Health

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists recent newsletter, the antibiotic resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that has been an increasing problem in hospitals around the world is now infecting apparently healthy schoolkids outside of hospitals. This is a major development. Up until now anti-biotic resistance was only occasionally a problem outside of hospitals (so-called community-acquired" cases). This may be changing. According to the Centers for Disease Control, MRSA was responsible for almost 19,000 US deaths in 2005.

Another part of this development is also important. Evidence from Europe indicate that the community-acquired cases of MRSA are often associated with livestock operations. This is yet further evidence that the idiotic practice of pouring massive amounts of antibiotics into the feed of healthy animals is contributing to the public health risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria that treatens our children and people with a compromised immune system.

This is what I would do if I had several thousand dollars to spare these days :

1. I would have wire clothes hangers, like the ones dry cleaning stores us, and I'd covered them in dark blue rice paper with the blue and logo of the McCain campaign.

2. The tag line under the logo? "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned."

3. A second design option would have his fateful words about how he would change the Supreme Court of the United States with the judges like like Roberts and Alito or his dear friend Chief Rhenquist.

4. If I had more money, I'd hang a Supreme Court Justice looking robe from several hundreds of them and deliver them to each and every one of the high-profile Democrats, whereas politicians or funders, who are being assholes about supporting Obama.

Plain and simple message : You support McCain? Kiss equal rights for women away.

This post was going to be a long rant about how I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. After a long week battling a sore throat, I succumbed to antibiotics the following 5 days, only to find out on the last day that, alas, the pain and rawness in my throat are back again.

It's in times like these that I reckon how much I need some sand, a Caribbean beach and the soothing nothingness of a blue ocean's horizon. I miss living close to a beach. And no, Coney Island or any other dirty, stinky, filthy New York City beach just doesn't cut it because I actually may end up with a cut up foot if I don't watch every step I take.

No.

I need salty clean and fresh blue water. I need the unrelenting wind that only comes with whirly waves. And no, neither a river nor a lake or needless to say a pond or lagoon can make me happy.

It's why I've never believed the Babalawo who dare to read my Orisha as Osun and not Yemanya. I can't understand how I can be an Oshun if I hate mountains, rivers and lakes so much. Am happiest when I know I have a sea or an ocean where I can rest my weary soul.

Am getting old.

Am pining for my old Puerto Rico days.

And it's making me think about what would be for me a heaven on earth.

The answer is simple : A house, close to a Puerto Rican beach yet with a nice pool for a backyard.

I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

"Dr. Katari ... invited me to a first session with a lovely group of rapists, murderers and robbers." --John Cleese in The Benefits of Laughter Yoga with John Cleese

Whenever I start researching uplifting stories involving science or technology for Kenneth Cole's Awearnessblog, I always end up unearthing some really funky project from India. The latest is the Yoga of Laughter created by Dr Madan Kataria who has this published on his website, Laughter Yoga :

BILL CLINTON spoke last night at the University of Oregon in Eugene in behalf of his wife's candidacy, and of course, your trusty citizen journalist Nezua was on the scene.

The speech was attended by about 800 - 1000 people. I didn't count, but the venue was switched at the last moment from a ballroom at the EMU that had a capacity of 700, I believe, to an outside courtyard which wasn't quite full. I asked Hillary's press liaison what necessitated the change, and she told me that there were more people in line than would fit in the rather small ballroom. The switch was after the security sweep was done and everyone's credentials checked and everything locked down. Because of the last minute move, the lighting and sound and security went from controlled and having a feeling of being well-organized to an "on-the-fly" and very thrown together situation, in some ways quite lacking. But nothing that prevented us from doing our jobs.

I found Steve Harvey, one of the Kings of Comedy, unleashing his inner sexy beast over at Oh No They Didn't; which was in turn sourced from Bossip.

Oh no they didn't indeed.

There are no words to describe this photograph, and this is not even the best of them. Check out tiny after the jump :

An ongoing effort of mine is to fight the misuse of antibiotics. Misuse of antibiotics has been an increasing health hazard for people, leading to many strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria that infect, and sometimes kill, people, particularly children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. Last time I wrote about this I was able to report a victory in the fight to keep antibiotics effective. Today I want to introduce the latest fight.

First, for those who want more background, the Union of Concerned Scientists has an excellent rundown. An excerpt from their site:

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are on the rise. Patients once effectively treated for pneumonia, tuberculosis, or ear infections may now have to try three or more antibiotics before they find one that works. And as more bacterial strains develop resistance, more people will die because effective antibiotics are not identified quickly enough or because the bacteria causing the disease are resistant to all available antibiotics.

Why have bacterial strains become resistant? The short answer is overuse of antibiotics. Physicians and hospitals have overprescribed the drugs, and patients have demanded them—even for illnesses not caused by bacteria. Veterinarians, too, overprescribe drugs to treat sick animals.

Healing to Wellness Courts and Tribal Court Responses to Substance Abuse

Type of Event: Training
Hosted By: Tribal Judicial Institute
Event Dates: 5/15/2008 - 5/16/2008
Event Location: Anchorage, AK
Contact: Melissa Johnson
Email: mjohnson@law.und.edu
Contact Phone:701-777-6306
Contact Fax:701-777-0178
Website: http://www.law.und.edu/npilc/judicial

Course Description:Partners will assist Tribes to develop and implement Healing to Wellness Courts to respond to a burgeoning drug and alcohol problem including methamphetamine.

How to Register: Visit the Tribal Judicial Institute website to download a registration form at: http://www.law.und.edu/npilc/judicial/downloads.php

3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: Mental Health

Saturday, February, 9, 2008
9:00Am to 6:00PM
NYU Medical Center
550 First Avenue
New York, NY 10016

To Register: http://www.med.nyu.edu/ichr/chad/events/events.html

Conference Fee: $50 General, $20 Students

The 3rd Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: Mental Health is an interdisciplinary meeting that brings together physicians, social workers, psychologists, public health professionals and policy makers to discuss the status of mental health among peoples of the African Diaspora. The one-day conference will provide an opportunity for a better understanding of mental health issues across the demographic cross-section of peoples of African descent through a comprehensive discourse of the social, medical and demographic framework that shapes mental health policy, diagnosis and treatment. Over 250 participants are expected and confirmed speakers include: Hugh Hendrie, MD, Indiana University School of Medicine; Hugh Butts, MD, Author, Racism & Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; David Henderson, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Jacqueline Mattis, PhD, New York University; Kirby Randolph, PhD, Kansas Medical School; Ernest Marquez, PhD, National Institute of Mental Health; Alfonso Wyatt, MDiv, Fund for the City of New York; Rosemonde Pierre-Louis, Manhattan Borough Deputy President; Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith, PhD, CUNY, Bellevue/ NYU Program for Survivors of Torture; and Robert Fullilove, EdD, Columbia University.