The below AP story approaches the issue of shopping from a completely different angle, but it does highlight one of the most pervasive frontal lobe deficits that brain injured people have: the difficulty in making decisions. Almost anyone who works with brain injury survivors can tell anecdotes of the horror of the super market aisle for those with brain damage.
If given a forced choice, like on most neuropsychological exams, brain injured people can do surprisingly well. But makes those choices open-ended, or as in the story below about beverages, provide an “explosion of choices” and the brain injured person will virtually shut down. Sometimes the act is to buy nothing. Other times it is to try to buy everything.
The point in the below story that really stood out for me was the point it makes that the more choices offered, the fewer beverages are purchased. Based upon that piece of information, it may be that we all have a vulnerability to being overwhelmed by too many choices, but in the brain injured, that vulnerability becomes a disability of decision making. That disability is not just about soda pop, but about almost every choice that a person has to deal with on a daily basis. Ultimately, that disability can virtually stall a human life.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://fishtail.tv
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 2:18 PM
BC-Measure of a Nation-Distracted Republic/2190
Eds: Also moved in advance. Multimedia: This story and all past installments of the Measure of a Nation series – which includes stories, videos and animations _ are packaged in an interactive in the _national/measure_nation folder. AP Video.
Distraction 2008: Freedom of choice _ or from it?
By TED ANTHONY
EDITOR’S NOTE — This latest chapter of “The Measure of a Nation,” a yearlong series of multimedia story packages about the presidency and the 2008 election as seen through the prism of the culture, assesses the absurd amount of choices the average American has today — and how a leader might cut through the clutter and capture the nation’s attention.
By TED ANTHONY
AP National Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — On blistering days in Los Angeles, drive northeast on the 110, exit at Highland Park and pull into a roadside grocery called Galco’s. Then walk in and say, “I’m thirsty. Can you point me to the soda-pop aisle?”
This question may get you laughed out of the place. Because at Galco’s, the soda pop is in most every aisle. The place is a soft-drink nirvana containing 500 varieties of fizzy beverage from all corners of the planet.
Root beer? They’ve got three dozen kinds. Perhaps your palate craves a bottle of Cheerwine or a cold Inca Cola. Choose between soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, flavored artificially or naturally, colored pink or red or green or blue or purple. And that doesn’t include the 475 varieties of beer and the 60 kinds of bottled water.
The choice is yours, if you can handle it. The store, now known as Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is an exuberant explosion of the vaunted notion of freedom of choice, one of the ideals that supposedly makes America what it is.
It is wonderful. It is also intimidating. And in an election year, it’s something the next president needs to understand.
The two-century focus on what America’s founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness” — coupled with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the rise of consumerism in the 20th — has birthed a landscape of options as dizzying as it is liberating. Bed and Bath, it turns out, aren’t nearly enough. These days, we’re much more concerned with Beyond.
A mere generation after the three broadcast networks ruled, a Comcast digital cable package hands you up to 250 channels of programming. Today’s average supermarket sells more than 45,000 items, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter more than four times that. On a single afternoon this month, eBay had 14.9 million auctions going, and Amazon was offering listings for 22.7 million books. By the end of last year, the Web had more than 108 million distinct pages to visit from the comfort of your lap.
John Nese, who built Galco’s into a promised land of sugary beverages, has thought a lot about choice in America. He offers two assessments.
The first: “People want choices. People want the opportunity to make their own decisions.”
The second: “They come in and they look and they go, ‘We’re overwhelmed. We don’t know what to buy.'”
The notion transcends simple consumerism. It also is the dilemma facing whoever wins November’s election. With options beyond our great-grandparents’ dreams, is freedom of unlimited choice really a freedom at all?
In a universe of unprecedented static, how can an American leader lead?
___
DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
Mermaid Treasure looks just like Blue Jewel. Waterscape and Cool Dusk could be identical twins. And try distinguishing Seven Seas and Southern Evening from 10 paces away.
At the Home Depot in Gibsonia, Pa., no less than 372 shades of blue paint are available, not counting the many blue-greens and blue-purples also offered in a section of swatches nearly as long as the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate.
This cross-section of American choice illuminates the multiple levels of decision-making required to negotiate today’s consumer landscape, in this case before the painting even begins:
—Which store? There are four paint dealers within a mile of the Gibsonia Home Depot and at least 13 more within a 10-mile radius.
—Which brand? There are at least five to choose from.
—Which consistency? Pick from matte, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss and gloss.
—Which color group? Basic colors like blue, red and green are mere gateways to the real color choice.
—Which shade? Time to negotiate the hundreds of names that sound like either ice-cream flavors (Lavender Ice, Cloudberry) or small coastal communities (Little Pond, Wickford Bay).
That’s more than a million ways to paint a door. And as powerful as the human brain is, its bandwidth is ultimately limited. By focusing on smaller choices, by continuously sifting through the categories and subcategories of things like color preference and Google results and spam, could it be that our multiple options are controlling rather than liberating us?
“Since Reagan, the ideology in the United States has been that choice is good and more choice is better. And to the extent that you can give people more choice in every area of life, you are improving their well-being,” says Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.”
But “nobody has the time or the expertise to make informed choices about everything,” Schwartz says. “When options are presented, people have a tough time just ignoring them.”
In 2000, according to the American Psychological Association, a study found that shoppers given the choice of picking a jam from smaller and larger assortments preferred choosing from the bigger assortment. Yet they were more likely to actually buy some jam if they had fewer options. Excessive choice, in effect, short-circuited them from engaging more deeply.
Now take that notion into the public realm. If too many choices drive us to distraction, how do
es that affect how we perceive government?
“It’s wonderful that we can sit down in our living room and order 20,000 things. In a superficial way, we are more informed than people used to be. But it’s hard to get our attention, and I don’t see any way of turning that around,” says Edward C. Rosenthal, author of “The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life.”
His assessment is bleak. By 1900, people’s faith in established institutions like church and government began a slow wane, and Americans struggled to find their bearings. Thus did consumer choice gradually become fetish. Today, anyone who questions unfettered choice risks being accused of condescension and, worse, ignorance of market forces.
This is the landscape an American leader faces. The option becomes, “Follow me — unless you have something more interesting going on.”
And accurately or not, today’s citizens often think that they do.
___
LEADING THROUGH STATIC
“The only way we’re going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together,” Barack Obama said this month. Weeks earlier, John McCain said that “we are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association.”
Unity is big in 2008. It means more voters. But can we come together? These days, beyond 9/11 or Katrina or rising gas prices, what exactly is that “shared distinction” we like to think unites us?
To inspire voters, campaigns use strategies such as microtargeting — mining data and finding voters’ preferences, then customizing the message for each. But when candidate becomes president and prospective voter becomes mere citizen, those intricate techniques melt away.
What’s a leader to do? Christine Riordan, a leadership expert at the University of Denver, prescribes simplicity.
Just as paying attention to a leader is a consumer choice, Riordan says the leader can benefit from deploying marketing principles as well: An uncluttered message rings clearer, particularly when it’s accompanied by tight focus on content, packaging and image.
Debating whether there’s too much information out there, Riordan says, is beside the point.
“There’s no way we’re going back to the times of Zachary Taylor,” she says. “”It’s not, ‘Is too much information bad?’ It’s how do you manage within an environment that does provide all information and will continue to provide all information?”
