Archive for June, 2006
DENVER, June 27 — Treatment decisions for localized prostate cancer tend to be driven more by patients’ fears and misconceptions rather than by understanding of the evidence, according to accounts of newly diagnosed patients.
A deliberate and thorough decision-making process is uncommon, suggest structured interviews with 20 men (age 54 to 80) diagnosed with localized prostate cancer, said Thomas Denberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Colorado here.
Instead, fearful that the cancer might quickly spread, more than half of the men expressed the desire to have it treated as quickly as possible, even though most knew prostate cancer is slow-growing, Dr. Denberg and colleagues, all internists, reported online in the journal Cancer.
“In fact, a majority of patients were uninterested in obtaining a second opinion, typically because of concerns that this would delay treatment and increase uncertainty,” they wrote. “Also, several patients erroneously declared that the only purpose of a second opinion is to confirm a diagnosis. Second, most patients had influential misconceptions about treatment, especially prostatectomy.
“Their beliefs were highly polarized: one group of patients avowed that prostatectomy is the best way of guaranteeing cure while another group asserted that it is very drastic or dangerous. Finally, almost all patients relied on anecdotes—stories about other people’s cancer experiences—to make sense of their own diagnosis and treatment choices. For the most part, these stories did not accurately match patients’ own clinical circumstances.”
The men fell into two broad groups: those who wanted to have surgery, and those who wanted to avoid surgery. Even though the men had discussed a range of treatment options with a doctor, most had misconceptions about the risks and benefits of surgery.
One common misconception, the authors wrote, was that a prostatectomy is the best way to guarantee a cure. However, they added,, radiotherapy has similar, and occasionally slightly better, five-year progression free probabilities.
Another common misconception, they said, is that rapid surgery is most advisable to avoid the possibility that the tumor will spread locally or suddenly metastasize. However, they added, the likelihood of transformation to rapidly progressive disease is remote and does not justify immediate prostatectomy.
Men are often informed that surgery abolishes uncertainty if the postsurgical evaluation shows that the cancer is confined to the prostate. Yet, the authors added, possible micrometastases and local recurrence necessitate prolonged post-prostatectomy PSA surveillance.
They had misconceptions about the risks of surgery and anesthesia and the pain and recovery periods.
None of the patients compared treatment options in terms of their side effects. In fact, nine of the 20 men did not consider side effects at all. One man said that side effects “are not important compared with dying.”
Although a urologist had reviewed the major side effects of each form of treatment, the men’s recall of this information was poor and inaccurate, the investigators said. “Several patients confused radiotherapy with chemotherapy, erroneously suggesting that the most common side effect of conformal beam radiotherapy is hair loss,” the researchers said.
Nineteen of the 20 men based their treatment decision in part on anecdotes about cancer experiences from friends and family, even when the anecdotes were not relevant to their own situation. “For example, one patient with localized, potentially curable disease compared his circumstances with that of a cousin whose disease was regionally advanced and hormone refractory,” the investigators said.
The majority of men (16 of 20) did not get a second opinion, believing this would only delay therapy and add to their fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, the investigators said.
“In summary, although fear is to be expected and may be necessary for motivating serious deliberation and action, it overpowered reason in ways that were not rectified through the simple provision of accurate health information,” the authors said.
“To address these challenges, clinicians should strive to meet patients closer to where they actually begin the decision-making process. Explicitly describing common misconceptions may allow patients to consciously recognize and correct them. Sources of patient fear can be elucidated and, where possible, reassurance can be offered,” the authors said.
“Patients can be asked to recount stories about other people that influence their attitudes and perceptions about prostate cancer, or can be connected to other individuals who have faced similar decisions in the face of comparable risk. Then, they can be helped to understand key differences between these stories and their own circumstances,” they said.
Dr. Denberg and colleagues concluded that “ideally, each patient would base his decision on accurate information, weighing all options in terms of the likelihood for tumor recurrence, personal preferences for avoiding specific treatment related side effects, and pragmatic considerations such as cost, convenience, and requirements for follow-up care,” said.
