From Salem, Virginia:

Posted: Friday, October 3, 2008 12:28 pm

Taylor Parks went back to school this fall.

That might not seem like a big accomplishment for most 14-year-olds, but in Taylor’s case, it’s a miracle.

Four years ago in the middle of his season as a Little League pitcher, the fourth-grader was benched with severe headaches, flu-like symptoms and sensitivity to light. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive brain tumor. Most of it was successfully removed – and then Taylor went into a coma for eight months.

When he work up, he had missed his birthday, his whole fifth-grade year at Glenvar Elementary in Salem, Va., and other ordinary milestones in his family’s life.

Scans showed cancer cells seeded around the periphery of his brain. His condition got worse, and hospice was called in.

Through it all, his family’s faith sustained them.

“I never believed I was going to lose him,” said his mother. Now the youngest son of Alicia and Kenny Parks is attending classes at Glenvar Middle School half days, usually five days a week. Taylor especially likes physical education, where he is able to swing at a ball and be around some of the friends he grew up with.

It’s different though. The the tumor and resulting treatment stole Taylor’s sight, hearing and ability to talk. His family believes some of those senses and abilities are coming back.

His parents, grandparents Fred and Alta Dixon and Joe and Alice Parks and older brothers, Josh, who is 23, and Liberty University senior Shane, 22, are convinced all the community support, prayers and lots and lots of physical and other therapy are helping to bring back his abilities.

“Taylor started to school going from 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday, the third week of September,” his mom explained. “We will get together in about six weeks and reassess. We may increase his hours more then.”

Taylor’s days are filled with other kinds of learning, too. He goes to physical and occupational therapy for several hours on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and to Mona’s Ark on Fridays for an hour.

This Saturday, Taylor and other young people and adults with special needs will be welcoming the community to Mona’s Ark for Llama Fest 2004. The annual event will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. If there’s rain, it will be held the following Saturday, Oct. 11.

The llama show is a fund raiser for those who need special help, like Taylor.

People who attend can not only hug a llama, but walk with one, purchase crafts Taylor and others made from llama wool, get massages, bid on items in a silent auction and buy tickets for raffle items.

Taylor has been reaching outside himself at Mona’s Ark for a year. Photographs that show Taylor touching and feeding a llama, with a little help from his PaPaw Dixon, or the teenager taking a bite of a meal himself are evidence of major milestones in themselves, his mother explained.

“A year-and-a-half ago were not even able to touch Taylor’s face due to his tactile sensitivity,” she said.

In another photograph made in August at Mona’s Ark, Taylor holds a bunny on his lap, another way to help him get over that sensitivity to touching or being touched. There’s a photo of Taylor carding llama wool, too, with the help of brother Shane.

He’s advanced in other ways, too. While once he was bedridden in the hospital bed in the family’s former dining room that became Taylor’s room, he can get up from the sofa and propel himself through the house in search of what he wants.

Taylor also bowls, with help from his dad, Kenny, and friends.

He lost his sight almost overnight. “One day he had 20-25 vision, and practically nothing the next day,” his mother explained.

Now, she believes Taylor has some sight.

“The eye doctor, Dr. Facciani with Vistar in Salem, gave Taylor his ‘best guess’ glasses after shining a light in Taylor’s eyes. About three months ago, Taylor reached across to pick up something. An ophthalmologist at the University of Virginia didn’t give us much hope his sight would return. Every time the doctors say Taylor can’t do something, he does it.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Vatican City:

10/09/2008 16:43

Among thousands of the faithful, including “Synodal Fathers” from around the world, Benedict XVI led the Mass in St Peter’s Basilica for the 50th anniversary of the death of the Pope who cried “Nothing is lost with peace; everything can be lost with war.” Fifty years after the death of Pius XII on 9 October 1958 Benedict XVI is praying that his cause for beatification may “continue smoothly.” He also looked at his predecessor’s actions on behalf of the persecuted, Jews included, which Israeli leaders have acknowledged, also focusing on his magisterial action which led Paul VI to consider him a “precursor” of the Second Vatican Council whose documents cite him 188 times.

Benedict XVI draws the portrait of a pope, the last one born in Rome, by looking first at his personal and ascetic side, inspired by the Book of Sirach which was read during the Mass and which says that those who want to follow the Lord must prepare themselves for trials, difficulties and suffering, and by Saint Peter who exhorted the Christians of Asia Minor to “rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials” (1 Pt, 1:6).

“In light of these Biblical texts we can read about the earthly life of Pope Pacelli,” said the Pope. They “can help us, above all, to understand the source from which he drew courage and patience for his pontifical ministry during the troubled years of the Second World War and those that followed, no less complex, of reconstruction and difficult international relations known as the “Cold War’.”

