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Last Friday I threw my back out when I bent over to pick up my tooth.
I think that sentence bears repeating.
I threw my back out when I bent over to pick up my tooth.
No, this piece is not about the horrors of the advancing age or eroding health this event implies. I'll leave it to others to share tales of how their bodies, despite all dietary and aerobic regiments, are grinding to an inevitable halt. All I know is that while I was down there on our kitchen floor, now eye level with the $3,000 implant that decided it would rather spend time against the molding under the pantry door than embedded in the upper left quadrant of my mouth, the first thought that entered my mind was that I'll just get up and continue with my day. I had a lot to do. There was a script I had to finish.
And then, upon realizing it was simply impossible to get up, the second thought that entered my mind was that I could very well spend the entire weekend on that floor as my wife and two of our children were at the Jersey Shore. A most tempting invitation I reluctantly turned down because I had that script I'd vowed to finish in their absence.
The next order of business? To call for help. 911? A neighbor? Those folks who make Life Alert -- you know, they have that commercial where an old lady is lying on her kitchen floor and says "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up" into something she's wearing around her neck and people come from somewhere to assist her?
All good ideas. Problem was, to make a call, to anyone, I needed to get to my cell phone which was on the couch in my study. Which was on the other side of the dining room. Which may as well have been on the other side of Venus at this point as my legs, at best, were ornamental.
So with no conventional mode of transportation available to me, I started to slither in that direction while cursing our youngest child, Sari, for not going to a local college so she'd be close enough to drop in anytime to have a bite to eat, or do her laundry, or lift a parent should he happen to, let's say, fall to the floor after throwing out his back after a tooth took leave of his mouth. But Sari goes to Ohio State. An estimable university I then started cursing because it's in Ohio.
It was about then that I made an interesting observation. That is, the more one slithers, the more one tends to curse people, places and things. Funny how I'd never noticed it before; very possibly because slithering on one's belly is a form of movement traditionally limited to infantrymen and reptiles and is almost never done during the course of a Semitic comedy writer's workday.
So as I left the smooth, easy-to-glide-upon stained wood floor of our kitchen and, in absolute agony, made my way toward the oh-shit-there's-a-carpeted floor of the dining room, I figured I'd use that time to pad my list of the curse worthy.
Like Dr. Leo Silverstrom, my so called dentist whose implant didn't exit my mouth because I was eating an apple or corn on the cob or even pudding for that matter. No, what occurred was the following: I was writing in my study, got up, went to the kitchen where I made myself a delicious turkey sandwich, brought it back into my study, then returned to the kitchen to grab a Diet Coke when an unexpected sneeze sent my erstwhile tooth hurtling toward the pantry door. A sneeze! Not a tsunami. Not an explosion. For the love of God, it wasn't even a hardy sneeze -- but rather one of those dainty achoos that I suspect Kitty Carlisle and/or Arlene Francis would've muffled under a doily at a dinner party in Leonard Bernstein's apartment where everyone came back to after a benefit at the Guggenheim.
Next on my list? Our cat. Yep, I now proceeded to curse our cat Livingston for not being a dog.
Unreasonable? Not his fault? Perhaps. Yet all I knew at that moment was that I needed that phone and, when instructed to do so, dogs fetched things. As in, "Hey, Lucky, bring me my phone" followed shortly by, "Atta boy, Lucky. Here's a biscuit." Sort of a pet/pet owner quid pro quo that, in the very least, gives some credence to the "man's best friend" moniker we hear so much about.
But cats? Nope. Not a chance in hell. Whether they're asked, told, prodded, commanded, cajoled or bribed, cats do whatever they want, whenever they want, which puts them right up there among the most unresponsive of God's domestic creatures. And for that millisecond I considered cursing the Almighty himself for creating cats but decided against it because I thought it unwise to alienate any omnipotent being should I eventually need him to turn Livingston into a paramedic.
So I ventured onward.
Into the dining room.
Where, from my chin on the carpet vantage point, I was able to see, through the legs of the dining room chairs in front of me, my cell phone lying on the couch in my study. Alongside the turkey sandwich I now craved more than anything, which was saying a lot, given that I've been to Europe and have had some very good meals there.
I now had a decision to make. Should I go around the table or under it?
I did the math. And recalled from both years I took geometry I (or was it from both years I took trigonometry I?) that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line which, in this case, meant to continue slithering forward. Under the table. Between the legs of what seemed like a thousand chairs. None of which had any give when my shoulders failed to follow my head through them. Or when I threw my carcass into reverse in an attempt to reunite my head with my shoulders and all body parts located south of them.
I started rocking to hopefully dislodge. No, that's an exaggeration. Rocking is a motion that requires having a back strong enough to not have been under that table to begin with. So I wasn't rocking. I was nodding. That's right. I was lying on my stomach under a dining room table where I was stuck. Wedged. Essentially incarcerated by the legs of chairs we sat on maybe twice a year and was nodding like an imbecile -- all the while looking straight ahead at Livingston who was now splayed on the couch eating my delicious turkey sandwich.
"God damn you, Livingston!" I yelled. "That's the thanks I get, you ungrateful shit?"
Allow me to explain.
About three years ago our son Adam found a stray kitty in his backyard. And because his wife was pregnant and her doctor advised them against having a cat in the house, we took it in.
