Hot Topics
Written by admin2 on April 1st, 2009Filed under: Uncategorized
“Hot Topics” after the jump…
B.C. doctors are calling for the provincial government to formally recognize addiction as a chronic disease—and provide public funding to deal with it.
The company Smoking Everywhere is “pretty sure” that electronic cigarettes are safe, based on laboratory testing in Europe. The company declined a CNN request to review safety reports.
Street nurse Cathy Crowe, of the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, called the upcoming April 15 survey—the city’s second homeless head count—irresponsible during a recession.
Homeless people turn to technology to track assistance and opportunities. On the streets a cell phone is a lifeline. Today, it’s not unusual for the homeless to whip out Nokia 6085 GoPhones (with optional Bluetooth and USB connectivity), stop at a public computer to check e-mail or urge friends to read their blogs.
Homeless people living within 2010 Olympic security zones will be removed by police during the Games in Vancouver. Deputy police chief Steve Sweeney said the homeless will be offered space in shelters or given help to go wherever they want, and only arrested if they refuse to move.
Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression.
“Rock’O” keeps his deathly allergic young pal away from the peanuts and peanut residue that lurk in unexpected places. “Kayla” pokes and barks at her owner seconds after his body chemistry goes awry and his bipolar medications must be taken. And “Alma” does rehab activities with patients in the brain and spinal cord injury unit at San Jose’s Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. A new wave of service dogs is helping people live healthier lives.
Tabitha Darling is legally blind, with a bone condition that she says can make walking painful. Trixie the seeing-eye pony knows Target like the back of her slip-proof pink boots. The discussion spills over to Ouch.
Rapper Trick Daddy announces he has lupus…on live radio.
The silver lining in the Chris Brown/Rihanna drama is that it provides a wonderful excuse to talk to kids about the dangers of possessive and abusive love.
Mary Pipher is Seeking Peace in Our Worrisome World. Mary Pipher is stressed out, anxious, self-blaming, and on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer show.
In an effort to reduce high teenage pregnancy rates, Britain is considering changing its media rules to allow abortion advice and condom ads to be broadcast on prime-time television and radio slots.
Facebook users wage condom campaign against Pope.
As abuse of Brazil’s girls increases, abortion debate flares.
Reporter Wendy McCardle shares her struggles with anorexia and bulimia.
“My illness first manifested as a serious eating disorder and then as agoraphobia,” says singer-songwriter and pianist Judith Owen, who is about to begin a seven-show run at the Metropolitan Room in Chelsea, New York.
Even before the sadness settles in, the brains of people with a family history of depression look different and work differently than those of people with no depressive family history.
Exercise seems to help.
A woman who did not disclose that she suffered from depression to the employer that fired her for excessive absenteeism cannot collect unemployment insurance benefits, or argue that her rights were violated under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Mental illness is not a synonym for unemployable.
The American Psychiatric Association said on Wednesday it will end medical education seminars and meals sponsored by drug companies at its annual meetings to reduce chances for financial conflicts of interest.
A significant minority of therapists are still offering treatments for homosexuality, despite there being no evidence that such methods work.
Question: How do you grow your faith as a person with a mental illness?
The main goal of Emily Epler’s one-woman show “The Levity of Lithium” is to educate people about the importance of taking prescribed medications—especially those that affect one’s quality of life and ability to function.
HealthyPlace.com is launching Mediminder, a free and customizable tool that alerts people daily via e-mail or text message when it’s time to take their medication or refill a prescription.
Dementia sufferers could be helped to boost their memory abilities with a £50 lightweight camera, which is worn around the neck and takes “everyday” pictures every 30 seconds (or whenever it detects a change in light, body heat or activity) for the patient to view on a computer later on, helping to rebuild memories in those with dementia.
Heather Armstrong is pregnant again, and her book is out this week. It Sucked and then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, A Breakdown and a Much Needed Margarita is a funny, irreverent look at becoming a mother. The fact that it makes you laugh so often is quite a trick, since it is about, among other things, the postpartum breakdown that led to Armstrong’s stay on a psychiatric ward a few months after Leta was born.
According to TheOnion.com, a shocking 98 percent of all infants suffer from bipolar disorder ;-)
A half-baked, outrageously stupid, and flatly offensive YouTube segment titled “How To Use Crutches.”
Producers of a TV show are on the look-out for wheelchair users in Peterborough, UK to get involved in an exciting new dance series.
Citizens and former reporters in Colorado create their own news source after Denver’s Rocky Mountain News shuts down.
Business is booming at Tributes.com…and people are dying to get in. Condé Nast’s Jeff Bercovici finds their publicist’s email pitch Truly (De)Press(ing).
Why you don’t want to die on a Sunday in Detroit.
Remembering Nicholas Hughes. (Joyce Carol Oates, Peter D. Kramer, Erica Jong, Andrew Solomon and Elaine Showalter offer their thoughts.)
Remembering Berenice “Bunny” Loftness Elstad Ostrom.
Remembering Ray & June Nidiffer.
The key to happiness could be gratitude.
Optimism is contagious.
