NY congressman says Bravo show promotes bigotry

NEW YORK (AP) ? A suburban New York congressman who represents the area where Bravo films its series "Princesses: Long Island" says the show is "the most objectionable thing I've ever seen on television" and promotes stereotyping of Jews.

The network should show a disclaimer before every episode to say there's nothing real about the nonfiction show, said Rep. Steve Israel, a New York Democrat.

Bravo said Friday the new series has averaged just over 1 million viewers over three airings on Sunday nights, which is considered a very successful start. "Princesses: Long Island" is reminiscent of MTV's "Jersey Shore" in focusing on a small subculture, in this case six young, unmarried women who are generally of comfortable means with plenty of idle time.

One of the women, Ashlee White, is nearly 30 and lives at home where her parents cook her food and do her laundry. She's looking for Mr. Right, but has high standards. "I'm Jewish, I'm American and I'm a princess," White said.

"I initially thought it was all in good fun," Israel said. "But 20 minutes into the show, I realized that promoting anti-Semitic stereotypes isn't that fun. It's one of the most objectionable things I've ever seen on television, and there are a lot of objectionable things on television."

Jodi Davis, a Bravo spokeswoman, said the show is "about six women who are young, educated, single and Jewish living in Long Island, and is not meant to represent all Jewish women or other residents of Long Island."

Israel said he's not encouraging Bravo to take the show off the air, but would like a statement like Davis' shown on the air. She had no immediate comment on whether Bravo would be able to or want to do that.

"Princesses: Long Island" has already had one incident that compelled an apology. White was quoted in one episode as calling the Long Island community of Freeport a "ghetto" in a cellphone conversation with her father, who advised her to roll up her car windows.

White, in a Bravo blog post, later apologized, saying she had been "stressed, overwhelmed and not thinking" when she said that.

Israel, a former president of the Institute on the Holocaust and the Law who once worked for the American Jewish Congress, said the show "leads viewers to believe that this is what being Jewish is all about, that if you're Jewish and live on Long Island, you're narcissistic, you are all about money and that a Shabbat dinner is all about drinking and fighting," he said.

The congressman, who also wrote about the show on The Huffington Post, said he wasn't concerned that speaking out publicly would encourage more people to watch it.

"Silence never works," he said.

____

EDITOR'S NOTE ? David Bauder can be reached at dbauder@ap.org or on Twitter @dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ny-congressman-says-bravo-show-promotes-bigotry-191856429.html

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With Hearing Implants, Experiencing Sound for the First Time

Jun 22, 2013 6:07am

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Image Credit: WBTV/ABC News

After being born severely hearing-impaired, Sarah Churman heard her first clear sound at age 29 and promptly burst into tears.

?I hear Melinda say, ?How does it sound?? Churman wrote in her memoir ?Powered On? about the experience. ?I start to answer her, and I realize I can hear the noises in my mouth. Then I realize how I sound. Then I get choked up. Then I laugh. Then that sends me into a fit of tears and choking up.?

Churman received cochlear implants at age 29. A video of her implants being turned on for the first time went viral in 2011.

Cochlear implants, which help people hear by electronically simulating the auditory nerve, have been used by 30,000 people worldwide, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Society.

Read More of Churman?s Biography Here

With the spread of cochlear implants, videos of deaf people hearing for the first time have become a staple on such video sites as YouTube and Vimeo, garnering millions of views.

In the video shot by her husband, Churman lights up when she hears the noise for the first time and then quickly starts crying and laughing as she says, ?This is weird.?

But what is it really happening when people gain a new sense?

The cochlear implant is not a replacement for an ear, but it can help many people who were effectively declared deaf. By stimulating the auditory nerve, signals are transmitted to the brain, which turns into ?hearing.?

Although Churman wrote that she loved hearing and her cochlear implants, Dr. Daniel Lee, director of the Pediatric Ear, Hearing and Balance center at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, said many other adults sometimes describe the sound as metallic or robotic at first.

?[Usually you] are communicating through thousands of channels of information that are being sent to your brain,? said Lee. ?These implants have no more than 22 electrodes.?

Lee said that the implants are key for many children or infants born with severe hearing loss who receive the devices so that they can grow up with auditory skills and have stronger language skills.