Today, candidates and leaders must tailor core messages for the 75-year-old newspaper reader and the 19-year-old who communicates using blogs and Facebook. What’s more, to have any chance of cutting through the clutter, the leader has to seem sincere and authentic to both demographics, not to mention all the Gen-Xers and Boomers in between. He or she has to be all the flavors of root beer at once.
Consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Like many politicians before her, she went on “The Daily Show” last month to match wits with Jon Stewart, be made fun of and maybe make a point to a coveted audience of hyper-aware, media-savvy Americans. She didn’t tank, but she appeared painfully overeager.
To neutralize the static, she needed the kind of banter that Stewart and NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a couple of nights later. It was amiably contentious and brimming with pop-culture cues. It was also just plain fun, a key element in capturing the “Daily Show” demographic’s attention.
“With more choices out there, if leaders want to bring issues to the attention of the public, they have to bring it into our venues and speak it on our terms,” says Adam Schiffer, a political scientist at Texas Christian University who studies voter behavior and the media’s role in politics.
“Institutions are breaking down and there are going to be new ways of doing things. But the cream can still rise. The signal can still make it through the noise in this new environment,” he says. “You don’t need 90 percent of the public informed on the issue and following it closely to get your policy passed.”
Exhibit A is Al Gore, who has been practically pleading Americans to pay attention to the environment for nearly a generation. He finally succeeded.
What helped him punch through the static? He made a movie.
___
SAME DIFFERENCE?
Across the continent from Galco’s and the dizzying choices of Los Angeles, another town struggles with its choices. But the options are different.
In this community, people are choosing their kitchenware, not from Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel but silver or pewter. They’re choosing new clothes, not from Wal-Mart or Nordstrom but from the 40 or so fabrics at the local millinery. They’re choosing transportation, not Jeep or Toyota but feet or horse.
And they’re choosing sides: loyalist or rebel, status quo or treason.
Colonial Williamsburg is a city deliberately frozen in time, on the cusp of the American Revolution, when it was Virginia’s capital. Walking its 18th-century streets, seeing actor-interpreters bring revolutionary-era Virginians back to life, you could believe that the choices here were far fewer.
Yet for its era, Williamsburg was a cosmopolitan town, bustling with a merchant class and a spread of consumer goods that presaged modern America.
It also was crackling with revolutionary activity. Its citizens wrestled with their responsibilities and seizing their future. They confronted a lot of static and still managed to participate in the birthing of American democracy.
“Not everybody was running around yelling, ‘Yeah, yeah, liberty, death,'” says Dennis Watson, a Scottish-born American who portrays Williamsburg printer and newspaperman Alexander Purdie. “But,” he says, “this time they truly came together.”
There are lessons for us, and for our leaders, in the people of Colonial Williamsburg.
They, too, had choices far more abundant than their predecessors. They, too, struggled to manage their bandwidth and avoid letting distractions prevail. They may not have had XBoxes, but they had more options than most anyone outside of Boston or Philadelphia.
We are products of our age, too. If we can process 21st-century distractions and negotiate our lives, and most of us do, can’t we be active in our democracy, too? The ability to Twitter and to TiVo does not by itself preclude civic participation. Everyone has, well, a choice.
“This country is an experiment. And for it to have endured for this long, it requires the involvement of citizens — citizens making choices,” says Jim Bradley, who manages public affairs for Colonial Williamsburg.
It is tempting to imagine Williamsburg as a distillation of democracy, a representation of a time when leaders could be heard and citizens could be listened to, when a man could stand before a crowd, say “Give me liberty or give me death” and have it echo across the land.
That’s what Sherrie Bender of Houston, visiting Colonial Williamsburg on a recent day, means when she wonders, “Where are those conversations we had like Patrick Henry on the steps?”
They’re gone. In their place is something new and unprecedented but of the people nonetheless. To figure it out, we and our leaders are going to need a serious road map. More likely, we’ll just MapQuest it and go from there — if, that is, we don’t get distracted by everything we encounter along the way.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
Date: 8/11/2008 2:18 PM
Slug: BC-Measure of a Nation-Distracted Republic
Headline: Distraction 2008: Freedom of choice _ or from it?
Byline: By TED ANTHONY
Byline Title:
Copyright Holder: AP
Priority: r (4)
With Photo:
Dateline:
Editors’ Note: Eds: Also moved in advance. Multimedia: This story and all past installments of the Measure of a Nation series – which includes stories, videos and
animations _ are packaged in an interactive in the _national/measure_nation folder. AP Video.
Word Count: 2190
File Name (Transref): L0619
Editorial Type:
AP Category: a
Format: bx
Edit Mode : Cancel
EDITOR’S NOTE — This latest chapter of “The Measure of a Nation,” a yearlong series of multimedia story packages about the presidency and the 2008 election as seen through the prism of the culture, assesses the absurd amount of choices the average American has today — and how a leader might cut through the clutter and capture the nation’s attention.By TED ANTHONYAP National Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — On blistering days in Los Angeles, drive northeast on the 110, exit at Highland Park and pull into a roadside grocery called Galco’s. Then walk in and say, “I’m thirsty. Can you point me to the soda-pop aisle?” This question may get you laughed out of the place. Because at Galco’s, the soda pop is in most every aisle. The place is a soft-drink nirvana containing 500 varieties of fizzy beverage from all corners of the planet. Root beer? They’ve got three dozen kinds. Perhaps your palate craves a bottle of Cheerwine or a cold Inca Cola. Choose between soda sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, flavored artificially or naturally, colored pink or red or green or blue or purple. And that doesn’t include the 475 varieties of beer and the 60 kinds of bottled water. The choice is yours, if you can handle it. The store, now known as Galco’s Soda Pop Stop, is an exuberant explosion of the vaunted notion of freedom of choice, one of the ideals that supposedly makes America what it is. It is wonderful. It is also intimidating. And in an election year, it’s something the next president needs to understand. The two-century focus on what America’s founding fathers called “the pursuit of happiness” — coupled with the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and the rise of consumerism in the 20th — has birthed a landscape of options as dizzying as it is liberating. Bed and Bath, it turns out, aren’t nearly enough. These days, we’re much more concerned with Beyond. A mere generation after the three broadcast networks ruled, a Comcast digital cable package hands you up to 250 channels of programming. Today’s average supermarket sells more than 45,000 items, the average Wal-Mart Supercenter more than four times that. On a single afternoon this month, eBay had 14.9 million auctions going, and Amazon was offering listings for 22.7 million books. By the end of last year, the Web had more than 108 million distinct pages to visit from the comfort of your lap. John Nese, who built Galco’s into a promised land of sugary beverages, has thought a lot about choice in America. He offers two assessments. The first: “People want choices. People want the opportunity to make their own decisions.” The second: “They come in and they look and they go, ‘We’re overwhelmed. We don’t know what to buy.'” The notion transcends simple consumerism. It also is the dilemma facing whoever wins November’s election. With options beyond our great-grandparents’ dreams, is freedom of unlimited choice really a freedom at all? In a universe of unprecedented static, how can an American leader lead? ___ DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION Mermaid Treasure looks just like Blue Jewel. Waterscape and Cool Dusk could be identical twins. And try distinguishing Seven Seas and Southern Evening from 10 paces away. At the Home Depot in Gibsonia, Pa., no less than 372 shades of blue paint are available, not counting the many blue-greens and blue-purples also offered in a section of swatches nearly as long as the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. This cross-section of American choice illuminates the multiple levels of decision-making