We gave Livinston a home. And affection. And one day, when he was still a kitten, after I'd made myself a delicious Boars Head turkey sandwich, I grabbed some of the leftover meat, ripped it into bit size pieces, placed them on the island in our kitchen, then lifted him onto the counter where he proceeded to devour the shredded slices with the ferocity of a kitten who was going to the electric chair the next day.
I continued doing this over the next several months and it escalated to the point that whenever Livingston, who was now the size of, well, a cat, saw me come into the kitchen he'd jump up onto the counter fully expecting that shreds of Boars Head turkey would follow. So I obliged. I kept a stash of it on a shelf in the refrigerator and on a few occasions even drove to our supermarket for no other reason than to buy sliced turkey so not to disappoint the cat who was now removing the top slice of bread from my sandwich, giving him easier access to deli meat he wouldn't even know about if it wasn't for me.
"Jesus, Livingston! You mean to tell me you can slide off the top of a sandwich but you can't lift a fucking phone! Give me break, you fat bastard!"
I then heard a sound from outside. A car pulling up. Yes! I then heard its door open. Yes! Help was only moments away! Up your ass, Livingston. I know humans.
"It's on the table in the foyer," my sister-in-law shouted to my sixteen-year-old nephew, who'd left his tennis racket at our house the night before, as he bounded up our porch steps and came through our front door into our foyer not ten feet from where his favorite uncle Alan was trapped under a table.
Jason's a great kid. Smart. Athletic. Funny. Would probably even find this situation humorous once it's explained to him. That's okay. I guess this episode was sort of funny. The kind of thing I'd laugh at had it happened to someone else. But now it was time for it to end. All I had to do was lift my head and shout loud enough to be heard through the top of the table and around the wall between the dining room and the foyer.
"Jason!"
"I got the racket, Uncle Alan! See you later!"
And then was gone. Just like that. A front door slammed, a car door slammed, the car backed away.
God, I hate that kid. A lot. The three people I hate the most?
Hitler.
Bin Laden.
My sixteen-year-old nephew Jason.
So, once again, I was attempting to slither. Forward, backward, this way, that way, any way that could get me out from under that table before I ended up like that guy in 127 Hours who had to cut his arm off in order to...
"Uncle Alan?"
Jason?
"Livingston was outside so I brought him back in."
He must've run out when Jason opened the door to get his tennis racket.
"It was so cute, Uncle Alan. He jumped up onto the hood of the car and kept looking at us through the windshield."
He probably thought there was a sliced turkey festival in the glove department.
"Uncle Alan?"
"Jason, can you come here a second?"
"Sure. Where are you?"
"In the dining room."
Jason enters to find the top half of his Uncle Alan's body under a table.
"Did you lose something, Uncle Alan?"
"Yes."
"A contact lens?"
"No."
"Then what are you looking for?"
"Jason, can you tell your mom to come into the house for a minute?"
"Yeah, but first tell me what you lost."
The little prick.
"I lost my tooth."
"And it's under the table?"
"No... it's in the kitchen."
"Then why aren't you in the kitchen?"
"Because I hurt my back bending over to pick it up and I'm trying to get to my phone."
About ten minutes later, after he stopped laughing, he got his mom and about ten minutes after that, once she stopped laughing, they each grabbed a leg and at the count of three pulled me out from under the table and then tilted me upward like I was a Christmas tree they'd just brought home and were about to decorate.
So, now it's Monday and it's hard to believe that I'm only three days older than I was when this pathetic tale began. I now have an orthopedist, I bought stock in the company that makes Life Alert, and tomorrow I'll be going to a new dentist with every hope it will the last time that I'll be driving with one of my teeth in a pants pocket.
A silver lining? Well, I'm choosing to believe that Livingston, fully aware of his limitations, purposely ran from the house and jumped onto my sister-in-law's car to get her and Jason inside the house to help me. It's a lot easier to think that than being mad at him. We people over fifty tend to look unattractive when we're mad.
Learn about Alan Zweibel and Dave Barry's forthcoming book, Lunatics, here.
?
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-zweibel/livingston_b_1164086.html
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CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptian police and soldiers firing guns and teargas fought to clear protesters from Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, the fifth day of clashes that have killed 13 people and drawn a stinging rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton condemned as "particularly shocking" incidents such as one in which two Egyptian soldiers were filmed dragging a woman protester on the ground by her shirt, exposing her underwear, then clubbing and kicking her.
"Women protesters have been rounded up and subjected to horrific abuse. Journalists have been sexually assaulted. And now, women are being attacked, stripped, and beaten in the streets," America's top diplomat said in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University on Monday, adding:
"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people."
The United States, which saw Cairo as a staunch ally in the era of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, gives Cairo $1.3 billion a year in military aid, a commitment that began after Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel.
Clinton's remarks, some of the strongest criticism by a U.S. official of Egypt's new rulers, ratchet up pressure on the army. But Western diplomats said it was unlikely Washington would use its hefty aid as leverage. U.S. officials have so far praised the army for committing to hand power to civilians.
A staggered parliamentary election is under way and the army has pledged to hand power to an elected president by July.
In a statement, the ruling army council called for an "end to all manifestations of violence" and said the law should be upheld while "respecting the dignity of the Egyptian citizen, men and women."
Clinton, who had earlier called on Egypt's security forces to respect human rights, said women had been mostly shut out of decision-making by the ruling army and by big political parties.
"Women are being beaten and humiliated in the same streets where they risked their lives for the revolution only a few short months ago," she said.
Thousands of men and women marched to Tahrir over that and other incidents, chanting: "The women of Egypt are a red line."
