:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 6.07.2004 ::
:: So Weird ::
From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird
LEAD STORY
In January, University of Utah hospital surgeons removed half the skull of Briana Lane, age 22 and unemployed, in order to save her life after an auto accident, but because putting the skull back in place was not quite an emergency, it was delayed by negotiations over cost. The skull remained in a freezer for three months, with Lane battling serious pain (and wearing a plastic helmet for protection, feeling her brain "shifting" on her) while the hospital negotiated with the state Medicaid office, which pays only for long-term "disabilities." Her skull was finally reattached on April 30. [Salt Lake Tribune-AP, 5-11-04]
Questionable Judgments
Despite the 39-day waiting list for brain operations at the Queens Medical Center in Nottingham, England, the hospital suspended neurosurgeon Terence Hope in March (after 18 years' service), not for substandard work but because he had been accused of taking extra croutons for his soup in the hospital cafeteria, without paying. (The suspension was lifted three days later.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 3-25-04]
More Things to Worry About
In February, an unidentified audience member was led away, still shouting, after attempting to debate former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani at a University of Oklahoma speech about Sept. 11's effect on the city; contrary to Giuliani's blaming the attack on al-Qaida, the man insisted that the culprit was Wal-Mart (Norman, Okla.). And in May, several senior Japanese women (ages from their 50s through their 70s) met to discuss the revival of the sport in which they had once excelled during its heyday, female sumo wrestling, a gathering that included an exhibition by the 61-year-old Ms. Mikako Shimada (Mikatsuki, Japan). [New York Post, 2-25-04] [Mainichi Daily News, 5-3-04]
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net (addtl. info)
posted by me
:: 12:49:00 AM [+] ::
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