June 28th, 2006
BRISTOL - The public library downtown is holding two children’s programs next month.
Costume artist Holly Cleeland will appear on July 7. She will select three children from the audience and will make costumes for them from household items. Cleeland, the author of “Glue & Go Costumes for Kids,” will glue those costumes to the young volunteers.
Musician, naturalist and storyteller John Root will present a program titled “Turtles & Snakes” on July 11.
Both sessions start at 10:30 a.m. Participants will earn raffle tickets; prizes include an aquarium and passes to the Imagine Nation Museum.
Details are available through the library at 860-584-7787, Ext. 2014.
NEW BRITAIN
Man Faces New Charges
Of Sexual Assault
NEW BRITAIN - A 22-year-old man accused in April of sexually assaulting underage girls he met online was arrested Friday on new charges of sexual assault.
David Leonard, of 124 Stratford Road, is charged with two counts each of second-degree sexual assault, employing a minor in obscene performance and illegal sexual contact.
He was arraigned in Superior Court Friday. He is in custody with bail set at $100,200 and is scheduled to return to court June 29.
The latest charges stem from the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl at Leonard’s home in March. Police said Leonard met the girl on the online networking site MySpace.com a year before the incident. They spoke on the phone a couple of times before they met in person in March, police said.
Newington police arrested Leonard in April on charges that he lured two 12-year-old girls to a wooded area near an elementary school in Newington, kissed and fondled the two girls and proposed that they go to his home to drink beer, an arrest warrant affidavit states. Leonard had met one of the girls on MySpace.com, police said.
In connection with that case, he is charged with third-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, two counts of impairing the morals of children, two counts of interfering with police and submitting a false statement.
State police arrested Leonard Jan. 30 on an allegation of having sex with a 14-year-old girl from Vernon whom he had met through an online instant messaging service. The girl in that case told police that in some of her electronic messages, she included nude pictures of herself that Leonard requested. Police said Leonard sexually assaulted the teen at his parents’ home in Vernon.
In late April, Leonard was charged with possession of a loaded shotgun in a vehicle. In that case, police said they were contacted by a man who saw a weapon in the seat of Leonard’s car, which was parked outside his home.
June 20th, 2006
NEW YORK (AP) — Years after she first emerged from the Batcave, Batwoman is coming out of the closet.
DC Comics is resurrecting the classic comic book character as a lesbian, unveiling the new Batwoman in July as part of an ongoing weekly series that began this year. The 5-foot-10 superhero comes with flowing red hair, knee-high red boots with spiked heels and a formfitting black outfit.
“We decided to give her a different point of view,” explained Dan DiDio, vice president and executive editor at DC. “We wanted to make her a more unique personality than others in the Bat-family. That’s one of the reasons we went in this direction.”
The original Batwoman was started in 1956 and killed off in 1979. The new character will share the same name as her original alter ego, Kathy Kane. And the new Batwoman arrives with ties to others in the Gotham City world.
“She’s a socialite from Gotham high society,” DiDio said. “She has some past connection with Bruce Wayne. And she’s also had a past love affair with one of our lead characters, Renee Montoya.”
Montoya, in the “52″ comic book series, is a former police detective. Wayne, of course, is Batman’s true identity — but he has disappeared, along with Superman and Wonder Woman, leaving Gotham a more dangerous place.
The “52″ series is a collaboration of four acclaimed writers, with one episode per week for one year. The comics will introduce other diverse characters as the story plays out.
“This is not just about having a gay character,” DiDio said. “We’re trying for overall diversity in the DC universe. We have strong African-American, Hispanic and Asian characters. We’re trying to get a better cross-section of our readership and the world.”
The outing of Batwoman created a furor of opinions on Web sites devoted to DC Comics. Opinions ranged from outrage to approval. Others took a more tongue-in-cheek approach to the announcement.