“A little deaf in one ear”—meet the Japanese man who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The technology is called “Rear Window Captioning” and, thanks in part to Kanata-based lawyer Scott Simser, more than 170 AMC theatres in Ontario now have it as an option for deaf customers.
Bot Colony™ is the first conversation game ever—The player simply speaks in free-form, unrestricted English to the characters, who reply using speech. It raises immersion to a new level, and is a new storytelling medium, where a player discovers the story through dialog with the characters.
The new EX2 earphones from iFeelit let you feel the sound as well as hear the music.
When people cannot easily determine which option is preferable, they are more likely to leave the store empty-handed.
A recent study by two business professors looked at more than 6,000 college basketball games and found that teams that are just slightly behind at halftime are more likely to win the game.
By the age of 15, Anthony Hutchinson was shooting at people with a modified .22-calibre starting pistol, robbing Korean grocery stores, selling drugs, stealing cars, being beaten daily at home and settling into the dubious brotherhood of a Burnaby street gang. Today, he holds a PhD degree, is a professor of social work, and has been named as a top young academic.
To call Heather Fox a forgiving woman is an understatement.
A 61-year-old former Wall Street executive with polio has won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against a drug maker claiming he contracted the disease 30 years ago when the live virus oral vaccine given to his daughter passed through her body and infected him while he was changing her diaper.
Taliban militants in northern Pakistan have triggered a medical emergency by refusing to allow health officials to conduct a polio vaccination campaign.
U.S. Soldiers, Iraqi police team up to deliver 82 new wheelchairs to Iraqi children (with a little help from 10-year-old Ben Werdegar).
Soccer/Football star David Beckham laughs and jokes with real-life war heroes…and even signed their prosthetic limbs.
Losing a Marine to suicide is like abandoning a Marine in combat, says Col. Lori Reynolds. ”Last year, we left 41 Marines out there on the battlefield. There were signs.”
The Chicago Fire Department is looking into what it says is an ”above average number” of firefighter suicides.
Study may hold clue to gauging trauma resiliency of service members.
The fifth of six people charged with organizing fights among mentally and developmentally disabled residents at a state school was arrested earlier this week at Fort Lee Army base in Virginia, where he was on active duty.
As scientists and researchers debate the cause of autism—Is it genetics? Vaccinations? Pollution? A combination of everything? What?—82-year-old Eustacia Cutler (aka Temple Grandin’s mom) travels around the country trying to give parents a simple message: Never give up hope.
Spiderman rescues 8-year-old autistic boy in Bangkok.
Actress and mom Amanda Peet sits down with a reporter from Stanford University School of Medicine’s magazine to talk about her passionate belief in vaccination.
Jenny McCarthy opens up to TIME about autism.
The goal of the band Acoustic for Autism is to use music to help raise awareness and funds to help families affected by autism, through various multimedia, including live concerts, CDs & downloads.
The BBC has ordered television news presenters to read out all telephone numbers and internet addresses which appear on screen, for blind people.
Traveleyes.co.uk allows blind travellers to log onto its accessible website, browse the available trips and book with the knowledge that there will be sighted people on the same holiday, ready and willing to act as their guides and companions. They take equal numbers of blind and sighted travellers, most of whom don’t know each other, to exciting places all over the world. The sighted travellers are motivated by a desire to meet lots of different people and to do good by helping their blind travelling companions. As an additional incentive, the sighted travellers are offered heavily discounted rates, giving them enormous savings—sometimes as much as 50% off.
29-year-old Kris Scheppe lives on a sailboat named Morgana, and his vision is to be the first legally blind person to sail around the world non-stop.
Successful fisherman Le Han thrives despite blindness.
Thousands of blind Solomon Islanders will have the chance for the first time to read and write using the international Braille system now being taught at the country’s first blind school.
Blindness doesn’t stop 91-year-old piano player Lillian Anderson.
Friendly Faces
Hetty van Gurp and her equally-humanitarian sister Carolyn will be keynote speakers at the plenary sessions in Lachine, Quebec on May 15th, when the Lester B. Pearson School Board’s Lakeside Academy hosts the LBPSB Peace Symposium (PDF).
Karen Putz updates the Steak ‘n Shake story. The kids keep teasing her. Karen Putz excited by a chance to make history.
The Homeless World Cup has improved countless lives. After seeing the documentary “Kicking It,” 32-year-old Jason Holmes immediately began researching the local street soccer scene in Aurora, Illinois.
Craig Grimes featured on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Here on Earth” podcast. Craig Grimes gets some good advice on smallfishbigocean.com.
Bill Shannon should indubitably win this award.
David Roche’s film “The Perfect Flaw” gets screened by the University of Toledo’s Disability Studies Program. Patti Digh is currently reading David Roche’s book The Church of 80% Sincerity.
Cathy Bollinger’s redesigned website is looking phenomenal.
Jane Goetzee represented the newly-renamed Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies (JLCDS) at a recent conference.
Donna & The Aspinauts have posted their first YouTube clip. Donna Williams defines and depicts the word “Gadoodleborger.”
Tony Clemens reveals how he scores his smokes.
