy dance moves, furry John Travoltas kicking up their heels to country-western music. Yes, people were dying in Bosnia and the whole Earth was rotting away, but how can you possibly lose faith in the kind of world where, at any moment, a llama might be prancing around somewhere in Indiana, for no apparent reason?

The website goes on to describe his treck to Indiana and his sudden fascination with these furry friends, culminating in the grand llama square dance. It made me weep.

4. There is an incredibly powerful and influential llama called The Great llama, who has appeared in many films and has influenced many of the most powerful people in the world.

5. Another fine llama known as the Naked Dancing Llama gives sage advice about the art of frolicking and how it can help us in our day-to-day dreary existence. From the website:

NDL's core words of wisdom, as taught to him by the Supreme Llama, who rules the universe, spitting peanuts and playing the accordion..

The Grand Master Llama speaks out on:
Frolicking
"To frolic, as a llama would, is to live."
"You don't learn to frolic, you release the frolic within."
"They may say you cannot frolic. They may scorn you for frolicking in public places. I say, frolic by example, and others will follow suit."
"Life is short. Frolic hard."
"Don't frolic in the wet spots."
"We all frolic in the end."

Wow. Another tear hits my keyboard.

6. There is a delightful song about llamas called The llama song. It is not to be confused with the song by Monty Python (see below). I will be humming it for the rest of the week.

The llama is a quadruped which lives in big rivers like the Amazon. It has two ears, a heart, a forehead, and a beak for eating honey. But it is provided with fins for swimming. Llamas are larger than frogs. Llamas are dangerous, so if you see one where people are swimming, you shout: "Look out, there are llamas!"

7. You can view the world from a llamas perspective by watching life through the llamacam.

Well, that's the wrap on llamas. If you want to learn more about them, there is a very nice llama named Domino, who can answer any other questions you have. So join me in the rage about this finding of the dead llama in Oakland. Would they just close the case if they found the Pope dead on the street? Join me in the groundswell of support for our only hope against the evil plans of the dogs, cows, and monkeys.

Heaviness and Hurt

2006-09-28T18:07:00.000-04:00

Hurt so deep
Saber of emotion
Blade of pain
Cuts through the thin veneer
The skin we coat our lives with
Protecting us from the unwanted intruders
Of sickness, loneliness, emptiness
Fear

They walk in
Day after day, month, year
All hoping for a cup of cold water
To soothe their parched lips
The endless flow of need coming through the door
Tugs at my tired arm once again
Bidding me come, help
Hold

Some days are heavy
Room after room
Heart after heart
All with hands open and insides exposed
Bruised, bloodied, bludgeoned, buried in despair
Looking for slivers of hope
Looking for escape, relief
Rest

On my way home
Power totally drained
Thoughts on hold
I try to put down the load
Shoulders still aching from the weight
The heaviness of hurt, the immensity of pain
Turn to face my own life now
Take a deep breath in
Sigh

A painful honor
A noble burden
Standing in the gap
When all other hopes have disappeared
That I should share suffering tears
That I should hold hopeless hands
I’m not that special or wise
Just me, tired, insecure
Weak

No praise to give
Too deep, too real
I wonder why I have been called
To be the one they come to when others fail
I had no teachers in this lesson
Aside from my own scars
Healed wounds, yet hurting still
My many mistakes
Failures

Dying, hurting, scared, alone
It is my hand they come to hold
I can only give thanks
For the honor given
The weight can crush
I daily ask for strength
To carry some more loads
To hold some more hands
To open that door
Again

Gifted Child

2006-09-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

More kids and Cars:

Three-year-old buys pink convertible on eBay

Tue Sep 26, 9:30 AM ET

Jack Neal briefly became the proud owner of a pink convertible car after he managed to buy it for 9,000 pounds on the Internet despite being only three years old.

Jack's mother told the BBC she had left her password for the eBay auction site in her computer and her son used the "buy it now" option to complete the purchase.

"Jack's a whiz on the PC and just pressed all the right buttons," Rachel Neal said.

The seller of the second-hand car, a dealer from Worcestershire, was amused by the bid and agreed not to force the sale through.

"Luckily he saw the funny side and said he would re-advertise," Neal said.

The parents were wondering why 2000 "Tickle Me Elmo's" arrived at their house. I would think that there is some sort of verification process where knowing how to spell and read is required on e-bay.

Come to think of it, my dog has spent some time near the computer and we started getting Playdog delivered to our house last week. I was wondering about that.

All Ears

2006-09-26T22:06:00.000-04:00

Fellow bloggers, lend me your ears.

I can probably attribute a substantial percent of my lifetime income to ears (although I have never done the math). In pediatrics, otitis media (middle ear infection) is a staple for office visits during the winter, and otitis externa (swimmer's ear) is a frequent reason for visits during the summer. So I have spent a substantial amount of time (probably several weeks) of my life looking in people's ears - especially children.

Over the years, I have made several observations. First I have noted that people tend to be very apologetic about the wax in their ears. I am not certain why this is the case, as it is a natural condition to have wax in the ears, in fact the absence of wax can cause problems (I once heard that wax keeps bugs out of people's ears, but I could not verify it). People often say something like, "I'm sorry about my ears. I didn't get to clean them out." What are they thinking? Do they really think I am offended by the sight of wax? I got some understanding of why people apologize in this situation when I went to get my teeth cleaned and found myself apologizing for the tartar on my teeth. Same thing.

Second, there are a number of odd things I have discovered in ears. Kids tend to put things in their ears and never tell people about it. I have found beads, breakfast cereal, and other assorted small objects in the ear canal. One older gentleman had a toothpick in his ear that he did not know about. The worst thing is when cockroaches get in ears. I usually get my nurse to irrigate ears, but with roaches I just do it without telling her as she has a strong aversion to these critters (as we say in Georgia). Roaches enjoy the warm and dark atmosphere, but can't back out well and so usually die (maybe the wax kills them).

One of the most important skills for a pediatrician is to clean wax out of ears. This is an acquired skill that you perfect over years of practice. Since otitis media is a common problem, it is important to get a good look at the eardrum. We use a tool called a "cerumen spoon" - cerumen is the fancy-schmancy name for earwax - and dig wax out of the ear. Sometimes this is an easy task (easier for adults than children), but sometimes it is a high-decibel experience which leaves both parent and pediatrician physically and emotionally exhausted. Occasionally the ear canal is very sensitive and bleeds when you clean it. I hate it when this happens, because it is hard to explain to parents why you caused the child to bleed from their ear. An interesting phenomenon which happens when you clean some people's ears, they have a strong need to cough. This is a phenomenon called Arnold's Reflex, caused by a branch of the vagus nerve going to the external ear canal. Why it decided to be this way is a mystery to me, but Dr. Arnold has to be happy because let him go down in posterity (I always felt sorry for Dr. Cowper). As an aside, one of the causes of chronic cough is earwax or a hair on the eardrum - due to our dear friend Dr. Arnold.

I generally don't mind cleaning out people's ears (even the children). When you get a "Mother Load" of wax out of someones ear, I have found the most common thing for people to say is, "Good Lord," followed closely by "Oh my God." I am not sure why wax brings out the religious side of people. Perhaps Dr. Arnold can explain that too. One thing I will never do is to clean out my own kids' ears. I did that once when they were young and it was terrible to have my wife watching with great suspicion as I subjected my son to external ear torture. I have never done that again.

Finally, I have found that I have made a progression over the years I have practiced as to what I say when I look in ears. Probably one in two adult patients (or parents of teenagers) say "can you see through to the other side?" when I look in the ear. I have resorted to saying "No, the spider webs are getting in the way." For young children, telling them you see something in the ear is a well-used way to get them to cooperate. Over the past 12 years I have made a progression of what I tell kids I see:

I started out seeing Barney in the ears - Even thought I detest this character almost as much as Precious Moments (that's saying something!), I found it was quite popular for a time. After a while, thankfully, the popularity of this fingernails-on-a-blackboard character waned and I no longer had to profane the air with his name.
Then I started saying I saw birdies or butterflies in the ears. This worked well with girls, but the boys just sneered.
I have tried multiple other characters, such as Dora, the Wiggles, and Sponge Bob (I never did stoop so low as to do Telletubbies), but their acceptance was never as wide as "He who should not be named" - the dinosaur thing.
My most popular ear finding is to say there is food in their ear. I have started saying I see peanut butter in the first ear, and another food in the second (usually macaroni and cheese or spaghetti and meatballs). This works up to older ages as well as the younger kids. They think it is absurd to have peanut butter in their ears. I ask them if they put it in there or if it squished out when they were eating. I get a lot of belly laughs from that.

I would love to hear any other interesting foreign body stories (keep it to the ears, please - no GI or GYN stories! I would also like to hear any other successful ear inhabitants used to calm the nervous child.

Just for my good friend Clark Bartram, I found a couple of interesting sites on the homeopathic and chiropractic treatment of ear problems. Simply astounding.

Humorous Picture

2006-09-25T17:52:00.000-04:00

I took this with my camera phone, so it is not the best quality, but it is interesting that they would offer both a weekend breakfast buffet and GC gift cards. It did not really sound too tempting to me. I wonder if they lace the eggs with penicillin.

The medical folks will all get this one. Other restaurants in this chain offer HPV and HSV gift cards. You know...the gift that keeps on giving! I hear their sales are not too brisk, however.

The Straight Dope

2006-09-23T22:09:00.000-04:00

OK, they do call it dope, don't they?

Man strolling with pot plants busted

Fri Sep 22, 9:03 PM ET

Aaron Janssen made it way too easy. Janssen, 36, was arrested on marijuana charges Thursday, after he was spotted taking a leisurely stroll through downtown, carrying his recently harvested pot plants.

Polk County Chief Deputy Mark Burdock said he did a double-take when he looked out his office window at the county jail and saw Janssen walking down the sidewalk, carrying his freshly harvested crop.

"I look out the window ... , and I see him walking north carrying a green leafy substance, all pulled up by its roots," Burdock said. "He was carrying it like you'd carry a bundle of presents. It was tall enough where he was looking over the top of them, and he's just walking like nothing's going on."

Burdock said he went outside and yelled at Janssen, who walked right over to him, still carrying the plants.

Janssen said the plants were part of his marijuana grown near the Des Moines River, but wouldn't say exactly where, Burdock said.

Deputies also found two two-pound bags of processed marijuana strapped to each of Janssen's legs, and a third wrapped in a sweater.

There is not really much I can say about this display of incredible intelligence. Is it cluelessness, or is it a drug-induced stupor? Does it matter?

OK, number two:

Mom properly jailed for letting baby smoke dope

Fri Sep 22, 4:10 PM ET

A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe on several occasions was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday.

Jessica Durham was photographed allowing her toddler Michala to suck from a marijuana water pipe, also known as a bong, in 2004 by a friend upset about the activity.

"Ms. Durham allegedly remarked that smoking improved Michala's appetite and left Michala lethargic and mellow - a manner she found consistent with her own experience smoking marijuana," Judge Louis Pollak of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in summarising the case.
In 2005, a lower court sentenced Durham to five years in prison for unlawful marijuana distribution. She appealed both the conviction and the sentence.

In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld the conviction but said the sentence exceeded the applicable federal law which calls for punishment of no more than two years in prison.

I give a lot of advice for the way to properly handle an 18-Month old. Typically these kids are throwing temper tantrums and are quite a handful (believe me, I have had 4 of them at home). This is a real novel approach. There have certainly been times when "lethargic and mellow" sounds just great. Improved appetite as well...hmmm.