“Wouldn’t ugly people as heroes be more groundbreaking?” asked one poster. “You know, 200-pound woman, man with horseshoe hair loss pattern, people with cold sores, etc.?”
DiDio asked that people wait until the new Batwoman’s appearance in the series before they pass judgment.
“You know what? Judge us by the story and character we create,” he said. “We are confident that we are telling a great story with a strong, complex character.”
June 14th, 2006
Senior judges are exempt from some rules of accountability. The careers of three jurists reflect the ethical questions that can result.
By Michael J. Goodman and William C. Rempel, Times Staff Writers
June 10, 2006
LAS VEGAS — One Nevada judge was nearly indicted on blackmail charges. Another ruled repeatedly for a casino corporation in which he held more than 10,000 shares. Still another overruled state authorities and decided in favor of a gambling boss who was notorious as a mob frontman, and whose casino did the judge a $2,800 favor.
Yet the Nevada Supreme Court has conferred upon these judges a special distinction that exempts them from some of the common rules of judicial practice and reduces their accountability. They are among 17 state judges whom the high court has commissioned as senior judges.
Unlike regular judges, senior judges are not answerable to the voters, but serve at the pleasure of the high court, and that can mean for life. Unlike regular judges, they can reject assignments until they are given a case they want to try. Unlike regular judges, they cannot be removed from a case by peremptory challenge. And until last year, they did not have to disclose their financial interests.
With this exceptional flexibility, they could try lawsuits in which they had a personal stake without revealing it. And because they cannot be removed by peremptory challenge, which normally permits a one-time replacement of a judge at the beginning of any case simply for the asking, it is possible for litigants to be stuck with senior judges, their conflicts of interest and their decisions.
The judge who was nearly indicted is James A. Brennan. He resigned as a state judge to avoid being charged by a federal grand jury with blackmail. After the state Supreme Court returned Brennan to the bench and then named him a senior judge, he presided over at least 16 cases involving participants in his real estate deals. A recent search found no statement in court records that Brennan publicly disclosed those relationships.
The judge who ruled for a casino corporation in which he held stock is Stephen L. Huffaker. He owned 12,000 shares of the corporation while the case was before him. In addition, he presided over cases involving another casino corporation whose foundation gave his son a partial scholarship to Yale University. A recent search found no statement in court records that Huffaker publicly disclosed the scholarship at the time.
The judge who ruled in favor of the gambling boss is Joseph S. Pavlikowski. In 1969, he officiated at the wedding of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, known as a frontman for the Chicago mob. Pavlikowski then accepted a discounted wedding reception for his daughter at a casino where Rosenthal was a top executive. He subsequently ruled for Rosenthal in three cases when authorities tried to take action against him.
Senior judges, including Brennan, Huffaker and Pavlikowski, are on call statewide to fill in temporarily at any level of the state courts in which they have previous experience. Sometimes they are brought in when local judges disqualify themselves from sensitive and thorny cases.
The Supreme Court, the highest-ranking court in the state, created senior judges in 1977 to ease a workload that has since grown to an average of 2,700 cases for each regular judge in Las Vegas per year.
The high court acted independently of the Legislature. It wrote its own rules for the senior judges, said Ronald R. Titus, the state court administrator. “Nothing in the statutes,” Titus said, “talks about senior judges.”
The Legislature, however, controls their budget. At one time it was limited to $340,000 annually, and at one point senior judges numbered as few as half a dozen. But since then, more senior judges have been added. The Legislature budgeted $1.5 million last year. Their number may continue to grow along with southern Nevada.
In response to written questions, Robert E. Rose, chief justice of the Supreme Court, said senior judges were accountable because their decisions might be appealed to the Supreme Court. It is, however, the same court that appointed them.
“We must rely on the senior judge to recuse himself or herself in conflict-of-interest situations,” Rose said, “or at least bring [the conflict] to the attention of the parties [involved in the case]. And any party can file a motion to disqualify a judge for cause.”