Doctors, however, have to be careful when exposing small children to sound for the first time. Since the children often do not have the means to communicate, doctors have to be very careful that the children have a positive experience and aren?t frightened of their new sense.

Lee said the key is to keep the electronic data to a minimum in the beginning of using the implant.

?[You] don?t want to overwhelm them,? said Lee. ?Over a period of days to weeks to months [the implant] is slowly ramped up to provide more information to the ear or the brain.?

In videos usually a family member speaks to the child for the first time. In one memorable video an infant responds to hearing his mother?s voice ?by dropping his pacifier and looking at her in awe.

While cochlear implants have ?significantly helped people who were previously ?profoundly deaf, they do not work for people who either lacked an auditory nerve or had a damaged nerve.

But new technology is now being used that sends messages directly to the brain itself. A Food and Drug Administration clinical trial currently underway is looking at the effectiveness of electrical implants placed directly on the brain stem.

Placed directly on the brain stem, it bypasses all auditory nerves.

Grayson Clamp made headlines earlier this week for becoming the first child in the U.S. to receive the procedure.

Lee, who is involved in the trials but not in Grayson?s case, said that the auditory brain stem implants could be used to help deaf children communicate and develop lip reading skills. He said once children like Grayson are older, they can see how effective the devices are by evaluating their language skills.

Read More About Grayson?s Surgery Here.
But even before the implants can be measured and quantified, Grayson?s immediate response delighted his father, Lee Clamp.

?It was phenomenal to see him take that sound in and try to figure out what in the world is this? I?ve never had this sensation before,?? said Clamp.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/06/22/with-hearing-implants-experiencing-sound-for-the-first-time/

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Potentially life-saving cooling treatment rarely used for in-hospital cardiac arrests

June 21, 2013 ? The brain-preserving cooling treatment known as therapeutic hypothermia is rarely being used in patients who suffer cardiac arrest while in the hospital, despite its proven potential to improve survival and neurological function, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report in the June issue of Critical Care Medicine. The authors suggest that scarce data about in-hospital cardiac arrest patients and guidelines that only call for health care providers to consider use of therapeutic hypothermia, rather than explicitly recommending it, may explain the study's results.

In a prospective study between 2003 and 2009 of over 530 hospitals in the United States, the Penn team found that 98 percent of over 67,000 patients who went into cardiac arrest in the hospital received only conventional post-resuscitation care--leaving just 2 percent who received therapeutic hypothermia, which has been credited with saving the lives of a growing number of patients who arrest outside hospitals.

"We know it's being used in patients who went into cardiac arrest in their homes, at work, or anywhere else outside of a hospital, but little was known about how often it's used in patients who arrest in the hospital," said Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, assistant professor in the division of Pulmonology, Critical Care and Allergy at Penn Medicine. "We found that even though most hospitals have the capability to treat these patients with therapeutic hypothermia, it's not being used. And even when it was used, in nearly half the cases, the correct target temperature was not being achieved.

"Several factors could explain this: there is little data, which is often conflicting, to support its use for patients in the hospital, and we have national guidelines that only have clinicians considering its use, which may lead to hesitation and lack of institutional protocol."

Cooling the body down to about 89.6 degrees after cardiac arrest protects it against neurological damage initiated by the lack of blood flow and oxygenation, several studies of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients have shown. It has also been shown to improve survival--a welcome development, since cardiac arrest survival statistics remain grim, with less than 10 percent of patients surviving in most cities across the U.S.

More than 300,000 people who go into cardiac arrest out of the hospital die each people each year in the United States; thousands of others are left neurologically devastated.

About 210,000 patients a year go into cardiac arrest while in the hospital--many of those patients may have other conditions that point to a poor prognosis, and a substantial portion may be terminally ill patients who are not candidates for hypothermia.

National recommendations established in 2005 call for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients to be treated with hypothermia when they remain comatose after resuscitation. In-hospital recommendations, however, are less direct. The International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation guidelines recommend providers to "consider its use," while the American Heart Association recommends that therapeutic hypothermia "may be considered" for a patient who goes into cardiac arrest caused by non-shockable rhythms.