Now, here is a good approach to snuff out the conspiracy:

Polish woman caught growing marijuana for cow

Fri Sep 22, 11:19 AM ET

A Polish woman who grew marijuana to calm the nerves of her cow has been charged with cultivating a narcotic by police in the western town of Lobez.

The cow had been "skittish and unruly" -- once breaking a person's arm -- until someone suggested mixing cannabis in with its feed, the woman told police.

"The cow became as calm as a lamb," the 55-year-old woman said, according to the PAP news agency.

The woman's plants, grown from seeds she bought at a market, reached nearly three metres (yards) tall and were extremely potent, police said.

Marijuana possession is a crime throughout Poland. The woman faces up to three years in jail if convicted.

What is most interesting here is the fact that the woman giving pot to the cow could get more time than the lady who had her baby sucking on the bong. I really think that the people of Switzerland ought to sit up and take notice. Just make Elsie real mellow. With all the controversy about cows fed hormones, this poses a different kind of problem.

I also wonder about the whole deal with the cows speaking with different accents. How would a cow on pot talk? "Well, like Mooo...." "Hey man, this cud just tastes great! I think, like, I might just chew it again." "Whoaaa. Am I seeing spots? No, that's just a Guernsey. Heh, heh, heh."

A Northern boy moves South

2006-09-21T19:39:00.000-04:00

I grew up in upstate (Rochester) New York. I loved to play in the snow, cross-country ski, and play hockey on the pond behind our house. I loved the cool fall days with the crisp crunching of leaves under my feet. I loved going to the cider mill and getting fresh apples, fried cakes, and cider. I thought I would always stay a northern boy.

But a funny thing happened: I got married. My wife was actually from Oklahoma and we met in Philadelphia (I was in Medical School - Jefferson, and she was just getting a change of scenery). After residency, we had to decide where to live. I wouldn't have minded going up north, but it was too far from her family. Thankfully, she really did not want to go back to Oklahoma (it would have been too far from my family and it did not really appeal to me). She has sisters in Charlotte and Asheville, and we felt that the Southeast would be a good compromise - planning on living in the Charlotte area. Well, we ended up in Augusta, GA; in the deep south. Quite a change from upstate New York!

Now I have lived here for 12 years, and I have a few observations about life in Dixie.

People up North say: "Isn't it hot down there?" Well, yes it is very hot in the summer, but the rest of the year more than makes up for it. There are 3 months of the year here when the weather is very hot and humid. You just stay inside. The evenings are cooler, and the pool is very nice. However, the spring starts in February and ends in May/June. Fall starts in September and goes to late November. These two seasons are absolutely gorgeous. We have mostly sunny days - twice as many sunny days that we had in Rochester. The winter up north is equivalent to the summer down here - you stay inside. But the nights are worse, and it lasts more than 3 months (in Rochester, at least). So when all is said and done, we have many more nice days (between 65 and 85) - probably 2-3 times more of them, than the northern states do. South 1, North 0
I thought I would miss the fall we had up North. I do. The colors in upstate are spectacular and the feeling of the chill on your face is very nice. However, nobody ever told me about the springs down south. It is a progression of color, starting with the cherry blossoms in March, progressing to the pear trees, wisteria, magnolia, lilies, and incredible displays of azaleas (for which Augusta is famous). It is just incredible to watch it unfold. So I call it a tie. South 1.5, North 0.5
Ever hear of Southern Hospitality? The south is well known for friendliness, and it is fairly well-deserved. I got some taste of this in Indiana, when I was surprised for people talking to me in the grocery store, but it is more so in the South. People just like to chat to strangers. It has probably gotten less over the years, as television has caused people to isolate more, but it still is a friendlier place to be. South 2.5, North 0.5
There is a Baptist church on every corner. Some may think that this is a good thing in my mind (since I am a religious person), but I actually have trouble with the style of religious practice in the South. It is more a culture than a belief. People are made to feel that only good people go to church. To me, that is like saying that only healthy people go to the hospital. As a physician I see many people disaffected by the guilt of "not being good enough," as they have lifestyle habits that go against the predominant culture. As a Christian, I see the shallow cultural Christian as being "inoculated" against appreciation of a more satisfying deep belief. Truthfully, I prefer the moral honesty of the North (as brutal as it may be to my kind). South 2.5, North 1.5.
The children say "Yes Sir" and "Yes Ma'am." I love this. My kids say it (although my older daughter is rebelling against it). I just feel like it is good for them to show some respect to us old folk. They also don't say "Mrs. or Mr. Johnson," they say "Miss Judy" or "Mr. Rob." I can take or leave that. South 3.5, North 1.5.
Racism is not as bad as advertised. The impression is that the South is polarized. The reality is that I have never lived in more integrated neighborhoods than I have down here. We have had many African American staff, and there has been little problems with it. I think the Black Middle Class is bigger down here than it was up North. There are, however, enclaves of terrible bigotry. One of my nurses (who is black) was delivering flowers to a patient at Christmas, and went into a mobile home park. She was greeted at the door by a man with a gun. He put it down when he realized who she was, but it was a scary moment. I see it like this: in Philadelphia, it was dangerous to be white and go to North Philadelphia (my friends had rocks thrown at their cars). In the South, there are dangerous places to go if you are not white. Most people down here, by the way, don't favor the use of the Confederate flag. It is just an obnoxious minority. Still, I will give the North a slight edge on this one due to these idiots. South 3.5, North 2.5.
I just like the way the Southern people talk more than the Northerners. South 4.5, North 2.5.
The South has grits, better Bar-B-Q, and Collard Greens (yecch). The North has chicken wings, bratwurst, Italian Sausage, and Philly Cheese steaks. A big Northern victory. South 4.5, North 3.5.

So I am overall glad to be down here. There are things I miss about the North, but the South is a great place to raise a family.

By the way, do you know where the term "Bubba" comes from? I did not know it until I moved down here. It is short for "brother" (the younger siblings call their big brothers "bubba"). I have no patients with the actual name "Bubba."

A Blight on Humanity Worty of only Disgust

2006-09-20T23:45:00.000-04:00

Yes, I am speaking of pajamas.

Pyjama-wearing a scourge of Shanghai life

Wed Sep 20, 2:35 AM ET

People wearing pyjamas in public, still a common sight in Shanghai, is one of the most irritating aspects of life in China's biggest city, according to an opinion poll of residents.

The survey found that pyjama-wearing on the streets and in public places such as shops, banks and parks is among the most uncivilised things in the city, along with aggressive pets, unhelpful neighbours and disregard for the natural environment,

Over 16 percent of respondents said they or family members often donned pyjamas in public, and 25 percent reported they sometimes did, Yang Xiong, a professor who helped conduct the poll, said on Wednesday.

The survey was sponsored by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the Shanghai Women's Federation.

Theories differ over why the practice of wearing pyjamas -- baggy cotton outfits which are often printed with flowers or small animals -- is so widespread in China's richest and most cosmopolitan city.

Some believe residents are showing off their social status by underlining how close to the city centre they live, while others say it is a holdover from life many decades ago in small, self-contained communities.

I have often seen pajamas as a scourge that approached that of mean animals, mean people, and people who don't care for the environment. Just the thought of these things makes me shudder. Why is so much time spent focused on violent crime, illiteracy, homelessness, and racism? We know the real problems in our society.

I almost am afraid to mention another even more terrible scourge on society: animals in pajamas. Dogs, cats, even squirrels are cropping up in pajamas terrorizing innocent people and making a mess of the environment in the process. Their contempt for anything decent is a thumbing of the nose (or at least a pawing of it) at all which is good, right, and just.

There is another scourge, almost as horrible, terrifying the people of China: Killer Toilets:

2 patrons knocked out by strange toilet odour
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-20 08:58

Two women felt faint for a moment late last week after going to a public toilet in a residential area of Beijing's Haidian District due to an unknown odour inside.

Seeing the women fall to the ground outside the toilet, police were called in.

Although cops said they might have been poisoned by marsh gas, a worker who went there minutes earlier without detecting the strange odour suspected that someone may have poured unknown chemicals into the toilet

A monkey in a nightgown was spotted at the scene, but not enough evidence was available to yet make an arrest. Two dogs are under surveillance.

Note how horrified both of these writers were in that they misspelled Pajamas and Odor. I think it is a veiled cry for help. Our dear friend Shinga has the same problem (with that Paediatrics thingy she did the other week). She is probably being stalked by a baboon in a bathrobe or something like that. Shinga, if you ever need us, we are here to help.

Chapter 2: Developments

2006-09-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

They came to Lucy's appartment. As Lucy unlocked the door, Bob tore into the evelope to find out what was in it. Among the contents he empited onto the kitchen table were the following: 20 paper clips, 2 pieces of string - one yellow and one white, a Breathe-Right strip that appeared to be used, a worn-looking piece of notebook paper folded tightly with "32" written in pencil on the exposed paper, a tag from a sofa that read "Removal of this tag is punishable under the law...", an assortment of Tic-Tacs, and a weather map that had been cut out of the newspaper.

They stood and stared at the contents, trying to make sense. After a few seconds Lucy turned red and exclaimed, "Bob, they are trying to frame us with that tag! We need to hide it so we don't get caught by the police."

Bob felt it best to ignore this train of thought and focused on the folded piece of paper. He inspected the outside. "Why do you think it has '32' on the outside of it?" he asked. He then slowly opened it up, revealing a hand-drawn map. "I have no idea what this map is of," he said. "It kind of looks like this is the coastline, and this may be a mountain range - but I am not sure what this is over here..."

"Hey, I think I hear some sirens. We need to get out of here" Lucy continued.
Bob started taking the string and laying it on the map. He was trying to see if it fit into the lines of the map, maybe giving a clue to the location that the map was describing, when there was a knock at the door.

Lucy gasped and hid behind the sofa.

Bob went over to the door and and opened it up. There was a police officer looking at him, rhythmically patting his club on his hand.

"So, you must be Bob," he said.

Aaarrrgh, I've Been Tagged!

2006-09-19T11:59:00.000-04:00

Shiver me timbers!

Thanks to Flea, that swarthy critter, I have something to write about. In Celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I smartly will be donnin' the tongue of the swabbers of the poop deck. So sit ye back as I tell about me music I favor.

When I was a wee lad, me Momma and Pappa favored the artistic life. Ole Paps played the bass fiddle and Mam tickled the ivories. They felt that as we were getting longer in the tooth we should take up the musical practice (so as to some day play in a saloon, per'aps).

Each of us slaved over the ivories and had another instrument to play. I played the Cello (the "middle fiddle" as we pirates like to call it). Now I strum the guitar to wile away the hours on the sea.