required to negotiate today’s consumer landscape, in this case before the painting even begins: —Which store? There are four paint dealers within a mile of the Gibsonia Home Depot and at least 13 more within a 10-mile radius. —Which brand? There are at least five to choose from. —Which consistency? Pick from matte, eggshell, satin, semi-gloss and gloss. —Which color group? Basic colors like blue, red and green are mere gateways to the real color choice. —Which shade? Time to negotiate the hundreds of names that sound like either ice-cream flavors (Lavender Ice, Cloudberry) or small coastal communities (Little Pond, Wickford Bay). That’s more than a million ways to paint a door. And as powerful as the human brain is, its bandwidth is ultimately limited. By focusing on smaller choices, by continuously sifting through the categories and subcategories of things like color preference and Google results and spam, could it be that our multiple options are controlling rather than liberating us? “Since Reagan, the ideology in the United States has been that choice is good and more choice is better. And to the extent that you can give people more choice in every area of life, you are improving their well-being,” says Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.” But “nobody has the time or the expertise to make informed choices about everything,” Schwartz says. “When options are presented, people have a tough time just ignoring them.” In 2000, according to the American Psychological Association, a study found that shoppers given the choice of picking a jam from smaller and larger assortments preferred choosing from the bigger assortment. Yet they were more likely to actually buy some jam if they had fewer options. Excessive choice, in effect, short-circuited them from engaging more deeply. Now take that notion into the public realm. If too many choices drive us to distraction, how does that affect how we perceive government? “It’s wonderful that we can sit down in our living room and order 20,000 things. In a superficial way, we are more informed than people used to be. But it’s hard to get our attention, and I don’t see any way of turning that around,” says Edward C. Rosenthal, author of “The Era of Choice: The Ability to Choose and Its Transformation of Contemporary Life.” His assessment is bleak. By 1900, people’s faith in established institutions like church and government began a slow wane, and Americans struggled to find their bearings. Thus did consumer choice gradually become fetish. Today, anyone who questions unfettered choice risks being accused of condescension and, worse, ignorance of market forces. This is the landscape an American leader faces. The option becomes, “Follow me — unless you have something more interesting going on.” And accurately or not, today’s citizens often think that they do. ___ LEADING THROUGH STATIC “The only way we’re going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together,” Barack Obama said this month. Weeks earlier, John McCain said that “we are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association.” Unity is big in 2008. It means more voters. But can we come together? These days, beyond 9/11 or Katrina or rising gas prices, what exactly is that “shared distinction” we like to think unites us? To inspire voters, campaigns use strategies such as microtargeting — mining data and finding voters’ preferences, then customizing the message for each. But when candidate becomes president and prospective voter becomes mere citizen, those intricate techniques melt away. What’s a leader to do? Christine Riordan, a leadership expert at the University of Denver, prescribes simplicity. Just as paying attention to a leader is a consumer choice, Riordan says the leader can benefit from deploying marketing principles as well: An uncluttered message rings clearer, particularly when it’s accompanied by tight focus on content, packaging and image. Debating whether there’s too much information out there, Riordan says, is beside the point. “There’s no way we’re going back to the times of Zachary Taylor,” she says. “”It’s not, ‘Is too much information bad?’ It’s how do you manage within an environment that does provide all information and will continue to provide all informati
on?” Today, candidates and leaders must tailor core messages for the 75-year-old newspaper reader and the 19-year-old who communicates using blogs and Facebook. What’s more, to have any chance of cutting through the clutter, the leader has to seem sincere and authentic to both demographics, not to mention all the Gen-Xers and Boomers in between. He or she has to be all the flavors of root beer at once. Consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Like many politicians before her, she went on “The Daily Show” last month to match wits with Jon Stewart, be made fun of and maybe make a point to a coveted audience of hyper-aware, media-savvy Americans. She didn’t tank, but she appeared painfully overeager. To neutralize the static, she needed the kind of banter that Stewart and NBC anchorman Brian Williams had a couple of nights later. It was amiably contentious and brimming with pop-culture cues. It was also just plain fun, a key element in capturing the “Daily Show” demographic’s attention. “With more choices out there, if leaders want to bring issues to the attention of the public, they have to bring it into our venues and speak it on our terms,” says Adam Schiffer, a political scientist at Texas Christian University who studies voter behavior and the media’s role in politics. “Institutions are breaking down and there are going to be new ways of doing things. But the cream can still rise. The signal can still make it through the noise in this new environment,” he says. “You don’t need 90 percent of the public informed on the issue and following it closely to get your policy passed.” Exhibit A is Al Gore, who has been practically pleading Americans to pay attention to the environment for nearly a generation. He finally succeeded. What helped him punch through the static? He made a movie. ___ SAME DIFFERENCE? Across the continent from Galco’s and the dizzying choices of Los Angeles, another town struggles with its choices. But the options are different. In this community, people are choosing their kitchenware, not from Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel but silver or pewter. They’re choosing new clothes, not from Wal-Mart or Nordstrom but from the 40 or so fabrics at the local millinery. They’re choosing transportation, not Jeep or Toyota but feet or horse. And they’re choosing sides: loyalist or rebel, status quo or treason. Colonial Williamsburg is a city deliberately frozen in time, on the cusp of the American Revolution, when it was Virginia’s capital. Walking its 18th-century streets, seeing actor-interpreters bring revolutionary-era Virginians back to life, you could believe that the choices here were far fewer. Yet for its era, Williamsburg was a cosmopolitan town, bustling with a merchant class and a spread of consumer goods that presaged modern America. It also was crackling with revolutionary activity. Its citizens wrestled with their responsibilities and seizing their future. They confronted a lot of static and still managed to participate in the birthing of American democracy. “Not everybody was running around yelling, ‘Yeah, yeah, liberty, death,'” says Dennis Watson, a Scottish-born American who portrays Williamsburg printer and newspaperman Alexander Purdie. “But,” he says, “this time they truly came together.” There are lessons for us, and for our leaders, in the people of Colonial Williamsburg. They, too, had choices far more abundant than their predecessors. They, too, struggled to manage their bandwidth and avoid letting distractions prevail. They may not have had XBoxes, but they had more options than most anyone outside of Boston or Philadelphia. We are products of our age, too. If we can process 21st-century distractions and negotiate our lives, and most of us do, can’t we be active in our democracy, too? The ability to Twitter and to TiVo does not by itself preclude civic participation. Everyone has, well, a choice. “This country is an experiment. And for it to have endured for this long, it requires the involvement of citizens — citizens making choices,” says Jim Bradley, who manages public affairs for Colonial Williamsburg. It is tempting to imagine Williamsburg as a distillation of democracy, a representation of a time when leaders could be heard and citizens could be listened to, when a man could stand before a crowd, say “Give me liberty or give me death” and have it echo across the land. That’s what Sherrie Bender of Houston, visiting Colonial Williamsburg on a recent day, means when she wonders, “Where are those conversations we had like Patrick Henry on the steps?” They’re gone. In their place is something new and unprecedented but of the people nonetheless. To figure it out, we and our leaders are going to need a serious road map. More likely, we’ll just MapQuest it and go from there — if, that is, we don’t get distracted by everything we encounter along the way.