Unlike a peremptory challenge, however, removal for cause is not automatic and must be decided by another judge.
Rose also said court administrators monitored the performance of senior judges.
“Many senior judges have had long and distinguished careers,” Rose said. “History has shown that judges have the ability to rule fairly and impartially on cases, based on the facts and the law…. To date, no application to become a senior judge or justice has been denied….
“Senior judges are a tremendous asset to the judiciary and the citizens,” Rose said. “They are often among the most experienced judges around. They serve only when needed, thus providing a great resource at a bargain price. Without senior judges, it would be necessary to add full-time judges at a cost of millions of dollars
June 11th, 2006
BOSTON One photo captures him in a private moment with Barbra Streisand at a black-tie gala. Another shows him cozying up to Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller at a Hollywood premiere. There he is again - could that really be a Grammy he’s holding? - backstage with Andre 3000. And again, this time with Jon Stewart at Vanity Fair’s post-Oscar bash, an invite-only gathering.
Steven Spielberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Will Smith, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Chris Rock, Elton John, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. The list of stars with whom he has consorted, and has the snapshots to prove it, reads like a Who’s Who of show business and politics.
But if you asked any of these VIPs “Who’s he?” you’d draw a blank stare.
A low-level talent agent, maybe? Part of the Boss’s security team? Dustin’s personal trainer? Wait, isn’t he the bald white guy who stood behind OutKast when the rappers got their Grammy for album of the year? Hey, it’s nice they brought their accountant onstage.
In fact, Michael Minutoli’s day job is slicing cold cuts at a supermarket deli in San Juan Capistrano, California. He doesn’t own a home, a car, or a Screen Actors Guild card, much less a beach house, stretch limo, or reserved seat at the Academy Awards. He sleeps on the beach in Laguna or in a borrowed van parked near the supermarket, and gets his mail sent to a friend’s house.
So to examine his stash of pictures - hundreds of them - is slightly surreal.
Katie Couric, Jim Carrey, Cher, Sean Penn, Paul McCartney, Luciano Pavarotti, Henry Kissinger, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Did this man really introduce Keith Richards to Russell Crowe at the Golden Globes? Yes, he did. Jump onto Elton John’s piano and shake hands with the pop star during an John-Billy Joel concert? Bob Dylan, who was in the front row, could not believe his eyes, either.
What Minutoli is, in a culture fixated on red-carpet celebrity, is our collective fantasy life decked out in a secondhand tuxedo and standing at the bar, trying to pass for Someone Who Belongs. A party-crasher of near-mythic stature, a self-described chameleon who has made his way inside a thousand gala events without a ticket or even a credible cover story. A 46-year- old man with an unconventional life who has rubbed elbows with the Madonnas and De Niros of the world while the rest of us stand outside the ropes, wondering how and why he does it.
“I like the glamour, the glitter, the action,” Minutoli says when asked why anyone would bother taking the risks he does for a few Kodak moments. “It’s intoxicating. I guess you could say I’m addicted to it.”
We are eating pizza at one of Minutoli’s favorite bistros during his recent trip to the Boston area. Minutoli grew up in Attleboro, Massachusetts, and is revisiting many of his old haunts for a documentary being made about his gate-crasher’s life. Sitting in the booth are two filmmakers from Los Angeles, David Keith and Chris Allen, who have been following Minutoli around since February compiling footage for a project they hope to finish this year.
Keith met Minutoli eight years ago and describes him as a really nice guy with a really weird hobby.
“We just think he’s a fascinating character that people will want to meet,” says Keith, who’s financing the film on a shoestring.
Allen says not everyone thinks Minutoli is heroic so much as pathetic.
“‘Get a life?’ Yeah, you hear that a lot,” says Allen. “But most people are intrigued by Michael. And he does have those pictures.”
Ah, those pictures.
There is, in the genesis of this peculiar epic, the 1989 Madonna concert at which it first occurred to Minutoli that a little chutzpah could take him a long way.
“I noticed this line to get in backstage, jumped in, and was whisked through by security,” Minutoli recalls. “Suddenly I’m standing next to Warren Beatty. I’d never experienced anything like that in my life.”
Accosted by a security aide, he got off with a stern warning and decided he’d found his calling. Or at least a heck of a way to spend an evening. When he later told his wife he’d be going to the Oscars, “She looked at me and said, ‘How?’” Minutoli recalls with a smile.
“I had no idea, but I got in.”
His fixation with fame began in Attleboro, where he grew up going to rock shows and “dreamed of being Billy Joel,” as he puts it. After his mother died, when Minutoli was 18, he left for California to make a new life.
Minutoli carried an autograph book around until it got too cumbersome, then switched to a disposable camera. His biggest asset may be patience. At each venue, he methodically cases the joint looking for an unguarded side entrance or a departing guest who does not mind handing over his ticket. Sometimes all he needs to slip inside is an outward-swinging door. Once there, he’s not shy about seizing the spotlight, either, as he did during the 2004 Grammys when he simply rose from his seat and walked onstage with OutKast. Back home, Minutoli’s daughter was watching the live TV broadcast and shouted, “Look, there’s Daddy!”
So far, Minutoli has been arrested only once.
“It was the first post-9/11 Oscars,” he says. “I was sitting beside Robert Redford when a detective asked to see my credentials and put me in handcuffs.” Jailed along with half a dozen other gate-crashers, he went before a judge and was ordered to stay away from the Kodak Theatre for one year. This winter Minutoli received a letter from the Academy warning him to stay away. Yet he still managed to crash the Vanity Fair party everyone wants to get into.
“I’m more upset when I can’t get a friend in with me,” he confesses. He estimates there are 50 or so serious gate-crashers working the Hollywood celebrity scene. Some do it for the freebies, some for the photo- op or the stargazing. “To get a photo with Barbra Streisand, you have to be aggressive,” he says. “Still, I’ve had other crashers try to get me thrown out. In Hollywood, everyone is egotistical and jealous.”
Minutoli made one of his boldest moves in February 2005, when he crashed a tribute concert for Brian Wilson. He was backstage when one of the keyboard players left his post. Assuming Minutoli was a guest musician, the keyboard player invited him to sit in. He wound up singing harmony on “Fun Fun Fun.”
His lifestyle choice has exacted a price. His marriage of 21 years is on the rocks; his wife and daughter having moved to Montana. He does see his son Anthony, now 19, but that relationship also has a complicated history. Anthony, who appears in dozens of his father’s photos, suffers from alopecia areata, a skin disease that frequently results in hair loss. Minutoli maintains he’s never used his son’s condition, which Anthony contracted at age 5, as a pretense to gain entry to VIP events - although the talk-show host Rosie O’Donnell once chewed out Minutoli for supposedly passing off his son as a cancer victim.
“I would never use him that way, nor did I ever portray him the way she assumed I had,” says Minutoli.
Still, he acknowledges, many old friends have deserted him since he became such a curious species of party animal.
Minutoli vows he’ll reprioritize and get his life back together. Perhaps he will, but there’s one more money shot he’d like to add to his collection first.
“Mick Jagger,” he says. “Why? Because in my next life I want to be Mick
June 8th, 2006
Poor old Sourav. He’s had so much to bear this past year and not even the internet has spared him frustration and embarrassment. But it’s 1-0 to Mr Ganguly this week, who received a public apology (is there no other type?) from the imaginatively-named website IHateGanguly.com. Needless to say that website doesn’t hold Ganguly’s greatest fan base - in fact, they hate him - but it was man enough to change its domain name…bizarrely to cricketwatchdogs.com. “With the Ihateganguly.com relegated to history, CricketWatchdogs.com has a new outlook and a grander vision - foster healthy debates encapsulating varied walks of life within the realms of decency and good taste, minus the heavy-handed censorship,” read the statement. Yes, quite.