GUNFIRE AT DAWN
General Adel Emara, a member of Egypt's army council that took over after Mubarak was overthrown in February, said on Monday the attack on the woman protester was an isolated incident that was under investigation.
Gunfire rang out across Tahrir Square at dawn as security forces charged hundreds of protesters attempting to hold their ground, activists and a Reuters journalist at the scene said.
After a night of clashes, hundreds of protesters demanding an immediate end to army rule were in Tahrir in the morning.
Medical sources say 13 people have been killed and hundreds wounded in the violence that began on Friday in Tahrir and nearby streets leading to parliament and the cabinet office.
Army generals and their advisers have condemned the pro-democracy protesters, sometimes in extraordinarily harsh terms.
"What is your feeling when you see Egypt and its history burn in front of you?" retired general Abdel Moneim Kato, an army adviser, told al-Shorouk daily, referring to a government archive building set alight during clashes. "Yet you worry about a vagrant who should be burnt in Hitler's incinerators."
Those comments drew fierce criticism from politicians and rights groups, saying they would stir further violence.
"The least that can be said about such comments is they are irresponsible and he must be punished for them, publicly and transparently," the Arab Network for Human Rights said, adding that "his Nazi opinions, incite hatred, and justify violence."
General Emara said "evil forces" wanted to sow chaos and that soldiers had shown "self-restraint" despite provocation.
"What is happening does not belong with the revolution and its pure youth, who never wanted to bring down this nation," he said. Despite the actions of the security forces in Tahrir, Emara denied that the army had given orders to clear the square.
BLOODY MAYHEM
Hard-core activists have camped in Tahrir since a protest against army rule on November 18, which was sparked by the army-backed cabinet's proposals to permanently shield the military from civilian oversight in the new constitution.
A week of mayhem in November killed 42 people.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the use of "excessive" force by the Egyptian authorities. Rights groups said suppliers should not send small arms to Egypt.
The flare-up has also marred a staggered parliamentary election that began on November 28 and ends on January 11, but the army has said a promised transition to civilian rule will go ahead.
Results so far suggest the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood and hard-line Salafi Islamists will dominate the lower house, groups the West once looked to Mubarak to keep in check.
Washington has reached out to Islamists in a shift in approach since the summer. A senior U.S. diplomat met Islamist and other newly elected members of parliament in the northern city of Alexandria, the embassy said on Tuesday.
Before the latest charge by the security forces in Tahrir, protesters had been trying to tear down a brick wall the army had put up to block access to parliament, located nearby.
"Hundreds of state security forces and the army entered the square and began firing heavily. They chased protesters and burned anything in their way, including medical supplies and blankets," said a protester who gave his name only as Ismail.
"Some of those who fell had gunshot wounds to the legs," he added, speaking by telephone from Tahrir.
Politicians and members of parliament who had been staging a sit-in nearby tried to enter the square but were forced to turn back as the gunfire and clashes raged on, Ismail said.
The violent crackdown has alarmed rights groups. Amnesty International urged arms suppliers to stop sending small arms and ammunition to Egypt's military and security forces.
Reporters Without Borders complained of the army's "systematic use of violence against media personnel."
(Additional reporting by Shaimaa Fayed and Dina Zayed; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111220/wl_nm/us_egypt
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MIAMI BEACH, Fla. ? A bomb squad has removed a Navy training mine that authorities say washed ashore on Miami Beach in an area dotted by numerous condominiums.
Police cordoned off the area around the mine with yellow tape Monday and kept bystanders away as Fire Rescue crews and a bomb squad examined the device.
Fire Rescue spokesman Jesus Sola says photos of the mine were taken and sent to the Navy. The device, which is 6 feet long and 2 feet in diameter, was later loaded onto a truck and hauled away.
Sola says the mine, which was painted white, still appeared to be live but it wasn't as explosive as a regular mine.
It was not immediately known how the mine washed ashore or where it came from.
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FILE - In this March 2, 2010 file photo, letter carrier Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - In this March 2, 2010 file photo, letter carrier Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 15, 2011, file photo Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe speaks at a news conference on changes to the Postal Service that could potentially save as much as $3 billion in Washington. The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, Dec. 5, 2011, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy. While providing short-term relief, the changes could ultimately prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet.( AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2011, file photo Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe appears before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as the panel examines the economic troubles of the Postal Service, a self-funded federal agency, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Seeing no immediate help from Congress, the cash-strapped service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and eliminate overnight service for the first time in 40 years. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Charts show U.S. Postal Service operating losses and mail volume since
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Unprecedented cuts by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will slow first-class delivery next spring and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.
The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail later Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.
That birthday card mailed first-class to Mom also could arrive a day or two late, if people don't plan ahead.
"It's a potentially major change, but I don't think consumers are focused on it and it won't register until the service goes away," said Jim Corridore, analyst with S&P Capital IQ, who tracks the shipping industry. "Over time, to the extent the customer service experience gets worse, it will only increase the shift away from mail to alternatives. There's almost nothing you can't do online that you can do by mail."
The cuts would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March. Because the consolidations would typically lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency would also lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971. Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one to three days; that will be lengthened to two to three days, meaning mailers could no longer expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two and nine days.
The Postal Service already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.
About 42 percent of first-class mail is now delivered the following day; another 27 percent arrives in two days, about 31 percent in three days and less than 1 percent in four to five days. Following the change next spring, about 51 percent of all first-class mail is expected to arrive in two days, with most of the remainder delivered in three days.
