Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

She Sailed On

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:54:03 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "The cathartic moment came when her sons gave her a computer for her 80th birthday -- and she started writing her story."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

For more than seven decades, Gretel Bergmann has been haunted by a recurring dream.

"I'm in the middle of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, with 100,000 people staring at me and it's my turn to jump, but I just can't, I can't move a muscle," she says. "My legs are like jelly."

The scene never happened: The Jewish high jumper, now 95, was robbed of the chance to take part in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Adolf Hitler notoriously used to show off Aryan sporting prowess to the rest of the world.

Hers is the incredible story of an exceptional Jewish athlete exploited and then cast off by the Nazis, a saga complete with a last-minute rejection letter that ends with the words "Heil Hitler!" and a sexual identity scandal involving her replacement that has echoes of the recent uproar over South African runner Caster Semenya.

If it seems cinematic, it is. Her story has been brought to life by the recent movie "Berlin 36

The Sad Illusion Of Happy Customers

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:16:15 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Best Buy is not being picked on here, it could be them or anyone else.

As a regular part of my work I have to trudge through large retail stores all the time and my biggest complaint is the lack of help. If you want us to buy, then have enough informed sales people to help us and get us through the lines quicker!

"It's not rocket science. To make customers happy, all you need to do is offer high-quality goods at competitive prices and staff your stores with a sufficient number of well-trained personnel to ensure a smooth shopping experience."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

This week, electronics heavyweight Best Buy launched a nationwide marketing campaign under the banner "They'll be happy, you'll be happy, we'll be happy."

What they're saying is that the company will bend over backward to help you shop for gifts this holiday season and will do whatever it takes to ensure that gift recipients are pleased with what they get.

That's the idea anyway. But after visiting a couple of Best Buy stores and chatting with customers, I'd say the company still has some work to do on the happiness front.

"The trade-off is that you get the selection and square footage, but you have to hunt to find someone to help you,"

"I had to hunt to find someone to help me."

You know what I mean: Epic lines at the cash register. Salespeople who don't have a clue about what they're selling or are nowhere to be found when you have a question.

Customer support that makes you feel like an uninvited dinner guest

Sometimes it feels like companies are determined to chase us away

We Must Be On Guard For Extremism

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:38:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "When dealing with soldiers far from their homes and families and subject to the greatest imaginable stress, the Army needs to be on the watch for the predatory inroads of any form of political or religious extremism -- whether it be the jihadism to which Hasan was drawn or the Christian identity nonsense that inspired Timothy McVeigh."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

There is a profound difference between watchfulness and a witch hunt.

In the aftermath of the Ft. Hood shootings, that's a crucial distinction, though nothing the authorities -- and particularly the U.S. Army brass -- have said so far has done much to help people make it

federal anti-terrorism operations intercepted 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al Awlaki

On Monday, he praised Hasan as a "hero" on his website and urged other American Muslim soldiers to emulate his example.

Clearly, the FBI screwed up here, but so did the Army.

The Army's apparent willingness to ignore this may have had less to do with promoting "diversity" or "multiculturalism" than it did with the service's large financial stake in Hasan's medical training and the hard time the military has in recruiting competent mental health professionals.

there is a need for perspective that doesn't impugn the more than 3,000 Muslim soldiers now serving their country in the Army

Please Don't Give Me Any More Excuses To Ingest Chocolate

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:28:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Move over, red wine. Make room for chocolate milk. A new study suggests that regular consumption of skim milk with flavonoid-rich cocoa may reduce inflammation, potentially slowing or preventing development of atherosclerosis. Researchers noted, however, that the effect was not as pronounced as that seen with red wine.

Participants also had significantly higher levels of good HDL cholesterol after completing the chocolate milk regimen, according to the study, which appears in the November issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is already online.

“Since atherosclerosis is a low-grade inflammatory disease of the arteries, regular cocoa intake seems to prevent or reduce” it, said Dr. Ramón Estruch of the University of Barcelona, the paper’s senior author, adding that more studies were needed.

Winners Without Placing A Bet

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:38:30 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

For the past 10 years, Jesus Leonardo has been cleaning up at an OTB parlor in Midtown Manhattan, cashing in, by his own count, nearly half a million dollars’ worth of winning tickets from wagers on thoroughbred races across the country.

During his glorious run, Mr. Leonardo, 57, has not placed a single bet.

“He’s a legend,” said Paul Pepad, 57, an out-of-work musician who lives in Manhattan. “Everyone knows that this is his turf, that all the tickets thrown out belong to him, period. It’s just been that way as long as I can remember.”

He said that stooping brings him $100 to $300 a day, and more than $45,000 a year.

“Everybody in here loves Jesus,” he said. “When Jesus wins, we all eat, and we all drink. Jesus is a very generous man.”