For the study, the team analyzed treatments of 67,498 patients at 538 hospitals participating in the American Heart Association's Get With the Guidelines-Resuscitation database from 2003 to 2009. Of those patients, 1,367 patients were given therapeutic hypothermia. The use of therapeutic hypothermia increased slightly, from 0.7 percent in 2003 to 3.3 percent in 2009.

Younger patients and patients who were treated in a non-ICU location and a teaching hospital were more likely to get therapeutic hypothermia. Even when it was used, however, target temperature (32-34o Celsius, or 89.6-93.2 degrees Fahrenheit ) was not achieved in 44.3 percent of the patients within 24 hours, and 17.6 percent were overcooled.

"These rates are particularly important to examine, given that the incidence of in hospital events appears to be increasing," said Dr. Mikkelsen. "I believe there is potential for therapeutic hypothermia to benefit this population, but traction can only be made after clinical trials investigating safety and effectiveness are initiated-which are certainly warranted. Results of those studies could strengthen the case for stronger recommendations and increase use."

Other Penn Medicine authors of the study include Jason D. Christie, MD, MSCE, Benjamin S. Abella, MD MPhil, Meeta Prasad Kerlin, MD, MSCE, Barry D. Fuchs, MD, William D. Schweickert, MD, Frances S. Shofer, PhD, and David F. Gaieski, MD.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/PHRoqi4T8FI/130621104404.htm

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Tigers reach Bailey, rally to beat Red Sox

By NOAH TRISTER

AP Baseball Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 10:21 p.m. ET June 20, 2013

DETROIT (AP) - Jhonny Peralta's ninth-inning homer gave the Detroit Tigers a joyful break from all that talk about their beleaguered bullpen.

It was Boston's closer who lost this game, and now the Red Sox have some relief issues of their own to sort out.

Peralta hit a two-run homer off Andrew Bailey in the bottom of the ninth to give the Tigers a 4-3 victory over the Red Sox on Thursday night. Boston led 3-2 when Victor Martinez drew a leadoff walk off Bailey, and Peralta followed with a line drive over the fence in left field for his seventh homer of the year.

"I don't try to hit a home run, but I try to have good contact with the ball," Peralta said. "That's what happened when I had good contact."

Detroit manager Jim Leyland said before the game he was ready to use Joaquin Benoit to close instead of struggling Jose Valverde - although he stopped short of officially naming Benoit as the closer for the long term.

After the game, Red Sox manager John Farrell said Bailey would be given a break from closing.

"We're going to back him out of there right now and try to get him fixed, so we'll look at some other internal options to close," Farrell said. "His velocity hasn't come back since the DL stint, and although he says he feels fine, the results obviously aren't there."

Bailey (3-1) missed time in May because of a bicep problem. Joel Hanrahan, Boston's top choice to close, is out for the season after elbow surgery.

David Ortiz homered and drove in a tiebreaking run with an eighth-inning single to put Boston up, but Drew Smyly (3-0) replaced Phil Coke for Detroit and prevented any further scoring by the Red Sox. He struck out four in two innings of relief.

Detroit improved to only 2-19 when trailing after eight innings.

The Red Sox wasted a nice performance by John Lackey, who allowed two runs and seven hits in seven innings. Koji Uehara pitched a perfect eighth, but Bailey didn't get an out.

Detroit's Jose Alvarez allowed two runs and five hits in five innings in his second big league start, and Luke Putkonen got five straight outs in relief.

Then Leyland brought in Coke, the left-hander who has struggled against right-handed hitters. Coke struck out the left-handed hitting Jacoby Ellsbury to end the Boston seventh, but he walked switch-hitting Shane Victorino and right-handed hitting Dustin Pedroia to start the eighth.

The lefty-swinging Ortiz followed by pulling a base hit to right to give the Red Sox the lead.

Ortiz was 1 for 15 off Coke before that hit, which is why Leyland stuck with the left-hander and hoped he could get out of trouble.

"He didn't do very good, because he walked guys," Leyland said. "He gets those two guys out, he probably gets Ortiz out. But he walked them, and that's a no-no."

Peralta made up for that with one swing and was of course mobbed at the plate.

"I see everybody at home plate, it's a good feeling, hitting a walk-off home run," Peralta said. "It's the best that I can feel."

Smyly, one Detroit reliever who has been terrific this year, kept the deficit at one and gave the Tigers a decent chance at a comeback.

"It's too late to score three or four runs. You've got to keep it where it's at," Smyly said. "I'm glad I was able to do that."

Alvarez, who held Cleveland to a run in six innings in his major league debut earlier this month, handled Boston's lineup reasonably well, but Ortiz went deep in the fourth for his 15th homer of the season, a solo shot to open the scoring.

Jose Iglesias led off the fifth with a triple and scored on Ellsbury's single to make it 2-0.

In the bottom of the fifth, Torii Hunter's soft line drive with the bases loaded fell in for a two-run single, tying the game.

Alvarez is expected to make at least one more start for the Tigers in place of the injured Anibal Sanchez.

NOTES: Detroit scratched OF Matt Tuiasosopo before the game because of a mildly strained intercostal muscle. ... Farrell announced that RHP Allen Webster will start Saturday night's game against the Tigers. ... Boston LHP Jon Lester (6-4) faces Detroit RHP Doug Fister (6-4) on Friday night.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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UFO: Britain releases documents explaining closure of military UFO desk

UFO Britain:?The National Archives has been releasing declassified Ministry of Defense files on?UFOs in the UK?for the past five years.?

By Cassandra Vinograd,?Associated Press / June 21, 2013

Stonehenge, seen here during a meteor shower, is the site of reported UFO sightings, as revealed in newly declassified files from Britain's Ministry of Defense.

Kieran Doherty/Reuters/File

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Newly declassified files from?Britain's?Ministry of Defense shed further light on why the military shut down its?UFO?desk nearly three years ago: despite a surge in reported sightings, the expensive operation just had no defense benefit.

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The National Archives has been releasing declassified Ministry of Defense files on?UFOs?for the past five years. The 10th and final tranche released Friday covers the work carried out during the final two years of the Ministry of Defense's?UFO?desk, from late 2007 to November 2009.

The 25 files detail reports of alien abductions, sightings, offers to develop weapons to shoot?UFOs?out of the sky ? and the reason for the?UFO?desk's shutdown.

Among the documents ? spread out over 4,400 pages ? was a memo to then-Defense Minister Bob Ainsworth in November 2009, saying that the?UFO?operation was "consuming increasing resource, but produces no valuable defense output."

In more than 50 years, no?UFO?sighting report "has ever revealed anything to suggest an extraterrestrial presence or military threat to the U.K.," the memo said.

The records show that 2009 saw 600?UFO?sightings and reports ? triple the number of the previous year and the largest ever number of?UFO?sighting reports since 1978, the year "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was released in cinemas.

Whatever the reason behind the surge ? some files suggest the popularity of releasing Chinese lanterns at weddings was behind it ? the decision was taken to close the desk.

"The level of resources diverted to this task is increasing in response to a recent upsurge in reported sightings, diverting staff from more valuable defense-related activities," the documents said, with one saying the desk "merely encourages the generation of correspondence."

A great deal of that correspondence is contained in the latest release of the declassified files ? with a wide variety of examples of sighting reports and the?UFO?desk's always polite and often entertaining responses.

One child wrote in, with a drawing of an alien waving from a?UFO?? to ask if there were living things outside of Earth got a nice letter ? and bag of Royal Air Force goodies ? from the Ministry of Defense.

"It's an interesting question and we remain totally open-minded about it, but we don't know of any evidence to prove life exists in outer space," the?UFO?desk replied in 2009. "We do look at reports of 'unidentified flying objects' but only to see if the country's airspace might have been affected but we haven't had any evidence of this so far."

The files also contained letters sent to officials ranging from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to Queen Elizabeth II voicing concerns that the government was ignoring the threat of unidentified flying objects and even offering technological guidance on how to shoot down?UFOs.

Among the sightings were reports of?UFOs?seen hovering opposite the Houses of Parliament and near Stonehenge. The files show the desk also took hotline calls about alleged contact with aliens ? from a man who claimed in 2008 that he had been "living with an alien for some time" to another saying a?UFO?had stolen his dog, car and tent while was camping in 2007.

The desk sent the man a response, explaining that the defense ministry does not investigate each sighting unless there is evidence of a potential threat to the U.K. from an external source. But the message, sent in January 2008, added: "you informed us that your dog and possessions were abducted. Abduction, kidnap and theft are criminal offences and therefore would be a matter for the civilian police."