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Looking Up …
Fatal shooting by police sparks Montreal riot
In a bizarre postscript to last Saturday’s story about the racial riots of the past, one of the world’s most peaceful countries had an outbreak of urban rioting this weekend. (See the below story on the Montreal rioting) Gun violence has always been remarkably lower in Canada, largely because of much tighter gun restrictions. But conflict between urban police and poor people has always been a trigger, regardless of where it happens.
One of the lost areas of brain injury advocacy is in police brutality cases. As primarily an accident lawyer, I have only consulted on these cases, but those innocent victims of police brutality often suffer the same type of permanent brain damage as my accident clients.
We hope that Montreal returns to the serenity of which we think of it, and the Canadian authorities can be trusted to find the truth of what really happened.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 11:28 AM
MONTREAL (AP) _ Rioting broke out late Sunday in a Montreal neighborhood where a young man was shot to death by police over the weekend. A police officer was shot in the leg, stores were looted and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles.
Several hundred officers in riot gear fanned out in search of a group of youths who ran off after torching eight cars parked outside a fire station in Montreal North, a multiethnic neighborhood with simmering tensions between residents and police. Fire trucks responding to the call in Montreal North were pelted with beer bottles, while at least three bus shelters were trashed.
The violence erupted following a peaceful community protest against the shooting by police on Saturday of three people, including an 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, who died of his wounds.
On Sunday, men and women of all ages crawled through the smashed windows of a pawn shop, a convenience store and a butcher shop, grabbing anything they could. They could be seen running down the street clutching TVs, cigarette cartons and slabs of meat.
Meanwhile, along the residential streets, riot-squad officers were forced to dive for cover at least three times, after blasts of what sounded like gunshots went off around them.
“I had a guy shoot a gun next to me, that’s how bad it was,” said Patrick Parent, who lives on the street behind the convenience store. “I ran home. It was terrifying.”
Parent, who has lived in the area for six years, said locals occasionally hear gunshots but that usually the neighborhood is quiet.
“I thought I would see this only on TV, never in real life,” he said.
Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafreniere said one police officer was hospitalized after being shot in the leg.
An ambulance technician was hit in the head by a bottle and a second police officer suffered minor injuries, he said. Both were released from hospital after treatment.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said the mob vandalized three fire trucks, the local fire station and broke into 20 businesses.
Three people were arrested for breaking and entering, one for drug possession and two others for charges still to be determined, he said.
Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shootings Saturday that sparked the riots.
City police said the officers were trying to arrest an individual in Henri Bourassa Park around 7 p.m when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youths.
A few individuals allegedly broke away from the group and rushed the officers.
According to police, one of the officers then opened fire.
The officers were not wounded.
Provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado said there were numerous witnesses to the incident, including people playing sports or just sitting in the park nearby, he said.
“It’s too early to say what happened exactly. We’re talking about the death of a man. It’s a major investigation.”
Villanueva’s sister, Julissa, said from nearby Laval that family members want answers.
“We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that’s all,” she said, breaking into tears as she spoke about her brother, a student who wanted to become a mechanic.
Delorme, the Montreal police chief, said authorities would make efforts to mend the shaky relations between police and the community.
“We’re there to listen, to understand what happened (Sunday) night and to avoid these kinds of situations,” Delorme said Monday. “We have to feel safe in Montreal.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
One of the lost areas of brain injury advocacy is in police brutality cases. As primarily an accident lawyer, I have only consulted on these cases, but those innocent victims of police brutality often suffer the same type of permanent brain damage as my accident clients.
We hope that Montreal returns to the serenity of which we think of it, and the Canadian authorities can be trusted to find the truth of what really happened.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Date: 8/11/2008 11:28 AM
MONTREAL (AP) _ Rioting broke out late Sunday in a Montreal neighborhood where a young man was shot to death by police over the weekend. A police officer was shot in the leg, stores were looted and firefighters were pelted with beer bottles.
Several hundred officers in riot gear fanned out in search of a group of youths who ran off after torching eight cars parked outside a fire station in Montreal North, a multiethnic neighborhood with simmering tensions between residents and police. Fire trucks responding to the call in Montreal North were pelted with beer bottles, while at least three bus shelters were trashed.
The violence erupted following a peaceful community protest against the shooting by police on Saturday of three people, including an 18-year-old man, identified by his sister as Freddy Alberto Villanueva, who died of his wounds.
On Sunday, men and women of all ages crawled through the smashed windows of a pawn shop, a convenience store and a butcher shop, grabbing anything they could. They could be seen running down the street clutching TVs, cigarette cartons and slabs of meat.
Meanwhile, along the residential streets, riot-squad officers were forced to dive for cover at least three times, after blasts of what sounded like gunshots went off around them.
“I had a guy shoot a gun next to me, that’s how bad it was,” said Patrick Parent, who lives on the street behind the convenience store. “I ran home. It was terrifying.”
Parent, who has lived in the area for six years, said locals occasionally hear gunshots but that usually the neighborhood is quiet.
“I thought I would see this only on TV, never in real life,” he said.
Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafreniere said one police officer was hospitalized after being shot in the leg.
An ambulance technician was hit in the head by a bottle and a second police officer suffered minor injuries, he said. Both were released from hospital after treatment.
Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme said the mob vandalized three fire trucks, the local fire station and broke into 20 businesses.
Three people were arrested for breaking and entering, one for drug possession and two others for charges still to be determined, he said.
Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shootings Saturday that sparked the riots.
City police said the officers were trying to arrest an individual in Henri Bourassa Park around 7 p.m when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youths.
A few individuals allegedly broke away from the group and rushed the officers.
According to police, one of the officers then opened fire.
The officers were not wounded.
Provincial police spokesman Gregory Gomez del Prado said there were numerous witnesses to the incident, including people playing sports or just sitting in the park nearby, he said.
“It’s too early to say what happened exactly. We’re talking about the death of a man. It’s a major investigation.”
Villanueva’s sister, Julissa, said from nearby Laval that family members want answers.
“We only know what we see in the news, in the newspapers, that’s all,” she said, breaking into tears as she spoke about her brother, a student who wanted to become a mechanic.
Delorme, the Montreal police chief, said authorities would make efforts to mend the shaky relations between police and the community.
“We’re there to listen, to understand what happened (Sunday) night and to avoid these kinds of situations,” Delorme said Monday. “We have to feel safe in Montreal.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Medically Unfit Drivers – Part III
This week we have discussed the flaws that can be found within the CDL licensing system. The primary focus of this series of blogs has been how some individuals who are clearly not qualified to operate a commercial vehicle and who the government found to be fully disabled, are receiving CDL licensing.
The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration),which works closely with the DOT, has five main requirements that determines whether an individual is eligible for a CDL license.
The rules are: (1) the driver needs to be at least 21 years old (2) the driver needs to able to read and speak English (3) the driver needs to have a valid commercial motor vehicle operator’s license (4) the driver needed to have completed the driver’s road test and (5) the driver must be physically qualified to drive which needs to be verified by receiving a medical certificate from a medical examiner claiming the driver is physical qualified to drive. See http://semi-accident.com for more information on the FMCSA regulations.
The GAO’s research found that there were many individuals who were driving without a medical certificate, the fifth requirement. Therefore, bureaucratic snafus have resulted in drivers having CDLs without meeting these clear cut requirements. As with the heparin debacle, http://heparin-law.com, it is clear that the U.S. government needs to make technological advancements so that they can assure these straightforward requirements are met before issuing or renewing commercial driver licenses.
The NTSB (The National Transportation Safety Board), which investigates transportation accidents, suggested additional requirements for CDL drivers. In 2006, 12% of commercial accidents were caused by the drivers having a heart attack, fatigue or another physical impairment. The NTSB agency concluded that by adding these eight requirements for a CDL, many more accidents could be prevented.
The NTSB’s Eight Suggestions are:
If the DOT adopts these eight recommendations from the NTSB, this could help eliminate accidents involving CDL license drivers who are not fit to drive.
The FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration),which works closely with the DOT, has five main requirements that determines whether an individual is eligible for a CDL license.
The rules are: (1) the driver needs to be at least 21 years old (2) the driver needs to able to read and speak English (3) the driver needs to have a valid commercial motor vehicle operator’s license (4) the driver needed to have completed the driver’s road test and (5) the driver must be physically qualified to drive which needs to be verified by receiving a medical certificate from a medical examiner claiming the driver is physical qualified to drive. See http://semi-accident.com for more information on the FMCSA regulations.
The GAO’s research found that there were many individuals who were driving without a medical certificate, the fifth requirement. Therefore, bureaucratic snafus have resulted in drivers having CDLs without meeting these clear cut requirements. As with the heparin debacle, http://heparin-law.com, it is clear that the U.S. government needs to make technological advancements so that they can assure these straightforward requirements are met before issuing or renewing commercial driver licenses.
The NTSB (The National Transportation Safety Board), which investigates transportation accidents, suggested additional requirements for CDL drivers. In 2006, 12% of commercial accidents were caused by the drivers having a heart attack, fatigue or another physical impairment. The NTSB agency concluded that by adding these eight requirements for a CDL, many more accidents could be prevented.
The NTSB’s Eight Suggestions are:
- 1. Doctors performing medical examinations for drivers are qualified to do so and are educated about occupational issues for drivers. In other words, it is essential that these examiners know what type of abilities (as opposed to disabilities) a driver must have. For example: ability to stay focused for up to 11 hours at a time, in high stress traffic situations.
- 2. Every prior application by an individual for medical certification is recorded and reviewed. That the applications and medical certifications, that were received over the previous years for a CDL license, are recorded and reviewed to further evaluate the licensing process.
- 3. Medical certification regulations are updated periodically to permit trained examiners to clearly determine whether drivers with common medical conditions should be issued a medical certificate. The recommendations call for giving medical examiners the regulations with respect to the abilities needed for commercial driving periodically so they’re certain what conditions disqualify an individual from obtaining a CDL license. For more information view: http://subtlebraininjury.blogspot.com/2008/07/gao-medically-unfit-truckers-part-ii.html
- 4. Individuals performing examinations have specific guidance and a readily identifiable source of information for questions on such examinations.
- 5. To structure the review process by the DOT, to prevent, or identify and correct, the inappropriate issuance of medical certification.
- 6. Provide mechanisms for enforcement authorities to identify invalid medical certification during safety inspections and routine stops.
- 7. Provide enforcement authorities with the power to prevent an uncertified driver from driving until an appropriate medical examination takes place.
- 8. Create mechanisms for reporting medical conditions to the medical certification and reviewing authority and to make sure that individuals, health care providers, and employers are aware of these mechanisms.
If the DOT adopts these eight recommendations from the NTSB, this could help eliminate accidents involving CDL license drivers who are not fit to drive.
GAO — Medically Unfit Truckers Part II
As we have been discussing on this blog for the last few days, the U.S. House of Representatives, Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, held hearings on July 24 on medically unfit truckers. Click here for the hearing information. In this blog, we will discuss some examples of commercial drivers with medical conditions and why these are dangerous.
The GAO found numerous CDL drivers with serious medical conditions. One was a bus driver from Florida that continued to have a CDL and was being hired as a substitute bus driver. This man receives disability benefits for breathing problems that require him to use three daily inhalers and that he claims he, “occasionally blacks outs and forgets things.” This man should not be driving because he could have a breathing problem while on the road and black out. Further, this guy does not have a medical certificate which is required by the DOT to continue to have an active CDL.
Another case was a truck driver from Florida that receives a disability for multiple sclerosis who hauls circus equipment to different shows. Not only does this driver not have the required medical certificate, his medical condition causes fatigue and this can be very dangerous with a driver that travels all over the U.S. The driver could fall asleep and cause a major accident. Without a medical certificate it is impossible to know if the driver has any other conditions that would make him a very dangerous CDL driver to put on the road.
Another disturbing account was a truck driver in Maryland who receives a disability for being 100 percent deaf received a CDL license. The medical examiner claimed that this was an error. This obviously very dangerous for obvious reasons.
Many disabilities can affect an individual’s ability to be a commercial driver. While as advocates for the injured we would have to agree with the DOT that not all disabilities make someone exempt from receiving a CDL license, there are several disabilities, like fatigue, complete deafness and breathing problems that raise serious doubt on whether an individual is fit to have a CDL.
Fatigue is a perfect example. The bulk of trucker related regulations, focus on preventing fatigue. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html To enforce those regulations while allowing someone who has abnormal fatigue to get a CDL, is incongruous. Would not a simple cross referencing of Federal Government data bases eliminate this problem? While Social Security does allow for certain trial returns to work, clearly those returns (if they involve a CDL) should be monitored with the same degree of zeal that the Social Security Administration too often uses to deny deserving people’s benefits.
Each year 5,300 people die and 126,000 people are injured in accidents involving commercial drivers and twelve percent of these accidents are caused by a CDL driver having fatigue, heart attack or a physical impairment. It is important for the DOT to take CDL licensing seriously and consider more thorough evaluations.
In our next blog, we examine the specific requirements to receive a CDL and the NTSB’s recommendations.
The GAO found numerous CDL drivers with serious medical conditions. One was a bus driver from Florida that continued to have a CDL and was being hired as a substitute bus driver. This man receives disability benefits for breathing problems that require him to use three daily inhalers and that he claims he, “occasionally blacks outs and forgets things.” This man should not be driving because he could have a breathing problem while on the road and black out. Further, this guy does not have a medical certificate which is required by the DOT to continue to have an active CDL.
Another case was a truck driver from Florida that receives a disability for multiple sclerosis who hauls circus equipment to different shows. Not only does this driver not have the required medical certificate, his medical condition causes fatigue and this can be very dangerous with a driver that travels all over the U.S. The driver could fall asleep and cause a major accident. Without a medical certificate it is impossible to know if the driver has any other conditions that would make him a very dangerous CDL driver to put on the road.
Another disturbing account was a truck driver in Maryland who receives a disability for being 100 percent deaf received a CDL license. The medical examiner claimed that this was an error. This obviously very dangerous for obvious reasons.
Many disabilities can affect an individual’s ability to be a commercial driver. While as advocates for the injured we would have to agree with the DOT that not all disabilities make someone exempt from receiving a CDL license, there are several disabilities, like fatigue, complete deafness and breathing problems that raise serious doubt on whether an individual is fit to have a CDL.
Fatigue is a perfect example. The bulk of trucker related regulations, focus on preventing fatigue. See http://semi-accident.com/fatigue.html To enforce those regulations while allowing someone who has abnormal fatigue to get a CDL, is incongruous. Would not a simple cross referencing of Federal Government data bases eliminate this problem? While Social Security does allow for certain trial returns to work, clearly those returns (if they involve a CDL) should be monitored with the same degree of zeal that the Social Security Administration too often uses to deny deserving people’s benefits.