The consolidation of mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closing of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.
Expressing urgency to reduce costs, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview that the agency has to act while waiting for Congress to grant it authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs. The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive tax money, but is subject to congressional control of large aspects of its operations. The changes in first-class mail delivery can be implemented without permission from Congress.
After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the U.S. Treasury for retiree health benefits; it is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year amid steady declines in first-class mail volume. Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.
"We have a business model that is failing. You can't continue to run red ink and not make changes," Donahoe said. "We know our business, and we listen to our customers. Customers are looking for affordable and consistent mail service, and they do not want us to take tax money."
Separate bills have passed House and Senate committees that would give the post office more authority and liquidity to stave off immediate bankruptcy. But prospects are somewhat dim for final congressional action on those bills anytime soon, especially if the measures are seen in an election year as promoting layoffs and cuts to neighborhood post offices.
The Postal Service initially announced in September it was studying the possibility of closing the processing centers and published a notice in the Federal Register seeking comments. Within 30 days, the plan elicited nearly 4,400 public comments, mostly in opposition.
___
Online:
https://www.usps.com/
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LOS ANGELES ? A long-running NASA spacecraft that's been exploring the fringes of the solar system has entered new territory.
The space agency said Monday the Voyager 1 spacecraft is in a new region of the solar system that's different than what it's been studying the past five years.
New evidence presented at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco shows Voyager 1 has reached a point where the sun has little influence.
Voyager 1 still has a little ways to go before it leaves the solar system and enters interstellar space ? or the space between stars.
Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, are hurtling in opposite directions toward interstellar space.
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WASHINGTON ? House GOP leaders are struggling with divisions within their party over whether to extend the payroll tax cut, after the Senate punted on its efforts to keep the tax holiday going another year.
Senate votes Thursday exposed wide reluctance by Republicans to go along with the costly proposal that's a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's jobs agenda. That puts the focus on the GOP-controlled House.
The cut in Social Security payroll taxes encountered stiff opposition from many House Republicans in a closed-door meeting on Friday, and it seemed plain Republican leaders like House Speaker John Boehner have a lot of persuading to do before the payroll tax measure and an accompanying extension of unemployment benefits is ready for a vote.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said the current 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax hasn't helped. Extending the tax holiday for another year would cost $120 billion.
"It hasn't stimulated the economy at all," Gohmert said. "But over the long term it does add to our deficit."
With just two or three weeks before Congress adjourns for Christmas, Republicans are deeply unhappy with a year-end agenda populated with Obama initiatives like the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits, as well as a nearly $1 trillion stack of unfinished spending bills.
"There's not a hell of a lot of enthusiasm for anything right now," said Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas.
On Thursday, as expected, Senate Republicans defeated Obama's plan to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of next year while also making it more generous for workers.
But in a vote that exposed rare divisions among Senate Republicans, more than two dozen of the GOP's 47 lawmakers also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by their leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to renew the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut.
A spokesman for Boehner, R-Ohio, said House Republicans weren't planning on negotiating with Democrats before unveiling a payroll tax cut plan ? and the spending cuts to pay for it ? next week. But the Senate vote would seem to indicate that House Republicans will be hard-pressed to muscle a payroll tax cut through without Democratic support. And those votes could be hard to come by if the GOP plan contains spending cuts Democrats dislike.
Many Republicans and even some Democrats say the payroll tax cut hasn't worked to boost jobs and is too costly at a time when the deficit requires the government to borrow 36 cents of every dollar it spends.
"I can't find many people who even know that they're getting it, OK?" said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who opposed both tax cut plans. "So with that being said, we're going to double down on something that we thought should have worked that didn't work."
The defeat of the competing Senate plans came as Boehner said for the first time that renewing the payroll tax cut would boost the lagging economy. Boehner also promised compromise on a renewal of long-term jobless benefits through the end of 2012.
The payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are at the center of a costly, politically-charged year-end agenda in which Democrats seem poised to prevail in renewing a tax cut that many Republicans back only reluctantly. But Republicans are insisting ? in a switch from last year ? that the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits be paid for by cutting spending.
Both parties are seeking the political high ground as next year's elections loom, with Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs.
The first payroll tax plan to fall was a Democratic measure that was at the heart of the jobs package Obama announced in September. It would cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent next year and also extend the cut to employers, with its hefty $265 billion cost paid for by slapping a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.
Republicans and a handful of Democrats combined to kill the measure on a 51-49 tally that fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate rules. For the first time, a Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, voted to support the millionaires' surcharge.
In a surprising result, Democrats and more than two dozen Republicans then voted 78-20 to kill the $120 billion GOP alternative that would have simply extended the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut, financed by freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 and reducing the government bureaucracy.
Republicans offered a simple one-year continuation of the existing law, jettisoning Obama's call to deepen the cut to 3.1 percentage point on workers' first $106,800 in earnings, while expanding it to cut in half employers' Social Security contributions for their $5 million in payroll.
To pay for the measure, Senate Republicans proposed freezing federal workers' pay through 2015 ? extending a two-year-freeze recommended by Obama ? and reducing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs through attrition.
The Democratic plan would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut; the GOP plan would provide a $1,000 tax cut for such an earner. A two-income family making $200,000 would reap a $6,000-plus tax cut under the Democratic plan and a $4,000 tax cut under the GOP version.
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Controversial Bodies: Thoughts on the Public Display of Plastinated Corpses, John D. Lantos, ed.