Rocket man prefers Tests
He’s sung a tune with Andrew Flintoff, and recently announced a UK tour of cricket grounds; Elton John’s love affair with cricket is well known, and he spoke on behalf of the country last week about cricket’s addiction to the shorter game. “I liked one-day internationals when they started them but there are too many of them now,” he insisted. “They wear out the players and cricketers are playing too many games. Tests are far more interesting, they are more of a chess game. Test match cricket is far more worthwhile and relaxing.” Quite so, Sir Elton - but did you really mean to say “relaxing”? Edgbaston, England, Australia, Ashes - enough said.
Good morning Derbyshire
Cricket’s new-found glitz and appeal with the masses continue, albeit on a lesser scale, with Nick Owen - the TV presenter - set to become Derbyshire’s next club president. Apparently, he is a “fantastic” supporter of the club (aren’t all supporters fantastic?) and Owen is “thrilled” to have been asked. “When I first started following Derbyshire in the days of Gladwin, Jackson and Morgan, I never dreamed that one day I would be asked to become president,” he said. “My mother, Buxton-born and bred, and other relatives who still live in Derbyshire are extremely proud.” Owen and Anne Diamond treated the public to 600 shows of that 1990s morning-TV diet of Good Morning with Anne and Nick before plummeting ratings saw their show axed.
Monty’s no Jonty, but the fans love him © Getty Images
Howzat! Oh, hang on, where’s the ump?
Cricket’s legendary ability to confuse all and sundry reached another high point (or low point, depending on your point of view) in the second one-dayer between West Indies and India at Kingston yesterday. Ramnaresh Sarwan, batting with his captain Brian Lara, pushed one to the on side and scampered through for a single. But Raina, at midwicket, threw down the stumps as India roared a throaty appeal to the umpire at square leg … or they would have, had he been standing there. Unfortunately for India, Billy Doctrove was some 30 metres from his usual position, fiddling around with the sightscreen and seemingly oblivious that he’d missed a ball. After the ball was adjudged dead, replays suggested Sarwan would have been safe. Cricket’s status as the eccentric uncle of sport is safe.
Keep the foot on the … throat?
Geoff Boycott is the man to whom we all turn for honest, straightforward opinion on the game. After England’s messy fielding performance, not to mention Sri Lanka’s bubbling pride which saw them escape from the dead in the first Test at Lord’s, Boycott has urged England to retain the same squad of players. “They had them down,” Boycott wrote for the BBC, “and, as the old American phrase goes, never give a sucker an even break. When you’ve got your foot on the throat, you must finish off the job but England eased up”. Since when did cricket associate itself with Mafioso techniques of torture? On a completely different topic, the former England spinner Derek Underwood has backed Monty Panesar, England’s latest cult hero, to keep his place all summer. Panesar, known to his fans only as Monty, is still wet behind the ears in international cricket, but Lord’s took him to heart; his wobbly, Octopus-like throws from the boundary were met with empathetic cheers, not jeers. In an era so dominated by professionalism, multi-dimensional “do-it-all” players, Monty showed he wasn’t a Jonty and probably never will be. He can bowl, though. “The thing I like about Panesar is that he always runs in with the purpose of getting wickets,” Underwood told The Times. “He tries to get the better of opponents, not contain them. He looks capable of bowling out a side on a turning wicket and England haven’t had a spinner like that since Phil Tufnell.” More importantly, his name is an anagram of Parmesan Tony.
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Shane Warne endorses endless numbers of products, but he has a particular interest in hair-retaining solutions. He and Graham Gooch, England’s chief hair loss expert, starred in that utterly forgettable advert for Advanced Hair Studio last summer. In a pitch report, Gooch peers at Warne’s thinning head and says “It’s certainly looking a bit thin on top and I wouldn’t be surprised if it started thinning out rather quickly. You’d better see Advanced Hair Studio.” Chortle. However, we might be spared reaching for the mute on our remotes after it was revealed the advert has been found in breach of British advertising industry rules; the Advertising Standards Authority said the commercial was a celebrity endorsement of a treatment that uses medicine (laser treatment).