In discussing Pope Pacelli’s life the Holy Father looked among other things at his actions as nuncio in Germany where “he left behind grateful memories, especially for his cooperation with Benedict XV in trying the stop the “useless slaughter” of the Great War and his early understanding of the danger of the monstrous ideology of National Socialism and its pernicious anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic roots.”

But Pius XII’s work is especially linked to the period of the Second World War. And here Benedict XVI firmly laid claim to what Pope Pacelli actually did on behalf of Jews.

“The war highlighted the love he felt for his ‘beloved Rome’, love expressed in the great charitable work he undertook on behalf of the persecuted without distinction of religion, ethnicity, nationality or political leanings. When, once the city was occupied, he was repeatedly advised to leave the Vatican to save himself, his answer was resolutely always the same: “I will not leave Rome and my post, even at the cost of my life” (cf Summarium, p.186)”.

“How can we forget his radio message of Christmas 1942?” said the Pope. “In a voice stirred by emotion he deplored the situation of “hundreds of thousands of people who through no fault of their own, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, are bound for death or who slowly waste away (AAS, XXXV, 1943, p. 23), a clear reference to the deportation and extermination of the Jews. He often acted secretly and in silence because, given the actual situation of that complex historical moment, he saw that this was the only way to avoid the worse and save as many Jews as possible. At the end of the war and at the time of his death because of his many actions he received many and unanimous expressions of gratitude from the highest authorities of the Jewish world, people like Israel’s Foreign Minister Golda Meir who wrote: “During the ten years of Nazi terror, when our people went through the horrors of martyrdom, the Pope raised his voice to condemn the persecutors and commiserate with their victims,” ending by movingly saying “We mourn a great servant of peace.”

Unfortunately the historical debate over the Servant of God Pius XII, which has not always been untroubled, has overlooked all the aspects of his multi-faceted pontificate.”

But Pius XII must also be remembered for his vast magisterial work. “He delivered many speeches, addresses and messages to scientists, doctors and people from a variety of walks of life, some of which are still extraordinarily relevant today and continue to be concrete points of reference.”

Paul VI, who was a faithful aide for many years, described him as an erudite, an attentive scholar, open to modern ways of research and culture, with an ever-strong and coherent faith in the principles of human reasoning as well as in the intangible repository of the faith’s truths. He considered him a precursor to the Second Vatican Council (cf the Angelus of 10 March 1974)”.

Among the many writings that “deserve mentioning” Benedict XVI cited “the Encyclical Mystici Corporis, released on 29 June 1943 when the war was still raging, in which he described the spiritual and visible relationships that unite men to the Word Incarnate and proposed integrating this perspective to all the main themes of ecclesiology, offering for the first time a dogmatic and theological synthesis that would provide the basis for the Conciliar Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium.”

“How can we not mention the considerable impetus this pontiff gave to the Church’s missionary activity with the Encyclicals Evangelii praecones (1951) and Fidei donum (1957), in which he stressed the duty of each community to announce the Gospels to the nations, as the Second Vatican Council would do, with courageous vigour.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Massachusetts:

Thu Sep 25, 2008 2:40pm EDT

Researchers have developed a safer way to make powerful stem cells from ordinary skin cells, taking one more step toward so-called regenerative medicine.

They used a common cold virus to carry transformative genes into ordinary mouse cells, making them look and act like embryonic stem cells.

If the same can be done with human cells, it may offer a safe way to test cell therapy to treat diseases such as sickle cell anemia or Parkinson’s, Konrad Hochedlinger of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston reported in the journal Science on Thursday.

Stem cells are the body’s master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kinds of stem cells, as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.

But they are difficult to make, requiring the use of an embryo or cloning technology. Many people also object to their use, and several countries, including the United States, limit funding for such experiments.

In the past year, several teams of scientists have reported finding a handful of genes that can transform ordinary skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, which in turn look and act like embryonic stem cells.

To get these genes into the cells, they have had to use retroviruses, which integrate their own genetic material into the cells they infect. This can be dangerous and can cause tumors and perhaps other effects.

HARMLESS VIRUS

Hochedlinger’s team used a much more harmless virus, called an adenovirus, to carry into the cells the four transformative genes, called Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc.

They used mouse skin cells and also liver cells from fetal mice and got both types to look and act like iPS cells.

“The nice thing about adenoviruses in contrast with retroviruses is they deliver proteins inside the cells but they will never, ever integrate their DNA into the cells,” Hochedlinger said in a telephone interview.

As the cells divide, they dilute the virus until it disappears, he said. But the genetic changes remain.

To test the cells they made chimeras — a blend of two separate animals. They injected their newly made cells into mouse embryos and when the pups were born, they carried visible evidence that the cells had indeed transformed them.

“It results in this stripy pattern of brown fur that comes from the iPS cells and black fur which comes from the host embryo tissue,” Hochedlinger said.

And so far, these chimeric mice have not developed any tumors. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Barrow, UK:

Last updated 13:16, Saturday, 27 September 2008

A MIRACLE boy who came back from the brink is now gearing up for a one-mile charity run.

