Augusten Burroughs on addiction, writing, his family and his new book

Friday, October 12, 2007

I had an unofficial phone call from Gay Talese last Tuesday. He had just flown back from Colombia and he was cranky. “I’m happy to do an interview with you,” he said, “but what the hell could you ask me that’s not already out there? Have you even bothered to look?!”

“Jeez, Mr. Talese, lots of things,” was my response. I lied. The truth is that when I call people to interview them, I do not have a set of preconceived questions. My agenda is to talk to them and gain a sense of who they are; to flesh them out as humans. To find out what they think about the world around them at that moment. With Gay Talese I had little interest in talking about Frank Sinatra Has a Cold and with Augusten Burroughs I had little interest in discussing Running with Scissors. I want to know what they think about things outside of the boxes people have placed them in.

With a memoirist like Burroughs, even this is a challenge. What parts of his life he has not written about himself, other interviewers have strip-mined. When we met for dinner at Lavagna in the East Village, I explained to Augusten this issue. I suggested we make the interview more of a conversation to see if that would be more interesting. “Instead of you in the catbird seat,” I said, “let’s just talk.”

We struck an instant rapport. What set out to be an hour and half interview over dinner had turned into four hours of discussion about our lives similarly lived. I removed half of the interview: the half that focused on me.

Below is Wikinews reporter David Shankbone’s conversation with writer Augusten Burroughs.


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Four-year-old boy attacked by Pit bull mix

Friday, August 24, 2007

Just before midnight Wednesday, four-year-old Taylor Bailey, nicknamed Bucky, was attacked by a neighbor’s dog. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier mix named Money chased the boy after he stepped out of his mother’s car, eventually knocking the boy to the ground and latching onto his leg.

The same dog had bitten the boy’s father the week before, according to the family, although this has not been confirmed by police. He recognized the dog and alerted his mother to the dogs presence just moments before the attack. She urged her son to come to her, but the one-year-old, 85-pound (~39 kg) male broke free from his restraints and attacked the screaming boy.

The struggle lasted several minutes before the boy’s mother, Melinda Walters, was able to fight off the dog, leaving her knees scraped and thigh scratched. The boy’s legs were punctured, scratched and bruised with bits of flesh missing. “It didn’t go away. It was just trying to grab me … trying to kill me,” the boy said. Walters was carrying her three-year-old son Jason on her hip during much of the fight.

The dog’s owner, Marquita Mooney, 23, was ticketed along with a relative who was watching the dog. She said that rather than register the dog as a potentially dangerous animal—which involves an insurance bond, fees, kennel requirements and more—she would have the dog put down. Police reports indicate that the dog bit two other dogs about two weeks ago. Mooney has been ticketed for both incidents.

This is the second such incident in Minneapolis this month—seven-year-old Zach King Jr. was attacked and killed in his home last week by his family’s pit bull—fueling the debate over banning pit bulls and other “dangerous breeds” in some communities. Since 1966, there have been four other deaths from dog attacks in Minnesota, all but one of which were of children seven-years-old or younger.

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Surgeons reattach boy’s three severed limbs

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

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Bariatric Surgery: A Beacon Of Light For The Morbidly Obese

Bariatric Surgery: A Beacon of Light for the Morbidly Obese

by

Rachel Kurien

Bariatric surgery includes a variety of procedures which are performed on people who are obese. The collective name for all the procedures that are performed with the objective of losing weight is Bariatric surgery. The US National Institute of Health recommends this surgery for people who have a body mass index of and 40 and a serious related co morbidity such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

Obesity has become a health problem worldwide and has almost become an epidemic in the West. It has proven to be a major risk factor for many diseases and usually comes with mortality and morbidity risks. It offers a solution to people who are dangerously obese for the purpose of losing those excess kilos. The weight loss is usually achieved by decreasing the size of the stomach with an implanted medical device or removal of a portion of the stomach or by re-routing the intestines to a smaller pouch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6CVU3c0V_k[/youtube]

There are certain eligibility criteria for patients undergoing this surgery, in addition to being severely obese these people also have o show failed attempts at losing weight the natural way. Bariatric surgery can bring in drastic changes to your life akin to having your first baby or getting married. Patients have to get accustomed to changes such as strict alteration to their diet and eating habits.

Studies have shown that the surgery is highly effective in curing obesity and obesity related ailments. It quickly gets rid of body fat and also significantly brings down diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. However this surgery is not an easy option for obese patients as it requires a patient to make sacrifices and enormous changes afterwards such as diet that is highly controlled and daily, rigorous exercise.

The three different types of weight loss surgeries are gastric band wherein an adjustable band is tightly wrapped around the stomach, a gastric sleeve surgery wherein the stomach is carved to resemble a banana and the production of the hormone Ghrelin is inhibited and a gastric bypass surgery where the stomach is reduced to a smaller size and the intestines are rerouted.

In order to get the maximum benefits out of a bariatric surgery patients have to stick to a lifelong plan afterwards that will avoid putting on weight and acquiring lifelong complications. Post surgery, patients might have to choose a plastic surgery to contour their bodies and get rid of the loose skin.

This article describes the necessity and advantages of a

bariatric surgery

for morbidly obese patients.

Article Source:

ArticleRich.com

Surgeons reattach boy’s three severed limbs

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

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Former ‘Top Model’ contestant Whitney Cunningham defends plus size models, celebrates the “regular woman”

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Once you get a chance to talk to West Palm Beach, Florida native Whitney Cunningham, who placed seventh on the eighth cycle of the popular reality TV series America’s Next Top Model, you begin to understand what host Tyra Banks meant when she described her as the “full package.”

First of all, she is confident and headstrong, which is a must on these kinds of shows, almost as much as it is to take a beautiful modelesque picture. Second, she turns that confidence into drive. She has been receiving steady work as a model since leaving the show, and still believes that her goal of being the first woman to wear a size ten dress on the cover of Vogue is in reach. Third, and probably most important to television viewers, she obliterates the age-old model stereotype that to be pretty and photograph well, one must also be vapid and without a thought. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Cunningham also dreams of becoming a writer, and is working toward dual goals: a model who can express herself like no other model before her.

Cunningham recently sat down with Wikinews reporter Mike Halterman in an impassioned interview, taking hours to field questions from the reporter as well as from fans of America’s Next Top Model. Always in high spirits, Cunningham shows that she is a distinct personality who has carved her own niche in the Top Model history books. At the same time, she exhibits a joie de vivre that is oddly reminiscent of earlier Top Model fan favorite Toccara Jones, who showed America just how to be “big, black, beautiful and loving it.” However, Cunningham is quick to remind everyone that she isn’t big at all; she is simply a regular woman.

This is the first in a series of interviews with America’s Next Top Model contestants. Interviews will be published sporadically.

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Seeds placed in Norwegian vault as agricultural ‘insurance policy’

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a vault containing millions of seeds from all over the world, saw its first deposits on Tuesday. Located 800 kilometers from the North Pole on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the vault has been referred to by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso as a “frozen Garden of Eden“. It is intended to preserve crop supplies and secure biological diversity in the event of a worldwide disaster.

“The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust which is in charge of collecting the seed samples. The Norwegian government, who owns the bank, built it at a cost of $9.1 million.

At the opening ceremony, 100 million seeds from 268,000 samples were placed inside the vault, where there is room for over 2 billion seeds. Each of the samples originated from a different farm or field, in order to best ensure biological diversity. These crop seeds included such staples as rice, potatoes, barley, lettuce, maize, sorghum, and wheat. No genetically modified crops were included. (Beyond politics they are generally sterile so of no use.)

It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks.

Constructed deep inside a mountain and protected by concrete walls, the “doomsday vault” is designed to withstand earthquakes, nuclear warfare, and floods resulting from global warming. Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called it an “insurance policy” against such threats.

With air-conditioned temperatures of -18 degrees Celsius, experts say the seeds could last for an entire millennium. Some crops will be able to last longer, like sorghum, which the Global Crop Diversity Trust says can last almost 20 millenniums. Even if the refrigeration system fails, the vaults are expected to stay frozen for 200 years.

The Prime Minister said, “With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization.” Stoltenberg, along with Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai, made the first deposit of rice to the vault.

“It is very important for Africa to store seeds here because anything can happen to our national seed banks,” Maathai said. The vault will operate as a bank, allowing countries to use their deposited seeds free of charge. It will also serve as a backup to the thousands of other seed banks around the world.

“Crop diversity will soon prove to be our most potent and indispensable resource for addressing climate change, water and energy supply constraints and for meeting the food needs of a growing population,” Cary Fowler said.

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Remedies And Divya Dant Manjan Tooth Powder For Teeth Whitening

Remedies and Divya Dant Manjan Tooth Powder for Teeth Whitening

by

adrinna smith

Remedies and Divya Dant Manjan Tooth Powder for Teeth Whitening

A great white smile is what everyone wants. Yes we see Celebes have it but it s a little more then that. For better or worse how our teeth look helps to define us. When you meet someone for the first time, having great looking white teeth does make a big difference. A great part to having pearly whites is the fact that there is no recovery time besides rinsing out your mouth. Getting a good tooth whitening kit can help make all the difference.

A toothache is any soreness, discomfort or pain within or around a tooth, signifying irritation, and swelling, reddening and possible infection with a possibility of abscess. When tooth decay penetrates the pulp chamber or reaches in its close nearness that contains the nerve endings and tiny blood vessels, a toothache starts emerging.

There are different causal factors that contribute to an aching tooth. But more often than not, it is often caused by a decaying tooth as a result of inadequate dental hygiene. Failure to brush the teeth after every meal will cause some food particles to be left in-between teeth, which leads to tooth decay. Sometimes brushing the teeth is not enough; you should also develop the habit of using dental floss to clean the areas between teeth. This is to be sure that no food particle will remain, which may decay.

Toothache generally means pain around the teeth or jaws. The severity of a toothache can vary from chronic and gentle to sharp and unbearable. The pain may be aggravated by chewing or by cold or heat. The toothache gets worse over time if left untreated as the inner pulp can become infected. The second most common cause of toothache is gum disease. Toothache or tooth pain is caused when the nerve root of the tooth is irritated.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgmw6v-5Z_c[/youtube]

Remedies for Teeth Whitening:

Here some remedies for teeth whitening and Divya Dant Manjan Tooth Powder benefits:

Divya Dant Manjan Tooth Powder:

# Helps in Strengthens the gums, as a result of which discharge of pus mixed with blood gets stopped;

# Takes away food-particles from teeth;

# Helps in removing foul smell of the mouth,

# Makes salivary gland fit for doing its work properly.

Herbal remedies for teeth whitening:

Strawberry and Baking Soda: Take one strawberry and half tbsp of baking soda. Crush the strawberry and mix it with the baking soda. Spread this mixture evenly on the teeth for about 5 minutes. Now brush your teeth thoroughly, rinse and floss to remove the mixture of strawberry and soda. You can do this procedure once a week

Smoking, chewing tobacco, excessive consumption of beverages such as tea, coffee, sugary drinks, and sodas all contribute towards stained teeth. Hence, one should quit smoking/chewing tobacco, and avoid excessive consumption of coffee, tea, sodas etc. for white teeth

Apart from the above home remedies you take several steps to ensure bright teeth. Eat foods such as carrots, apples, pears, celery, which can scrub away the stains on your teeth. Always rinse your mouth after consume food as it can wash away the stain-causing contents from your teeth. Ensure you brush twice every day and floss daily for healthy and white teeth.

Just about the only thing that is worse than having a toothache has to go to the dentist so that he can fix it! While you might try to ignore a toothache and hope it goes away you really need to have it checked out as most toothaches are due to tooth or jaw problems like dental cavity, cracked tooth, exposed tooth root, gum disease, jaw point diseases or spasm of the muscles used for chewing.

Garlic is the essential ingredient in one home remedy for toothache for temporary relief. One clove of garlic, combined with a pinch of rock salt, is to be applied to the afflicted tooth. As a result, pain is eventually relieved. As a “tip” towards a home remedy for toothache preventative, a single clove of garlic should be chewed each day, preferable in the morning, as it can aid in strengthening teeth, and maintaining overall dental health.

Remedies for teeth whitening

and

Divya Dant Manjan

helps in strengthens the gums, makes teeth healthy & shining and removing foul smell of the mouth.

Article Source:

ArticleRich.com

Wikinews interviews Kristian Hanson, producer-director of indie horror film ‘Sledge’

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Just days away from Halloween, Wikinews interviewed Kristian Hanson, producer-director of independent slasher film Sledge. The film has been a recent source of discussion in horror fan circles, primarily due to its production budget of only US$800. Sledge is Hanson’s fourth film to direct, according to Internet Movie Database.

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Gastric bypass surgery performed by remote control

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

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