Sanchez Street in the Castro; I got the Salmon Maki dinner. Great presentation.
Jason Drawhorn I listened to the 911 calls, and I absolutely agree that this George Zimmerman shot this young man without probable cause. Why did he follow the young man to begin with after being told not to by the dispatcher? He was creating an altercation with Trayvon so he could shoot him. He was going to make sure this “asshole” didn’t get away, those are his words not mine. In the third 911 call down on this page you hear Trayvon begging for help, then a gunshot is fired and the screaming stops. This is an outrage that this man has not been arrested! This saddens me so much.
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www.huffingtonpost.com SANFORD, Fla. — Police have released audio 911 tapes in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed teenager allegedly killed by a neighborhood watch captain while walking home from a store. In eight chilling recordings, made the night of February 26, listeners can hear the frightened voices o…
Kellie Ann Kunkel I couldn’t agree more, so very sadMac McGuirk Jason, you can hear someone screaming for help in the third recording. How is it known that it is Trayvon begging for help?Jason Drawhorn That is why he needs to be arrested and put on trial, so he can be judged by his peersMac McGuirk I agree that there should be a proper trial and introduction of evidence. My point was simply that we don’t know who was screaming for help.Mac McGuirk I believe a grand jury is set to convene on April 10th as well.Joseph Andrew Hayden @Mac – We don’t KNOW who was screaming for help? Are you kidding me? Everyone who heard the tape who knew Trayvon identified him as the screamer. Trayvon was 100 POUNDS lighter and 11 years younger that George Zimmerman! Do you belong to the flat world society? Did anyone in this thread note the use of the word “coon” by George Zimmerman (still not arrested)? Was George Zimmerman worried for his life having a gun in his SUV with an unarmed teen walking by with candy and ice tea? Wake up people!Mac McGuirk Well, Joseph, your mind is made up. Mine is not, and George Zimmerman should be processed under the guise of innocent until proven guilty. My world is quite round and all of the reports I read say that no one knows who is screaming. I hope that the grand jury is more apt to hear all of the facts before making their decision as you already have obviously. I am not saying I think he is innocent, I am saying that it’s not been proven that Trayvon is the person pleading for help. Also of interest is the fact that George had become separated from Trayvon and returned to his SUV. I am not sure why someone who planned to murder someone in cold blood would self-identify to 911 operators before he did so. His injuries were consistent with his report of being attacked from behind at his SUV and he had fresh grass stains on his back. These are all things that justice professionals and the Grand Jury should address to determine whether George should be indicted. If George was attacked after returning to his SUV, the Florida stand-your-ground law would be correctly applied in the case of someone having their head beaten against the sidewalk as George reported. My point is that there are a lot of unknowns and just like every sensationalized case, more details will slowly emerge.Joseph Andrew Hayden @Mac – With all due respect, this is not about presumption of innocence or guilt. GEORGE ZIMMERMAN IS STILL NOT ARRESTED. Unless someone does something, he will never even have his innocence tested! This is about NRA-lobbied legislation that goes above and beyond the already well established Anglo-American law for self-defense. I have a law degree, but it does not take a lawyer or a criminologist to see what is going on here. I’m so glad we have the audio tapes of what happened. Hopefully, as I’ve heard, there is a credible eyewitness to testify further to the assassination of this unarmed boy. I do recommend you stop watching FOX “news” if you have yet to hear his own parents suffer through the screams of their son which they unequivocally identified. Do you hear George Zimmerman’s family claiming the screams for help were him? Do you yourself not hear a teenage voice screaming for help? You heard George’s voice while he was sneaking up on Trayvon on the 911 tape. Do you claim the scream is from the same voice? Did George tell the police he was screaming for help? Did you notice the screams completely stopped when Trayvon was murdered? Why would a 250 pound man in his twenties be screaming “help” when he had a gun and and SUV to protect him and the person he shot and killed was 100 pounds smaller than him and unarmed? I did not say it was “in cold blood” but his predatory intent was obvious when he defied the POLICE dispatcher by chasing someone when George was not even on as watcher that night (and he should not have been armed to “watch” the neighborhood anyway). Did you see the grass stains as if they could only have been caused by Trayvon? Did you know that the “broken nose” was not even observed in the hospital until the next day so that it must not have been that bad? Do you know George assaulted a police officer and was arrested in a domestic abuse case, not to mention the dozens and dozens of 911 calls he has made in the months leading up to his killing this young boy which led him to say on the 911 tape “they always get away” (this was said at a different time than his use of the word “coon”)? The point is that there IS no correct application of the “Stand Your Ground” law because it is a bogus piece of legislation that was written and pushed through by gun lobbyists who needed to beef up the legitimacy of the NRA in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords assassination attempt. I think you are blinded by your lack of knowledge. I have a daughter and I would recognize her scream for help. I can’t believe you are “standing your ground” that we don’t know who screamed and you are still trying to claim that it was in dispute. Have you even watched one interview with Trayvon’s parents? Some cases DESERVE to be sensationalizedJoseph Andrew Hayden In the interest of accuracy, the ultimately-dropped charges against Zimmerman for the attack on a policeman was back in 2005, although I did hear his dozens of 911 calls were made in the months prior to this assassination. If you read the article above, Trayvon’s father once again affirmatively identifies his son’s voice screaming for help. Some are saying that Zimmerman had political connections to get the charges dropped and to completely avoid drug testing on the night of the shooting, although because Trayvon was black, I suppose, his corpse WAS tested for drugs (which came out negative). Unexplained Sanford Police Department favoritism toward Zimmerman also led him to avoid arrest or even detainment to date!
