Archive for July, 2006
But police failed to warn the public about the Friday morning attack until late yesterday, after The Daily Telegraph made enquiries.
The attacker, who remains at large, approached a 51-year-old woman in Marrickville Rd, Dulwich Hill, about 11.30am (AEST) on Friday.
Police said he had a “brief conversation” with the woman, who had two children with her, then took a cigarette from his mouth and poked it into the boy’s eye. The man then fled east along Marrickville Rd.
The boy was rushed to Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick where doctors advised that the child would not suffer long-term sight loss.
The attacker is believed to have fled past a hotel on Marrickville Rd.
The hotel manager said he had been interviewed by police, who thought it was “highly likely” it was the same man who had been loitering for the past few weeks. He said the man had begged for change and picked cigarette butts off the ground.
“If I stood out the front and watched he has always turned away and had been fearful of me,” he said.
Drugs Online - Buy Drugs Online at reasanoble prices.DrugOnline.cc provides confortable and easy way to order drugs online including drugs free shipping.
The hotel had CCTV street cameras and police had asked that they pick up the footage today, believing it could hold images of the attacker.
When The Daily Telegraph contacted Marrickville police station yesterday about the attack, police said the details were “not for press”.
Yesterday afternoon police asked The Daily Telegraph not to run the story prior to the man’s arrest. But an hour later a spokesman said details would be released because police had a “duty of care” to inform the public.
Despite this, Marrickville crime manager Detective Inspector Jodi Radmore said there was no cause for local residents to be alarmed.
“Our investigations have revealed this was an isolated incident and there is no suggestion that there will be similar assaults on other young children,” Det Insp Radmore said.
The man was described as being of white/European appearance, 40-50 years of age, 175cm and of thin build, with blond shoulder-length hair, walking with a limp and possibly having a blue tattoo on his wrist.
July 31st, 2006
Leo Murphy was in an elevator two years ago at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, weakened and bald, when he saw a little boy who had also lost his hair to chemotherapy.
The boy was with his parents, still young enough to be carried in a stroller. Mr. Murphy shared a smile with the child and later wondered how his parents could endure such heartache.
“It broke my heart to see him,� Mr. Murphy said. “He was just starting his life, just beginning it, and he had to deal with something like cancer. He had no hair and he couldn’t fight for himself. I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t.�
Mr. Murphy never saw the boy again, but he’s held tight to the memory of that encounter as he’s endured the ravages of his own unrelenting heartache, a cancer that started in his lung and last month progressed to his brain. At 59, happily married for three decades and recently blessed with his first grandson, Mr. Murphy is dying. Doctors say he has anywhere from 90 days to six months to live, and he’s accepted his sentence with the peace of a man who believes he has lived a good life.
It wasn’t always that way. When he was first diagnosed in the fall of 2002 and underwent surgery a year later, he lay despairing in his bed and decided it would be easier if he died right there in the hospital.
“I knew he was giving up,� said his wife, Linda. “So I grabbed him by the front of his johnny and said, ‘I brought you in here, and I’m taking you home.’ Then our son brought our new grandson to see him — he was just a month old then — and that gave Leo more strength.�
Just like Samson, though, Mr. Murphy has also derived great strength from his hair. He’s been letting it grow for more than two years, ever since he met the little boy in the elevator and his wife learned of a way he could help those who were enduring their own medical challenges.
Locks of Love is a nonprofit organization in Florida that provides free hairpieces to children who are suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Donated hair is used to create prosthetics that helps kids restore their self-esteem and confidence. Hair can be offered by men or women of any age, but it must be a minimum of 10 inches long.
Mr. Murphy hadn’t cut his hair since it grew back after chemotherapy and he learned about Locks of Love. The former Barre businessman uses oxygen to breathe, has trouble with his balance and vision, and suffers debilitating headaches. But his hair is healthy and soft, and he’s heartened by the idea that a child will benefit from his donation.
“I can’t do anything for anybody now,� said Mr. Murphy. “But I can do this. It makes me feel better to know that I’m giving someone some comfort. It’s all I can do.�
In two weeks, Mr. Murphy will undergo another round of radiation. His hair will again fall out. Which is why he and his wife and daughter paid a visit Tuesday night to a Holden hair salon called RM Cutters on Main Street.
Discount Pharmacy - Buy Pharmacy at discount prices including free shipping.Discount Pharmacy provides confortable and easy way to order discount pharmacy online.
“Hey, handsome, how are you?� asked Veronica Ryan, owner of RM Cutters, who donates her time to cut hair for Locks of Love. “You got some hair for me or what?�
Mr. Murphy took a seat in front of a mirror and studied his gaunt reflection. Next to him, his 23-year-old daughter, Heather, wielded an ever-present camcorder that she’s using to make a videotape of her father for his grandson, Jacob, who is now 2 years old.
“Hi, Jacob!� Mr. Murphy spoke to the camera. “Bumpa’s gonna have all his hair cut off.�
Ms. Ryan eyed her client’s long ponytail and then grabbed a measuring tape and held it against his locks.
“We got the 10 inches,� she announced. Mr. Murphy closed his eyes, pleased. Behind him, his wife held back tears as the ponytail was snipped, bagged and prepared for shipment to Florida.
“This has given him such a purpose for the last two years,� Mrs. Murphy said softly. “But I’m not going to cry.�
The Murphys have shed their share of tears but are intent on making the most of the time they have left. And the cancer hasn’t come without its small blessings — after tending to her father for two years, Heather has enrolled in a nursing program at Mount Wachusett Community College. And Leo gains solace from the smallest of pleasures, such as holding hands with his wife, playing trucks with his grandson and having breakfast with his family.
“If I can kiss him good morning and kiss him good night, it’s a hell of a day and I’ll take it,� Mrs. Murphy said. “Cancer is a terrible disease, but there are things it can’t do. It can’t steal your hope, your soul or your love.�
Mr. Murphy sometimes wonders what happened to the little boy he saw in the elevator, the child who inspired him to live out his days with the notion that cancer isn’t always about what it takes from you, but what you take from it. And he hopes that someday, when his grandson watches the videotape of his beloved Bumpa, he’ll learn a lesson that transcends the years.
“I need Jacob to remember me,� Mr. Murphy said. “I need him to know that a person can find joy in helping someone else.�
July 28th, 2006
My 21-year-old granddaughter’s hair is falling out. She doesn’t know what to do. She had blood work done, and the doctor told her that her cholesterol is high. I told her I would write to you for help. I appreciate any help you can give. — R.W.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have a 25-year-old grandson who’s losing his hair. What causes this? — E.R.
ANSWER: We best start with some hairy facts. Nearly 90 percent of the hair on a person’s head is in the growing phase; 10 percent is in a resting stage and destined to soon fall out; 1 percent is in a transition from growing to resting. Every day, normally 100 to 150 hairs fall out. They’re in the resting stage. If you count all the hairs on your brush and comb in one day, you can see if your hair loss deviates from the norm.
A dermatologist can examine the fallen-out hair and determine which stage of its life it’s in. By finding the stage of the shed hair, the doctor can narrow the possible causes of hair loss.
As an example, in the resting phase, a sudden loss of more than 150 hairs in a day can be due to drugs, dieting, thyroid gland abnormalities, surgery in the near past, a recent illness with high fever and pregnancy. This kind of hair loss almost always is restored in a reasonable time span.
Another common cause of hair loss is sensitivity to male hormones. Genes determine at what age it happens. They can cause it to fall out at young ages. It happens to women too. Women make male hormones. In men, the loss begins at the temples and the crown of the head. In women, the hair loss is diffuse. This kind of hair loss might respond to treatment with minoxidil, which can be purchased without a prescription. Propecia is an oral tablet that’s designed for men’s use for male pattern baldness.
If the dermatologist cannot find a treatable cause of hair loss — and that takes a bit of sleuthing — hair transplants are always a possibility.
I would wager that the young woman’s hair loss is the kind due to excessive loss of resting hairs. This is the kind of loss that self-corrects. Her cholesterol has nothing to do with her hair loss. The young man’s is more likely due to sensitivity to male hormones.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am a 55-year-old male. Due to lightheadedness and shortness of breath, I had a 24-hour Holter monitor recording of my heartbeat. To my surprise, a couple of days later, I had a pacemaker implanted. I had an AV block. No one can tell me why. No one expresses great concern.
Since 1999, I had three hospitalizations for pancreatitis. Is there any connection between the two? What can I do to live the next 30 years (my goal)? — T.F.
ANSWER: There’s no connection between pancreatitis and your current AV block. As far as your heart is concerned, you should make it for 30 more years.
‘’AV (atrioventricular) block'’ means there is a roadblock in the transmission of the electric signal generated in the heart’s pacemaker from its position in the right atrium (the upper right heart chamber) to the ventricles, the lower heart pumping chambers. The ventricles still beat, but they beat so slowly that people often feel dizzy, become short of breath and can faint.
The artificial pacemaker that you now have takes over for the heart’s natural pacemaker, and you should have no further trouble. You might need to have the batteries changed, but that’s about all you face as far as the AV block goes.