Okay, I have had enough of the pirate stuff. You get the point. Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Given the fact that I have had music as such an integral part of my life (I even started in college as a voice major), I have very eclectic tastes. In each musical style I could probably list 7 songs I like a lot. I cycle through different artists regularly on my I-Pod (one of the best purchases I have ever made, by the way). So, I do this with great pains in that I am leaving many wonderful songs out. Here goes:

Classical - The Moldau - by Smetena. This was a piece of music my father played often, and tells the story of a river in the Czech Republic that starts as a small mountain stream and eventually goes to the ocean. I remember on Captain Kangaroo they had this with pictures. It is just beautiful and also carries lots of childhood emotions.
Hymn - Rock of Ages - I did not really pay much attention to the lyrics until I heard it with a different melody. The original melody is very unimaginative and plodding. It tells of our unworthiness and the goodness of God.
Folk - When You Say Nothing at All - Alison Krauss and Union Station. This is one of the best love songs I have heard. I also just love to hear her sing.
Classic Rock - The Dangling Conversation - Simon and Garfunkel. Just incredible lyrics. Extremely poetic and creative with great melody, etc.
Jazz - Take Five - Dave Brubeck. This was a groundbreaking song done in the 5/4 meter. To those who don't know, that is 5 beats to a measure and is very unconventional. He, however, got this to sing so smoothly it just captures you. He had a hard time getting it published due to this odd meter.
Instrumental - Mombasa - Tommy Emmanuel. I saw him perform this on the PBS show Mountain Stage, which was my first exposure to this Australian artist. He is absolutely mind-bogglingly good at the guitar. On the TV version he does a long interlude where he uses his guitar as a percussion instrument.
My Favorite Artist, Bruce Cockburn - All the Diamonds in this World. My wife is always asking me to play this on my guitar. It is just a wonderful melodic song about his personal voyage. Whenever I play it for someone they comment on how beautiful it is.

Gosh, it was painful for me to leave out Rachmaninov, Brahms, Peter Gabriel, Coldplay, Jack Johnson, Nichole Nordeman, Yo-Yo Ma, Brooks Williams, etc. Aaaargh!

So now I give a big "Ahoy" to my Mateys I tag: Laundress, Skye, Enoch, Clark, TheTundraPA, Kim, and of course, Spooner. I hope they don't make me walk the plank!

Read the fine print

2006-09-18T18:40:00.000-04:00

While it is not a small town (population is 23,230), Gallatin, TN has distiguished itself in a way that is quite unique and worth mention:

Mayor's offer to film movie backfires

Fri Sep 15, 7:01 PM ET

When moviemakers told Gallatin, Tennessee, Mayor Don Wright they wanted to use his office to film a scene with a superheroine, he kindly obliged.

But Wright was startled when the movie's title, "Thong Girl 3," and his role in its making was splashed across the front page of Friday's editions of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

"I had no idea what the movie was about," Wright said on Friday. "They told me it was about a superhero woman and there was no nudity or offensive stuff in it. Other than that, I really didn't have a clue."

According to the Thong Girl Web site, heroine Lana Layonme wears a red thong under a cape as she flies over Nashville repelling a villain who is trying to turn country music performers into rappers. The movie is the third in a series released only on DVD.

"They said it was family friendly," said Wright who let the locally-based crew use his office for two hours. "We've had a lot of movies filmed in this area during the past few years. In fact, I think Sally Field was in one of them. Anyhow, I thought it was good for business."

Residents have not been unkind, Wright said.

"Well, it's sure true that no good deed goes unpunished but most of my e-mails about this haven't been bad."

Well...Thong Girl 3? How come I never heard about #'s 1 and 2? With a premise this plausable, it is hard to imagine this movie did not make it big.

So I want to know, what is the big deal about wearing thongs? They are good to wear when you walk out of the pool, keeping your feet nice and safe when you walk on the pavement. I just wonder how Lana flies without them falling off. Red thongs are quite stylish, however. I wore them as a kid. I would say they are Family Friendly.

What seems unrealistic to me is the fact that these Country stars are turned into rappers and she wants to change them back. Now, I am not big fan of rap, although some people think of me as a gansta, but it seems to me that this is a service to the music industry.

Now if they only would do something about Precious Moments...

Where the HECK is Waldo?

2006-09-15T15:07:00.000-04:00

Our first stop is in Waldo, AL, Pop 281, located in Talledega County

Demographics:
Males: 143 (50.9%), Females: 138 (49.1%)
Median resident age: 39.6 years
Median household income: $26,563 (year 2000)
Median house value: $57,200 (year 2000)
Nearest city with pop. 50,000+: Hoover, AL (53.1 miles , pop. 62,742).
Nearest city with pop. 200,000+: Birmingham, AL (54.4 miles , pop. 242,820).

Waldo is not far from the Talledega Superspeedway (home to many NASCAR races) and the Aniston Army Depot.

The community was named for the maiden name of the wife of the one of the Riddle brothers, founders.

Waldo is home to the Waldo Covered Bridge:

Waldo Bridge (1858) spans Talladega Creek in the Waldo community southeast of Talladega. The bridge was built at Riddle’s Mill, a gristmill operated by the Riddle brothers. The mill has been converted into a restaurant. Used by Wilson’s Raiders during the Civil War, the bridge is near Riddle’s Hole, an 1840 gold mine that continued operating until World War II.

Now Waldo, AL is not to be confused with Albert (or "Al") Waldo, professor of molecurlar cardiology at Case Western and the 13th Annual GordonK. Moe Lecturer.

By measure of both Dr. Waldo’s research and clinical interests, he is one of the major leaders in our field currently and has been for a long time. More importantly he helped to develop the field of clinical cardiac electrophysiology.

He sounds like an important guy, and I would name a town after him, but that has already been done.

Waldo is also home to the Old Mill Restaraunt. I had a hard time finding much about this reastaraunt, except the following two quotes:

One place in such peril is the covered bridge in Waldo, a historical landmark that sits next to the Old Mill Restaurant on Alabama 77.

Cindie Brewer, who owns the restaurant and surrounding property, said people come from miles around, with their road maps in hand, to see the historic landmark — even in its current dilapidated condition.

One of the oldest in Alabama, the bridge was built in 1858 and spans 115 feet over the creek, resting on two stone piers.

It was once traversed by people coming to and from town to get their corn ground into meal and has a history as rich as the homemade pie offered at the Old Mill Restaurant.

Mmmmm....Homemade pie!

That night, we went to the Old Mill Restaurant, whose specialty is ... fried catfish! I'd pigged out on fried catfish for lunch, so I went with a salad instead!

I agree with her choice - catfish even once in a day is a big task, but twice? I'd go with the pie.

This is what Waldo would look like if you were in a blimp.

In case you were wondering, the Administrative report for the Talladega Drum Removal Site in Waldo, Talladega County, Ala. is available for public review. I have a website to prove it.

There is another mysterious website that boasts to tell all about Waldo, but really it is devoid of information. It does, however, give the weather report for Redmond, WA. It has a cute picture of a cat as well.

Well, that's a wrap from Waldo. I am not certain if the most famous Waldo has ever been there. I am not sure if he was named after Albert or after one of the Riddle brothers' wife's maiden name. I would have to do more research. If you have any of this information, please let me know.

Small Towns

2006-09-15T12:18:00.000-04:00

I have found a delightful website that lists all sorts of interesting facts about small towns. Since I have been so enjoying the rompings of Spooner Jenkins, former mayor of Belvidere, NE (Pop 98), I thought it would be fun to learn more about these little towns and maybe uncover some humorous facts about them.

The truth is, the posting of silly articles is getting a bit stale, and I wanted to find another theme to go after. We'll see how this goes.

Watch your blind spot!

2006-09-14T16:39:00.000-04:00

Here's a neat little news item:

Blind man sentenced for dangerous driving

A blind man who was convicted of dangerous driving after he admitted being behind the wheel of a car that touched 35 mph was given a three-month suspended sentence on Monday.

Omed Aziz was also banned from driving for three years at Warley magistrates' court in Oldbury, West Midlands.

Aziz, 31, who lost his eyes after an explosion in his homeland of Iraq, had been driving by following instructions on where to steer and when to brake from a passenger who himself had been banned from driving.

When police stopped the Peugeot 405 in April this year after it had erratically negotiated two traffic islands and a corner, Aziz's passenger explained that his friend was blind.

When Aziz, who is also partially deaf, was asked to step out of the car and remove his sunglasses, the officer was surprised to see he did not have any eyes, the court heard earlier this month.

In his defence Aziz, who also suffers from leg tremors and has only two fingers on his right hand, said he was testing his driving abilities.

At an earlier hearing he had admitted driving with no MOT, no licence and no insurance.

Well, ban him for three years from driving. That will teach him! Don't you think that a lifetime ban for people without eyes may be more appropriate?

What about that second to last paragraph? How is it part of his defense to point out that he has leg tremors and two fingers on his right hand? Does that offset the fact that he is blind? It gives me little reassurance.

The last paragraph has me a little concerned. I often drive without a MOT. In fact, I have no idea what a MOT is and would not know a MOT if it fell on my head. Perhaps I should not admit that, since it would put me at risk. If any of you see my MOT, please tell me (I sure hope it is not something personal).

Finally, what better person to get to help you to drive blind than someone who had their license revoked? It only is logical. Of course, he could have gotten a dog or infant do drive instead. Wait, no, I think they are not allowed to have a MOT either.

Chapter 1: A Stranger Appears

2006-09-14T06:12:00.000-04:00

As people go, Bob was just like any other. He was of ordinary height, weight, body mass index, density, specific gravity and even would emit radiation in a normal fashion when exposed to unstable isotopes. In short, he was just like you or me.
But Bob's normal existence was about to be rocked with something so immensely radical that even his wildest imagination could not come close to it. None of the books he read so voraciously - books about knights going on quests, about explorers, about penguins eating tacos, about people who committed minor traffic infractions - could prepare him for what was about to happen.
Let it now be noted that I, the author of this story, also have no idea what will happen to Bob. I am just making this up as I go along. I am shooting from the proverbial hip. It is my hope that Bob will actually have something interesting happen to him. If not, then this will be a long, dull trip for all of us. Yet things to seem promising, so let's keep our fingers crossed (I won't do that while I am typing, however).
It was the 5th of November. There was a little chill in the air, but not so much as one would expect. It had been a fairly warm fall, and the predictions were that the winter would also be mild. Bob found this quite fascinating, as he was part of the small band of radicals to fight the effects of global cooling. This was a fairly small movement - really just Bob and his girlfriend Lucy - which started when Bob noticed that December was a particularly cool month. Lucy noted that January was also fairly cool. This seemed to them to be a pattern worth noting. What is all of this talk about global warming when we have these obviously cool months every year??? Perhaps the global warming movement was a cover-up of the more insidious problem of global cooling. Perhaps major industries were conspiring to cloud this issue of global cooling by making the opposite problem a national issue. Soon both Bob and Lucy were searching the web for any mention of global cooling - they found nothing. It seemed obvious to them that someone needed to stand up and point out that the king was wearing no clothes (although Lucy did not know what this had to do with the weather).
"A warm winter," said Bob, "just what the conspiracy needs to bolster that crazy global warming theory."
"Yes" retorted Lucy, "It's a good thing that good thinkers like you are on the prowl. Without you, the world would be destined to turn into barren Tundra while big business rakes in millions selling cold-weather gear."
"You aren't so bad yourself, little chickie" Bob responded, "Your theories on the power of the snowboarding cartel were a stroke of genius."
This back-patting barrage continued as they walked down a street in their hometown of Cleveland.
"I think they should make you Czar of Ohio. I can't think of any Despot I would rather grovel under than you, Bob."
Just as Bob was about to respond in kind, a strange man wearing a long black trench coat came up to them and put his hand to Bob's chest. "Here, take this. This is from the Boss," said the man in a voice that betrayed fairly large adenoids as he handed Bob a plain brown envelope. "Don't open it until you are sure you know who isn't looking," said the man as he disappeared down an alley.
"He sounded like Tom Brokaw," Lucy said dreamily. "Did you hear how nasally he said the word looking? I sure do miss Tom."
"Lucy, do you realize what just happened? A man who had the nasal voice inflections of a TV anchorman just handed me a plain brown envelope from The Boss!!"
"Who is the Boss?" asked Lucy. "Is it Mr. Zucherman at the fish market? You worked there last year, didn't you?"
"No, I think this is bigger than Zucherman. This is not just A boss, it is THE boss!"
"You mean..."
"Yes, I mean..."
"No, it couldn't be"
"I think it is, it has to be, must be, surely is."
"Really?"
"Really!"
"What would Regis want with us?"
"Let's get to a safe place and find out."