Courtesy of the NYTimes. This article today could not have been more timely as I’m slated to get the sleeve surgery shown in this diagram within the next few months.
Surgery for Diabetes May Be Better Than Standard Treatment
By DENISE GRADY
For some people with diabetes, surgery may be the best medicine.
Two studies have found that weight-loss operations worked much better than the standard therapies for Type 2 diabetes in obese and overweight people whose blood sugar was out of control. Those who had surgery, which stapled the stomach and rerouted the small intestine, were much more likely to have a complete remission of diabetes, or to need less medicine, than people who were given the typical regimen of drugs, diet and exercise.
The surgery also helped many to lower their blood pressure and cholesterol.
The new studies, published on Monday by The New England Journal of Medicine, are the first to rigorously compare medical treatment with these particular stomach and intestinal operations as ways to control diabetes. Doctors had been noticing for years that weight-loss operations, also called bariatric surgery, could sometimes get rid of Type 2 diabetes. But they had no hard data.
Experts say better treatments are desperately needed for the disease.
“Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest growing epidemics in human history,” according to an editorial published with the two studies.
The question is whether major surgery, with its risks and complications, should be more widely used. Some surgeons and obesityexperts are pushing to establish a role for the surgeries in treating diabetes, not just obesity, while other experts say more research is needed.
The president for medicine and science for the American Diabetes Association, Dr. Vivian Fonseca, said the two studies were “not game changers” because they were relatively small.
The disease, which causes high blood sugar, is linked to obesity and often becomes harder to manage as it progresses. It can bring devastating complications like heart disease, strokes, blindness, amputations and kidney failure.
In the United States, the number of diabetes cases has tripled in the past 30 years to more than 20 million, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of the cases are Type 2. Type 1, far less common, is not linked to obesity.
Researchers said the operations used in the studies help control diabetes not just because they make people lose weight — a known treatment for the disease — but because the changes in anatomy alter the levels of gut hormones that affect the metabolism of sugars and fats.
One of the studies, conducted at the Catholic University in Rome, compared two types of surgery with usual medical treatment. After two years, the surgical groups had complete remission rates of 75 percent and 95 percent; there were no remissions in patients who received medical treatment.
The second study, at the Cleveland Clinic, compared two types of surgery with an intensive medical regimen. The remission rates one year after surgery were lower than in the Italian study — 42 percent and 37 percent — at least in part because the American study used a stricter definition of remission. The intensive medical treatment led to remissions in 12 percent of patients.
Neither study involved the Lap Band, an implanted loop that cinches the stomach into a small pouch and that does not involve cutting the stomach or intestines.
The editorial accompanying the studies predicted that the new findings would have a major effect on diabetes treatment, and said that the operations “might well be considered earlier in the treatment of obese patients with Type 2 diabetes.”
But the editorial also noted that the studies were relatively small and did not go beyond two years. The writers said it was not clear whether the surgery would help diabetic patients who were not obese, or just not as heavy as those in the studies. The operations in the studies were performed by highly skilled surgeons, and results by others might not be as good.
Though the death rate from this type of surgery is less than 1 percent, patients nonetheless have died. There were no deaths in the two studies, but there were complications, including infection, nutritional deficiencies, bone loss and surgical problems that required repeat operations.