Just four months ago, Reece Finlayson’s heart stopped for seven minutes and for weeks he battled a critical illness that almost claimed his life.

But this month, Reece amazed everyone by returning to school.

And now, the six-year-old is wowing people again by preparing for the one-mile, Mini North Run on October 4.

Reece was disappointed when it looked like he would not be able to do the event in Newcastle.

But his physiotherapist has now declared he is well enough.

Reece, from Barrow, and a pupil at the town’s Holy Family Catholic Primary School, will walk and jog the course with his mum, Pamela Burton, 25.

The pair will dress as pirates.

The next day, Miss Burton will run the 13.2-mile Great North Run with her mum and auntie. Reece and his family are raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, a disease which he has.

Miss Burton said: “Reece was disappointed when he was not going to be doing it because he wanted to get a medal. Now he’s happy that he’s going to get his own medal.”

Reece, who took part in the event last year, fell ill with a rota virus in May.

While at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital in Pendlebury, his heart stopped beating for seven minutes.

He was revived but medics warned his family that his chances of survival were slim. Reece had encephalitis, a brain infection, multiple organ failure and his body was in septic shock.

Doctors said Reece’s only chance was to find a hospital with an ECMO machine.

He was flown to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and started to recover.

He was transferred back to Pendlebury, then Furness General Hospital in July.

The plucky youngster was in hospital for a total of 10 weeks.

This was Reece’s second fight for life. As a baby, he had two cardiac arrests and survived five operations. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Irlam Manchester, Salford, UK:

Oct. 2, 2008

A PROUD mum has told how her five-year-old daughter saved her life after she collapsed.

Lisa Cotton’s daughter Chloe, known as Coco, ran for help after seeing her mother on the floor of the living room in their house in Carr Road, Irlam on Sunday, September 21.

Lisa, 28, suffers from chronic endometriosis, a condition where the cells of the womb become corrupted, and has had the condition since the birth of her son, Leo, two years ago.

The mum-of-two collapsed on the floor when she was getting her children ready to go out, and brave Coco ran next door to her neighbour’s house to ask for help.

The neighbour then called an ambulance and, when the paramedics came, Coco was able to tell them about her mother’s medical history.

Lisa said: “I have suffered with severe abdominal pain since I had my son two years ago.

“Previously it had been undiagnosed and the doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong with me. But Coco knew that I wasn’t well and she knew that it was in my tummy so she was able to tell the doctors.

“I was feeling a bit poorly and I asked Coco to go and get her brother’s shoes, as we were going out. She went to get them but when she came back, I had collapsed on the floor.

“She ran to get help from my neighbour’s and then, when the ambulance arrived, she was able to tell them that mummy was poorly.”

Lisa, whose partner Mark was working in Hong Kong at the time, was then taken to hospital, where she received a positive diagnosis and is now being treated for the condition.

She said: “I want to shout it from the rooftops how brave she has been. She really did save my life.”

It is not the first time the Fiddler’s Lane Primary School pupil has done a good deed.
Coco also saved her brother when Lisa lost control of his pram after collapsing in Huddersfield, where she used to live.

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Boulder Hill, Illinois:

An honor for a hero

October 5, 2008

LeRoy Petersohn still has the dreams.

They stem from that one big nightmare, the one he lived beginning May 5, 1945.

That was the day he and other members of the 11th Armored Division of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army came upon the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

What he saw and experienced after that was more than any 23-year-old should see. As an Army medic, he already had seen the horrors of war. But this was worse.

“It was a horrible sight,” he said. “This was definitely a death camp.”

From the stacks of bodies to the crematoriums — with the ovens still roaring — Petersohn saw things that haunt him to this day, as an 86-year-old retiree and widower in Boulder Hill.

Since that time, he has married, raised four sons and a daughter, and worked 46 years as a printer for The Beacon News.

He has been recognized time and again for his courage at Mauthausen — the work of a man at his best, trying to salvage something from the ashes of mankind at its worst.

In 2005, at a reunion at Mauthausen, he was awarded the Golden Badge of Honor from the president of Austria. As a member of the Armed Services, he earned a Purple Heart, two Bronze Stars and a Medical Badge, among other decorations. He still carries shrapnel he has had inside him since the Battle of the Bulge.

Now he will receive another recognition.

On Thursday, Petersohn, along with other members of the 11th Armored Division, will receive the Shofar of Freedom Award from Temple Israel in Albany, N.Y.

The award has been given by the congregation for the past 20 years to those “who risked their lives to save members of the Jewish people and others as well,” according to Rabbi Paul B. Silton of Temple Israel.

“One of my greatest privileges and honors for the past 20 years at Temple Israel has been bringing and honoring these extraordinary redeemers of our people,” Silton said in a recent letter.