Why did it happen? It might be due to a mysterious degeneration of the heart’s electric system. Partially blocked heart arteries can be responsible. Many times, the cause is never found. The treatment always works.
Heartbeat abnormalities are common and range from atrial fibrillation to lethal ventricular fibrillation. The booklet on heartbeats explains the more usual heartbeat problems. To order a copy, write: Dr. Donohue — No. 107, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 328536475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 U.S./$6.75 Can. with the recipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.
July 24th, 2006
Race, faith, money, betrayal, abortion, nudity, terminal illness, medical marijuana, middle-age sex — you might say that “Apostasy,” the play now in its world premiere engagement at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch, has dealt itself a pretty stacked dramatic hand from the outset. Still, rather than drive home their talking points with a sledgehammer, author Gino Dilorio and director SuzAnne Barabas have crafted a serio-comic threesome that favors sense of character over soapbox cacophony. It’s a button-pusher that seeks to provoke a reaction at every turn, even as it foils most attempts to predict plotlines and pigeonhole motivations.
Old man Webster defines “apostasy” as “renunciation of a religious faith” or “abandonment of a previous loyalty” — and the apostate in this case is Sheila Gold, a successful businesswoman, divorcee and Jewish mom who is dying of cancer. As portrayed by Susan G. Bob, Sheila is spending her final months in a drab hospice room. It’s a place of institutional-green walls and cheerlessly functional objects (matter-of-factly realized by the talented set designer Carrie Mossman) that makes a most depressing anteroom to the afterlife.
While Sheila is regularly visited by her daughter Rachel (Natalie Wilder) — a 30-something single who works as director of a Planned Parenthood center and who brings her mother weed in an effort to get her to eat — the terminal patient is lonely enough at night to become intrigued by African-American TV preacher Dr. Julius Strong (Evander Duck Jr.). This initiates a relationship that brings the televangelist to the door of her room and, with alarming rapidity, into her heart.
The Doctor is in
As for the reason the charismatic Dr. Strong would fly in from California to make this very special house call — well, it could be a chance for him to notch another deathbed conversion to his ministry, perhaps even solicit a very generous donation to his building fund. Then again, it could be that the clergyman is genuinely fond of this woman, who despite her hair loss and pain episodes, remains full of life and quick to break into dance or laughter. Or, as an increasingly security-conscious Rachel suspects, could it be possible that a more sinister purpose lurks behind the song and dance?
Whatever the underlying factors, it’s not hard to see how the headstrong Sheila could become attracted to the smoothly seductive Strong. As personified by Duck, he’s an apparent angel in a crimson shirt who brings the things she’s been missing — light and hope and music and a little romance — back to her world as effortlessly as he restores her appetite with a bag of Chinese food. Insisting that “every now and then you’ve got to do something crazy just to remind yourself that you’re alive,” the minister soon has the worldly woman of business on the verge of some pretty radical choices — a mission that he carries out by sheer force of personality, with little evangelical fire and brimstone (other than a deftly delivered sermonette on the topic of Chicken McNuggets). By the midway point, it’s clear the actor is willing to put everything he’s got on display — although, as Dr. Strong notes, it’s not so easy to shed the “preacher persona.”
Bob and Duck
Granted, those McNuggets act as a pulled-punch stand-in for some potentially thornier faith-based issues, but although their surnames might suggest a series of evasive maneuvers in the boxing ring, Bob and Duck actually make an effective team. They turn their extended scenes together into a pas-de-deaux that manages to make its own sort of sense within the accelerated time and depopulated space of Dilorio’s play. With her Fran Drescher honk of a voice and her “two-thousand-dollar wig,” the always engaging Bob (”Harry and Thelma,” “Maggie Rose”) elevates her character from a standard sitcom-level archetype to a three-dimensional being in record time. It’s a feat made all the more impressive by the fact that most of the real action in the script occurs in the second act.
As the odd one out in this triangle, Rachel (a woman whose job has already made her paranoid and distrustful of others intentions) is herself transformed from doting daughter to a schemer of sorts — telling her mother that “just because you’re dying doesn’t give you the right to change your mind,” and employing her own methods to set things back the way they were. NJ Rep stock company member Wilder — who played an instrumental role in shepherding this script from raw-reading to well-done — has obviously invested this project with lots of passion; sounding the notes of discord and conflict, and doing most of the overt preaching to be found here.
In the hands of company co-founder Barabas, the relatively brief play is far meatier than what you’d expect to find on local summer stages — and, if the preview and opening weekend audiences are any indicator, it’s a production that should continue to prompt a good deal of strong reactions and animated discussions.