A dozen authors discuss issues surrounding the display of human bodies whose flesh has been preserved by plastic.
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2011, 145 p., $35
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We take a look at the surprises — and outright outrages — of the Grammy nominations, in Bigger Than the Sound.
By James Montgomery
Lady Gaga
Photo: Leon Neal/AFP
Here's about all you need to know about the nominations for the 54th Grammy Awards, which were announced Wednesday night in Los Angeles: Bon Iver got more of them (4) than Lady Gaga did (3). So did Mumford & Sons, Radiohead and Skrillex.
Call it the residual effects of Arcade Fire's Album of the Year triumph at the previous Grammys or perhaps the first creaks of a seismic shift in voter tastes, but there's definitely something going on with this year's field of nominees ... it's just difficult to say exactly what.
Because, sure Gaga got shunted. But Kanye didn't. In fact, he's this year's most-nominated artist, collecting seven of them (though his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, by all accounts a commercial and critical success, failed to pick up an Album of the Year nod) in a move by the Grammy voters that certainly poked a lot of holes in what everyone believed would be the story line of these awards: Namely, that women would dominate, since, you know, they've basically done that on the charts all year long.
Think Beyoncé and Britney Got the Grammy Cold Shoulder? Sound Off!
Adele, who you've probably heard of (and whose 21 album you probably own), ended up snagging six nods, including Album, Record and Song of the Year. But most expected her to get more, or at least be the most-nominated act. Instead, she's tied with a bunch of dudes (Bruno Mars and those old Grammy faves the Foo Fighters) in second. Nicki Minaj ended up with five noms, while Rihanna — who is usually the one left out at these kinds of shows — got four. And then the drop off begins.
Taylor Swift, who won Album of the Year not too long ago, and whose Speak Now sold a million copies in a week, was shut out of the so-called "Big Four" categories and ended up with just three nominations total, all of which came in the country categories. Katy Perry, who has three #1 singles to her name this year, earned two noms. So did Beyoncé, and one of her nods came in the Long Form Music Video category. Britney Spears was shut out completely. All of those decisions were curious, to say the very least.
Then again, as I wrote on Wednesday, the Grammys usually shake out this way. They are usually unpredictable ... if not incomprehensible. So, with the field of nominees set, I've decided to take a look at some of this year's biggest shocks and snubs, in a last-ditch attempt to make sense of it all. What can I say? At least I'm trying.
Shocks
I've already mentioned two eyebrow-raisers: First, that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was edged out of Album of the Year, a twist that I don't think anyone saw coming, especially since he's been up for the award three times before. And second, that Speak Now failed to gain more traction with Grammy voters. Given Swift's track record with the awards, and how well her latest sold, her absence in AOTY seems all the more glaring. Then again, the two albums that took their spots — Mars' Doo-Wops & Hooligans and the Foos' Wasting Light — didn't exactly represent stretches by Grammy voters, either. Mars picked up some heat at last year's awards, and the Foos, well, they've already got six Grammys to their name.
I'm also sort of amazed that those voters deviated from recent tradition, and ignored the token "old dude" releases by Tony Bennett and Paul Simon in AOTY. A cultural shift? Perhaps. In keeping with that theme, I was also surprised to see one of the year's biggest country acts, Jason Aldean, get shut out of the "Big Four" categories: He had two of the year's biggest songs ("Dirt Road Anthem" and "Don't You Wanna Stay") and he performed at the annual nominations telecast. Those two things seemed to guarantee him some nods. He ended up with just three.
I suppose given the continued success of Mumford & Sons, their Grammy haul — four noms, including Record and Song of the Year for "The Cave" — shouldn't really be considered all that shocking, but given everyone they edged out (Gaga, Beyoncé, Aldean, Minaj, Swift) — it's still rather surprising. Rihanna's Album of the Year nomination is also mildly surprising, considering she's not exactly an album artist ... then again, neither is Katy Perry, and her Teenage Dream was nominated in the same category last year.
But overall, the biggest shock has to be the four nominations earned by Justin Vernon, the bearded wunderkind also known as Bon Iver. Without the support of radio — or even a major label — his "Holocene" earned Record and Song of the Year, and he's also up for Best New Artist (the term applies loosely, I know), giving him a stake in three-quarters of the "Big Four," a feat equaled only by Adele and Bruno Mars. He is without a doubt this year's biggest Grammy story, and the question of whether his success — coupled with Arcade Fire's triumph last year — represents voters' newfound recognition of indie artists may wind up being the story line that shapes the awards for years to come.
Snubs
Let's start with Gaga. For everything that led up to the release of Born This Way (and everything that followed subsequently), not to mention she's been nominated for Album of the Year twice before, the fact that she walked away with just three nominations has got to be considered a snub. Are voters just growing tired of her? Did BTW not do enough? Are we really in the midst of some grand change? Tough to say.
I'd also say Katy Perry's two nominations count as a boldface snub, given her continued success in 2011. Then again, she did earn her share of nods at last year's show, so my outrage is tempered, albeit slightly. Beyoncé released 4, the very definition of a grower, both commercially and critically, but for the album to receive just one proper nomination seems like a slight. Taylor Swift fans probably have some qualms with the voters, as do Nicki Minaj's Barbz. And Britney Spears' goose egg is slightly aggravating, then again, she's never been considered a Grammy artist, and has won just once during her entire career.