The award presentation is timed to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.

Petersohn, his son, Brian, and other members of the 11th Armored Division will be on hand to accept the award before the entire Temple Israel congregation.

While Petersohn will accept with the 11th Armored, he also will be recognized individually for the work he did with the camp prisoners — particularly one of its smallest and most fragile ones.

He found a baby girl while he was searching the women’s barracks. Maybe seven weeks old, she suffered from massive infection with huge open sores. Petersohn and his commanding officer operated on her, lancing the sores, sewing them back up and praying the penicillin would work on the infection.

The baby lived, and for many years Petersohn wondered what had happened to her. The topic would often come up whenever he would talk about World War II.

“He’d say, ‘I wonder whatever happened to that baby,’” Brian Petersohn said.

LeRoy Petersohn found out in 2003, when Dr. Hana Berger-Moran, a vice president for her family’s Biosciences firm in California, e-mailed the 11th Armored Division site, looking for the men who saved her life.

In 2005, at the 60th reunion in front of Mauthausen, LeRoy Petersohn and Hana met again.

“She came in the door, and she hugged me so tight I thought she was going to kill me,” Petersohn said. “I had wondered about her, and she had often wondered who it was that saved her life.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Princess Anne, Virginia:

October 2, 2008

In a split second, Patricia Jackson was as good as dead.

“I saw her eyes roll back in her head and she went limp,” said Don Jackson, her husband. “I just knew she was gone.”

The Buckner Farms couple had been to a picnic on the Outer Banks and was just leaving when Patricia complained of a bad headache. Within minutes she was unconscious and her husband had started CPR while trying to dial 911.

“It didn’t seem real,” he said. “It felt like I was in some kind of bad dream.”

The ambulance arrived to take Patricia to Albemarle Hospital. Paramedics were still doing CPR as they rushed her inside the hospital.

She was placed on life support, and the doctor said there was nothing else they could do.

Nightingale Air Ambulance would transport Patricia to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

“I couldn’t fly with her,” Don said. “I had to make that long drive back, thinking about what my life might be like without her here.”

Patricia, 61, had suffered an aneurysm and needed immediate surgery. She was in the hospital for 10 days.

“I sometimes get frustrated with my recovery,” Patricia said about dealing with side effects a year later. “But my doctor said, ‘You have to remember, you were dead.’ My body just needs time to heal.”

Today, she has a metal plate in her head and suffers with some short-term memory loss, but other than that, she is healthy.

“It’s a miracle that I am alive,” she said. “I thank God every day for all the people who came together to save my life.”

In honor of the anniversary on Sept. 22 of her trauma, Patricia visited staff from Norfolk General and presented them with a gift. She also engraved a plaque and gave it to the staff of the Nightingale. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Pennsylania (HT to an e-mail from Jill at WLST):

By Internet link, hospitalized woman witnesses daughter’s Bethlehem wedding

October 6, 2008

She entered the room — the veiled, auburn-haired bride in a white gown flanked by her father — and there was silence, as those who watched paused to catch their breath.

Certainly, no one could have been prouder than the bride’s mother, who wept at the sight.

Dressed in a shimmering black and turquoise embroidered pant suit, Fran Miller of Lower Macungie Township watched the fairy tale unfold not from an aisle seat at the Hotel Bethlehem on Saturday, but through a live video from her hospital bed at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.

Surrounding her were the smiling faces of those who had seen her through almost continuous hospitalization over the last year and a half. This time they came — family, friends, nurses and medical staff — on their days off to share in the mother’s joy on her daughter Michele’s wedding day.

”She’s a beauty, Fran,” said one of the nurses.

”Just like you, Fran,” said another.
(more…)

From Charleston, West Virginia:

Tuesday September 23, 2008

No one can really explain how 33-year-old Marianne Cook survived all she did - a fist-sized tumor on her heart and blood clots that were as long as pencils.

The fact that she’s still alive represents such long odds that she was featured recently on an ABC News series on medical miracles. The headline at the ABC site still trumpets: “Woman Survives Killer Blood Clots; Recovery Baffles Doctors.”

It all started when Cook, a single mother, went to take a hot bath before planning to spend time with a friend last November. After inserting the plug, she suddenly became dizzy and passed out in the tub.

The phone rang in her Beckley apartment but no one picked up.

It was her friend, who even came over to check on her but the door was locked.

“A few hours later, I woke up and my baby was crying,” Cook somberly recalls. “The water was so cold. God gave me the strength to get out of the bathtub and make it to the bedroom floor.”

She passed out again.

No one found her and her son, Jalen, who was 2 at the time, until 20 hours later. A maintenance man was following up on a call from Cook’s downstairs neighbor, who complained that water was leaking from her apartment.

Cook was found drenched in cold water and with scratches on her legs, apparently from Jalen trying to awaken her.