July 19th, 2006
Read expert responses to questions about female hair loss and participate with other readers in a discussion afterward.
A scheduled one-hour Q&A with board-certified dermatologist Kelly Hood generated more questions Tuesday than any other topic we’ve hosted in the ContraCostaTimes.com Newsroom Roundtable.
Dr. Hood is responding to as many questions as possible, and Concord resident Miranda Gardner, who suffers from the disorder, is fielding some of the questions as well. However, because of the volume of questions, they may not be able to respond to all of them.
We encourage readers to continue the discussion by going to the Times article published Monday, Female hair loss not so rare. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find other readers talking about this topic. You can post your own questions there, respond to others, or just share your experiences. While Dr. Hood and Gardner may not be able to answer all the questions, we’re hoping readers will be able to help each other out in this forum.
July 19th, 2006
TROY - District Judge Michael Martone is in for the fight of his life, but he is looking to bring a bit of laughter into the struggle - especially for children who are also battling cancer.
Advertisement
Just three weeks ago, the longtime judge felt strangely sick, throwing up unexpectedly. A trip to the doctor almost immediately turned into a series of chemotherapy treatments as a large tumor was found inside his stomach. He suffers from a very aggressive form of cancer, non-Hodgkin’s Burkitt’s Lymphoma, which typically strikes African children.
But while he maintains his optimism and continues to work, Martone, 59, admits being a little scared. “If it’s scary or me, imagine what it must be ike for kids,” he said. With that in mind, a friend’s attempt to cheer him up with tickets to a Pistons game next year - in exchange for letting the friend shave off his hair before it falls out - led to an effort to try to cheer up children suffering from cancer.
Anyone who has one of the thousands of popular Ben Wallace wigs may drop them off at the 52nd-4th District Court in Troy to have a chance to win a pair of tickets to one of next season’s games against the Chicago Bulls, the new home for the recently departed Wallace, a free agent loss for the Pistons.
Martone also found The Palace willing to help out in raising the spirits of ailing youngsters, supplying vouchers for Detroit Shock games as well as a slew of summer concerts, including the Beach Boys, CCR, Anita Baker, Randy Travis and others.
“Anyone who wants to turn in one of those crazy wigs that the fans wear for Ben Wallace, if you trade it, you get a shot at two of the tickets for next year,” Martone said. “If anyone wants to participate, we can raise awareness for the illness for kids. It might make the kids happy. It would be a fun thing to do. It beats sitting around and worrying about it.”
For a man who has already undergone five surgeries due to back problems, this recent diagnosis was lifechanging. A 4-by-6-inch tumor was found in his stomach.
“It’s the biggest challenge of my life,” he said.
Now, he has started a lengthy series of chemotherapy treatments, and Martone said the tumor is already shrinking. He regularly visits the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University for treatments. He is halfway through the first round of chemotherapy, which requires stays of three to five days. He has to do a total of six rounds.
“It’s a very rapid cancer,” Martone said. “If you don’t get it early, you just don’t get it. Hopefully, we’ll be there. I think we will, but … it sure is scary.”
But while the treatment leaves him “whipped” and feeling weak, he thinks of how difficult it must be for younger people who suffer from cancer.
“When you’re down there (at Karmanos), you’d be surprised how many kids there are who have cancer,” the judge said. “With the wigs, cleaned and in good shape, we’ll take them and give them to the kids at Karmanos and other cancer centers.”
A judge at the 52nd-4th District Court since 1993, Martone said he has no plans of stepping aside. He plans to run for re-election in 2010. A father of two sons, one starting law school at Wayne State University on a full scholarship and the other a swimmer at the University of Michigan trying for the Olympic team, Martone has been married to Martha Rose Martone for 28 years.
He said his wife is stoic in handling his cancer.
His judgeship has featured numerous efforts to reach children and promote safety by teaching them to avoid alcohol and drugs, highlighted by a school program that rewards high schoolers who make 30-second promotional videos aimed at warning middle school students about the dangers of drinking.
In six years, the program has grown from 17 teams making videos from two schools to 840 teams from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and two military operations.
“I have no intention of quitting,” he said. “It will take a lot more than some cancer that’s curable to do me in. I plan to come back younger and stronger.”
Meanwhile, he wants to help children laugh because that has helped him.
“The thing that has always gotten me through the difficult times is my ability to laugh,” he said, quipping that his hair loss will allow him “to resurrect my long-suffering impersonation of Yul Brynner.”
July 12th, 2006
In 1989, Andrew Wyeth finished painting a wry inside joke - a tribute, of sorts, to all the models he had loved before.