Each year 5,300 people die and 126,000 people are injured in accidents involving commercial drivers and twelve percent of these accidents are caused by a CDL driver having fatigue, heart attack or a physical impairment. It is important for the DOT to take CDL licensing seriously and consider more thorough evaluations.
In our next blog, we examine the specific requirements to receive a CDL and the NTSB’s recommendations.
Another Waiting.com Coma Tragedy
From another reader, who got solace from our advocacy on https://waiting.com:
Attorney Gordon Johnson
On Jul 14, 2008, at 7:31 PM, Alina Higuera wrote:
Hello My name is Alina I come from a family of ten kids 7 girls and 3 boys It seems as if my family and I are reliving the devastation of my brothers ( 3rd born ) brain injury that occured on Dec 3, 1979. his injuries were caused by blunt force trauma to the head, he fell out of the back of a pick up truck. The part of the brain that was damaged was at the brain stem. After being in a coma for 3 mo. he returned to us, having to relearn how to do everything, unfortunatly my brother never did regain use of his legs and was able to move his right arm only. he remained very inteligent as he was before this happened. All of his sences were very much intact including pain. He could’nt move anything but he could feel everything, I remember so many many times he would yell for me to come and scratch his itch because he was unable to and we all know how irritating that is, pain was another thing that my brother could feel, it would break my heart to see the unbearable pain on his face when he would be getting therapy or just cleaning him up. My brother lived in that hell for 31 yrs and never one time did I ever hear him feeling sorry for himself, he was always smiling and without fail the first one to say “Good Morning” and nerver forgot a birthday and was the one always doing the cheering up. We lost my brother on Feb 15, 2008 although he is greatly missed I am happy that he is no longer suffering from the bondage that he lived with and through for so many years. On July 12, 2008 my older sister ( 5th born ) 51 years old went into cardiac arrest while visiting another sister over the weekend, after returning from a quick errond as she walked into the front door she found my sister face down on the ground not breathing and with no pulse, she began to administer CPR immediatly, as she called out for help a neighbor came running who happens to be a lifegaurd and assisted my sister with CPR paramedics finally arrived still with no pulse or breathing they began chest compressions and then the electric paddles to try and start the heart, finally after about 15 mins they were able to feel a faint pulse. My sister now lays in a coma on a breathing machine with no responsive reaction. She was having seizures that were coming between every 15 to 30 secs of eachother. because of the lack of oxygen to the brain they say that she does have significant brain damage now to what extent we are not at all sure. Seeing my sister hooked up to machines and just laying there is a de ja vu of 31 years ago. My heart is breaking for my mom because as before she sits along side of my sisters bed talking to her and insisting that she will be just fine as she did with my brother. I can only hope and pray that she comes out of this and returns back to normal ( as normal as possible ) for the sake of my sister she would never want to live as my brother did ( we have all discussed it many times ) and as for the sake of my mom I can only hope and pray and hope and pray that she is strong enough to handle whatever the outcome will be. Only time will tell the fate of my sister, I love her and I miss her sooo very much and God willing she will come back the way she was.
Thank You for reading my story and even more for allowing me to write about it and somewhat releasing it from inside of me.
Alina Higuera
Hello Gordon,
I was so hoping to get a reply back from you. I am very sad to say that after sending this email, we were informed that due to the lack of oxygen to the brain, that my sister was brain dead and that they could do no more for her. She was removed from the machines and to much surprize was breathing on her own for about 36 hrs. she passed away July 18. You absolutley have my permission to post this on your blog, I can only hope that it will bring some comfort to the surviving relatives that they are not alone. Thank You so much for your response.
Alina Higuera
Kudos for our Coma Advocacy
From a user of https://waiting.com:
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
I was thumbing through some old email and I ran across yours. I remember writing you when my mother fell into coma. I remember how helpful this website was to me. How you help me and my family to understand what my mother was going through. I especially like how this site explained all the many different tubes and meaning of words surrounding coma. It educated me, it made me apart of the process. I enjoyed that very much.
My mother was 68 years old and lost the battle of recovery, however, this site helped me to deal with that also. This site gave me hope and kept me inform of what could happen. This site helped prepared me for the future without my mom. I thank God for giving me the strength to go though this and I thank you for educating me on coma so that I know what to pray for. My mother was laid to rest April 5, 2008. Thank you for being there for me.
Sonia
Obama and McCain urged to Attend Military Head Injury Conference
From the Brain Injury Association of America:
We agree that one of the most pressing issues for the next administration, is better care for returning vets, and also for all brain injury survivors.
Dear Advocates:
BIAA issued a press release today urging both presidential candidates to attend the 2008 Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall and engage in an in-depth discussion of the increasingly complex issues facing America’s military and veterans community, including the rate of traumatic brain injury among returning service members. BIAA is a member of the 2008 Forth Hood Presidential Town Hall Consortium, and the event is tentatively scheduled to occur on August 11, 2008.
In other news, in a welcome and surprising turn of events this week, the Senate voted by a veto-proof margin to pass a key Medicare bill (H.R. 6311), which the House and Senate had previously been unable to agree on before the July Fourth congressional recess. The final Medicare package, which will prevent deep cuts in Medicare payment rates for physicians which had been scheduled to begin on July 1, was previously passed by the House on June 24.
The Medicare bill also contains important delays in the implementation of Medicare’s competitive bidding program for Durable Medical Equipment (DME), and an extension of the Medicare outpatient therapy cap exceptions process.
It is anticipated that President Bush will veto the bill, however, and although the Senate passed the bill with a veto-proof margin earlier this week, the White House needs only three Senators to switch their votes in order for a veto override to fail. Thus, it is extremely important that advocates visit BIAA’s Legislative Action Center to take action TODAY to urge their Senator to vote to override the President’s expected veto. To do so, please visit http://capwiz.com/bia/callalert/index.tt?alertid=11604356.
The Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations process to be stalled, as the House Appropriations Committee does not plan on marking up any more bills this summer after a partisan dispute erupted in recent weeks over amendments on energy policy. And while the Senate Appropriations Committee plans to have all 12 of its bills approved by the panel by the end of this month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this week that action on appropriations in his chamber will be very limited during the next few months.
*Distributed by Laura Schiebelhut, BIAA Director of Government Affairs, on behalf of the Brain Injury Association of America; 703-761-0750 ext. 637; lschiebelhut@biausa.org
BIAA’s Policy Corner and Legislative Action Alerts are made possible by the Centre for Neuro Skills, James F. Humphreys & Associates, and Lakeview Healthcare Systems, Inc. The Brain Injury Association of America gratefully acknowledges their support for legislative action.
To sign up to receive future BIAA Policy Corner E-Newsletters and Legislative Action Alerts, please go to http://capwiz.com/bia/mlm/signup/
__________________________________________________________________
BIAA Urges Presidential Candidates to Participate in Fort Hood Town Hall Event
BIAA issued a press release today urging both presidential candidates to attend the 2008 Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall and engage in an in-depth discussion of the increasingly complex issues facing America’s military and veterans community, including the rate of traumatic brain injury among returning service members. BIAA is a member of the 2008 Fort Hood Presidential Town Hall Consortium, and the event is tentatively scheduled to occur on August 11, 2008.
