Hot Topics

Filed under: Uncategorized

“Hot Topics” after the jump…

Pilot lands without a scratch after going blind at 15000ft. Blind attorney finishes the Ironman triathlon in 14 hours and 36 minutes, without a break.

A doctor in Boston is making house calls for the homeless. Three formerly homeless adults stand on stage sharing their stories of degradation, teenagers respond with booming applause. 354 homeless students is 354 too many. Toronto’s financial district barely shrugs as homeless man stabbed. Give a man Nick Fish and you have fed him for a day.

Racial barriers tumble. Stem cell research advances. Landscape evolves for assisted suicide. America allows it to happen, although not without pain.

NY Times bestselling author John Elder Robison asks: Are Aspergians really rude and inconsiderate? A scientific forum about autism in…Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. David Kirby weighs in. No one wants to pay for autism treatments. But Change.org is looking to hire an Autism Blogger!

Remembering the interminable Miriam Makeba.

Laurie Petty works for Texas Parks and Wildlife as a sign language interpreter, interpreting bird calls for the hearing impaired.

Most cancer patients struggle with sex.

Pooja Viswanathan develops exceptional prototype—Smart Wheelchair remembers daily schedules. Valerie Baker won’t let arthrogryposis or her wheelchair stop her from playing vibraphone in the Wharton High School band. A wheelchair bowler named Audrey Winkelsas is making headlines in Florida. VIDEO: New Hampshire’s working on a wheelchair accessible hiking trail “on the side of a mountain.” We need more good Samaritans pitching in.

“Adaptive controller” allows PlayStation 3 user to game with the pros despite serious disabilities.

Melissa Alexander is an 18-year-old dance instructor who’s tangoing with lupus. Elizabeth St. Peters can relate.

Chaz Gregory tackles disability on the field and race track.

An author with agoraphobic tendencies. And another one.

Girls with ADHD appear to have better control of their movements than boys do. And after polling a whopping 88 kids, the Hindustan Times is ready to report that hyperactive children need new noses.

A psychiatrist says there is a good argument for allowing patients with Body Integrity Identity Disorder to have their unwanted limbs removed. But what about patients without the disorder?

Shamans in Tapei accommodate modernity by “updating their style.”

John and Debbie Guidera have more than $200,000 worth of no regrets. A short film about a young patient who benefited from North Yorkshire’s new eating disorders service has been uploaded to the web. Singer-Songwriter Juliana Hatfield blogs from an eating disorder treatment center. Anorexia is affecting more and more adults these days. Women and men.

Hats off to Sarah Mortimer for showing formidable courage in The McGill Daily. Rest assured that Mental Health Services is making progress. Hopefully they’ll look into this, too.

The man beaten up last month after allegedly exposing himself to children in a St. Henri park is named Martin Lavergne. And, umm, he was a social worker at the Montreal General Hospital.

Money, and the lack thereof, is probably our nation’s biggest mental health threat. Denmark is a better place to grow old. Most of us get meaner as we age, anyway. This senior pinned down an alleged child molester then waited for the cops.

Two Taliban cowards on a motorcycle drove past a school carrying water pistols filled with acid. A 13-year-old girl became the “youngest suicide bomber.” For the first time in history, she’s got plenty of role models. And a 13-year-old child named Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death in Somalia. Her crime was to be raped and then report it.

The “civilized” world has plenty to be ashamed of, too. A rape trial without the word rape. A suicide trial without the word suicide.

Journalist facing drug charges is “shell-shocked by stress of job.”

The Army has agreed to investigate a cluster of suicides among recruiters.

The most common cause for PTSD exposure is…automobile accidents. Childbirth can sometimes trigger it, too. Therapy can help. Kittens can help. And dogs can, too.

Two scientists publish sweeping theory about mental disorders: parents’ genes are in competition.

Hey Saskatchewan, have a heart—give Dean Samborski (a nonviolent offender) back his federally-approved medicine.

Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival turns lens on mental illness. Andrew Perry writes a brave and powerful article about mental illness for the Grand Forks Herald. Actress Margot Kidder hates the words mental illness.

Friendly Faces

Donna Williams is performing a free concert with her autism-spectrum band Donna & The Aspinauts (their first gig!). She’s also listed as a speaker at the Autism2008 online world conference.

Mel Young should be giddy with pride—top international referee Kim Milton Nielsen has thrown his support behind the 2008 Homeless World Cup. TigerTurf gets in on the action. And Rise Sport does too.

Irked Magazine’s own David Roche gets blogged about by a perfect stranger. And then by another one.

Glenda Watson Hyatt, aka The Left Thumb Blogger, gets a shiny new ride.

Richard Van Camp is a trivia question!

Stuart Baker-Brown’s on Helium.

Bruce Nunn would be speechless.

Estelle Hébert is working on some exciting new projects.

Helen McFadyen offers Irked a friendly shout out.

Geo includes a link (scroll down) to Irked Magazine on his site. 

Permalink / Comments