Quotehanger
“Trying to get a ball past him is like trying to sneak a sunrise past a rooster.” Jeremy Coney’s mercurial metaphors know no bounds, even when discussing Brian Lara’s defensive technique.
June 5th, 2006
June 2 - It’s the 21st century, and men are finally coming out of the skin-care closet. In fact, men’s skin care is a $7.7 billion industry. Whether it’s treating hair loss or eliminating unsightly hairs, men are finally taking pride in how they look. What are the most common problems men face and how can they be fixed?
More than 20 million American men are losing their hair. Who’s to blame? You might have heard baldness is inherited from your mother’s father. But Robert Weiss, M.D., a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine cosmetic dermatologist in Baltimore, says that’s a myth.
“You’re probably in trouble though if both your mother’s side and your father’s side are bald,” he tells Ivanhoe.
To reduce the risk, drink up. Two glasses of wine a day are shown to slow hair loss by preventing the liver from breaking down as much estrogen. Dr. Weiss says Rogaine and Propecia can help.
Nearly 80 percent of men say shaving irritates their skin.
“The curlier your hair is, the more likely it is to, as it’s growing, to grow back into the skin and create a bump,” Dr. Weiss says. To minimize the ouch factor, get the beard thoroughly wet, shave with the grain, don’t repeat strokes and relax your skin.
Finally, unwanted hair is a big problem for many men, and Dr. Weiss admits it seems to be something that bothers women a lot about their mate. But you can skip the waxing and shaving. New lasers can zap a back-full of hair in less than 20 minutes. They work on faces, too.
“It’s starting to permeate into male consciousness that you actually can do things,” Dr. Weiss says — things that will keep that man in the mirror smiling back.
Dr. Weiss is currently studying a new way to stimulate hair growth. He’s testing a device that uses low-energy red light to energize hair follicles. The energized follicles absorb the light, which stimulates them to grow.
June 3rd, 2006
(CBS) CHICAGO You may have heard that “bald is beautiful.”
Well, Mayor Daley has put a whole new spin on things with a bald – if not bold – statement.
CBS 2’s Jon Duncanson reports the statement came as the mayor brushed aside a question he didn’t want to answer.
This is a story that’s much ado about no hair.
It’s a story about the mayor, and it’s a story about the bald guy the mayor singled out.
“It is silly. It’s silly. Bald-headed! He’s bald-headed! Is that silly? No. Come on!” the mayor said, avoiding questions about the ongoing federal patronage trial.
That bald-headed reporter was Matt Walberg, who works with Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass.
“It was kind of a silly thing that the mayor said,” Walberg said.
At a news conference Wednesday, Mayor Daley was asked what he considered to be a silly question. Matt Walberg asked the question and received the aforementioned response.
The incident has thrust Walberg into a media storm. He appeared Thursday with Wolf Blitzer as the symbol of bald men under fire.
At the Tribune, e-mails from interested women are now flowing in.
“Apparently I’m some sort of sex symbol for bald men now,” he said.
If you could fly high over the City of Chicago and look down, you’d find about 50 percent of men have hair loss.
Everyone we found was proud of it, but some had comebacks ready for the mayor in case they were put in the same spot as Walberg.
“I would say, ‘Well, you have a big belly. I’d rather have a bald head than a big belly,’” one man said.
Matt Walberg is too polite for that. He knows Mr. Clean and Jack Brickhouse always took the high road.
In fact now he’s a star – a bald one – with one man to credit.
“Thanks a lot, Mayor Daley. I really appreciate it,” he said.
We did not contact the mayor for this story.
Matt Walberg really does take no offense. In fact, he looks forward to the next time he gets to ask the mayor a question in a crowed group of reporters.
June 2nd, 2006