Consolidation

2006-09-14T06:09:00.000-04:00

Some of you know that I first started with another blog entitled "Rob's odd blog." It is a story that is more stream of consciousness than any. I am going to consolidate my blogs and start putting the chapters of that blog in here. When I am done with that, I will start writing more of those stories in here as well. Variety is the spice of life.

Humor me.

Losing Focus

2006-09-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

I am generally a pretty laid-back person – at least I like to think of myself that way. I rarely get rattled by stressful situations at work. My modus operandi when I am in a crisis is what I learned when I was a resident: the first thing to do in a code (when a patient has stopped breathing and/or has no heartbeat) is to take your own pulse. The bottom line is that you are of far more use when you are calm than when you are in a panic. So the normal grind does not really bother me – or so I have thought.

I was going through some personal stresses a few months back and was having some problems sleeping. I try not to bring my personal experiences into work, and had done fairly well at keeping this at bay. My fatigue, however, was starting to build up. When I did sleep, it was not really good sleep and so I woke up with significant fatigue even after an acceptable number of hours of sleep. I found that I was dozing at lunch and at significant pauses in my day and became alarmed.

I came to realize at this point how much pressure I put on myself to think clearly. Since I am primarily a problem-solving physician (I say that the main procedure I do is scratching my head – maybe an explanation for that bald spot), my bread and butter is my thought process. People don’t pay me for my skills with my hands nearly as much as they rely on my problem-solving ability. So any lack of focus is a real problem. I don’t want to give a poor-quality product to any of my patients that come in. Even the relatively simple problems like sinus infections and cough can be a more serious problem lurking just below. It is my job to listen for any aberrations from the typical pattern that may suggest something else going on. I take great pride in my ability to do this. So the thought of having a “bad day” really had me upset. I basically shoved the coffee IV in my arm and slogged through the fatigue as best as I could.

Everyone is entitled to have a bad day at work, but do you want to go to your doctor when he/she is having one? It had never really occurred to me that I have done my best to have the mental discipline to not allow bad days to happen. So was this pressure always there? Doing the inventory of my life, I began to see that I often came home with a lot of fatigue that I could not explain. I often was little use to my wife upon coming home and just dropped on the couch and either watched TV or played on my computer. The main reason for this fatigue, I concluded, was the sustained mental concentration of a typical day. This was often magnified by difficult cases, either emotionally or medically, that I faced on that day.

So how are we supposed to face this pressure? Is it the inevitable consequence of a job where people’s lives may be in your hands? Is there anything to do to escape from this, or am I condemned to being useless when I come home? Since that day I have been much more conscious about giving myself breaks during the day. This does not mean that I necessarily take more time between patients, but I just put on some music, talk on the phone to my wife, or chat with the staff about something non-medical. Beyond that, I have made my trip home from work one which allows me to mentally recover. I consciously change my mind out of the “work” mode and relax. The work at home does not require the intensity of my job and can actually be relaxing if I let it be.

The bottom line is that we need to be more self-aware. It is good t know what your stressors are. I was fooling myself thinking that I did not take work home with me. I was letting my job take big nasty swipes at something much more important: my family. I am grateful for the lesson being learned before it caused too much damage. Maybe my learning this lesson can help other physicians.

A cruise to the bizarre.

2006-09-11T15:07:00.000-04:00

I am not sure if you read the news

"Tomkitten's" 'first poop' goes on display in New York
Wed Aug 30, 5:24 PM ET

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have yet to show their baby daughter off in public, but eager fans were given an unusual preview with the chance to see a bronze cast depicting her first solid stool.

The scatological sculpture -- more doodoo than Dada -- is purportedly cast from 19-week old Suri's first bowel movement and will be shown at the Capla Kesting gallery in Brooklyn, New York, before being auctioned off for charity.

The artist behind the work, Daniel Edwards, previously courted controversy with a life-size nude sculpture of pop star Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug. That work was shown at the same gallery in April.

"A bronzed cast of baby's first poop can be a meaningful memento for the family," gallery director David Kesting said, adding that he hoped the work would attract bids of up to 25 or 30,000 dollars.

The sculpture, which sits on a wooden mounting with a glass casing, is to be sold on eBay next month with proceeds from the sale going to infant health charity March Of Dimes.
As of Wednesday it had attracted a top bid of 41 dollars.

"Mission: Impossible" star Cruise and Holmes announced Suri's birth in April. The entertainment press, which dubbed the pair "TomKat," has shown a seemingly insatiable appetite for news of the pair and their "TomKitten."

A spokeman for the couple was not immediately available Wednesday to comment on the sculpture.

Above is an actual picture of the first poop.

Well, I have to say that I am incredibly excited by this news. Poop bronzing has long been a family tradition and I have been long considering starting a celebrity poop collection, and now seems to be the best time to do so. I do wonder how this infant produced such a fine specimen. My children always produced poop that more resembled mustard with cottage cheese in it. This is obviously a precocious child.

My hope is that they bronze the first vomit as well. As a great fan of Mr. Cruise and his incredible medical knowledge, I am just on pins and needles about this. It just seems like my life keeps getting better and better

80

2006-09-08T17:53:00.000-04:00

80 Years

My father turns 80 today. That is an amazing thing to write; for it seems contradictory to the man I have known for 44 of those years. The image that comes to mind of an 80 year-old is one of frailty, faulty mind, weakening facilities. He does not seem to have gotten much older – he seems more like 65 than 80 both in physical appearance and mental capacity.

Dad stands as an icon of silent strength in my life – on who moved me more as a quiet force than a conspicuous one. He did not force us to fit into a mold. Yes, he had (and still has) strong opinions on things – and was happy to share them; but he never held me to those opinions as a measuring stick of my worth.

He is a man of happy contradictions: a spiritual man with a PhD in physics, a serious man that always chuckles, desiring to live a worthwhile life while loving to fiddle with things, a generous Dutchman. Even though he is not one to fight against authority, he has always enjoyed defying expectations. He fled the cultural pressures from the church of his heritage on the strength of his desire to live consistent with his beliefs. He shunned the upward mobility trap and stepped down from management so that he could do the science he loves. He once stopped a stock peddler on the phone by telling him: “I have all the money I want, thank you.” The person had never heard someone say that before.

It was not a normal childhood – growing up in the house of a PhD in physics. Imagine sitting at the dinner table as an 8th grader and have your father try to show you calculus on a napkin. I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about, but nodded my head to not make him feel bad. Yet while he loved science, he never got it out of perspective by seeing it as more than it is – our “best guess” at the reality around us. He never worshipped science, nor did he stray from his faith in God.

Though I am second son and fifth out of six children, I carry his name. I am very happy with that legacy. I now try to step with caution to honor the name as he has. Not that I will hide from the scorn of others – I will gladly do so if I stand on the side of right, but I will not seek it out for self-promotion or dishonor the name by poor choices.

From him I get: my “husky” physique (thanks a lot), my love of reading, musical talent (although that credit should be shared by my mother), my scientific mind, my love of puzzles (that’s why I do internal medicine), my ear for Classical music, my faith. I have even started (much to my dismay) to chuckle like him – according to my wife…but I deny that completely. I guess I’ll give my kids something to roll their eyes about.

Thankfully, he remains healthy and vigorous (having successfully beaten prostate cancer). He helped me put in a sliding door on the back of my house earlier this year – he is still stronger than me. He recently was doing work on the bottom of their swimming pool and fell off a ladder. He was chastised by many around him for being up on a ladder at his age. When I heard this, I told him that he needs to be climbing ladders. The minute he stops climbing ladders is when he stops being my Dad. He thanked me for that and now continues to climb ladders (thank goodness!).

So happy 80th to Robert Lewis Lamberts! Here’s to you, Dad! Here’s to 80 more!

Pope shows solidarity on Pluto

2006-09-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

Now the Pope is joining the debate!

Holy Saturno! It's old hat for the pope again
Wed Sep 6, 6:08 AM ET
Pope Benedict on Wednesday showed once more that he has a thing for old hats.
The Pope surprised tens of thousands of people gathered in St Peter's Square for his weekly general audience by wearing an unusual, wide-brimmed red hat when he rode in on his popemobile.
It was the first time the 79-year-old German pontiff wore the hat, known in Italian as a "saturno" because it is vaguely reminiscent of the ringed planet Saturn.
Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963, used a saturno and John Paul II, who died last year, donned one occasionally during trips to hot countries.
It was not the first time Pope Benedict has worn a strange-looking hat at an outdoor audience to shield himself against the weather.
Last December, to keep warm against the bitter cold, he wore a red velvet cap, trimmed with white fur.
That hat, known as a "camauro," was commonly worn by popes in the mediaeval period to keep their heads warm on cold days and it featured on many paintings at the time.

I have little doubt that he donned this hat in response to the demotion of Pluto as a planet. It had been so many long years since this kind of hat was worn. What other explanation is there?

Hopefully the Catholic scientists who were among the power-mongers demoting poor Pluto will understand that their eternal destiny is at stake! Do not take the word of the Pope lightly! If God had meant for Pluto to be demoted, he would have done it himself!! I am greatly delighted by this development.

A Goat ate my License...

2006-09-06T17:21:00.000-04:00

This is just...strange...

Speeding driver blames lack of goats

Wed Sep 6, 12:17 PM ET

A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday.

The driver was caught traveling 161 km/hr (100 mph) in a 100 km/hr zone in eastern Ontario Sunday.

"A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident.

Local police said it was the first time they had ever heard of such an excuse.

"I've never been to Switzerland but obviously they must have a problem with that there," said police spokesman Joel Doiron, adding that in his 20 years of service he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario.

The Swiss driver's imaginative excuse did him little good. Police issued him a C$360 ($330) speeding ticket.

Well, this really leaves me scratching my head. Is the goat population really so high that drivers are afraid to drive fast? Maybe they should release goats on the streets of Boston. I have driven there and it seems they take target practice on anyone with an out of state license plate.

I am actually surprised he did not comment about the psycho cows in Switzerland. It seems that the goats are a problem as well. I was thinking about going to Switzerland, but now I am reconsidering.

Maybe he should have had his Toddler drive for him. I have heard they are real good drivers.

Music

2006-09-06T08:22:00.000-04:00

Those of you who have peered back to the early writings of my blog (my deep condolences) know that I am a musician. I took piano and cello lessons as a child and taught myself guitar (which is my main instrument now). I also started college as a voice major before I sold my soul to become a doctor. Music has always been one of my great loves. I have said that if you forced me to choose between music and medicine, even though I really love my job as a doctor, I would choose music because I think it is more my essence.

I was in the car today listening to Alison Krauss and was carried away by the emotion of the music. It was not the lyrics that cast their spell, but the music itself. There is something about a beautiful melody, good harmonies, and great talent that causes the soul to soar. There are two things the Bible says will be in heaven: food and music. That gives me a lot to look forward to.