And though I already mentioned it as a shock, the fact that Dark Twisted Fantasy didn't scoop up an Album of the Year nod may also go down as the year's biggest snub too. It sold well, was heaped with critical praise and, like I said, he's been nominated in the category before. Perhaps it was just released too long ago, or maybe he split votes by releasing Watch The Throne, but whatever the case, its absence in AOTY is rather outrageous, to say the very least. And even though he's the show's most-nominated act, I'd like to think Kanye would agree with me in that regard.
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FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2010 file photo, Christopher Smeltzer arrives for arraignment in District Court in Candia, N.H. on a charge he beat his wife to death. In October 2011, Smeltzer pleaded guilty to killing her. He faces 15 to 30 years in prison when sentenced Friday, Dec. 2, 2011 in Rockingham Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2010 file photo, Christopher Smeltzer arrives for arraignment in District Court in Candia, N.H. on a charge he beat his wife to death. In October 2011, Smeltzer pleaded guilty to killing her. He faces 15 to 30 years in prison when sentenced Friday, Dec. 2, 2011 in Rockingham Superior Court in Brentwood, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole, File)
BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) ? A New Hampshire man was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison Friday for beating his wife to death with a flashlight after he came home to find she had strangled their 4-year-old son with a ribbon and tried to kill their 7-year-old daughter.
Christopher Smeltzer, 39, pleaded guilty to killing Mara Pappalardo, who was hospitalized several times for mental illness. Prosecutors say she was paranoid, obsessed with death and convinced her husband and mother-in-law were plotting to take her children away.
"When I walked into the room, as soon as I saw my son, I knew something was very wrong," Smeltzer told the court before he was sentenced, his voice breaking at times. "I knew he was dead. And I lost all control. Enraged, I struck my wife. I did something that was not going to bring my son back."
Smeltzer was charged with second-degree murder in the November 2010 killing at their Auburn home. Prosecutors later downgraded that to manslaughter, saying he was provoked by the sight of the still bodies of their son, Mason, and daughter, Mercey.
He arrived home Nov. 7 to find Mason with a ribbon around his neck and Mercey with a scarf around hers. He thought both were dead. Pappalardo tied a blue rope around her own neck in an attempt to kill herself, although prosecutors said she died from both strangulation and Smeltzer hitting her in the head with the flashlight.
Smeltzer did not call 911. Instead, he snipped the ribbon off Mason's neck and removed the scarf from Mercey's. Then he took all the pills he could find ? painkillers, sleeping aids and methadone ? and lay down on the couch to die.
He was awakened the next morning by Mercey, who asked if her mother and brother were breathing and requested a cup of tea. He made her one, then called his father and 911.
Smeltzer, who was wearing handcuffs Friday, wept while talking about how much he misses his son. "I miss my wife as well," he said. "I miss Mara's smile and heart and the way she played with our children."
He apologized to her family. "I brought more pain and sorrow," he said, adding he wishes every day he had a rewind button.
Judge Tina Nadeau said if Smeltzer earns a college degree and completes anger management behind bars, his minimum sentence would be reduced to 10 years.
Before Smeltzer spoke, a court-appointed guardian representing Mercey played a recording of the child reading a letter to the judge in which she said her father killed her mother and Mason. "If he loves me, why would he try to kill me?" she said. "If my daddy gets out, how will I keep safe? Please keep him in jail for the rest of his life."
After that, prosecutor Jane Young got up and said the recording is contrary to statements Mercey has made in the past, in counseling and interviews. She repeatedly had said her father had taken the scarf off of her neck. She has said she remembers her mother carrying her into the bedroom, but doesn't remember what happened next, Young said.
Prosecutors said there is no evidence that Smeltzer killed Mason.
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq ? Inside palace walls built by Saddam Hussein, U.S. generals plotted the war's course, tracked the mounting death toll and swore in new American citizens under gaudy glass chandeliers.
Just outside the palace, American troops whacked golf balls into man-made lakes or fished for carp while others sat down with a cigar and a can of nonalcoholic beer hoping for a respite from incoming rockets or mortar shells.
Along another lake some distance away, a jailed Saddam tended to tomatoes and cucumbers in a small, walled-off enclosure with guards patrolling overhead.
Ever since the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division fought their way into the Baghdad airport grounds nearly nine years ago, the sprawling area they renamed Camp Victory has held a special place in the American military experience in Iraq.
From here, the highest-ranking generals sitting behind banks of telephones and video screens communicated with commanders in the field and political leaders in Washington and dictated strategy that unfolded on the streets of Fallujah, Mosul and Najaf.
It was an intersection in the war where U.S. troops, hot and dusty after traveling across Iraq's deadly roads and highways, could relax with a latte or bootlegged movie before heading back out again.
On Friday, the base that at its height was home to 46,000 people was handed over to the Iraqi government as part of American efforts to move all U.S. troops out of the country by the end of the year.
"The base is no longer under U.S. control and is under the full authority of the government of Iraq," said U.S. military spokesman Col. Barry Johnson.
The area, which the military formally calls Victory Base Complex, was originally used as a country club for the Baghdad elite under Saddam. A visitor can still find small relics of that era, such as signs advising patrons where to park or the hours in which the casino was open.
Saddam built the palace complex near the airport out of embarrassment. During the 1978 Arab League summit he was forced to house incoming dignitaries in private homes in Baghdad because he had no proper accommodations, according to Robert O. Kirkland, a former U.S. military historian who interviewed former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and other Iraqis who were once in American custody.