Family, friends and church members in Cook’s former hometown of Arnett, Boone County, are calling her recovery a medical miracle.

She was transported to Raleigh General Hospital and placed on life support.

Her mother, Wilma, was putting on mascara and getting ready to take her granddaughter shopping when she received the phone call.

Wilma immediately rushed to the hospital and called her church friends for prayers.

“All I could see was purple,” the mother said. “Her legs were purple. It made me sick to my stomach to see her on life support, bloated and a terrible color.”

Doctors at Raleigh General weren’t holding hope for Marianne. They believed her chances were so slim that they repeatedly asked her parents to sign a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order to take her off life support.

Her parents were told she’d be a “vegetable” for the rest of her life, if she woke up at all, and compared her brain to cottage cheese.

“I told them ‘No,’ ” Wilma recounted. “‘She’s only 32 years old and has two little boys. I’m not going to do it.’ ”

Marianne’s other son, Levi, is 11.

Marianne was then airlifted to Cabell Huntington Hospital, the only hospital out of 10 contacted that agreed to take her.

Tests there revealed she suffered a massive stroke, and that a fist-sized tumor inside her heart was causing clots throughout her body.

But doctors there could not perform surgery, so the hunt for another hospital commenced.

Three days had passed since her stroke, and the Cleveland Clinic braced to help her.

She desperately needed open-heart surgery, though doctors admitted her chances of survival were slim.

“I went in to kiss her before surgery,” Wilma said. “I literally felt that the ordeal was lifted off my shoulders. I knew everything was going to be OK.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Los Angeles:

Article Last Updated: 10/03/2008 10:42:29 PM PDT

Like many 25-year-olds, Nick Vujicic can surf, golf and swim and he’s training for the Los Angeles Marathon - skills that are admirable but not extraordinary.

But that Vujicic can accomplish these feats despite being born without arms or legs is in his words, a miracle.

And the story of the faith that inspired and motivated him - the spirit behind the miracle - is one that Vujicic is sharing with people around the world as part of his Life Without Limbs ministry.
(more…)

From Islamorada, Florida:

Posted on Tue, Sep. 30, 2008

Greg LeNoir watched in horror as the shark’s mouth opened wide, chomping a large set of teeth on his beloved 14-pound dog, Jake.

“Noooooo,” LeNoir shrieked, fearing the worst.

But the case of the rat terrier vs. the shark has a happy ending.

“Jake’s doing great,” LeNoir’s brother, Phillip, said Monday. “And I still can’t believe my brother jumped in the water and punched a shark.”

The saga began Friday afternoon when Greg LeNoir took Jake to the Worldwide Sportsman’s Bayside Marina pier in Islamorada for the dog’s daily swim. LeNoir said Jake is a fast and fearless swimmer, often retrieving jellyfish and soaked coconuts.

But this time, Jake, a 28-month-old dog adopted from an animal shelter, unexpectedly encountered the shark, which was about five feet long. As Jake disappeared under the water, LeNoir conquered his own fear and sprang to action.

“I clenched my fists and dove straight in with all my strength, like a battering ram,” LeNoir, 53, said Sunday, reliving the frightening ordeal. “I hit the back of the shark’s neck. It was like hitting concrete.”

Sharks are not uncommon in the marina, which is near the Islamorada Fish Co.’s open saltwater pool that attracts large tarpon.

LeNoir, a finish carpenter who lives in Islamorada, said he concluded the creature was either a bull shark or lemon shark after describing it to local fishermen and another brother, Louie, a shark-tooth collector in Orlando.

LeNoir’s wife of 17 years, Tessalee, said she wasn’t shocked by her husband’s heroics. “People know him as Dr. Doolittle,” she said. “He’s the one who climbs up a tree to save a possum.”

Lenoir added: “We have no children. Jake became our child. When I saw the shark engulf him, I thought, ‘This can’t be the end.’”

The shark let go of Jake, and the dog popped to the surface, frantically swimming the few yards to shore. LeNoir followed, paddling through a red trail of blood from the dog.

At VCA Upper Keys Animal Hospital in Islamorada, veterinarian Suzanne Sigel and emergency on-call assistant Callie Cottrell patched Jake’s wounds.

“Amazingly, he wasn’t critical,” Sigel said. “He’s one lucky dog.”

…..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Owosso, Michigan:

Friday, September 26, 2008 10:21 AM EDT

Michael Olsey relishes the fact he gets to protect people from criminals as an Owosso police officer.

But Olsey battled a completely different kind of foe Monday when he raced over to the old armory parking lot at Exchange and Water streets.

Olsey went head-to-head with Mother Nature when he leapt into the rain-swelled Shiawassee River to rescue a 15-year-old girl who had jumped off the bridge on Main Street.

“I could see her struggling,” Olsey said. “She was floating down the river and her head was starting to go under the water.”

He had to pull in behind the Owosso Middle School because the girl was already drifting down stream.