Snow Hill includes Helga Testorf, the artist’s most famous subject, but not looking downcast and distant, as he’d painted her in the past.
In this one, Testorf kicks up her heels as she frolics round a maypole in the snow. Her dance partners are fellow Chadds Ford residents who appear repeatedly in Wyeth’s work, often with a signature trait. Among them, there’s Karl Kuerner, his World War II overcoat flying behind him, and Bill Loper, with a hook for a hand.
That’s how his models would react if told of his impending death, quipped Wyeth, who turns 89 tomorrow, four days before retrospectives of his work close at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and two other area museums.
“I raised hell with them mentally and emotionally,” Wyeth once told his biographer. “They wish I were dead so they wouldn’t have to pose anymore.”
Proud and bemused, and occasionally melancholy, Wyeth’s people, those ordinary-folk models, never forget their time with the artist.
For weeks, it’s one-on-one as Wyeth winnows ideas in sketch after sketch while they hold their poses in all kinds of weather. Then comes painting, an even more painstaking process, during which the relationship intensifies as Wyeth engages his subjects in conversation until they, too, feel part of the process.
“There you are, in this extraordinary flood of attention, conversing with this brilliant, talented artist,” said Joyce Stoner, an art conservator and close friend of the Wyeth family. “You spend each day with him. You go to lunch. He shows you his latest paintings.”
Then one day, Stoner said, “he stops calling you.” The letdown can feel like a failed romance. Some fall into what Stoner calls “post-posing depression.”
Senna Moore, 40, met Wyeth in the late ’90s, when he spotted her at a dinner party “passing the hors d’oeuvres,” the artist says.
Moore, a West Chester resident, whose oak-colored skin Wyeth says reminded him of a tree nymph, has been the subject of more than a dozen paintings.
Like all of his models, Moore learned on the job. It wasn’t easy. Wyeth works slowly, and from life in the actual setting.
For The Privy (1997), the muscular Moore had to pose as if making a mad sprint naked across a field, her arms and legs splayed in a way unlikely to flatter even a supermodel. Her running in place, or standing nude in the hollow of a split tree on Wyeth’s Brandywine estate, have also yielded The Omen (1997) and Dryad (2000).
Yet Moore says she has never been uneasy around Wyeth.
“I felt relaxed,” she said recently. “He’s very down-to-earth and has a great sense of humor.”
Helen Sipala, 71, had it easier posing for Marriage (1993), in which she and her husband, George, are seen asleep in bed. The piece demanded dawn light and took four months, but they could doze and take turns with the artist.
Wyeth has made himself a fixture in the Sipalas’ 17-room Italianate home in Chadds Ford.
“For a while, it was big time in the widow’s walk,” Helen Sipala said, giving a tour that included the kitchen chair where Wyeth sits when he comes for a morning visit.
She estimates that Wyeth has come to call, and paint, at least three times a week for 15 years. (After all these years, the house is now up for sale.) While they are not the first to give him the run of a property - “I just prowl around people’s houses, when they let me, of course,” Wyeth once told a reporter - his relationship with the couple is unusually close, Wyeth family members say.
He leaves notes signed “Robin Hood,” or “the man on the roof,” a reference to the spring he worked on Widow’s Walk, a 1990 painting in the Philadelphia retrospective that had him taking his easel through a window each day to paint on a back roof.
Because she views him as “a friend first,” Sipala is not awed by the man Newsweek has called “the all-American loner.”
She lets him move furniture and has never questioned his directives, including one to find a nun’s habit. (She did, but the painting’s headpiece, with its starched wings, looked nothing like what inspired it - a towel she had wrapped around her wet hair.)
“He just works and works until he feels like stopping,” she said. “He has no concept of time, and no concept of where the paint is going.”
In the bedroom, Sipala pointed out where that paint did go - on the carpet, on a bedside table, even on the phone cord.
Wyeth’s models speak of the artist’s intensity, his “don’t tell, don’t look” policy, his demand for secrecy that causes some to make excuses to bosses for being late, or even to quit jobs. There’s also a melodramatic streak, they say, apparent in his painting of a woman, bald and white as a death mask, after chemotherapy.
A model’s payment is often personal, such the gas credit card one requested, or the gift of clothes worn while posing, or, most frequently, a high-quality copy of the work in which he or she appears.
Sometimes, after lengthy sessions, Wyeth paints his subject out of the picture. But if that is disappointing, it pales compared with the feelings of loss many have when Wyeth moves on.