Those who have read my posts also know that I am a religious person. I try not to beat people over the head with it and have no desire to get into heated debates on the subject. But listening to music today, appreciating the beauty of the melody, makes me feel a touch of the divine. It brings out a longing that it momentarily fills. This is not a logical argument for the existence of God, but an emotional experience that satisfies this silly boy. My wife feels the same way when she goes outdoors. The birds to her are God's smile. Whether or not you agree with this assessment, you will agree that these are great gifts to us that make our lives rich.

Savor those good things.

Rampaging Racoons

2006-09-04T21:25:00.000-04:00

Now we have another animal to worry about:

Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia

Tue Aug 22, 5:44 PM ET

A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say.

Some have taken to carrying pepper spray to ward off the masked marauders and the woman who was bitten now carries an iron pipe when she goes outside at night.

"It's a new breed," said Tamara Keeton, who with Kari Hall started a raccoon watch after an emotional neighborhood meeting drew 40 people. "They're urban raccoons, and they're not afraid."

Tony Benjamins, whose family lost two cats, said he got a big dog — a German Shepherd-Rottweiler mix — to keep the raccoons away.

One goal of the patrol is to get residents to stop feeding raccoons and to keep pets and pet food indoors.

Lisann Rolle said she began carrying an iron pipe when she goes outside at night after being bitten by raccoons when she tried to pull three of them off her cat Lucy. She obtained rabies shots afterward as a precaution.

"I was watching her like a hawk, but she snuck out," Rolle said. "Then I heard this hideous sound — a coyote-type high pitch ... It was vicious. They were focused on ripping her apart."

The attacks have been especially shocking because raccoons came within five feet (1 1/2 meters) of cats without any problem in previous years, Benjamins said.

"We used to love the raccoons. They'd have their babies this time of year, and they were so cute. Even though we lived in the city, it was neat to have wildlife around," he said, "but this year, things changed. They went nuts."

In one case five raccoons tried to carry off a small dog, which managed to survive.

The attacks, all within a three-block area near the Garfield Nature Trail in Olympia, are highly unusual, said Sean O. Carrell, a problem wildlife coordinator with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, adding that trappers may be summoned from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove problem animals.

"I've never heard a report of 10 cats being killed. It's something were going to have to monitor," Carrell said.

Meanwhile, residents have hired Tom Brown, a nuisance wildlife control operator from Rochester, Washington, to set traps, but in six weeks he has caught only one raccoon. He and Carrell said raccoons teach their young — and each other — to avoid traps.

Brown said he had seen packs of raccoons this big but none so into killing.

"They are in command up there," he said.

Man alive, that is scary. Psycho killer racoons on the loose!

This does raise an interesting question: how did they determine that these racoons were "psycho" killers? Do they have a racoon psychiatrist to make this determination? It seems to me that there is no psychosis, just deep-seeded anger. We have no evidence of halucinations, delusions of grandeur, or other signs of psychosis. It seems absurd to me that they could have made this clinical diagnosis based on the sparse number of observations. I mean, why didn't they diagnose them as having a personality disorder, or ADD? I tell you, the press really takes liberties these days!

I really think this is some sort of racoon cult. They were carying the small dog off for some sort of ritual sacrifice. I think they also pacify the racoon spirits with the blood of cats. Whatever it is, some sort of scoundrel has whipped these masked mammals into a frenzy. I suspect it is a Coyote, since they have learned to speak that language.

The other theory that I would put forward is that this is some sort of gang. They do mention that these are urban racoons, so they have probably fallen into the wrong crowd. They probably have to prove themselves worthy by killing cats or stealing a small dog (do you think it was a Chihuahua?). If they have "Ranger Rick Rules" spray painted on the side of a building in town, then they'll know. Perhaps the monkeys from Roanake have been spreading their brand of gangs out west.

This is a scary world we live in.

Nothing Precious about this

2006-09-02T23:40:00.000-04:00

An evil force is in our midst. I know I have given you warnings before: about cows, monkeys, falling dogs, driving dogs, stupid people, monkeys drinking beer, drunk birds, driving children, to name a few. Yet there is one force that may be the force of evil behind them all.

Precious moments.

These seemingly innocent images of seemingly cute (albeit somewhat deformed) children with enormous heads and teardrop eyes have craftily infiltrated our world with sinister intent. Photographic evidence abounds to their connections with evil people, past and present.

There is little doubt in my mind what their intent really is: world domination for the forces of hell. How can it be that such cute and cuddly creatures would sell their souls for such a sinister purpose? No one really knows what was the tipping point. Was it the diversification of Hallmark stores to other figurine types? Was it crass commercialization of the Precious Moments brand, bringing us Angels, Bibles, and even a Precious Moments chapel?? It is not clear what brought about this change, but clearly there is a new agenda on their mind. Clearly this rage has been captured and manipulated by the forces of evil.

There have been sightings with Al Kaida Terrorists. There have been rumors of suicide figurines blowing up on the mantles of little old ladies. Some say Bin Laden himself can be found occasionally browsing the web for porcelain figurines.

Historians are starting to uncover a sordid tale of mischief that dates back to the middle ages. The famous painting of Hell by Bosch, pictured on the right, when studied closely reveals images that frighteningly resemble Precious Moments characters. Attila the Hun supposedly had a soft spot for the macrocephalic mementos and kept a collection next to his axes and spears. If anyone chipped even a small piece off of one of them, they were tortured mercilessly.

Adolph Hitler himself was known to like the Christmas ornaments, and was possibly motivated to attack Poland on the mistaken belief that there was a secret store of the rarest of these figurines.

Whatever is the case, there is little doubt (as you can see from the photographs) that these creatures must be stopped. They are infiltrating homes, schools, churches, and synagogues. They are capturing our elderly, poor, weak, and young - turning them against all that is good and filling their minds with the need to buy more, more, more of these dastardly demons.

Resist it. Resist with all your might. They can be stopped, but we must take up arms as soon as possible. Once they have set their evil little claws in you, there is no return.

The Cow Conspiracy Unravels

2006-09-01T06:49:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the wisdom of Spooner Jenkins, mayor of Belvidere, Nebraska (pop. 98), I have been alerted to a growing menace that threatens the very heart of what is good, true and just: Cows. I have previously written about the growing menace of enormous cows cropping up over the US (particularly in the northern climes), but now there is more frightening news:

Farmers believe cows 'moo' with an accent
Cows have regional accents, a group of farmers claims, and phonetics experts say the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Lloyd Green, from southwest England, was one of a group of farmers who first noticed the phenomenon.

"I spend a lot of time with my Friesians and they definitely 'moo' with a Somerset drawl," he said, referring to the breed of dairy cow he owns.

"I've spoken to the other farmers in the West Country group and they have noticed a similar development in their own herds.

"I think it works the same as with dogs - the closer a farmer's bond is with his animals, the easier it is for them to pick up his accent."

Dom Lane, spokesman for a group called the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers to which Green belongs, said it contacted John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at University College London, who said that a similar phenomenon had been found in birds.

"You find distinct chirping accents in the same species around the country. This could also be true of cows," Wells said on the group's Web site (www.farmhousecheesemakers.com).

According to Lane, accents among cows probably develop in a similar way as among humans, and resulted from spending time with farmers with differing accents.

"Apparently the biggest influence on accents is peer groups - on children in the playground, for example," he said. "Herds are quite tight-knit communities and don't tend to leave the area."

He added that more scientific research was needed to prove what was just an anecdotal theory at this stage.

Here are some disturbing facts that I take home from this article:

Cows are learning our accents and soon will blend in perfectly with humans. They will infiltrate our ranks as spies and then...who knows?
I wonder if this is not a disguised cry for help from these farmers who are being held hostage by these cows.
Note the mention of dogs in this article. They too are learning accents. This only bolsters my claims.
A guy named Dom Lane (is that a misprint and should be Don Lame?) has devoted his life to phonetics. I think Lame may be a better last name for him.
Could this be a manifestation of Mad Cow disease? Could the mad cows really just be angry at the humans that have so oppressed them for years, whipped into a frenzy by the dogs and unable to contain their fury? I shudder at the thought.

Now another even more disturbing article:

Mooove slowly and don't hug Swiss cows, hikers told

By Laura MacInnisTue Aug 29, 11:54 AM ET

Keep your distance. Avoid eye contact. And even if it looks cute, never hug a Swiss cow.

Responding to numerous "reports of unpleasant meetings between hikers and cattle" along Switzerland's picture-perfect Alpine trails this summer, the Swiss Hiking Federation has laid down a few ground rules.

"Leave the animals in peace and do not touch them. Never caress a calf," the group's guidance, posted on the website www.swisshiking.ch, reads.

"Do not scare the animals or look them directly in the eye. Do not wave sticks. Give a precise blow to the muzzle of the cow in the event of absolute need," it continues.

Evelyne Zaugg of the Swiss Hiking Federation said that while there were no precise statistics on incidents involving cows, walkers are reporting more run-ins than a few years ago.

She said new rearing practices, where the animals spend less time around farmers and wander in pastures with little human interaction, were partly to blame for the anti-social behaviour.

Many walkers also panic when confronted by cattle.

"Hikers lose reality about the cows. They don't know how to react when a cow appears," Zaugg said.

If approached by a cow, the hiking association recommends that walkers remain calm and slowly leave the area without turning their backs on the animal.

Michel Darbellay of the Service for the Prevention of Agricultural Accidents, a private group that helped produce the Swiss Hiking Federation's lowdown, said walkers had little to fear if they stayed 20 to 50 metres (yards) from any cow.

But dogs attract cow trouble, he warned.

Mother cows consider dogs a threat to their calves and tend to respond aggressively to their presence. It is when the dogs retreat towards their owners that walkers are most likely to face a charging cow, Darbellay said.

"The best practice is to maintain a fair distance and keep dogs on a leash," he said.

Even more frightening developments:

The cows have gotten even more aggressive.
The conspiracy has spread to the Switzerland
Why would anyone want to hug a cow? Why would they even think of it???
We learn here that the proper defense is to whack them on the muzzle with a stick. That is very useful information for when the cows become aggressive (although the enormous cows in Minnesota will necessitate a very large stick)
They quote Evelyne Zaugg. What's this with these weird names?
Are the Swiss cows mooing with an accent? They make no mention of it. If you know anything about the Swiss accent, it sounds a lot like they are clearing their throat. I would like to hear a cow try to do that!
As much as I am worried about cows, I would say that I am not usually terrified at their appearance. What is it about these cows that strikes such fear into their hearts? Is it some sort of hypnosis? Is it the look of rage in their eyes?
What do they mean when they say these cows "appear?" Do they just materialize out of thin air? If so, we have to be more worried, as they have learned the art of teleportation (something I blogged about a long time ago).
Note more evidence of the cow-dog conspiracy. Dogs make it look like they are attacking the calves, but in reality they are giving a signal for the cows to attack.

Sheesh! This gives me the creeps. Perhaps it is a good thing that those cows in Belvidere are horizontal.

Photographic evidence of the cow-dog connection!

Segue

2006-08-31T01:19:00.000-04:00

Given the nature of my last post, I feel some responsibility to not abruptly go back to the mindless silliness I so enjoy writing about. I do know that there is a degree to which "this is my blog and I can do whatever I want," but there it just feels awkward to me to go straight from the sublime to the banal.