The Long Hot Winter

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:34:53 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

I have developed a whole new appreciation for the hysteria over Tiger Woods. Many critics of the news media believe we are spending way too much time worrying about why a golfer had a car accident at the end of his driveway. But given the incredibly depressing nature of all the big news stories of the week, if you want to focus on Tiger’s marital problems, I am in total sympathy.

The president ordered 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. The New York State Senate defeated a same-sex marriage bill. Even the murder and racketeering trial of John Gotti Jr. ended badly.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the U.S. Senate began its groundbreaking debate over a national health care plan.

The way things are going, we should get to a vote at about the same time that the president is planning to get the troops out of Afghanistan.

Let’s try not to think about what January will bring. Maybe another sports hero will do us a favor and run into a fire hydrant.

Cancer From The Kitchen

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:16:18 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "I asked these doctors what they do in their own homes to reduce risks. They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5.

It suggests that the “plastics to avoid” are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”). Yes, the evidence is uncertain, but my weekend project is to go through containers in our house and toss out 3’s, 6’s and 7’s. "

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.

What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens?

Younger people also seem to be developing breast cancer: This year a 10-year-old in California, Hannah, is fighting breast cancer and recording her struggle on a blog.

What’s happening? One theory starts with the well-known fact that women with more lifetime menstrual cycles are at greater risk for breast cancer, because they’re exposed to more estrogen.

It’s also well established that Western women are beginning puberty earlier, and going through menopause later.

One class of chemicals that creates concern — although the evidence is not definitive — is endocrine disruptors

These endocrine disruptors are found in everything from certain plastics to various cosmetics.

Did you Ever Feel Like?

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 05:36:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: didyoueverfeel.blogspot.com

Did you ever feel your sexual fantasies were being replaced by fantasies of quitting your job?

For All You Wingnuts

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:11:48 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Take a look at corporate welfare and the business of war profiteering for a change instead of trying to turn greedy I don't wanna pay my fair share of taxes bitching and moaning loud-mouthed asses into some kind of a hero for your own get rich aspirations.

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

Rush Limbaugh, is always bitching and moaning about welfare recipients

Exempt from his criticism are the rich, the politically-connected, and the corporations, who really collect most of the welfare in this country.

how many billions of dollars in closed, no-bid contracts did Halliburton alone receive in the Iraq War? And they're merely one of the pig-like, greedy corporations with their snouts at the trough of the bloated, wasteful Military Industrial Complex.

Indeed, Limbaugh's entire business is dependent on complete and total free usage of the public airwaves that we the people OWN.

If Rush's free ride on the public airwaves ain't welfare, then nothing is.

And now this fat piece of sh*t has the gall to blast any and all government programs that offer a helping hand to working people.

Oh, and to all you wingnuts who constantly bitch and moan about poor people getting a "free ride" off the taxpayers: obviously, you've never been poor, yourselves.

A Fearful Price

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:07:16 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined.

I don’t think our current way of waging war, which is pretty easy-breezy for most citizens, is what the architects of America had in mind. Here’s George Washington’s view, for example: “It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it.”

What we are doing is indefensible and will ultimately exact a fearful price, and there will be absolutely no way for the U.S. to avoid paying it".

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The idea that fewer than 1 percent of Americans are being called on to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and that we’re sending them into combat again and again and again — for three tours, four tours, five tours, six tours — is obscene. All decent people should object.

The air is filled with obsessive self-satisfied rhetoric about supporting the troops, giving them everything they need and not letting them down. But that rhetoric is as hollow as a jazzman’s drum because the overwhelming majority of Americans have no desire at all to share in the sacrifices that the service members and their families are making. Most Americans do not want to serve in the wars, do not want to give up their precious time to do volunteer work that would aid the nation’s warriors and their families, do not even want to fork over the taxes that are needed to pay for the wars.

Henry's Brain Lives On

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:19:02 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Last week, a year after Molaison's death, Annese and his team began cutting the brain into thousands of slices, the first phase of a project that will use new technology to preserve the 83-year-old brain.

The work will produce both highly magnified images of the brain that will be available on the Internet and a collection of tissue slices that can be used by researchers worldwide. It will offer a digital map of Molaison's brain in extremely fine detail, a way to re-examine theories based on examinations of him in life, perhaps leading to new insights into the mind responsible for so much of what we know about memory."

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Henry Molaison lived in relative obscurity, but he possessed one of the world's most famous brains.

Molaison, who was born in 1926, was a smart, technically minded man. But from childhood, he was plagued by seizures, and as he grew older, the seizures and medications he took for them interfered with his life.

The surgery was meant to help. It was performed in 1953 by Dr. William Beecher Scoville, an internationally known expert in lobotomies

The operation reduced Molaison's seizures. But it also left him unable to remember anything new for more than about 20 seconds.