It happened to Jimmy Lynch, whom Wyeth described as an “appealing vagabond,” captured in works including The Swinger (1969) and Man and the Moon (1990). When Wyeth was finished, said Lynch, who now lives in Virginia, it was like being left hanging, “with the wind howling.”
Even the curly haired calf in Young Bull (1966) and Dentzel, the draft horse of Fenced In (2001), felt abandoned.
After posing, the animals followed Wyeth for days, says Karl J. Kuerner 3d, grandson of Karl and Anna Kuerner, whose Chadds Ford farm is the subject of nearly a thousand Wyeth images.
Kuerner, also an artist, posed only once, in his 20s. He suspects it was to complete the family cycle. Or maybe it was his ’70s sideburns that attracted the painter - one never knows, he said.
Wyeth meets his models in Chadds Ford or Maine, the only places he has ever lived. He either runs into them - once at the funeral of another model - or they come to him, some seeking work, some mysteriously, as Wyeth likes to imagine.
There was a native American named Nogeeshik, for instance, who arrived one winter night, far from his Canadian home, seeking a donation for his tribe.
“It was unbelievable, with this long hair and the snow drifting down,” Wyeth told The Inquirer recently.
“He’s drawn to people who have had some sort of loss, if not a tragic life,” said Victoria Wyeth, the painter’s grandchild and a lecturer on his works.
Another man, Willard Snowden, came knocking on Wyeth’s studio door in the late ’50s and lived there for more than a decade, drinking and regaling the artist with stories, according to Victoria Wyeth.
Snowden’s portrait, Monologue (1965), captures those years of talking. And Willard’s Coat (1968) documents his abrupt departure, hastened by a skeleton Wyeth decided to store in his studio.
Allan Messersmith, a local recluse, first appeared in the 1956 Roasted Chestnuts as a stalklike figure by the side of a dirt road. He has recently reemerged in Wyeth’s work after a decades-long absence.
Many of Wyeth’s models don’t get a second act. Moore, who works at a labor training firm in Exton, is an exception. She remains a favorite for evoking what Victoria Wyeth calls the “emotionally charged” experience.
The Sipalas are no longer Wyeth regulars, but they are still very much connected to him. Their home is full of Wyeth prints and sketches, gifts from the artist. Photos of him are displayed prominently, as are thick albums filled with pictures, some documenting pranks they’ve played on Wyeth - mannequins in the Marriage bed among them.
“If he gets excited about something, he’ll want to paint it,” Helen Sipala said, recalling their introduction, when she looked out the window and saw a man in her yard. It was Wyeth, sketching a poolside sculpture.
“Maybe he was excited about our friendship,” Sipala said, speculating on how the family has come to have a resident artist. “He liked us and it was, ‘How do I pursue this? Well, I’ll paint you.’ “
July 11th, 2006
And not because of the usual complaints: Limited flights to and from New Orleans; smaller planes for those limited flights; smaller seats on those smaller planes; taking off my shoes and belt to get on those smaller planes; pretending I don’t know a pair of nose hair scissors was considered contraband; and all the many indignities that make air travel an exercise in inconsolability.
I’m only 46; how did a nose hair scissors become the most indispensable item in my toiletry bag after a toothbrush?
But it’s none of these things that have caused my trouble lately. My problem has been the decrepit state of my driver’s license.
Although it is valid, the plastic laminate has peeled away and the little sticker that affixed on the back to show that the expiration date had been extended four more years apparently didn’t have a four-year life of its own. It fell off.
For the past year, I have found that airline security personnel around the country were pretty forgiving to Louisiana travelers. For months, no one ever questioned me about the dire state of my license because I guess they didn’t want to risk opening a line of conversation that they’d already heard too many times before: New Orleans, flood, loss, sorrow, refrigerators, etc.
And sure enough, my license had all the appearance of having soaked in rancid floodwaters for a few weeks when, in fact, I think it got like that because it went through the washer in my jeans pocket a couple of times.
But I just took to keeping my mouth shut and looking victimized whenever I traveled.
But the gig is up. During my last two flights, I was subjected to the fullest hurdles of airport security and was almost barred from boarding a plane home on my last trip out of town.
I admit, the notion of never being allowed back to New Orleans had, for a moment, an appealing allure. I was in the Salt Lake City airport and I looked out the window at a panoramic scene of mountains that were actually made of earth, rock and trees rather than your living room furniture and home entertainment center.
Anyway, after securing a one-on-one screening interview with someone who I assume was very important, I was allowed to board my flight home.
I should have sensed that my grace period was up. A few days earlier, in Portland, Ore., I was trying to rent a car and the agent scrunched up her nose as she examined my license. I was going to launch into a story about how I swam floodwaters for three weeks saving small animals but I didn’t have the strength.