Anyway, I was actually thinking about what the two have in common. What does a patient committing suicide have to do with dogs driving cars and monkeys drinking beer? Besides the fact that be-bopping back and forth is consistent with the title of this blog, I think there is some connection between the serious and silly. We need them both.

The serious things, such as the death of a patient or a tribute to my father, are what real life is made of. We have experiences, both hard and happy, which plow through the hard soil of our life and leave our emotions raw. We hurt and/or smile with them while they turn us over and leave us different for their intervention in our lives. We learn more from the hard stuff and need to spend time being thankful for the real good stuff. I don't think the goal is to escape the bad stuff, it is to experience them and harvest whatever fruit we can from them.

On the other hand, the silly stuff I so enjoy (and so have many of you) is the joy of life. We need to sit and smile. We need to be able to sit and laugh at what is funny in life. There are so many serious things that at times we feel we can't also laugh. There are inappropriate times to laugh - you don't giggle at a funeral - but I think we equally miss the boat when we hang on to the seriousness too long and don't see the joy - and there is much of that. I go from a room where a person is depressed and troubled to a room with a smiley 6-month old baby. Both are real life and both bring different good things with them.

I think it is a lot like the accelerator and brakes on a car. The humor is the accelerator - that which moves us and lifts us, while the difficult things are the brakes. You cannot have a car without either. A life lived in just laughter is shallow, while a life lived without it is pathetic. I choose to do both and see great reward in it.

It has been very satisfying to see so many new visitors here enjoying this blog. I will continue to move from topic to topic, digging out whatever humor or serious message I can from them. I hope I continue to entertain and make people laugh (that is what we class-clowns live for, don't you know), but I never want to appear to take life too lightly. Both are parts of life I would not want to do without.

The shortness of life

2006-08-29T22:04:00.000-04:00

Warning! Those of you expecting a goofy and silly post, this is not one (in fact it is quite serious).

My nurse cried. He was one of our favorite patients. He missed his appointment today, and since that was not his nature, I called to see what was up. I got his son on the phone who told me, "He's dead. He shot himself on Sunday." I couldn't believe it and confirmed that this was, in fact, the right number. He left a note saying he was tired of being sick all of the time and he was sorry to do it this way.

The thing is, he would have been one of the last patients I would expect to do something like this. He was in his 70's and had been fairly sick over the past week, but I was doing what I could to get him better. He had multiple long-term illnesses, including diabetes, but they were generally well-controlled. He was very fond of me and especially my nurse. He seemed to truly enjoy talking and would make me laugh with some wry comment when he came in.

We first won him over when he transferred care from another doctor. He was surprised at how aggressively we went after his diabetes, but felt so much better for it that I had won a lifelong patient. Then we were able to get him his medications for free through patient assistance programs. After that, he started sending his friends (mostly women) to me to be their doctor. He was well-loved by the ladies, but not in a sensual way - they seemed to have a genuine affection for him. That affection is what we too felt for him.

He spoke slowly and with a gentleman's southern drawl. He was known to my staff by his first name, and he was one of those patients I was always happy to see. He gave us absolutely no warning about what was going on inside of his head. When I saw him last week I was concerned about his health, but he never told me how he was feeling.

This abrupt ending makes me take stock of my actions. I do my best to spend enough time with my patients, but tend to get behind and have to hurry to not get any later. I try to listen to what they are really saying (as the famous saying among doctors goes: the patient will always tell you what is wrong with them - you just need to listen to what they are really saying). I try to practice by that rule and listen to what they are really trying to tell me. Yet I get caught up in the rush, the phone calls, the drug-seeking patients, the anxious mothers, and the pile of forms that I have put off filling out. I am trying to manage their diseases by evidence - getting their numbers just right and making sure they have gone to the right specialists. That's good care, right?

There are other distractions too. I spend (too much) time blogging and reading blogs. I go around giving talks to doctors about computers. I am the senior partner of a business, so we have all of the financial headaches to worry about. Dare I leave out the fact that I have a wife and four kids at home who need me? Life is busy. Life is busy.

So what does it mean in this context that I laid my hands on a man who later in the week committed suicide? I was one of the last people to physically touch him while he was alive. Did I miss anything? I don't really think so. He wouldn't have wanted me to worry about him. But I am glad for all of the time I did spend with him. I am glad that I got to enjoy him as a person for the time he was on this earth. I am glad I was one of the good things in his life. I am strangely glad that I knew him enough to be so saddened by his abrupt end.

There will be no funeral. There will be no good-bye. We just have the memory of this gentle southern man who kept it all inside. Maybe I could have done differently, but I won't go there. I can't go there and keep from going crazy. I got to add more to his life than most did. I need to carry that fact into the exam room tomorrow when I see other patients. Yes, there is a lot to do. But there is really no greater honor to be allowed to serve these people. I can't forget that. We all can't forget that.

Good-bye, Jimmy. Thanks.

Dogs and Cars don't mix

2006-08-29T10:53:00.000-04:00

To follow a previous theme:

A woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia region, crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

No injuries were reported although both vehicles were slightly damaged, it said.

The woman, identified only be her surname, Li, said her dog "was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive," according to Xinhua.

"She thought she would let the dog 'have a try' while she operated the accelerator and brake," the report said. "They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car."

Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved but Li paid for repairs.

For those of you who have followed my blog (my deepest sympathies - talk to your psychiatrist about that one), you may notice the similarity between this story and some of my previous stories. There was one where a Dog backed a car into a lady getting her mail. There was one where a 5-year old German kid drove a Mercedes. Finally, there was a kid in Michigan who conspired with an infant to drive an Escalae. Some of you may mention my frequent references to Pluto as well and would say that I am somehow obsessed...but I deny that completely.

There is a pattern emerging. Two kids drove fancy cars and did surprisingly well, while two dogs ended up crashing. The lesson? If you are in a pinch, let your toddler drive before your dog. In fact, we may even want to consider lowering the legal driving age with the success of toddler driving. I would be dead against any suggestions, however, that we change the species requirement for drivers license.

So let me address this story. First, there is the name of the town: Hohhot. I think Ypsilanti has nothing to worry about with cities out there with names like this. Although I have been told that some like it Hohhot (sorry about that one). I also like the last line: Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved but Li paid for repairs. What, were they going to make the dog pay for the repairs? I would certainly suggest that the dog get a job and pay back Ms. Li for his incompetent driving.

Finally, let me say that up to now I believed that all Chinese people were highly intelligent. I have never met one otherwise. This story is absolute proof that there are really stupid Chinese people as well. I wonder if Ms. Li knows if Mercury is the planet closest to the sun?

Stupid Americans

2006-08-28T08:34:00.000-04:00

This is both amazing and not suprising:

Three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Snow White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday.

According to the poll by Zogby International, commissioned by the makers of a new online game on pop culture called "Gold Rush," 57 percent of Americans could identify J.K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as Harry Potter, while only 50 percent could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair.

The pollsters spoke to 1,213 people across the United States. The results had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Just over 60 percent of respondents were able to name Bart as Homer's son on the television show "The Simpsons," while only 20.5 percent were able to name one of the ancient Greek poet Homer's epic poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 percent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only 37 percent knew that Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.

Respondents were far more familiar with the Three Stooges -- Larry, Curly and Moe -- than the three branches of the U.S. government -- judicial, executive and legislative. Seventy-four percent identified the former, 42 percent the latter.

Twice as many people (23 percent) were able to identify the most recent winner of the television talent show "American Idol," Taylor Hicks, as were able to name the Supreme Court Justice confirmed in January 2006, Samuel Alito (11 percent).

A couple of thoughts here. First, I read this and ask myself, "do I know these things?" I think that the simple fact that more press time and water-cooler talk was given to Taylor Hicks than Samuel Alito makes that one not at all surprising. Second, I would probably take some exception to this if I was a Supreme Court justice, being compared to the Seven Dwarfs. Third, I think it would be a good idea to re-name the three branches of government to Larry, Moe, and Curly. I think it fits. Finally, I wonder if they had asked about Pluto instead of Mercury people would have done better. It is, after all, named after a Disney character. This supports my idea that all the planets should be named after Disney Characters! I mean, come on, Roman gods??!!

Another interesting article:

A woman stole $2.3 million (1.2 million pounds) from her employers and spent the money on lottery tickets, buying as much as $6,000 worth of tickets a day in a bid to hit the jackpot, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Annie Donnelly, 38, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to stealing the money over 3 1/2 years from her employer, Great South Bay Surgical Associates, where she was a bookkeeper.

She was spending about $6,000 on lottery tickets a day, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office said. It was not clear how much, if any, she won.

"I don't think I'll ever see anyone spend that much money again," said a shop assistant named Shawn, who works at the MK Cards Gifts and Cellphones store in Ronkonkoma, New York, where Donnelly bought her tickets. Contacted by telephone, he declined to give his last name.

Donnelly, who lives in Farmingville, New York, a New York City suburb on Long Island, faces at least four years in prison and could serve as many as 12 years after pleading guilty to grand larceny, the district attorney's spokeswoman said.

Donnelly did not post bail and remains in custody. Sentencing is on September 20.

Donnelly was caught after several business checks bounced, raising the suspicions of her employers.

The New York Lottery gives about 56 percent of its revenues in prizes, and a third of its revenues, or $2.2 billion in fiscal 2005 to 2006, to education in the state. The rest goes to commissions, fees, and other expenses.

Now, I want to know why someone would steal over $1 Million and buy lottery tickets? What, was she hoping to become a millionaire?? Who would put a person so dumb in a position where they could embezzle that kind of money?

Amazing, truly amazing.

Pluto is DEAD!!!!!

2006-08-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

It breaks my heart, but here is the newest Pluto news:

Pluto was stripped of its status as a planet on Thursday when astronomers from around the world redefined it as a "dwarf planet," leaving just eight major planets in the solar system.

With one vote, toys and models of the solar system became instantly obsolete, forcing teachers and publishers to scramble to update textbooks and lessons used in classrooms for decades.

"Pluto is dead," Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology bluntly told reporters on a teleconference.

Discovered in 1930 by the American Clyde Tombaugh, the icy rock of Pluto has traditionally been considered the ninth planet, farthest from the sun in the solar system.

However, the definition of a planet, approved after a heated debate among 2,500 scientists from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) meeting in Prague, drew a clear distinction between Pluto and the other eight planets.

The need to define what is a planet was driven by technological advances enabling astronomers to look further into space and measure more precisely the size of celestial bodies.

"This is all about the advancement of science changing our thinking as we get more information," said Richard Binzel, professor of Planetary Sciences at The Massachusetts of Technology and a member of the planet definition committee.

"The significance is that new discoveries and new science have told us that there is something different about Pluto from the other eight planets and as science learns more information, we get new results and new considerations."

I think that maybe this may quell the fighting in the middle east. The furor over Pluto is well-synchronized with the latest Middle East troubles. I think the Israelis were in the pro-Pluto camp, while the Hezbollah fighters were in the anti. This should settle it once and for all.

The question I have is the idea of "dwarf planets." While I don't mind dwarfs, there are a lot better mythical little-people to name planets after. Hobbits, gnomes, and sprites come to my mind as much better options. They could rename Pluto as Frodo and Xena as Pippin. I wonder if the Disney contingency wanted to push the dwarf idea since they would be losing Pluto as a planet. I bet there was some behind the scenes wrangling that came up with this compromise. We will know that for sure if the dwarf planets start being named "Sleepy" and "Doc." Then the conspiracy will be plain for all to see.