To rectify the problem, Saddam went on a palace-building spree, eventually building nine buildings of varying size and impressiveness. He gave some of them names that reflected his often convoluted view of the world: Victory over America, Victory over Iran and Victory over Kuwait.
In the run-up to the war, U.S. military planners were confused by a cone-shaped structure they could see from satellite imagery, said Col. Les Melnyk, another former U.S. military historian in Iraq. They labeled it a possible prayer site. It turned out to be a pigeon coop.
Maj. William Sumner was a captain when his unit arrived at Camp Victory in mid-April 2003. He remembers how Iraqi looters managed to get into the complex and make off with geese, pelicans and other animals from a small zoo Saddam had built.
"I think that's when the cougar got out of the enclosure," he said. For weeks afterward, a large feline that Sumner said could have also been a bobcat was spotted wandering around the base.
In the early days after the invasion, soldiers swam in the man-made lakes or toured the islands with paddle boats.
But quickly the atmosphere became more like bases back in the U.S. That meant rules and regulations ? and military police to enforce them. Sumner said during his unit's second week at Victory he was pulled over for speeding.
"After we moved onto our other place, we just tried to refuse to go back there whenever possible," he said.
Victory Base Complex was essentially a city, often hit by rockets or mortar shells. One time the violence came from within. In May 2009, a U.S. soldier shot and killed five fellow troops at a combat stress clinic.
The facility was so big it was divided into sections with different names. Troops could travel from Camp Stryker to Camp Liberty without leaving the base. A public bus system with posted routes transported people to the dining facilities, the gym or a dirt speedway where troops and contractors would race remote-controlled cars.
By the numbers supplied by the U.S. military, it was a substantial operation:
? The incinerators destroyed an average of 178,000 pounds of waste a day.
? A water purification plant produced 1.85 million gallons of water a day.
? A bottled water plant filled 500,000 one-liter bottles a day.
? Three separate plants produced 60 megawatts of power a day.
If soldiers grew tired of food at the massive chow halls, they could grab takeout at Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Cinnabon, Burger King or Subway.
At various stores they could buy anything from illegal DVDs to a Harley Davidson motorcycle delivered straight to their door back in the U.S. when they returned from the war. In the early days of the war, troops could even buy Saddam Hussein's personal silverware and place settings.
Troops and contractors visiting from other bases took tours of the palaces.
One particularly entertaining pastime was feeding the carp in the lake surrounding Al Faw palace, where the top generals and U.S. military officials were based. The aggressive fish would jump out of the water for cereal, Girl Scout cookies and Pop Tarts.
Off-limits to most troops: the jail used to house Saddam and some of his cohorts. In a dilapidated, bomb-damaged building encircled by concertina wire, American troops interrogated and guarded the former dictator before he was handed over to the Iraqis and executed in 2006.
The Iraqi government has not yet announced plans for the complex, prime real estate in a country sorely lacking in parks and public spaces. The Iraqi military is already using some parts, and there is talk of turning Saddam's jail cell into a museum.
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A team of scientists from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and CellThera, a private company located in WPI's Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center, have regenerated functional muscle tissue in mice, opening the door for a new clinical therapy to treat people who suffer major muscle trauma.
The team used a novel protocol to coax mature human muscle cells into a stem cell-like state and grew those reprogrammed cells on biopolymer microthreads. The threads were placed in a wound created by surgically removing a large section of leg muscle from a mouse. Over time, the threads and cells restored near-normal function to the muscle, as reported in the paper "Restoration of Skeletal Muscle Defects with Adult Human Cells Delivered on Fibrin Microthreads," published in the current issue of the journal Tissue Engineering. Surprisingly, the microthreads, which were used simply as a scaffold to support the reprogrammed human cells, actually seemed to accelerate the regeneration process by recruiting progenitor mouse muscle cells, suggesting that they alone could become a therapeutic tool for treating major muscle trauma.
"We are pleased with the progress of this work, and frankly we were surprised by the level of muscle regeneration that was achieved," said Raymond Page, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at WPI, chief scientific officer at CellThera, and corresponding author on the paper.
The current study is part of a multi-year program funded, in part, by grants from the National Institutes of Health and DARPA, the advanced research program of the U.S Department of Defense, to support the development of new technologies and therapies for people who suffer serious wounds and limb loss.
Mammalian skeletal muscles are able to repair small injuries caused by excessive exertion or minor trauma by recruiting muscle progenitor cells, which have not fully developed into muscle fibers, to the site of injury to rebuild the muscle. With major injuries, however, the body's first priority is to stop the bleeding, so scar tissue forms quickly at the wound site and overrides any muscle repair.
In the current study, the WPI/CellThera team combined two novel technologies to try to prevent scar formation and prompt muscle re-growth. The first was a method they had developed previously for reprogramming mature human skin cells without employing viruses or extra genes (Cloning, Stem Cells. 2009 Jul 21). The reprogrammed cells express stem cell genes and multiply in great numbers, but don't differentiate into specific tissues. The second was the use of biopolymer microthreads as a scaffold to support the cells. Developed by George Pins, associate professor of biomedical engineering at WPI, the threads--about the thickness of a human hair--are made of fibrin, a protein that helps blood clot.
Researchers removed a portion of the tibialis anterior leg muscle in several mice (the muscle was chosen because injury to it affects the foot's range of motion but doesn't prevent the mice from walking). In some mice, the injuries were left to heal on their own. In others, the wound was filled with bundles of microthreads seeded with reprogrammed human muscle cells. The untreated mice developed significant scarring at the injury site, with no restoration of muscle function. In sharp contrast, the mice that received the reprogrammed cells grew new muscle fibers and developed very little scarring.