According to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery, about 200,000 bariatric operations are performed each year in the United States, and cost from $11,500 to $26,000. Some insurers cover them. Patients may lose 100 pounds or even more after the surgery. Most gain some weight back; some gain a lot back.
Guidelines from the National Institutes of Health say the surgery can be offered to people with a body mass index, or B.M.I. over 40, or over 35 if the person has diabetes or another illness related to obesity. The American Diabetes Association also says people with Type 2 and a B.M.I. over 35 should consider the surgery. Someone 5 feet 6 inches tall with a B.M.I. of 35 would weigh 215 pounds; B.M.I. of 40, 245 pounds.
Dr. Fonseca said the two studies would probably not lead the group to change its recommendations. He said the studies were small and short, and each was conducted at a single institution, so it was hard to know if the results could be replicated.
The study in Rome included 60 patients ages 30 to 60, with a B.M.I. of 35 or more. They were picked at random to receive medical therapy or one of two operations. The first operation, gastric bypass, shrinks the stomach into a small pouch and rearranges the digestive tract so that food enters the small intestine at a later point than usual. The second, biliopancreatic diversion, also shrinks the stomach. It alters the small intestine in a more extreme way.
The bypass patients had a 75 percent remission rate, and the biliopancreatic group, 95 percent. But the biliopancreatic group had more nutritional problems; the operation is usually reserved for people with extreme obesity and even then is not often performed in the United States
The improvements did not correlate with how heavy the patients were before surgery, how much weight they lost, their age, their sex or how long they had had diabetes. So it is hard to predict which patients will go into remission, said Dr. Francesco Rubino, who performed some of the surgeries in Rome and heads the Metabolic and Diabetes Surgery Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.
The Cleveland Clinic study included 150 patients ages 20 to 60, with B.M.I.’s from 27 to 43. Patients had intensive medical treatment, gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy, which cuts out part of the stomach, taking it from the size of a football to that of a banana. It is a somewhat simpler and safer operation than gastric bypass, and is growing in popularity. But the gastric bypass patients had a higher remission rate, 42 percent, than those with gastrectomy, 37 percent.
Dr. Philip Schauer, who led the study and performed the operations, said the remission rates were lower than expected. A possible reason was that the patients had very advanced diabetes.
For Heather Britton, 53, a computer programmer who lives in a suburb of Cleveland, the study was an opportunity. She was taking two diabetes drugs, but her blood sugar was out of control and so were her cholesterol, blood pressure and triglycerides. Diabetes runs in her family. Her mother died from complications of the disease.
“I wasn’t able to control it,” said Ms. Britton. “It was controlling me.”
She had the operation in January 2009. Within months, she was off medications for diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure and triglycerides. By May, she had lost about 80 pounds. She gained some back, 13 or 14 pounds. But her health has been good.
“It’s been a total blessing,” she said.
If I had a son instead of a daughter with my ex-wife, who is African-American, he would have been only two years older than Trayvon was when he was gunned down for being black. Hence, I can’t help but identify with our biracial president who said so wisely and to give people pause, “If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin.”
No reasonable person can dispute the impetus to shoot this unarmed minor with no criminal record any longer, especially now that the 911 tapes clearly have George Zimmerman calling him a “coon”! I can’t help but cry today thinking about losing my child this way, but for her gender. Even as a daughter of color, I have warned my child of the perception of her being “suspicious” just as my ex-wife had been when she walked into a store and even as my perceptibly Latino ex-lover had been. We’ve got a long way to go.
As for Geraldo Rivera (half Latino himself) talking about his “dark” son and discouraging him from wearing a hoodie, the comment that children of color should dress DIFFERENTLY than their white counterparts to avoid getting shot is tantamount to telling a woman not to dress provocatively or she’d be responsible for getting raped! Talk about blaming the victim! What’s even more egregious about Rivera playing to his FOX “News” audience of minimal brain cell patterns, is that he said the hoodie was “equally” responsible for the murder as George Zimmerman himself! What the hell?
Pictures Russian River/Guerneville, Armstrong Woods Forest, Bodega Bay Headlands and Bodega (where Hitchcock used the schoolhouse for “The Birds” even though it took place in Bodega Bay.
Monterey & Carmel with Max visiting from NYC, including 17 Mile Drive:
Pictures include my house, my Mom’s house, Twin Peaks, Skyline in Oakland (including the Mormon Temple), Castro, Chinatown, Civic Center, Golden Gate Bridge, San Gregorio (or Pescadero), Montera, etc.:
