See whose looks dazzled (Angelina! Charlize!) and whose disappointed (Lea Michele) on the star-studded red carpet!
hanley ramirez blago mumia abu jamal mumia abu jamal pearl harbor alec baldwin alec baldwin
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
US general fights alcoholism after public collapse (AP)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. ? Retired Brigadier General Stanley Cherrie flew into machine gun fire, lost a leg to a landmine and directed tanks against Iraqi forces in his long Army career. When he walked into a reunion of top brass looking shaky and then collapsed, another side of his military life was revealed: years of hard drinking had grown into alcoholism that nearly killed him.
Cherrie's breakdown in front of his comrades, who had gathered to mark the 20th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, triggered his turn to rehabilitation from a habit that started a generation earlier. Now the man who commanded troops in Kuwait and Bosnia despite the prosthetic leg he got in Vietnam is sharing his story, in part as an example for a new cohort of soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I always knew I drank too much. In retrospect, I was the poster boy. If you wanted to build a functional alcoholic, you would follow my model," said Cherrie, 69, speaking for the first time about his struggle.
The turning point came at a reunion of officers who planned Operation Desert Storm, the 1990 military campaign that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invading forces from Kuwait. Minutes after sitting down to eat, Cherrie collapsed at the table. The Army's highest ranking doctor, Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker, was on hand and treated Cherrie before an ambulance whisked him to a nearby emergency room.
At the hospital, Cherrie's daughter asked to speak to Schoomaker in private. Then she disclosed a family secret: Her father was an alcoholic, and years of drinking had taken a toll.
It was the beginning of Cherrie's long journey back to sobriety from a thirst that began in Vietnam, where the young officer stepped on a land mine that blew apart his right leg, right hand and part of his left heel.
Despite the injury, Cherrie managed to stay in the military at a time when disabled soldiers were routinely discharged, working his way up the ranks to command troops in Desert Storm and later Bosnia.
As he comes to grips now with the pain he caused his family, he has another even more daunting challenge: caring for his wife, Mary Ellen, who is battling a degenerative arthritic condition. High school sweethearts, they have been married 46 years.
His fight for sobriety also helps illustrate a larger problem ? as troops return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, many have turned to alcohol to help relieve the pain.
Schoomaker, who headed the Army medical command from 2007 until December, says drinking remains a problem in the military, but there are efforts to change that. Three years ago, for example, the Army created a pilot program at six bases that allows soldiers to seek outpatient drug and alcohol treatment without telling their commanders.
"The culture has shifted dramatically, where alcohol use is openly discouraged in a public kind of way. But it's not in any shape or form been eliminated," he said.
For his part, Cherrie is using his experience to help others.
"I think Stan wants to get his story out because when he screws up he wants people to know it as a learning experience," said his friend John Harris, a retired lieutenant colonel. "He's not looking for sympathy. He's not looking for notoriety. He's looking at it as: `How can my story help someone (else) who is going through a similar situation.'"
____(equals)
Cherrie's wife, Mary Ellen, first noticed her husband's drinking after his first tour of duty in Vietnam.
A helicopter pilot, Cherrie seemed to encounter enemy fire on every mission, and won a Silver Star for taking out a .50 caliber enemy machine gun on top of a building during the Tet Offensive in January, 1968. After skirmishes, some soldiers would return to makeshift bases carved in the Vietnamese jungles and drink alcohol to unwind, Cherrie recalled.
It was a practice that continued when Cherrie returned from his deployment. At an Army base in Germany, Cherrie would sit around at night drinking with other pilots talking about firefights.
"They turned to alcohol for relief," she said. "They were talking about everything they had just seen. And pilots were always called back. There was this great pressure: When am I going to be called back again?"
For Cherrie, the call came three years later and he returned to Vietnam in 1971. A month into his tour, Cherrie stepped on a landmine. He was transferred to the amputee ward of Valley Forge Veterans Hospital in Pennsylvania and thought he would be forced to leave the military because of his injuries.
Without the Army, Cherrie thought he would be lost. As a child, Cherrie played war games with friends in the fields surrounding his southern New Jersey home. He grew up in a staunchly patriotic community where everyone, including his father, told stories about serving in World War II. Even when Cherrie played baseball and football at Rutgers University, he thought about the military, participating in ROTC. When he graduated from Rutgers in 1964, he enlisted.