Tests done 10 weeks after implantation showed that the regenerated tibialis anterior muscle functioned with nearly as much strength as an uninjured muscle. The scientists expected that most of the regenerated muscle would be composed of human cells, since the implanted cells were from human muscle. Surprisingly, most of the new muscle fibers were made of mouse cells. The team theorized that the fibrin microthreads, which in their composition and shape are similar to muscle fibers, may encourage resident mouse progenitor cells to migrate into the wound and begin restoring the tissue (they may also forestall the natural inflammatory response that leads to scarring after a major injury).
This surprise finding suggests that fibrin microthreads alone could be used to treat major muscle trauma while research on enhancing regeneration with reprogrammed human cells continues. "The contribution of the fibrin microthreads alone to wound healing should not be understated," the authors wrote. "While this clearly points to room for improving cell delivery techniques, it suggests that fibrin microthreads alone have tremendous potential for reducing fibrosis and remodeling large muscle injuries. Future studies will address, more completely, the capability of microthreads alone and determine, at what point, a combinational cell therapy is required for full functional tissue restoration."
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Worcester Polytechnic Institute: http://www.wpi.edu
Thanks to Worcester Polytechnic Institute for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115545/Body_rebuilding__Researchers_regenerate_muscle_in_mice
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BEIJING (Reuters) ? Businessmen in sober suits leapt to their feet, jostling with cameras and mobile phones to snap a quick shot as the new U.S. ambassador to China strode to the podium at a hotel ballroom in Jinan, in coastal Shandong province.
Nine hours later, after a speech on energy cooperation, signing ceremonies for deals of a few million dollars each, and dinner with the governor, he was back on the train to Beijing.
This is how Gary Locke, the first Chinese-American ambassador to Beijing and a local celebrity, is trying to raise U.S. sales in China -- deal by deal, ballroom by hotel ballroom, in cities most Americans have never heard of.
While every U.S. ambassador has put in a plug for American goods and services, Locke takes the effort to a new level. The former commerce secretary has hit the pavement in six provincial cities to try to narrow the trade deficit that gives his boss, President Barack Obama, political heartburn.
"Certainly these trips can help publicize the great products and services made in America that could help meet the needs of China but at the same time create jobs in America," Locke told Reuters as the train sped through fields of winter wheat.
"You may not get immediate sales, or the amount of sales from these initial transactions might be small. But really you need to track the growth of these sales, these exports by these American companies over the next several years."
The effort is needed, say U.S. businesses, which often complain about China's opaque markets and the difficulty of selling to the Chinese government and state-owned businesses.
"I'm not aware that previous ambassadors have actually led trade missions organized in the U.S. around China," said Christian Murck, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. "It reflects a personal commitment."
American exports to China rose by nearly a third to $91.9 billion in 2010, reversing a fall in sales the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. But they are still dwarfed by Chinese exports to the United States of $365 billion.
FROM COFFEE TO CHEMICALS
Even before he arrived in China, Locke made a splash. A photo of him wearing a backpack and buying a coffee in the airport Starbucks drew enthusiastic online comments from Chinese used to seeing their own officials flanked by guards and aides.
Locke, who does not speak Mandarin, has turned his celebrity to promoting everything from machines to energy-saving lights.
The wares displayed at folding tables under the Jinan Hotel's crystal chandeliers were nothing a consumer could touch. While American stores are filled with goods made in China, the companies accompanying Locke to Jinan included specialty chemicals and equipment makers, with products designed to upgrade China's inefficient and polluting energy sector.
Small firms in particular find it hard to meet the right person or figure out when tenders are issued, let alone sell products that are often pricier than the Chinese competitor.
But Locke retains the salesman's optimism. "Everyone that has exported to China reports that what may have started off small builds over time, such that we've seen phenomenal increases in exports from the United States to China," he said.
Trade missions like these are very much Chinese affairs, with the local representatives of the American firms greeting clients effusively in Mandarin. The signing ceremony, as always, was replete with hostesses in red, a champagne toast and piped music on endless repeat.
The buffet lunch featured dishes like kelp with garlic, lotus root with ginger and pork lung in spicy sauce.
Locke's presence meant the Shandong governor was there, and the chance for a meal with both drew many of the hard-to-reach bosses of state-owned companies.
"Lots of our customers are refineries in Shandong, and it's hard to meet them. Heads of state-owned enterprises are hard to access," said X.D. Hu, China managing director for specialty chemicals maker Albemarle Corp.
Two of his major clients showed up after the Shandong government sent out invitations for the event.
"They care less about the U.S. ambassador, but the chance to meet the Shandong governor is very exciting for them."
Shandong, one of China's largest provinces in terms of both population and economy, is famously business-oriented. But with its private factories hit hard by the global slowdown, more sales growth has to come from the state-owned sector.
The Jinan trip is the first of five trade missions, each focused on a specific industry, that Locke has pledged to lead.
On the train back to Beijing, embassy staffers were already planning how to make the next one bigger and better.
"Too often U.S. ambassadors get stuck in the geopolitics, things like nuclear negotiations," said James McGregor, senior consultant for APCO Worldwide in Beijing.
"But they should be out promoting American business. That's what the Europeans and Japanese do."
(Additional reporting by Maxim Duncan and Michael Martina; Editing by Don Durfee and Ron Popeski)
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