It was a life-changing event for Molaison and, for scientists, a remarkable opportunity.

Gabrieli described the project as a "beautiful legacy."

In one sense his life got taken away from him in the surgery, inadvertently

The idea that his brain would be visible to all these scientists, so people can possibly learn from that information, is sort of fantastic to the field

I Intend To Stop You

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:09:19 GMT

clipped by: beaukivi
clipper's remarks: For you, babe.

Clip Source: www.thelocal.se

Veronica Maggio - Sweden's new soul sister

In the video for her most recent hit, Stopp, Maggio dons a pair of somewhat disconcerting gloves made from scissors and knives. “It’s because I saw the Edward Scissorhands movie just a few weeks before” explains Maggio:

“The song is about loving somebody that you were with and then realizing that you want that person back desperately and you can’t do anything about it. The more you try to get that person to love you, the further away they move from you… So I thought that the scissor hands was a good metaphor for how when you hurt somebody and you hurt yourself, you can’t really touch that person at all”.

“I wanted it to be a bit psycho too, a bit like a scary stalker person! I didn’t want cute, I wanted to be a little scary for this video”.

“I’ve done lots of songs in English but I’ve never recorded or released them”.

It must be the language barrier or something

I feel more at home with Swedish I guess

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Veronica Maggio - Stopp

[Video]

Tags: i love you

Uganda Debates Proposal

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:26:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "David Bahati, the legislator sponsoring the bill, said he was encouraging “constructive criticism” to improve the law but insisted strict measures were necessary to stop homosexuals from “recruiting” schoolchildren.

I feel that the bill is good and necessary, but I don’t think gays should be killed. They should be imprisoned for about a year and warned never to do it again.

Homophobia is rife even in more tolerant African countries."

Wow, it's encouraging that some think gays should not be killed, eh?
Ignorance, ignorance, ignorance.

"Frank Mugisha, a gay Ugandan human rights activist, said the bill was so poorly worded that someone could be imprisoned for giving a hug.

“This bill is promoting hatred,” he said. “We’re turning Uganda into a police state. It will drive people to suicide.”

Clip Source: www.365gay.com

The legislation has drawn global attention from activists across the spectrum of views on gay issues. The measure was proposed in Uganda following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy for gays to become heterosexual. However, at least one of those leaders has denounced the bill, as have some other conservative and liberal Christians in the United States.

Landlords who rent rooms or homes to homosexuals also could get seven years and anyone with “religious, political, economic or social authority” who fails to report anyone violating the act faces three years

The bill is still being debated and could undergo changes before a vote, which hasn’t yet been set. But gay-rights activists abroad are focusing on the legislation. A protest against the bill is planned for Thursday in London; protests were held last month in New York and Washington.

Black In The Age Of Obama

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:20:03 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Over the decades, conservatives and Republicans have forged and fueled fears of blacks coming after your teenage daughters, your wife, your stereo, your tax money, your job, your kid's college admissions, and the music your kids listen to.

It's out in the forefront again with the offensive images on Google. Any so called justification for that hatred such as one clipper posed here on CM is nothing but a smoke screen for the malevolence that lives in his heart.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Dickens opened “A Tale of Two Cities” with the now-famous phrase: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. ...”

Last year, blacks dared to dream anew, envisioning a future in which Obama’s election would be the catalyst for an era of prosperity and more racial harmony.

Things have not gotten better. In many ways, they’ve gotten worse.

The recession, for one, has dealt a particularly punishing and uneven hand to blacks.

Things on the racial front are just as bad.

In fact, racially offensive images of the first couple are so prolific online that Google now runs an apologetic ad with the results of image searches of them.

And it’s not all words and images; it’s actions as well.

The hard truth is that Obama needs white voters more than he needs black ones.

In fact, commiserating with the blacks could prove politically problematic.

Meanwhile, black people are also living a tale of two actions: grin and bear it.

So They Don't Die Alone

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:45:13 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Too many patients, too little time. Sandra Clarke, a nurse in Eugene, Ore., looked in on a patient not expected to live through the night. "Will you sit with me?" he asked.

Clark assured him that she would, but that first she had to check on her other patients. Ninety minutes later, she hurried back to the man's room — only to discover he had died.

Those feelings of responsibility and compassion — from Clarke and from other patient advocates — have given birth to a movement spreading to U.S. hospitals across the nation. The goal: to ensure every patient has a fellow human being at his or her bedside at the time of death.

"The two things people fear the most about dying are being in pain and being alone," Clarke says. "We try to honor the wishes of the dying."

And a surprising number of people don't have family members available to them — whether because of sudden, catastrophic accidents or physical or emotional distance.

Tags: death, comfort, human, companionship