His hopes of staying in the Army were buoyed by Maj. Frederick Franks Jr., who visited the hospital and stopped by Cherrie's bed to offer encouraging words. Cherrie later discovered that Franks' left leg was amputated below the knee.
Cherrie was optimistic: If Franks could stay in the military and return to combat without a leg, he could do it, too.
___(equals)
Mary Ellen wasn't sure about her husband's decision. She was proud of his physical recovery, but knew he had to prove to the Army that he was still physically fit. Even with a prosthetic leg and mangled hand, he kept up, and was assigned to an infantry unit at Fort Benning, Ga.
But she could see changes in his personality. Yes, he was still the outgoing, charismatic officer. But he was drinking more and more, especially on weekends.
It was all part of the old military culture, his friend John Harris said.
"On Friday nights, you went to the officers' club, and anytime you had a party it was centered around the consumption of large quantities of alcohol," he said. "Some would perceive if you weren't half drunk and raising hell and jumping off of tables and carrying on in the officers' club, you didn't have a `warrior spirit.'"
Mary Ellen said her husband never drank at work or did anything to interfere with his career.
"But at the officers' club or home, it was a different story," she said.
___(equals)
Cherrie was making all the right career moves. He graduated with master's degree in public administration and landed a job on the staff of Frederick Franks, who by then was a lieutenant colonel on the fast track to becoming a general.
He used his experience in 1990, when Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait, threatening the stability of the entire Middle East. Franks was one of the generals who helped draw up the plans to liberate Kuwait, and Cherrie, now a lieutenant colonel himself, was a key member of his staff.
After the war, Cherrie was promoted to brigadier general. Preparing to retire, Cherrie received a new mission: Help lead United Nations troops trying to keep peace in Bosnia. When that mission was complete, he retired near Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in 1998 after 34 years of service.
Cherrie was hired by Cubic, a defense contractor, and volunteered with community groups.
But his drinking began to spin out of control. After work, he would go out with friends. Other nights, he would sit at home and drink a pint or more of gin. Mary Ellen and other family members pleaded with him to stop.
___(equals)
By late 2010, Cherrie had left Cubic, and was contacted about the reunion of the VII Corps Desert Storm Veterans Association.
After Desert Storm, VII Corps was deactivated, and the unit's colors were stored at Fort Leavenworth. Franks asked Cherrie to escort the colors to the February gathering.
Now 70, Mary Ellen couldn't go because of her health, so Cherrie asked his daughter, Victoria Cherrie, to accompany him. He needed help, too, because his own health had been deteriorating.
A few days before he left, Cherrie decided he wouldn't touch alcohol. Maybe that would help him feel better. But the morning of the event, he was shaky and dizzy. At a memorial service, his friends were shocked at his appearance.
"I had not seen Stan look that bad ever," said retired Major Gen. Alan "Bud" Thrasher. "I said, `Stan, what in the world is going on?'"
Cherrie said he hadn't been feeling well for a while. Thrasher told Cherrie he would ask Schoomaker, who lived at the base, to examine him.
And before dinner that night, Schoomaker talked to Cherrie in the lobby of the officers' club.
"He looked like he suffered from a chronic illness of some kind," Schoomaker said. "It wasn't clear what kind."
Schoomaker asked Cherrie if he regularly drank alcohol, but he denied it. He asked Cherrie to go to Walter Reed hospital the following day for an examination. Cherrie reluctantly agreed and returned to the ballroom.
About five minutes later, as the waiters were beginning to serve dinner, Cherrie collapsed, falling out of his chair. Victoria began screaming, and cradled his head on the floor as his faced turned purple.
When they reached the emergency room, Victoria turned to Schoomaker and asked to speak to him alone.
"My dad really hasn't been explicit with you," she said softly, and disclosed the details of his drinking.
Victoria's confession set off a chain of events that led to Cherrie entering an alcohol treatment program.
At first Cherrie refused, and became defiant. He said he didn't have an alcohol problem. He said he had to get back to take care of Mary Ellen. But then Schoomaker said the words that finally got through.
"Stan, you have a choice: You can go to rehab or you can take another drink and die."
___(equals)
Victoria called her mother and told her the news. After all these years of pleading with Cherrie to stop drinking, he was headed to an eight-week inpatient alcoholic and drug rehabilitation program in Alabama.
Mary Ellen was thrilled about the treatment, and saddened because she knew collapsing in the room was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. But it probably saved him.
The road to sobriety was difficult. After detoxification, Cherrie learned how his drinking had hurt his family over the years: how they had to walk on eggshells and how his wife had to protect their children because he could become combative at any time.
As part of the program, family members sent his counselor letters that Cherrie had to read aloud for the first time in a group therapy session.
In Victoria's, she detailed the negative effects his alcoholism had on her life. His daughter, Jennifer, and his wife wrote similar letters. But his son Brian refused, saying if he had something to say to his father, he would do it in person.
"It was very difficult to hear these things," said Cherrie, his voice trailing off.
He decided that if he made it through the program, he wasn't going to hide his disease. He would talk to people about it. Maybe he could help someone who was thinking about seeking help.
Nearly a year later, Cherrie hasn't had a drink.
The struggle hasn't been made any easier with his wife's illness.
For years, Mary Ellen doted on her husband. She moved from city to city with their growing family while he took new assignments. She raised their three children while he worked late.
Now, Cherrie spends a good part of his days taking care of her. He makes her tea in the morning and makes sure she's comfortable.
Mary Ellen has noticed.
"He has been more tolerant. He certainly is waiting on me hand and foot. He really is. Probably too much," she said.
She also understands why he's sharing his story. It's a continuation of something he's been doing quietly for years: mentoring wounded soldiers, helping them get adjusted to civilian life.
"He has learned a lot and he can share that with other people," Mary Ellen said. "If he can help young soldiers in that respect ? not to let anything get out of control ? he would be doing good work."
For his part, Cherrie said he's not sure why he drank so much, and refused to blame it on the Army or his injuries. Before the military, he rarely drank at all. Not even when he attended Rutgers and went to parties. But since his treatment, he has received positive feedback from friends.
"They say: `You did the right thing. You sought help.' But hey, look ... I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but when God nearly kills you and you have a seizure in front of 300 of your high-ranking best friends, it's time to do something," he said.
republican debate tonight tinker tailor soldier spy rich forever rick ross project runway all stars elin nordegren tangled ever after kansas state
Soldier faces hearing at Afghan base over suicide (AP)
KABUL, Afghanistan ? An American soldier charged with abuse that led to the suicide of a 19-year-old fellow soldier in Afghanistan is facing a preliminary hearing Sunday on a base in the country, the U.S. military said.
Spc. Ryan J. Offutt is charged with offenses including maltreatment, assault, involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide in the death of Pvt. Danny Chen, the military said in a statement. Offutt is one of eight infantrymen charged in connection with the suicide.
Chen shot himself in a guardhouse Oct. 3 in Afghanistan after what investigators say were weeks of racial slurs, humiliation and physical abuse.
Offutt, 32, of Greenville, Pa., was charged in December along with seven others in the same unit. He joined the Army in 2006 and served 14 months in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan. An attorney for Offutt could not immediately be contacted.
Chen, a native New Yorker of Chinese descent, had only been in Afghanistan for two months when he killed himself.
He had told relatives he endured weeks of racial teasing and name calling while in training in the U.S.
After arriving in Afghanistan, investigators said, Chen was subjected to hazing by members of his unit, the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
Chen's family has said investigators told them that at a remote base in southern Afghanistan, he was subjected to racial slurs and forced to do excessive sit-ups, push-ups, runs and sprints carrying sandbags.
On the day of his death, he had reported to the guard tower without his helmet or adequate water and was forced to crawl about 100 yards (100 meters) across gravel carrying his equipment as his comrades threw rocks at him, a family representative has quoted investigators as saying.
Sunday's hearing under Article 32 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice will determine whether Offutt faces court-martial. It was unclear how many days it will take. The process allows for cross-examining of any witnesses.
The two most serious charges, involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide, carry prison sentences of up to 10 years and three years, respectively.
The hearing is being held at Kandahar Air Field, the sprawling base for U.S. and NATO operations in the south.
Chen's family and Chinese community members in New York have called for legal proceedings related to his death to be held in the United States, so they could witness them.
Offutt's mother, Carol Tate of Sharon, Pa., told The (Sharon) Herald last month that she has spoken to her son and thought there were other factors that have not been made public, but she declined further comment.
The Army has identified the other soldiers charged as 1st Lt. Daniel J. Schwartz, 25, of Maryland (no hometown was given); Staff Sgt. Blaine G. Dugas, 35, of Port Arthur, Texas; Staff Sgt. Andrew J. Van Bockel, 26, of Aberdeen, S.D.; Sgt. Adam M. Holcomb, 29, of Youngstown, Ohio; Sgt. Jeffrey T. Hurst, 26, of Brooklyn, Iowa; Spc. Thomas P. Curtis, 25, of Hendersonville, Tenn; and Sgt. Travis F. Carden, 24, of Fowler, Ind.
VanBockel, Holcomb, Hurst, Curtis and Offutt were charged with the most serious offenses, including involuntary manslaughter, negligent homicide, and assault and battery.
The NATO-led force also said two service members in southern Afghanistan died Sunday of injuries that were not battle-related.
A coalition statement did not say whether the injuries were the result of an accident, suicide, or other causes and it did not provide the troops' nationalities.
Sunday's deaths bring to 16 the number of coalition troops who have died in Afghanistan this month.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed two Afghan police officers as they were driving home in the eastern province of Khost, provincial police chief Sardar Mohammad Zazia said.
Both officers were members of a counternarcotics squad, he said. Khost lies along the border with Pakistan's lawless northwestern tribal region and is a stronghold of the al-Qaida-allied Haqqani network.
iowa caucus results sickle cell trait michigan football michigan football sugar bowl presidential candidates mild kidney failure
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Pakistan Taliban leader reported dead in US strike
ISLAMABAD?? Intercepted militant radio communications indicate the leader of the Pakistani Taliban may have been killed in a recent U.S. drone strike, Pakistani intelligence officials said Sunday. A Taliban official denied that.
The report coincided with sectarian violence ? a bomb blast in eastern Pakistan that killed 14 people in a Shiite religious procession.
The claim that the Pakistani Taliban chief was killed came from officials who said they intercepted a number of Taliban radio conversations. In about a half a dozen intercepts, the militants discussed whether their chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed on Jan. 12 in the North Waziristan tribal area. Some militants confirmed Mehsud was dead, and one criticized others for talking about the issue over the radio.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Asimullah Mehsud denied the group's leader was killed and said he was not in the area where the drone strike occurred.
In early 2010, both Pakistani and American officials said they believed a missile strike had killed Hakimullah Mehsud along the border of North and South Waziristan. They were proved wrong when videos appeared showing him still alive.
The Pakistani Taliban is linked to attacks against U.S. targets. They trained the Pakistani-American who tried to detonate a car bomb in New York City's Times Square in 2010 and is tied to a suicide bombing that killed seven CIA agents at an Afghan base in 2009.
There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday's bombing that killed 14 people during a Shiite observance in Punjab province in the east ? the latest of a series of sectarian attacks in volatile Pakistan.
Hundreds of Pakistani Shiites gathered in the town of Khanpur in Punjab province for a traditional procession to mark the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a revered seventh-century figure.
The explosion went off as the mourners left a mosque, said District Police Chief Sohail Chatta. The bomb appeared to have been planted ahead of time in the path of the procession, he said.
The Pakistani Taliban and other Sunni extremist groups have in the past claimed responsibility for the bombings of Shiite religious sites and ceremonies. Many Sunni extremists in Pakistan regard Shiites as heretics.
-
Only on msnbc.com
- Evangelicals try to stop Romney
- Outsourced jobs coming back from China
- Recreating Afghanistan's soundtrack, one young musician at a time
- Gingrich booed over Romney jab
- A sanctuary for seals
- Woman loses arm to flesh-eating bacteria from bath salts
- Bachmann campaign: Stop playing Gingrich ad
The Taliban and other groups have carried out hundreds of bombings over the last five years that have killed thousands of Pakistani troops and civilians as part of a campaign to install a hard-line Islamist government.
The attacks are so common that the country's interior minister in December actually thanked the Taliban for acting on what he said was a "request" not to stage attacks during the Shiite rituals of Ashoura that month.
Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah said police investigators were still examining the area of Sunday's bombing for clues. Security was provided for the procession, but it was breached, Sanaullah said.
The continuing strikes by presumed religious extremists come during a political crisis that pits the Pakistani civilian government against the military, sparking rumors of an impending coup.
Last week the military warned the government of possible "grievous consequences" ahead, and President Asif Ali Zardari took a one-day trip to Dubai that renewed speculation that he might flee the country.
Analysts say the military may be looking for the Supreme Court to push out Zardari rather than risk an outright takeover.
____
Sebastian Abbot and Heidi Vogt contributed to this report from Islamabad. Khalid Tanveer contributed from Multan.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46003972/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
black friday 2011 rhodium uppity uppity stuffing brandon mcinerney brandon mcinerney
Totally Drug-Resistant TB Emerges In India
Some of it is. TB requires prolonged treatment. 3 months is regarded as the absolute minimum treatment duration. 6 months is suitable for most cases. 12-24 months is needed for severe cases, or for cases affecting certain organs (brain or spine). Anti-TB antibiotics also have severe side effects - liver damage, nerve damage, permanent eye damage, they severely disrupt the biochemistry of other drugs (potentially causing them to become ineffective, or overactive), etc.
In poorer countries, patients/doctors may not be able to afford a full course of drugs, and may therefore cut it short. Uneducated patients may also stop the treatment when they start to feel better, and not carry the course through to the end (and in poorer countries, there may not be a system for doctors/law enformcenet to trace them and bring them back for treatment).
Additionally, tests for TB have are very time-consuming and expensive. It can take 8 weeks to get a drug-sensitivity test, and that's if the test comes back positive anyway (one of the problems with TB, is that it is very good at hiding, and the bugs are very difficult to grow). Where funding is constrained, diagnosis is simply by looking for the bugs in a sputum specimen with a microscope - which tells you nothing about the sensitivities. There is a signficant cost of incubating the specimens on special growth media for 8 weeks, and a low success rate. Because of this, doctors in these countries may not be able to diagnose drug resistance, except when drugs fail to halt the disease after 6 months.
The avoidance of resistance in anti-biotic treatment is best achieved by mixing multiple drugs of different types. Conventionally TB is treated with a cocktail of 3 or 4 drugs. If, however, you use those 3 drugs, ih a population that is infected with a bug that is resistant to 2 of them, then resistance to the single functioning agent, can develop very rapidly.
Things are changing with advanced test kits and DNA amplification technology, which are able to detect the genes that confer resistance, and give a result, with high accuracy and high reliability within 24 hours. The problem is the significant cost of this testing technique.
?
brownback salvia cybermonday deals cybermonday deals steve johnson norman reedus norman reedus
Texas Instruments demos first OMAP 5, Android 4.0-based reference design, promises it in laptops next year (video)
He also made clear that he's hoping to bring more and more Android into the enterprise, therefore accelerating the proliferation of the OS as a whole. Moreover, he told us to "expect" OMAP 5 in laptops and Ultrabooks running Windows 8, and alluded to the possibility of seeing the first ones by CES 2013. Have a peek at the first-ever reference demo in the gallery below, and have a look at the video just past the break."This is the greatest platform on Earth right now... way ahead of Apple, and it's the first Cortex-A15 (which runs 2x faster than the Cortex-A9) product on the market. When running two Cortex-A15 chips at 800MHz, it's more or less the same performance as running two Cortex-A9s at 1.5GHz. You'll see [commercially available products] ramping up with this stuff in late 2012 or early 2013. We are also running Windows 8 on the latest OMAP; it runs perfectly well, and we've been working very closely with Microsoft. We're working on multiple form factors -- tablets, thin-and-lights -- and we think ARM is going to bring tablets to the masses."
Texas Instruments demos first OMAP 5, Android 4.0-based reference design, promises it in laptops next year (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/12/ti-omap-5-exclusive-demo-laptops-ultrabooks-ces-2012-video/
mena suvari allen west joyful noise coachella one life to live jeff fisher van der sloot
Saturday, January 14, 2012
US deplores video of Marines urinating on dead
[unable to retrieve full-text content]WASHINGTON (AP) ? Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has promised Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai a full investigation of an Internet video that purports to depict four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters ? a video both men condemned Thursday as deplorable.
davenport denver nuggets chris hansen ehlers danlos syndrome band of brothers being human being human
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)