Olsey said he jumped in feet first and waded out to the girl.

Even though he is 6-foot-7, Olsey said the water came up to his chest.

“We’re just grateful we have officers who are willing to do that,” said Mike Compeau, Owosso Public Safety director. “We want them to use good common sense. (The river’s) pretty swift even though it’s chest-deep.”

Olsey said his five years spent as a lifeguard prepared him to keep calm during the incident.

He said the girl hit her head and had scrapes on her feet from going over the dam. She was transported to Memorial Healthcare, where she was treated for minor injuries.

With heavy rains hammering the area as a result of Hurricane Ike, the Shiawassee River is near flood level. Even if the river is not officially at the 7-foot flood level, it still can be dangerous.

Last week 32-year-old Charles M. Orgovan died when he went over the Heritage Park Dam in his kayak. The extreme undertow prevented rescue crews from getting to him sooner.

None of that was on Olsey’s mind Monday.

“I didn’t even think anything of it,” Olsey said. “The way I see it, we’re getting paid to protect people. It doesn’t matter. We protect them from whatever danger they’re in.”

A Clio native, Olsey started his career in law enforcement in Owosso almost three years ago.

Compeau said Olsey is a model officer.

“He’s very humble,” Compeau said. “He said, ‘I don’t need to be recognized for this.’ When he does something outstanding he deserves to be recognized and we’re happy to have him here.”

Go here for the rest of the story.

From StrategyPage:

September 27, 2008: The U.S. of phone cards (to pay for telephone calls home) in Iraq has fallen from 12 million minutes (at about 20 cents a minute) a month last Fall, to about half that now. The main reason for this has been the introduction of high-speed internet at military bases. This was made possible by the construction of high speed internet links into Iraq, where the there was very little access until Saddam was overthrown in 2003. With high speed connections, troops can make voice, or even video, calls to back home, at no (or very little, like a penny or two a minute) additional cost. This has proved to be a big boost to morale.

In 2004, AT&T was asked to set up pay phones throughout American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. AT&T set up 64 calling centers, with nearly 2,000 pay phones. The phones were connected, via a satellite link, to AT&T’s international fiber optic network. The fiber optic part of the system is cheap to operate, costing a penny or two per minute for phone calls. The satellite part is more expensive, as was the cost of building the call centers and installing the phones. To cover the costs, AT&T was given an exclusive deal. You could only use AT&T calling cards on the AT&T phones. It cost about 21 cents a minute to call someone back in the United States on this system. When first installed, this was a good deal, because the phone systems in Iraq and Afghanistan were still in a shambles, with many people using satellite phones (which cost 50 cents to a dollar a minute.)

By 2005, the telephone systems, particularly in Iraq, were largely rebuilt, and international calls were a lot cheaper. But even as the Iraqi phone system was being rebuilt, the U.S. Navy got a contract to build several hundred Internet Cafes in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would have fast enough Internet connections to allow the use of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) phone calls. These cost 4-5 cents a minute. But the PCs at the Internet Cafes were in heavy use, and many troops were stuck with the AT&T phones. There was much agitation in the ranks for change. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Los Angeles: (video here):

UCLA mathematicians appear to have won a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for discovering a 13-million-digit prime number that has long been sought by computer users.

While the prize money is nothing special, the bragging rights for discovering the 46th known Mersenne prime are huge.

“We’re delighted,” said UCLA’s Edson Smith, leader of the effort. “Now we’re looking for the next one, despite the odds,” which are thought to be about one in 150,000 that any number tested will be a Mersenne prime.

Prime numbers are those, like three, seven and 11, that are divisible only by themselves and one. Mersenne primes, named after the 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne, who discovered them, take the form 2P - 1, where P is also a prime number.

In the new UCLA prime, P = 43,112,609.

Thousands of people around the world have been participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, in which underused computing power is harnessed to perform the complex and tedious calculations needed to find and verify Mersenne primes. The prize is being offered for finding the first Mersenne prime with more than 10 million digits.

Smith and his UCLA colleagues have, since last fall, harnessed the power of the 75 machines in the university’s Program in Computing/Math Computer Lab, which is used by students for computer projects. Smith, a system administrator, realized that the lab was using only a fraction of its available CPU power. Rather than let it go to waste, he and his colleagues decided to use it for the GIMPS project. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Augsburg College in Minnesota (video is also at link):

Sept. 25, 2008

On a damp field at Augsburg College Tuesday night, Matt Bowman enjoyed his soccer team’s Homecoming game.

But the game wasn’t just Matt’s return to where he belongs — it was his return to where he nearly died just a little more than a month ago.

On August 20th, the 19-year-old sophomore collapsed in the final minutes of his soccer game.

“I was jogging around the field, my vision tunneled. I thought, ‘I have to go down,’” said Matt on Tuesday night.

Matt’s parents ran from the bleachers to their son’s side.