“It’s valid,” was all I could muster. “Sticker lost.”
“No problem!” she perkily countered and said that all I needed to do was call the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles and have a representative fax my driving record to them and she would rent me a car right then and there, pronto.
I slowly processed what she had just told me. And then I let loose with the most deranged laughter I have ever unloosed, positively animalistic, zoo-like and borderline scary. She — and everyone else in the car rental area — stared at me.
God, I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. Just. Call. Department of Motor Vehicles. Louisiana. Representative on the phone!
Oh, man. That’s comedy. But no one else understood the joke. Then I realized I was surrounded by people who live in states where people might actually answer phones at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
I wonder what that would be like? Anyway, she handed me the fax number. I took a train into town.
But I also called the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles — because I still needed a license at some point. And do you know what I found out? That I could get my license replaced at one of two locations: The DMV office on Lake Forest Boulevard or at the State Police Troop B office on Vets. Ten months after the storm, this is what the DMV automated phone line tells you.
Why do we put up with this? As you might have heard, there was a little trouble with water damage on Lake Forest Boulevard and at Troop B. They’ve been closed for 10 months.
With tens of thousands of automobiles lost and registrations changed and addresses changes and lives changed — wouldn’t you think the DMV would make an effort — a teeny, tiny effort? — to let you know where they are open for business?
I finally found the place I was supposed to go: 6700 block of Airline Highway. The line stretched out the building, across a parking lot, almost to the entrance to Dot’s Diner next door — where the waitress told me the ATM is doing record-breaking business because the DMV, of course, takes cash only.
(I wonder if the one in Oregon takes Visa? And every other state, for that matter. Why do we live like a dysfunctional Third World country? Why, if EVERYONE in Louisiana has been saying for DECADES that the Department of Motor Vehicles is a nightmare — then why hasn’t someone who works for the state — ANYONE!?! — gone into a staff meeting and said: Guys: Let’s fix this.)
Whatever. While going through the Byzantine process of trying to get a new license made, the desk clerk asked me first about my eyesight and then diseases or illnesses and then came the Wiz-Banger: “Have you or are you suffering from any mental illnesses that might impair your ability to drive?”
Oh, man. What can I tell you? I HOWLED. Belly-aching. Oh my God, that’s comedy.
“What do people say when you ask that?” I asked her.
“They all laugh,” she told me. And let me tell you, it’s the only laughing you hear in that joint.
I got my new license. It cost me 13 bucks, an hour’s wait and a whole lot of headache. The picture is awful.
July 7th, 2006
A torn and blood-stained Valentine’s card was found close to the body of Hartlepool man Colin David Scott, 42, who had been stabbed to death by his girlfriend Jacqueline Maguire, 35.
The message inside the card, which was discovered near to a ripped-up photograph of the pair, read: “To someone very special in my life, darling be my wife. Love you so much, your Valentine, Colin XXXXXX”.
Teesside Crown Court was told the items were lying near to Mr Scott, who died slumped in an armchair that was “drenched” in his own blood.
He had been stabbed three times with a large kitchen knife - once in the arm, the side and then “skewered” through the heart - by Maguire, who was later charged with his murder.
She denies the alleged offence, in the early hours of February 16, saying she acted in self-defence and a trial started late yesterday afternoon.
Prosecuting, Nicholas Campbell QC opened the case to the jury of 10 women and two men.
He said earlier on the night of Mr Scott’s alleged murder, Maguire - known locally as Scotch Jacqui - had gone to the off-licence in Chatham Road, Hartlepool, and bought a bottle of cream sherry, some diet cola and four cans of lager.
She then went to Mr Scott’s flat where they drank the booze and took a mixture of methadone, temazepam, cannabis and pain killers.
Neighbours heard nothing from the pair - who had been together for just over a year-and-a-half and who both had heroin addictions - until 2.30am.
One woman said Maguire’s dog started to bark and another man said he heard a man and woman arguing for two or three minutes.
Mr Campbell said: “Suddenly it all went quiet and he heard the communal front door (of the small block of flats) open and close.
“He looked outside and saw a female approaching the houses opposite the flats banging on the doors and calling out ‘phone the police’.”
When police arrived they found a “scantily clad” Maguire, distressed, shaking and covered in blood, holding the knife in her hand.
She told the officers: “I’ve killed him, I know I have. He’s dead.”
Mr Campbell told the jury that a team of officers entered the heavily blood-stained flat and found Mr Scott “collapsed in an armchair which was drenched in blood”.
He was taken to the University Hospital of Hartlepool but was declared dead.
Maguire, who is originally from Glasgow, in Scotland, but came to Hartlepool in 1990, was then charged with his murder.
Examinations of Mr Scott’s body showed he had tried to defend himself against his knife-wielding partner due to a number of defensive wounds to the hands, said Mr Campbell.
The court also heard that he had recently sustained 16 bruises, 20 abrasions, and one laceration. However, experts could not pinpoint how or when they had been inflicted.
Maguire also suffered bruises to her chest and face, a laceration to her knee and some hair loss.
She claims some of them were sustained the night Mr Scott died after he “severely” assaulted her and dragged her about the flat by the hair, said Mr Campbell.
She said it was then she attacked her boyfriend with the knife in the front room, which was “the first thing to hand”.
Mr Campbell said that in Maguire’s first police interview she dropped to the floor and screamed: “Why did he hit me last night, he never has before. I’ve killed the only man I’ve ever loved.”
However, when her solicitor arrived she changed her story saying it was not the first time he had attacked her.
Maguire, of Rossall Street, off Oxford Road, cried throughout the whole of yesterday’s proceedings. Several members of Mr Scott’s family had to leave the court when details of his injuries were read out.
July 5th, 2006
I found out I have hepatitis C. I was a drug user in the past and could have gotten it from sharing needles. Since my diagnosis, I notice that my skin is darker, and I have lost most of my hair. I sometimes feel tired for no reason. The doctor at this institution started me on treatment, but I had to stop since my body rejected the treatment. What are my options? — J.W.
ANSWER: Hepatitis C is a widespread infection. In the United States, at least 4 million are infected, and in the entire world, 170 million have it. Nearly 85 percent stay infected with the virus for the rest of their life. Of that number, some 20 percent will come down with liver cirrhosis. That doesn’t happen right away; it takes about 20 years. A smaller percentage — 1 percent to 4 percent — develop liver cancer.
I don’t know if your symptoms stem from hepatitis C. Fatigue is a hepatitis symptom, but hepatitis fatigue is usually persistent, not like yours. Darker skin and hair loss are not terribly common hepatitis symptoms; yellow skin can be.
The standard treatment for hepatitis C is the combination of interferon, given by shot, and ribavirin, given as a tablet or capsule. Headache, nausea and muscle pain sometimes follow interferon treatment. Hair loss, weight loss and depression are also possible. There are medicines to counter some of these side effects, and sometimes the side effects diminish with continued use. Ribavirin can produce cough, shortness of breath, anemia and weight loss, but fewer react to it the way they do to interferon. There is no good substitute for either.
Maybe you don’t need treatment. The indications for it are elevated blood levels of liver enzymes, along with scarring and inflammation seen on a liver biopsy.
Without treatment, the odds of decent health are still in your favor unless your liver biopsy shows severe changes. Even then, abstinence from alcohol spares the liver from increased destruction, and the possibility of a liver transplant can be entertained if such becomes necessary.
The hepatitis booklet provides information on the three common hepatitis varieties — A, B and C. To obtain a copy, write to: Dr. Donohue — No. 503, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 U.S./$6.75 Can. with the recipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My sister and I both had smallpox when we were young. I am 83. We were told that you never get it again. Doctors now tell me that’s wrong. Is it? — B.F.
ANSWER: You won’t ever get smallpox again. It’s been wiped off the face of the earth — although the virus still exists, locked up in a few laboratories.
When it was given, the smallpox vaccine did a good job of preventing smallpox altogether and making it a much less formidable illness if it was caught. I believe you can safely say the same for a smallpox infection. (This is theoretical now. It’s not going to happen.)
DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I am a 70-year-old man who had a hip replaced one year ago. The doctor prescribed Keflex to be taken before dental procedures. I took the medicine as prescribed and headed to the dentist’s office. While driving, I experienced dizziness, and my vehicle hit a tree beside the road.
I was taken by rescue squad to the emergency room, where numerous tests were done. I was later released. They told me I had an allergic reaction to the Keflex, a penicillin-type dug. I did have itchy, red fingers during the ambulance trip.
What can I do to be safe in the future? My doctor has changed the medicine to clindamycin. — B.M.
ANSWER: People who have leaky or narrowed heart valves, artificial heart valves or artificial joints take antibiotics before dental procedures that cause bleeding. Mouth bacteria can get into the blood and find a safe haven on such valves or joints.
Keflex has a chemical structure similar to that of penicillin, so allergy to one often means allergy to the other. Clindamycin is a perfectly acceptable substitute. You should not suffer a reaction to it.
July 3rd, 2006