When the?UFO?desk did check into a reported sighting, explanations varied.

In response to one email sent in August 2009, an unidentified Ministry of Defense staffer suggested that "everyone who has seen" attached photos of a reported sighting thinks that two look like stunt kites, and "the third looks like a seagull head on.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/hZTMHqmTVwk/UFO-Britain-releases-documents-explaining-closure-of-military-UFO-desk

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James Gandolfini Cause of Death: Natural Causes, Heart Attack Suspected

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/james-gandolfini-cause-of-death-natural-causes-heart-attack-susp/

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Trouble either way

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Thirteen years ago, Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis faced double murder charges in Atlanta.? Eventually, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, with an agreement to testify against other defendants.? No one was convicted of the killings.

While Lewis avoided the far more serious crime, the NFL still fined Lewis $250,000 for his role in, as prosecutors have described such cases, kicking dirt in the eyes of the authorities.? If that?s the only charge prosecutors in Boston ever are able to pin on Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, either by guilty plea or through the introduction of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, Hernandez can count on an even stiffer sanction from the league office than the Lewis penalty.

Six years ago, Commissioner Roger Goodell overhauled the personal-conduct policy, expanding its reach and enhancing its penalties.? Since then, Goodell has shown a willingness to take swift and decisive action against players who violate it.? Pacman Jones received a one-year suspension despite never going to jail for any of his various legal entanglements at the NFL level.? Ben Roethlisberger received a six-game suspension (reduced to four) despite never even being arrested.? And the NFL indefinitely suspended Mike Vick the moment he was indicted for charges of dogfighting and gambling.

For Hernandez, the clearest apples-to-apples comparison comes from the cases of Leonard Little and Donte? Stallworth.? Both caused a death while driving drunk.? Little was suspended eight games by Commissioner Paul Tagliabue in 1999.? Stallworth received a full year from Goodell in 2009.

From Hernandez?s perspective, that formula would result in a fine of $500,000, if he pleads guilty to obstruction of justice.? We?ve got a feeling, based on Goodell?s history of imposing discipline for off-field misbehavior, that won?t happen.

Based on reports from ABC and FOX 25 in Boston, police believe Hernandez deliberately destroyed (or at least tried to destroy) electronic evidence that would likely help solve the question of who killed Odin Lloyd.? Goodell won?t react kindly to NFL players attempting so brazenly to prevent justice from being done, especially when ?justice? entails finding a murderer.? If Roethlisberger was suspended four games for being sued for sexual assault in Nevada and accused of another in Georgia despite never being arrested or charged, Hernandez could be in line for something like that or worse if he ultimately admits or is convicted of attempting to cover up a murder.

It gets far worse for Hernandez if he?s charged with murder.? Or if the NFL, through the in-house police force known as NFL Security, determines that he did it.? There?s no ?if it doesn?t fit you must acquit? in the Court of the Commissioner.? He remains, under the personal-conduct policy, the judge, jury, executioner, appeals court, and governor.? And while the bounty case proved that diligent, aggressive lawyering could force Goodell to bump the appeal to his more lenient predecessor, Goodell and company surely learned from that experience how to avoid creating evidence that could be used to undermine his perceived neutrality.

So, basically, Hernandez is likely looking at a suspension if obstruction of justice sticks.? If the NFL decides he did more than merely help cover things up, Hernandez may be gone from the game for a long time.

The more immediate question becomes whether the league and the Patriots will allow Hernandez to show up for training camp if the situation remains unresolved.? The NFL and the Cowboys have managed to keep defensive tackle Josh Brent at a distance while he prepares for a September 2013 trial in the DUI death of Cowboys linebacker Jerry Brown.? Look for the league and the Pats to finesse a similar outcome that would keep Hernandez from being a far bigger distraction than the player the Patriots signed only 10 days ago.

UPDATE 10:42 a.m. ET:? This item was based on multiple reports than arrest warrant has been issued for Hernandez, and that he will be charged with obstruction of justice.? The Boston Globe has since reported that no arrest warrant has been issued.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/21/even-with-only-obstruction-of-justice-charge-hernandez-faces-real-problems-at-work/related/

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