“She looks at me and says, ‘I can’t find a pulse,’ and I say, ‘what, what do you mean you can’t find a pulse?’” said Gary Bowman, Matt’s dad. “His lips were already blue, tops of his ears were blue.”

But then Gary started calling his son’s name. Matt heard the calls and eventually, recovered.

“I definitely felt like something was going on. I was going somewhere, I was slipping into something - it felt like back and then coming to,” Matt said.

After one long minute, Matt was conscious again. A week later, doctors figured out what had happened.

Dr. Tim Kroshus of the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, said Matt experienced a “sudden death episode” caused by an anomalous coronary artery. One of his arteries was being pinched between his aorta and pulmonary artery which cut off the blood supply to his heart.

“The condition itself is one of the most common causes of death in young athletes,” Dr. Kroshus said, adding that they learned of Matt’s condition through a relatively new test: a CT coronary angiogram.

Dr. Kroshus and his team were able to correct Matt’s condition — moving it from one side of the valve, to the other.

Matt will be able to return to playing soccer and other sports by mid-November. According to Matt, it’s a medical miracle that he doesn’t take lightly.

“I’m so grateful. I don’t know why I was given a second chance but I know someone was watching over me and God pulled me through, I think,” Matt said. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Vatican City:

Sep 18, 2008

Pope Pius XII, has drawn the interest and scrutiny of many people over the last few decades, but as Pope Benedict XVI spoke to the Pave the Way Foundation at Castel Gandolfo today, he highlighted that previous investigation into the late Pope’s efforts to save Jews from the Nazis and fascists have been biased.

Around noon today at the Pope’s summer residence, he received Mr. Gary Krupp, the president of the Pave the Way Foundation and other members of the organization.

Mr. Krupp and his wife, who are Jewish, founded Pave the Way to fight against religious intolerance and prejudice through educational, cultural and technological means. As part of those efforts, Pave the Way organized a symposium to conduct an in-depth investigation into Pius XII’s life and his pastoral and humanitarian work.

Noting that 50 years have passed since the October 9, 1958 death of the Servant of God Pius XII, the Holy Father pointed out that although “so much has been written and said of him during these last five decades, … not all of the genuine facets of his diverse pastoral activity have been examined in a just light.”

The symposium aimed to address some of these deficiencies by “conducting a careful and documented examination of many of his interventions, especially those in favor of the Jews who in those years were being targeted all over Europe, in accordance with the criminal plan of those who wanted to eliminate them from the face of the earth,” the Pope said.

“When one draws close to this noble Pope,” observed Benedict XVI, “one can come to appreciate the human wisdom and pastoral intensity which guided him in his long years of ministry, especially in providing organized assistance to the Jewish people.”

Pope Benedict then went on to thank the foundation for “the vast quantity of documented material which you have gathered, supported by many authoritative testimonies,” because, as he explained “your symposium offers to the public forum the possibility of knowing more fully what Pius XII achieved for the Jews persecuted by the Nazi and fascist regimes.”

One of the many aspects of the symposium that Pope Benedict praised was how the foundation’s work “had drawn attention to Pope Pius’ many interventions, made secretly and silently, precisely because, given the concrete situation of that difficult historical moment, only in this way was it possible to avoid the worst and save the greatest number of Jews. This courageous and paternal dedication was recognized and appreciated during and after the terrible world conflict by Jewish communities and individuals who showed their gratitude for what the Pope had done for them.”

One special event that Benedict XVI recalled, “Pius XII’s meeting on the 29th of November 1945 with eighty delegates of German concentration camps who during a special Audience granted to them at the Vatican, wished to thank him personally for his generosity to them during the terrible period of Nazi-fascist persecution.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

From Chicago, and Maryland (HT Good News Blog):

Last updated at 3:11 PM on 10th September 2008

A bizarre discovery by the woman fitted with the world’s most advanced bionic arm could pave the way for hi-tech limbs that feel as well as move.

When surgeons fitted Claudia Mitchell’s £2million prosthetic, they hot-wired it to her brain via her original shoulder nerves so she could control the mechanical arm by thought alone.

But now she can also ‘feel’ sensations in her missing hand.

Miss Mitchell, a former US marine, lost her left arm at the shoulder in a motorcycle accident in 2004.

Because her real arm had been severed almost at the shoulder, she had lost the use of the nerves that ought to have been able to control a conventional prosthetic.

But in a new surgical technique called ‘targeted reinnervation’, her dormant shoulder nerves were implanted in her chest, away from the damaged area.

Now when Miss Mitchell wants to move her arm, her brain sends a signal to the chest muscle rather than to her useless shoulder.

‘We have rewired her,’ said Dr Todd Kuiken, the American who devised the technique.

Electrical pulses from her chest muscle are transmitted to the bionic limb where a computer decodes them and turns them into arm movements.