The Consortium planning the event includes a diverse group of military, veterans and community-service organizations, including Disabled Veterans of America, the Brain Injury Association of America, and Sentinels of Freedom. These groups are working in partnership with the military, the Department of Veterans Affairs, state and local governments, and faith and community-based organizations to deliver services and support to our military, veterans and families.
In the press release, BIAA President and CEO Susan H. Connors states, “Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common consequence of any war. TBI is recognized as the ‘signature wound’ of the current conflict; yet, accessing the right treatment, right now remains a challenge for many wounded service members and veterans. Our troops and the millions of civilians who sustain TBIs here at home need proper screening and diagnosis, expert rehabilitation, and ongoing community-based services. Family caregivers need information, training and support, and voters everywhere need to let the presidential candidates know where we stand.”
To view BIAA’s press release in its entirety, please visit our website at http://www.biausa.org/policyissues.htm.
Surprise Appearance By Senator Kennedy Pushes Senate to Pass Medicare Bill
In a welcome and surprising turn of events this week, the Senate voted by a veto-proof margin of 69-30 to pass a key Medicare bill (H.R. 6311), after a unexpected, dramatic appearance and “aye” vote by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) on Wednesday. Sen. Kennedy had not been in the Capitol for six weeks, as he is recovering from surgery in early June to remove a malignant brain tumor.
The House and Senate had previously been unable to agree on a Medicare package before the July Fourth congressional recess. The final Medicare bill, which would prevent deep cuts in Medicare payment rates for physicians which had been scheduled to begin on July 1, was overwhelmingly passed by the House on June 24, but before Senator Kennedy’s appearance had been unable to gain Senate passage.
In addition to replacing a 10.6 percent cut to Medicare’s physician payment rates with 18 months of stable payments, the Medicare bill also contains an 18-month delay in implementation of Medicare’s competitive bidding program for Durable Medical Equipment (DME), as well as an 18-month extension of the Medicare outpatient therapy cap exceptions process.
It is anticipated that President Bush will veto the bill, however, and although the Senate passed the bill with a veto-proof margin earlier this week, the White House needs only three Senators to switch their votes in order for a veto override to fail. If the President delays acting on the bill, or Congress is unable to override an expected veto, the physician payment cuts and DME competitive bidding program will go into effect, and the outpatient therapy caps exceptions process will continue to be expired (as of June 30, 2008). Thus, it is extremely important that advocates visit BIAA’s Legislative Action Center to take action TODAY to urge their Senator to vote to override the President’s expected veto. To do so, please visit http://capwiz.com/bia/callalert/index.tt?alertid=11604356.
Fiscal 2009 Appropriations Process Still Stalled
The Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations process continues to be stalled, as the House Appropriations Committee does not plan on marking up any more bills this summer after a partisan dispute erupted in recent weeks over amendments on energy policy. And while the Senate Appropriations Committee plans to have all 12 of its bills approved by the panel by the end of this month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this week that action on appropriations in his chamber will be very limited in the next few months.
There continues to be widespread speculation that this year’s appropriations process will eventually become stagnant this fall, as Democrats may wait for the president to leave office before completing work on the funding bills in order to avert a promised veto.
CQ Today reported earlier this week, “Reid (D-Nev.) said his chamber will likely consider, at the most, two fiscal 2009 appropriations bills this year before passing a continuing resolution (CR) in September that would keep the government funded at current levels into early next calendar year, when a new president takes office. The new fiscal year begins Oct. 1” (CQ Today, David Clarke, 7/10/08).
The full Senate Appropriations Committee has approved the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education funding bill, which provides the same funding amounts for several TBI programs as last year. This includes $5.7 million for TBI programming within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and $8.754 million for the HRSA TBI State Grant Program.
The House Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education Appropriations funding bill has only been passed by the House Subcommittee and not the full House Appropriations Committee. The House Subcommittee markup contains increased funding for some federal TBI programs compared to last year. The bill includes $11 million for the HRSA TBI State Grant Program (+$2.246 million over last year) and $6.6 million for TBI programming within CDC (+$0.9 million over last year).
We agree that one of the most pressing issues for the next administration, is better care for returning vets, and also for all brain injury survivors.
Kind Words about http://tbilaw.com from New Zealand
Below is an email we received with respect to our websites and web advocacy.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
To Gordon Johnson and team, I thank you so much for your site. My name is Wendy and I am a 44 year old woman from New Zealand. I am a victim of Multiple TBI’s. As a child I sustained many head injuries (alot was me being knocked out), and have recieved many since. Most of which I have been knocked out many times, some for long periods, but mainly having the back of my head hitting the ground before any other part of my body. The worst injury I sustained was in 2001 when I had a home invasion and was beaten by 2 people wearing work boots being knoked for 8 or 9 hours. That was the second time I had been knocked out for that long. Other instances were being unconcious for up to 2 hours.
I found your site very easy to understand and informative. All of the symptoms you described were me wrapped up into one big ball. A brain damaged mess with what as a future?!
I do wish so much that your firm was over here in New Zealand as I have had no help from our ‘system’ as one may put it.
Thanks so much for putting this information on the net. People need to understand more about becoming brain damaged and how it affects the victim and how it changes them. Its helped me with my youngest daughter (13), as she never really understood why Mum wasnt like she used to be. I really hope that someday in someway that there will be some miracle cure for thoses affected by TBI or Multiple TBI’s..
Kindest Regards, Wendy. :o)
Suicide Statistics
On my other blog, http://tbilaw.blogspot.com I have been writing about suicide and brain injury. This chart shows important statistics about suicide. Click on the chart to see it in full size.
Thoughts on Dog Breeders: Dog lovers or dog sickness?
My passion for brain injury began as a partnership with an exceptional advocate, Becca Martin. She continues to be propelled by advocacy, although of a different nature. But her advocacy is so genuine and passionate that sometimes I devote this blog to her passion for dogs.
Attorney Gordon Johnson
http://subtlebraininjury.com
http://tbilaw.com
https://waiting.com
http://vestibulardisorder.com
http://youtube.com/profile?user=braininjuryattorney
g@gordonjohnson.com
800-992-9447
©Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
I knew a dog breeder once. She was a friend I met through work. She bred collies and shelties out of her home. Back then I didn’t know this was called a backyard breeder. Her house had that overwhelming smell of dogs as the shelties lived indoors. The collies had kennels in the yard. The puppies were raised in a basement that made your eyes sting.
Now, this woman’s life orbited around her love for dogs. She lived, breathed and reveled in dogs. She showed dogs, trained dogs and sold dogs. But, she taught me that there is no such thing as a responsible breeder.
Being a lot more ignorant then, I thought the only problem she had was an overabundance of dogs and that a love for dogs could go too far. But I discovered there was a darker side to breeding pretty quickly. I would play with the cute litter of collie puppies and watch as their noses grew into the traditional collie nose. Round about the time the puppies were ready for sale, she would drive them to a vet an hour and a half away for a “vet check”. It seemed odd to me at the time as one of her best friends was a local vet.
Now being that kind of person, I always was drawn to the puppies that looked a bit off. You know what I mean, that look that you know something makes them a bit of an underdog in the world. I asked about these little guys and she told me that collie genetics sometimes resulted in abnormal skull development and the eye sockets didn’t expand for the growth of their eyes…a painful condition.