You read it here first.

Random Questions

2006-08-24T08:47:00.000-04:00

Just some things that I have wondered. Some things have bothered me for a long time, others for a shorter time. If you have answers, please let me know.

What does it mean to have "the living daylight" scared out of you. Why would you have daylight in you, and how could it be living? Why would being scared make it come out of you? It seems odd that there are other things that can be scared out of you, such as hell and feces, and these things have nothing to do with either living or daylight.
Who invented the expression, "it takes one to know one?" This is completely false. There are plenty of people who I know who are totally different. I know women, but that does not make me a woman. It just seems like this expression should never be used.
Does "clarifying shampoo" really clarify your hair? Is your hair unclear prior to using it? Is it blurry, or just kind of look like a single hair all blended into one? And why do they recommend using conditioner and other hair products after using it?
Why did God make slugs? He must have some purpose for them, but I don't know it. It just seems that slugs' sole purpose is to give a good definition to the term "gross."
Did they ever put acid on the inside of golf balls? When I was a kid, that is what I was told, and it scared me. If so, why would they do that?
Why is it impolite to pick your nose? The finger is the perfect size for the nostril, and it only seems natural to use it there. It is my hunch that nearly 100% of people use it for such purposes. Why can't we all just be honest and pick with impunity?
Why are toenails and fingernails called "nails?" Is it because they can be pointy at times?
Why is it that whenever I hear the song "The Chicken Dance" it goes through my head for the rest of the day? This happened to me this morning I hate that song, oh do I ever hate it.
When will people realize that precious moments are the agents of hell? They must be destroyed or we will all suffer.

Losing your patients

2006-08-22T08:35:00.000-04:00

In a recent post, a fellow doctor talked about the difficulty one feels when a patient leaves your practice to see another doctor. I strongly sympatize with the emotion he felt, since it has happened to me plenty as well (not too often, though - I don't want you to get the wrong impression!). No matter how good of a job you do, someone is going to be dissatisfied and not everyone is going to be happy with the job you did.

The truth is, I tell patients that once they lose their trust in me as a doctor (or any doctor, for that matter), then they should seek another physician. What physicians sell to their patients is trust. The patient trusts that the physician will seek to do what is medically best for them. They look to us to "worry more than they do," knowing what to be concerned about and when to become alarmed. The more patients feel that we are doing this, the more satisfied they are with the care we give.

It always bothers me when patients apologize for coming in. They feel that they are wasting my time with their problem. Their child, for instance, has a fever and is irritable and they wonder if they have an ear infection. When I look and see that it is not, then the parents feel they shouldn't have brought the child in. But my job is to do exactly this. This is why they pay me. How would they know if they should be worried if they don't come in to ask me. I think this is one of the keys to keeping patients satisfied. You need to respect their fears and address them. When a person has abdominal pain, they worry about appendicitis. When they have bad headaches, they worry about brain tumors. If they come in out of that fear, even if unfounded, I need to make sure that I have thought about that problem and usually I try to address it clearly.

The hard part is that some patients/parents have a hard time communicating what exactly they want. I do my best to get this from them, but am not always successful. I try to do my best, but there are times that the patient and me just don't communicate on the same level. As a doctor, you usually blame yourself, as it is in our nature to want our patients to like us and think we are a good doctor. When that does not happen, it is very important to find a new physician.

To you patients out there: don't feel bad when you change doctors. You need to find someone you can communicate with. Most physicians can sense when you don't trust what they are saying and as long as an attempt is made to communicate, it may be the best for everyone that you find a new physician. After all, who is paying who? It is your money, and if you are not satisfied with what you are getting for it, you should go somewhere that you feel it is well-spent.

Still, I would rather just make everyone happy...

Sigh.

Another kid driver

2006-08-21T12:51:00.000-04:00

Yet another child driver...in a Mercedes!

Police investigating a complaint about a van disrupting morning traffic on Monday in the German city of Goettingen were surprised to discover a 5-year-old boy behind the wheel.

"He was seemingly intent on experiencing the daily traffic chaos and simply jumped behind the wheel of his dad's Mercedes Vito and went off to explore," police spokesman said.

During his short journey, the toddler stalled the van several times in the middle of the road and a passer-by alerted police. The boy and the vehicle were returned to his father unharmed.

How do these kids step on the gas and drive? Last I checked 5-year olds were small. How can this happen?? My guess is that there is someone in on the plot with them. Maybe it is a monkey.

Gov't reveals that life itself is eventually fatal

2006-08-20T13:22:00.000-04:00

The following is a post I wrote for The Medical Blog Network. If you are interested in things medical, I suggest you visit that site.

Yes, in a government report, people with porphyria who go to bed too late after drinking fluoridated water are going to die. Yes, that is right. All of them.
If I wasn't a doctor, I would think that the most dangerous thing we can do is to be alive. We hear scare stories about just about everything and it makes me very frustrated. Too much sun is dangerous, but not enough will give you rickets. Being married makes you live longer, but marriage is a huge source of stress. Drink water, eat meat, eat vegetables sprayed with dangerous chemicals, drink milk with hormones. All of these will make you die. You will die, yes you will.
So what are we to do with all of this information? It certainly is a danger in the Blogosphere, that any report gets posted as if it is the definitive authority on the subject. People get confused when they hear on the evening news how great Statin drugs are, but then hear that they can "kill your liver." I know that the blogosphere will police itself, but in its wake will be a bunch of confusion.
So here is my advice: don't believe it because it is written somewhere. Don't believe it if a TV anchorman says it. Don't even believe it if you hear it from your doctor. Things like this will either gain evidence or fade in the background. Remember when eggs were dangerous because of all their cholesterol? Now we have learned that the danger is not from eating cholesterol, but saturated fats. Just wait. Don't jump on any bandwagon too soon. To be reliable, something has to have multiple sources saying the same thing. There must be independent studies showing that something is true. Even then, it can turn out to be wrong (as was the case with post-menopausal hormones). Just don't get to riled up about things. Keep cool, and if it goes against the grain, be very careful. Honest, we doctors ARE NOT part of some grand fluoride, Zyprexa, porphyria conspiracy. Nobody is pressuring me to say the things I do. I really think and decide just like the rest of you EVEN THOUGH I AM PART OF THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY.
Just remember, we all die someday. I don't advocate speeding the process up, but I also think that life is too short to spend it worried that you are somehow unknowingly causing great harm to yourself by doing normal things. If that is the case, then we all go down together. Chances are, though, that there is a reason the fringe people are on the fringe.
Of course, if you REALLY want to know what is true, you can always buy Soapware!

The Soapware reference is an inside joke from the TMBN blog. Some Soapware enthusiasts sent a ton of comments to the blog about their medical software. It kind of got obnoxious.

Openness of Patients

2006-08-19T17:37:00.000-04:00

It happened again yesterday.

"Gosh doc, you've put on a bunch of weight."

There is no other job where people feel free to say that kind of thing. I have learned to take it in stride, even when my stride is more and more brought down by the cruel force of gravity. Why do people feel they can openly comment on my weight? I think there are several reasons for it. First, they know I have the right to comment on their weight. I am one of the few people who can do it and get away with it. Actually, it is the only place I can do it. I can't comment on my wife's weight. I certainly can't comment on people's weight outside of the office..."well, Susan, it is good to have you over. Gosh, you have gotten way heavier!" Nah, it just wouldn't fly.

The second reason people feel they can comment on my weight is that they know I can take it. I doubt if I was a female doctor they would do it. I also doubt they would do it to a specialist they don't see too often. But when they have been coming to me for a while (for some, over a decade), they get to know me and know that this kind of thing does not bother me. Well, it doesn't bother me too much.

It actually bothers me a little. I am usually caught a little off guard when they say it, and come back with some clever remark like, "yes, I keep getting ambushed by cookies." or something like that. It is nice in a way, because I think they are doing it in kindness - trying to hold me to the same standard that I hold them. I have never felt that anyone meant bad when they said it.

I can't overlook the fact that when they say it, it usually is true. I do need to start eating better and exercising (I actually just got back from the YMCA). I also must point out that they tend to be much quicker to comment when I have lost weight.

Such is the life of a doctor. It has it's ups and downs, but I would not trade it for another job.

Making friends with your patients

2006-08-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

I had a bad start to the day today. My computer was messing up and my son just suddenly flew off the handle with my wife. Things just seemed to be conspiring to make me irritated. Then the first few patients of the day this morning were folks I had taken care of for the better part of 12 years. They are both diabetics with whom I have gone through a lot in their lives. I have to say, it was good to see both of them and it really picked up my spirits.

As a doctor, you have to stay a certain distance from your patience emotionally. If you get to close you start to lose the objectivity that they are coming to you for. You have to be able to look for bad stuff in people you like (I just diagnosed a woman this morning with metastatic cancer in her back). Yet I have found that this line gets more and more fuzzy as you practice for more time. You definitely enjoy the company of some of your patients. It is very satisfying to feel that you have been a significant part of their life, and a positive one at that. Maybe I am just getting more sentimental as I grow older (which I definitely am), but I am enjoying this aspect to my practice more and more.

I have gotten so that I routinely hug my little old ladies at the end of the visit (the ones I have seen for a while) and it really brightens their faces. The physical touch that is not "professional" but instead one of genuine affection/friendship is very well received. I think it aids in the healing process. The same is true for playing with the children. I have this thing where I pick up their arm and say, "Uh,oh, what is that there?" and I start tickling them under the arm. This makes them appreciate coming to the doctor more and hence more willing to trust me. Plus, it is just plain fun.

Of course, their are limits to this. I don't hug anyone under 55 and don't tickle anyone over 10. What is funny or nice in one situation can get you arrested in another. But I am not sure I would want to practice if I did not have the chance to have this personal relationship with my patients. It is often therapeutic for me as well.

A plutonic update

2006-08-16T21:25:00.000-04:00

The phones are ringing off the hook. The latest Pluto news.

There goes the solar system.

Once an elite society of nine lordly bodies of rock, ice and gas, our solar system would grow to at least 12 members under a new definition of a planet proposed Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union.

The core of the definition? Planets are round. And they orbit a star.

The proposal was hammered out after two years of intense debate among leading experts of the IAU, which is the sole authority on Earth for naming celestial objects.

"We now have a new way to put the solar system together," said Richard Binzel, a member of the IAU executive committee that drafted the definition. "We think this definition is reasonable."

The proposal will be voted on next week by the group's general assembly, which is meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. Binzel, an astronomer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he was "optimistic" the definition would be approved.

The new list of round planets would consist of one recently discovered object beyond the orbit of Pluto named UB313, as well as two bodies that previously were rejected for planetary status: Pluto's moon Charon and Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Charon and Pluto would become the solar system's first double-planet, meaning they twirl around each other but neither dominates.

They would become part of a new subclass of planets called "plutons," defined by the fact that their orbits around the sun take at least 200 years. Dozens more plutons could be added after the objects are more thoroughly reviewed by the IAU.

Ceres also would get a new designation as the sole member of a subclass called "dwarf planets."

Gibor Basri, chairman of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, praised the IAU for coming up with a reasonable definition that could help quell the stubborn arguments over what makes a planet, a debate provoked by critics who questioned tiny Pluto's status as a planet.

"I feel that they have made the most rational and scientific choices," he said. "It does mean some adjustment for the public."

But the definition has riled some astronomers.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the strongest critics of the new solar-system lineup is the man who discovered one of the proposed new planets, astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology. He called the decision an "odd solution."