By thought alone, Miss Mitchell, of Ellicott City, Maryland, can bend her wrist back, move her thumb and clench her fingers.

‘I have what I call my “eureka moments,”‘ she said. ‘There are a lot of daily tasks that people don’t even think about being able to do that I can do now.’

But the twist came four months after her 2006 operation as Miss Mitchell was taking a shower.

When the hot water hit her chest, she felt it on her missing left hand.

She found that touching her chest or applying heat and cold to it would give her the sensation of pressure, warmth or coolness in her lost arm.

This was because doctors had moved not only her motor nerves but also her sensation nerves.

‘Claudia was the first person that we did this on. We purposely directed her hand sensation nerves onto some chest skin, and it worked,’ Dr Kuiken, of Chicago’s Rehabilitation Institute, told ABC News.

Paul Marasco, a touch specialist at the institute, has since charted the way Miss Mitchell’s hand sensations correspond with locations on her chest.

Depending on her chest is touched, he said, ‘She has the distinct sense of her joints being bent back in particular ways, and she has feelings of her skin being stretched.’

Researchers hope Miss Mitchell’s experiences - bizarre as they are - will open up major improvements in prosthetic technology.

She has become an honorary member of the research team, even spending her holidays testing out new equipment.

Go here for the rest of the story.

The Associated Press apparently isn’t satisfied going after Sarah Palin full throttle.

The GOP Vice-Presidential nominee’s visit to New York City apparently went so well that an ABC pictorial series is called “Sarah Palin Takes News York” — though the last slide takes a shot at the McCain campaign for setting boundaries on access to Palin during her meetings with foreign leaders. ABC claims that the media threatened to boycott covering her (yeah, right).

Both the New York Times and the AP chose to address Palin’s observation that her parents had involvement in the recovery effort in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. In a surprisingly pleasant development, the Times’s story covered that angle reasonably well. But the AP’s story (as carried at the Times web site), was incomplete, nasty (”rat-killers”), and condescending.

Here’s how the Times’s coverage started:

Palin’s Parents Aided in Sept. 11 Cleanup

Gov. Sarah Palin visited ground zero on Thursday and said her parents had come to New York after 9/11 to help with the recovery effort.

Her parents, Chuck and Sally Heath, worked at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island in January and February 2002 as part of a federal Department of Agriculture program.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Mr. Heath said he and his wife had worked to keep sea gulls and rats from scavenging remains in the debris. Mr. Heath, 70, a retired science teacher, and Mrs. Heath, 68, a retired secretary, have worked for the Agriculture Department for 15 years. They travel around the world dealing with “nuisance” animals like rats and bears.

All in all, not bad.

The same can’t be said for how AP handled it:

Palin’s parents: Retirees, part - time rat killers

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — More than six years before Sarah Palin visited ground zero as the Republican vice presidential nominee, her parents were there as part of the response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — trapping rats.

Chuck and Sally Heath have been part-time U.S. Department of Agriculture wildlife specialists for the past 15 years, traveling throughout Alaska trapping or killing animals. They’ve eradicated rat infestations, shooed geese from runways and killed foxes that were keeping threatened Canada geese from nesting.

In January 2002, they went to New York City for a two-week assignment that fit their specialty. Their job was to make sure birds and rats did not disturb the debris from the collapsed World Trade Center towers that was being searched by forensic teams for human remains in Staten Island’s Fresh Kills landfill.

My take:

• The AP’s headline and first paragraph were deliberately incomplete, negative, and designed to make Palin’s parents come off looking like a couple of sadists. That’s especially obvious when you see from the Times article that “trapping rats” isn’t all the Heaths did. In fact, the Times piece mentions rats after seagulls.
• More on the headline — Since Palin was visiting Gotham and made the comment about her parents, the story was what the Heaths did in connection with 9/11. The AP article’s eighth paragraph noted that the rats at Fresh Kill were “dispersed,” and apparently not killed. So why is “rat-killers” in the headline? The Heaths’ involvement in rat eradication, which AP decided to call “killing,” actually took place on an unrelated assignment thousands of miles away.
• The AP, in unexcerpted text, mentioned that Mr. Heath was a retired teacher, but despite their article running twice as long as the Old Gray Lady’s, never mentioned what Mrs. Heath did for retirement (she was a secretary).

I learned by going to this AP-Google link that the pitiful headline was the same, and that the story’s author was Matt Volz.

Volz has been exhibiting ever more serious symptoms of Palin Derangement. NewsBusters’ Jason Aslinger observed earlier this week that:

Volz has been a busy bee covering the Troopergate anti-scandal over the last two weeks. Not surprisingly, he continues to write story after story without citing to the obvious bias underlying the entire investigation.

By extending the vitriol to her parents, Volz is demonstrating that his strain of PDS is particularly virulent. I fear for the AP reporter’s stability if Palin takes up residence where Dick Cheney currently lives.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.