Anyway, she usually came from these “vet checks” missing a puppy or two. “Where is so and so” I would ask. And she would say “so and so was humanely euthanized”. So and so had the misfortune to be a victim of selective inbreeding. I suppose you have to travel a long way to find a vet willing to regularly euthanize otherwise healthy puppies.
There was always a kennel full of beautiful collies as well. During my acquaintance with this woman…I began to realize that none of her breeding dogs who became obsolete for breeding were ever rehomed. They were buried in her vet’s back field when they weren’t producing quality puppies.
It was then that I realized that there is a difference between dog lover and dog sickness. It wasn’t about the money. She couldn’t possibly have recouped her losses. Anyone who knows rescue knows there is probably not a high enough price to charge for a puppy that makes backyard breeding profitable. Not if you actually feed and vet the dogs. The only people who turn a profit are those who supply no care.
But, did she love dogs? Yes, she loved the perfect dogs. She loved the ones that brought adoration in the show ring. Everything else was just a means to get there. Love this week could mean euthanasia next week…based on a whim.
Maybe it’s the way she taped the ears to give them that perfect collie fold that just sort of raised the question in my mind of what is it with people? What drives people to breed for a certain look? They breed cattle for record breaking milk or meat production, chickens that mature in 6 weeks…but what is it that drives people to commit inhumane acts in order to achieve a breed standard?
Like a lot of people I used to let these backyard breeders slide under the radar compared to the disdain I felt for puppy mills. I have been guilty myself of obtaining a puppy from a breeder, but education is everything. I admit, during my life, I have always been younger and more ignorant.
I just want to finish with a thought that has bothered me this past year about my own rescue dogs. Because it illustrates the mentality which leads to this obsession with breeds.
It is an incident that occurred when I adopted Charm, my pit bull/border collie mix. Now most of us know it doesn’t really matter what the other part of the mix is…if it got labeled pit bull at the shelter…it’s a pit bull for life. No one looks at my dog and says is that part border collie? No one. But there was a certain rescuer that put in postings saying that what I had adopted wasn’t a real pit bull.
Which led me to the thought…so would I have to go to a breeder who gives out AKC papers to have a real pit bull? What does it mean to be a real pit bull? Cuz, gosh, the shelter wasn’t going to provide me with anything other than an adoption certificate for a pit bull mix. I didn’t even know it was a contest…my pit bull is more pit bull than your pit bull? All I know is there was a dog who needed a home and she was labeled pit bull and that meant no one wanted her.
It’s that sort of thinking that fuels breeders everywhere. Human ego gets catered to at the expense of the dogs. In the end, dogs are dogs are dogs. I don’t expect perfection, or conformation. My purebred chow is no more and no less than my shelter specials. No one is following me around with a score sheet that I can detect.
But to conclude my rant for the day….breeders cater to something in humans which is not pretty. Get a dog not a fashion accessory. You are not going to look cooler, your dick is not going to seem bigger, your place on the planet is not measured in your manipulation of genetics. And every shelter in America has something special waiting for you…a 100% dog waiting for a home. And each and everyone comes with an adoption certificate…what other papers could you possibly want???
Becca Martin
Attorney Gordon Johnson
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©Gordon S. Johnson, Jr. 2008
I knew a dog breeder once. She was a friend I met through work. She bred collies and shelties out of her home. Back then I didn’t know this was called a backyard breeder. Her house had that overwhelming smell of dogs as the shelties lived indoors. The collies had kennels in the yard. The puppies were raised in a basement that made your eyes sting.
Now, this woman’s life orbited around her love for dogs. She lived, breathed and reveled in dogs. She showed dogs, trained dogs and sold dogs. But, she taught me that there is no such thing as a responsible breeder.
Being a lot more ignorant then, I thought the only problem she had was an overabundance of dogs and that a love for dogs could go too far. But I discovered there was a darker side to breeding pretty quickly. I would play with the cute litter of collie puppies and watch as their noses grew into the traditional collie nose. Round about the time the puppies were ready for sale, she would drive them to a vet an hour and a half away for a “vet check”. It seemed odd to me at the time as one of her best friends was a local vet.
Now being that kind of person, I always was drawn to the puppies that looked a bit off. You know what I mean, that look that you know something makes them a bit of an underdog in the world. I asked about these little guys and she told me that collie genetics sometimes resulted in abnormal skull development and the eye sockets didn’t expand for the growth of their eyes…a painful condition.
Anyway, she usually came from these “vet checks” missing a puppy or two. “Where is so and so” I would ask. And she would say “so and so was humanely euthanized”. So and so had the misfortune to be a victim of selective inbreeding. I suppose you have to travel a long way to find a vet willing to regularly euthanize otherwise healthy puppies.
There was always a kennel full of beautiful collies as well. During my acquaintance with this woman…I began to realize that none of her breeding dogs who became obsolete for breeding were ever rehomed. They were buried in her vet’s back field when they weren’t producing quality puppies.
It was then that I realized that there is a difference between dog lover and dog sickness. It wasn’t about the money. She couldn’t possibly have recouped her losses. Anyone who knows rescue knows there is probably not a high enough price to charge for a puppy that makes backyard breeding profitable. Not if you actually feed and vet the dogs. The only people who turn a profit are those who supply no care.
But, did she love dogs? Yes, she loved the perfect dogs. She loved the ones that brought adoration in the show ring. Everything else was just a means to get there. Love this week could mean euthanasia next week…based on a whim.
Maybe it’s the way she taped the ears to give them that perfect collie fold that just sort of raised the question in my mind of what is it with people? What drives people to breed for a certain look? They breed cattle for record breaking milk or meat production, chickens that mature in 6 weeks…but what is it that drives people to commit inhumane acts in order to achieve a breed standard?
Like a lot of people I used to let these backyard breeders slide under the radar compared to the disdain I felt for puppy mills. I have been guilty myself of obtaining a puppy from a breeder, but education is everything. I admit, during my life, I have always been younger and more ignorant.
I just want to finish with a thought that has bothered me this past year about my own rescue dogs. Because it illustrates the mentality which leads to this obsession with breeds.
It is an incident that occurred when I adopted Charm, my pit bull/border collie mix. Now most of us know it doesn’t really matter what the other part of the mix is…if it got labeled pit bull at the shelter…it’s a pit bull for life. No one looks at my dog and says is that part border collie? No one. But there was a certain rescuer that put in postings saying that what I had adopted wasn’t a real pit bull.
Which led me to the thought…so would I have to go to a breeder who gives out AKC papers to have a real pit bull? What does it mean to be a real pit bull? Cuz, gosh, the shelter wasn’t going to provide me with anything other than an adoption certificate for a pit bull mix. I didn’t even know it was a contest…my pit bull is more pit bull than your pit bull? All I know is there was a dog who needed a home and she was labeled pit bull and that meant no one wanted her.
It’s that sort of thinking that fuels breeders everywhere. Human ego gets catered to at the expense of the dogs. In the end, dogs are dogs are dogs. I don’t expect perfection, or conformation. My purebred chow is no more and no less than my shelter specials. No one is following me around with a score sheet that I can detect.
But to conclude my rant for the day….breeders cater to something in humans which is not pretty. Get a dog not a fashion accessory. You are not going to look cooler, your dick is not going to seem bigger, your place on the planet is not measured in your manipulation of genetics. And every shelter in America has something special waiting for you…a 100% dog waiting for a home. And each and everyone comes with an adoption certificate…what other papers could you possibly want???
Becca Martin