"In my book, the word planet was special. I liked it back when planets meant something other than: It's round," he said.

Brown said he had counted 53 objects that appeared to meet the proposed definition of a planet.

It's an open question how the new definition will be received by the general public, which grew up with mobiles of the nine-planet solar system in their bedrooms, and learning mnemonic devices to memorize the planets, such as My-Very-Excellent-Mother-Just-Served-Us-Nine-Pizzas.

The debate over what is and is not a planet was forced on the astronomical union by the recent discoveries of a new roster of Kuiper Belt objects orbiting as far as 9 billion miles from the sun.

Among the numerous objects, Brown identified one in 2005 Â UB313 (he nicknamed it Xena) Â that appeared larger than Pluto, which has a diameter of 1,400 miles.

The discoveries by Brown and astronomers at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona made it clear that the small, icy world of Pluto, discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, was hardly unique.

Something had to be done.

Many scientists advocated demoting Pluto, which would have left eight planets: the four inner rocky worlds of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and the four outer gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

It was a simple approach, and one that Brown himself favored. "A gutsy move would be to bite the bullet and say that Pluto should never have been called a planet," he said.

In the end, the IAU took a slightly more nuanced approach.

Its proposal reads: "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet."

The IAU estimates that a planet would have to be at least 480 miles in diameter to have the necessary mass to form itself into a round shape.

"Our goal was to find a scientific basis for a new definition of planet, and we chose gravity as the determining factor," Binzel said. "Nature decides whether or not an object is a planet."

Hmmm...53 planets. That would take a long mnemonic. I was happy that they quoted me on the mom serving pizzas (although they got it wrong). This really has me losing serious sleep. How in the WORLD are our kids going to learn the names of 53 planets?? One of them is going to be named XENA, for PETE's SAKE.

We should have guessed that planets would be a growth industry. My cousin told me last month, "Rob, invest in planets. I have some inside information from Prague that there are some BIG things in the works." Well stupid me, I stayed away from this tip and now look what has happened! I think this news alone got the Dow Jones shooting up to record highs. I mean, how many days are new planets added to the roster?

Maybe now that this is settled they can get to renaming Uranus (no not yours, the planet). It is just EMBARRASSINGNG to say. Especially when you say things like "Uranus has rings around it" or "Uranus has a methane gas atmosphere" or worst of all, "NASA just sent a probe to Uranus." I don't even like to think about that stuff.

So I can see us when we are old, talking to the grandchildren, "Yeah, I remember when there were only NINE planets. We even thought we would lose good ol' Pluto one day, but then all heck broke loose and they just let any ol' round rock become a planet. All this riff-raff in the solar system these days. It used to be that being a planet was something special, but not anymore!" I can't wait to bore my grandchildren with that one.

Thoughts on Pluto

2006-08-14T18:28:00.000-04:00

This has upset me:

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has gathered in Prague to finally settle a matter of galactic import: whether Pluto is in fact a planet or should be relegated to the second division of Kuiper Belt Objects and similar detritus.

Astonomers have to date failed dismally to agree what exactly constitutes a planet, as demonstrated by last year's Xena controversy which saw stargazers claim they'd discovered the solar system's tenth full-fat planet, while others used the opportunity to call for Pluto and Xena's classification as minor planets.

The matter may soon be settled once and for all, The Detroit Free Press reports, as the IAU is scheduled to "consider a resolution that defines a planet". The committee writing the resolution is maintaining a stony silence as to what it will finally recommend, but whatever it decides will inevitably cause a rumpus in either the pro or con Pluto camps.

Steve Maran, author of Astronomy for Dummies told the The Detroit Free Press: "This is such a hot issue. They never rule on things like this. There's a lot more to it than science," alluding to the fact that Pluto is the only planet discovered by an American.

Indeed, the US has a soft spot for Pluto, and any attempt to downgrade its status will certainly upset large numbers of fanatical schoolkids such as those who in 2000 bombarded the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York with "hate mail" after it omitted the planet from a solar system exhibit.

Robert Williams, a vice president of the International Astronomical Union who's "deeply involved in the deliberations on Pluto", admitted: "My niece said to me, 'Are you going to demote Pluto?'."
Williams did, nonetheless, show his icy scientific cool with: "If that's the way it is, that's what we do. It's not written in stone anywhere there's got to be a numerable number of planets. If it upsets schoolchildren, I regret that."

So when is a planet not a planet? I understand the idea of there being a standard definition of planets (as Pluto is apparently very small compared to even Mercury), but this demotion of an entire planet has me wondering about the egos of these scientists. They hold a whole planet in an un-natural balance, with hordes of plutonians waiting to see if they will remain planet dwellers. It has got to be a power rush to be one of those who determine a planets worthiness of planethood.

So what if this goes to their head? What if they demote Rhode Island so it is no longer a state (after all, it isn't even an island). Liechtenstein would be removed from the ranks of countries as well. Small towns such as Belvidere, Nebraska (Pop. 98) would have to also be worried that they may be demoted by these power-mongers.

Personally, I think that we should think of demoting some small things. Chihuahuas, for instance, should be demoted to rodent status. The Cooper Mini should be demoted to go-cart status. Precious Moments figurines should just be gathered up and napalmed (not because they are small, I just have that fantasy).

Why doesn't this conference deal with the more pressing planetary problem: the name of the 7th planet, Uranus. It is embarrassing to say that planet, regardless of where you put the accent. It either talks about a part of the body we just don't want to discuss, or it talks about a bodily function that lives in the same neighborhood. They need to change this name to something much less embarrassing. Xena is the name of the other possible planet (see above) and was actually named after the TV character. Why not? Pluto is named after a Disney character! They could change the name of Uranus to Seinfeld or Bob Barker.

Well, one thing that would be really bothered by this demotion of Pluto from planethood would be the catchy song I learned when I was in school: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza Pies. The point was to teach us the planets' names in order. Without Pluto, our mother would have to serve us Nothing. Now that would make kids sad.

Bachelor no more

2006-08-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

My family has been gone for the past 2+ weeks (since I got back from Mississippi), leaving me to fend for myself. They were up at my wife's parents' cottage in northern Michigan. They do it every summer, and I have made it up there every couple of years.

Being all alone has had its advantages. When I get home from work I don't have to follow any agenda but my own - although I did keep fairly busy with work around the house and work-related stuff. The quiet is also nice.

But now it will be back to the "happy chaos" of 4 kids, wife, dog all back in my life and I am glad for it. While they do make my life more complicated, they make it much more full. Families are a workshop where you get to love other people. I am not using the word "love" as an emotion, I am using it as an action. When I come home tired after work, my tendency is to want to relax and focus on myself. With family at home I am forced to look outside of myself, meeting their needs ahead of my own. That is what family is about, to a great degree. I get much more out of life because of my ability to give, especially to those who depend on me. I lose a lot of control of my life, but gain much more than I lose.

By the way, it does seem like my son changed a fair amount from his trip to Mississippi. My wife told me he was much more helpful this past week. I was wondering if he had caught some sort of brain virus or if he was possessed. Nope, just more secure with life, I guess.

Walker, Hungarian Bridge

2006-08-07T19:46:00.000-04:00

Here's a good one for you...

A new bridge in Hungary could be named after Hollywood action movie actor Chuck Norris unless the trend turns in an Internet vote organized by the Economy Ministry.

Votes for the "Chuck Norris Bridge" had attracted 8,725 votes or 11 percent by Tuesday morning, just ahead of those cast in favor of naming it after Hungarian humorist Geza Hofi and three times more than for Szent Istvan, founder of the state.

Votes can be cast until September 8 on the www.m0hid.gov.hu Web site, where people have put forward more than 500 nominations including Bud Spencer and Bob Marley, as well as names referring to construction delays such as "It Will Never Happen Bridge."

A government committee will review the three winning names, as well as other proposals put forward by local governments, cartographers, linguists and other experts. The bridge over the Danube north of Budapest is due to open in 2008.

Well, a bridge named after Chuck. Very nice. Are they still smoking opium over there? Something has caused them to become insane en masse. Well, I would suggest some other characters they might want to consider:

Pee-Wee Herman - Maybe name a jail after him.
Gumby and Pokey - I think the parliament building may sound very good named after them.
Captain Kangaroo - I am not sure, but there would have to be a door with a lot of little doors on it (only will make sense if you remember the show).
David Hasselhoff - Maybe a bowling alley named after him.
Fabio - Great name for a town square - think about it: "Fabio Square." It has a nice ring to it.
Dora the Explorer - Actually there is a section in Afghanistan called Tora Bora - which should have Dora's name attached to it somehow. Or maybe she could go on a hunt for Osama!
Kenny G - I think it should be a garbage dump named after him. Either that or some place where people get real nauseated.
Yanni - same as Kenny G.
The Laundress - Well, maybe just rename the Capitol after her. She is famous, after all.

Did anyone notice?

2006-07-31T14:26:00.000-04:00

Redfaced, I corrected the spelling error in the name of my blog? Hey, I never claimed to be Noah Webster...

Even More Monkeys (and Pigs)

2006-07-29T11:54:00.000-04:00

Two stories worth reporting...

Zoo officials installed an electric fence around a construction site to protect workers from 120 primate hecklers, an animal park in northern England said Friday.

A band of baboons began screeching and chattering when a team of construction workers commenced work to renovate the primate enclosure at Knowsley Safari Park, close to the city of Liverpool, about 210 miles north of London.

Worried that the baboons would become violent, workers at the animal park — which also houses lions, rhino and elephants — have installed the fence to contain them.

"Because we're effectively in a cage and the animals are free to roam around us, we do feel as though the roles are reversed and we are the exhibit," said Geoff Ames, the construction project manager. "However, we're grateful for the protection." Work to create a new enclosure for the primates will be completed this summer, Ames said.

That is scary to me. Baboons are meaner than mean...especially after they've had a Bud or two.

The second story is the usual sad story about animals and alcohol...

Activists protest beer-swilling pigs

Thu Jul 27, 8:19 AM ET

A pair of beer-swilling pigs has embroiled an Australian pub in an animal cruelty debate.

Visitors to "Pub in the Paddock" in the island-state of Tasmania are invited to pour bottles of beer down the willing throats of resident pigs Priscilla and P.B.

Pub owner Anne Free said Wednesday she was outraged that the tourist attraction had been attacked as cruel in the latest edition of a magazine published by animal welfare group Choose Cruelty Free.

Free said the pigs liked beer. She also watered the beer down to ensure they never got drunk.

"When it's very, very quiet, I often actually have to go over and give them a couple of drinks because, yeah, they do look forward to it," Free told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"I get quite irate when people come in and say: 'Oh, is the pig inebriated?' There's no way that these pigs are being mistreated like that," she added.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals often investigates complaints about the pigs' drinking but have found the porkers unharmed.

"Whilst it is a difficult pill to swallow ... it's certainly not cruelty, unfortunately," RSPCA state chief executive Rick Butler told the ABC.

Choose Cruelty Free office manager Liz Jackson disagreed.

"It's not natural to give a pig beer," Jackson told The Mercury newspaper.

What can I say? It does not surprise me that these pigs are drinking the amber nectar. What would you do if you just stood around in the mud all day? While it may not be "natural" to give a pig beer, Ms. Jackson just does not know what kind of pressure these animals will put on you to get this stuff. They probably are threatening some sort of monkey attack or something (see above).