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As Scott Jerome-Parks lay dying, he clung to this wish: that his fatal radiation overdose which left him deaf, struggling to see, unable to swallow, burned, with his teeth falling out, with ulcers in his mouth and throat, nauseated, in severe pain and finally unable to breathe be studied and talked about publicly so that others might not have to live his nightmare.
Sensing death was near, Mr. Jerome-Parks summoned his family for a final Christmas. His friends sent two buckets of sand from the beach where they had played as children so he could touch it, feel it and remember better days.
Mr. Jerome-Parks died several weeks later in 2007. He was 43.
A New York City hospital treating him for tongue cancer had failed to detect a computer error that directed a linear accelerator to blast his brain stem and neck with errant beams of radiation. Not once, but on three consecutive days.
Soon after the accident, at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, state health officials cautioned hospitals to be extra careful with linear accelerators, machines that generate beams of high-energy radiation.
But on the day of the warning, at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, a 32-year-old breast cancer patient named Alexandra Jn-Charles absorbed the first of 27 days of radiation overdoses, each three times the prescribed amount. A linear accelerator with a missing filter would burn a hole in her chest, leaving a gaping wound so painful that this mother of two young children considered suicide.
Ms. Jn-Charles and Mr. Jerome-Parks died a month apart. Both experienced the wonders and the brutality of radiation. It helped diagnose and treat their disease. It also inflicted unspeakable pain.
Yet while Mr. Jerome-Parks had hoped that others might learn from his misfortune, the details of his case and Ms. Jn-Charles's have until now been shielded from public view by the government, doctors and the hospital.
Americans today receive far more medical radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation has increased sevenfold since 1980, and more than half of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Without a doubt, radiation saves countless lives, and serious accidents are rare.
But patients often know little about the harm that can result when safety rules are violated and ever more powerful and technologically complex machines go awry. To better understand those risks, The New York Times examined thousands of pages of public and private records and interviewed physicians, medical physicists, researchers and government regulators.
The Times found that while this new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes, its complexity has created new avenues for error through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors occur, they can be crippling.
"Linear accelerators and treatment planning are enormously more complex than 20 years ago," said Dr. Howard I. Amols, chief of clinical physics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But hospitals, he said, are often too trusting of the new computer systems and software, relying on them as if they had been tested over time, when in fact they have not.
Regulators and researchers can only guess how often radiotherapy accidents occur. With no single agency overseeing medical radiation, there is no central clearinghouse of cases. Accidents are chronically underreported, records show, and some states do not require that they be reported at all.
In June, The Times reported that a Philadelphia hospital gave the wrong radiation dose to more than 90 patients with prostate cancer and then kept quiet about it. In 2005, a Florida hospital disclosed that 77 brain cancer patients had received 50 percent more radiation than prescribed because one of the most powerful and supposedly precise linear accelerators had been programmed incorrectly for nearly a year.
Dr. John J. Feldmeier, a radiation oncologist at the University of Toledo and a leading authority on the treatment of radiation injuries, estimates that 1 in 20 patients will suffer injuries.
Most are normal complications from radiation, not mistakes, Dr. Feldmeier said. But in some cases the line between the two is uncertain and a source of continuing debate.
"My suspicion is that maybe half of the accidents we don't know about," said Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., who has investigated radiation accidents around the world and has written books on medical radiation.
Identifying radiation injuries can be difficult. Organ damage and radiation-induced cancer might not surface for years or decades, while underdosing is difficult to detect because there is no injury. For these reasons, radiation mishaps seldom result in lawsuits, a barometer of potential problems within an industry.
In 2009, the nation's largest wound care company treated 3,000 radiation injuries, most of them serious enough to require treatment in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, which use pure, pressurized oxygen to promote healing, said Jeff Nelson, president and chief executive of the company, Diversified Clinical Services.
While the worst accidents can be devastating, most radiation therapy "is very good," Dr. Mettler said. "And while there are accidents, you wouldn't want to scare people to death where they don't get needed radiation therapy."
Because New York State is a leader in monitoring radiotherapy and collecting data about errors, The Times decided to examine patterns of accidents there and spent months obtaining and analyzing records. Even though many accident details are confidential under state law, the records described 621 mistakes from 2001 to 2008. While most were minor, causing no immediate injury, they nonetheless illuminate underlying problems.
The Times found that on 133 occasions, devices used to shape or modulate radiation beams contributing factors in the injuries to Mr. Jerome-Parks and Ms. Jn-Charles were left out, wrongly positioned or otherwise misused.
On 284 occasions, radiation missed all or part of its intended target or treated the wrong body part entirely. In one case, radioactive seeds intended for a man's cancerous prostate were instead implanted in the base of his penis. Another patient with stomach cancer was treated for prostate cancer. Fifty patients received radiation intended for someone else, including one brain cancer patient who received radiation intended for breast cancer.
New York health officials became so alarmed about mistakes and the underreporting of accidents that they issued a special alert in December 2004, asking hospitals to be more vigilant.
As this warning circulated, Mr. Jerome-Parks was dealing with what he thought was a nagging sinus infection. He would not know until two months later that cancer had been growing at the base of his tongue. It was a surprising diagnosis for a relatively young man who rarely drank and did not smoke.
In time, his doctors and family came to suspect that his cancer was linked to the neighborhood where he had once worked, on the southern tip of Manhattan, in the shadow of the World Trade Center.
Several years before, he had taken a job there as a computer and systems analyst at CIBC World Markets. His starting date: September 2001.
Diagnosis and Treatment
What Mr. Jerome-Parks most remembered about Sept. 11, his friends say, were bodies falling from the sky, smashing into the pavement around him. He was particularly haunted by the memory of a man dressed in a suit and tie, plummeting to his death.
In the days and weeks that followed, Mr. Jerome-Parks donated blood, helped a family search for a missing relative and volunteered at the Red Cross, driving search-and-rescue workers back and forth from what became known as "the pile." Whether toxic dust from the collapsed towers caused his cancer may never be known, though his doctor would later say he believed there was a link.
Mr. Jerome-Parks approached his illness as any careful consumer would, evaluating the varied treatment options in a medical mecca like New York. Yet in the end, what led him to St. Vincent's, the primary treatment center for Sept. 11 victims, was a recommendation from an acquaintance at his church, which had become an increasingly important part of his life.
The Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan, known for its social advocacy, reflected how much Mr. Jerome-Parks had changed from his days in Gulfport, Miss., where he was raised in a conservative family, eventually moving to Toronto and then New York, where he met his Canadian-born wife, Carmen, a dancer, singer and aspiring actress.
In turning to St. Vincent's, Mr. Jerome-Parks selected a hospital that had been courting cancer patients as a way to solidify its shaky financial standing.
Its cancer unit, managed by Aptium Oncology, a unit of one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca, was marketing a new linear accelerator as though it had Mr. Jerome-Parks specifically in mind. Its big selling point was so-called smart-beam technology.
"When the C.F.O. of a New York company was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor at the base of his tongue," promotional material for the new accelerator stated, "he also learned that conventional radiation therapy could potentially cure him, but might also cause serious side effects."
The solution, the advertisement said, was a linear accelerator with 120 computer-controlled metal leaves, called a multileaf collimator, which could more precisely shape and modulate the radiation beam. (View an interactive graphic demonstrating how multileaf collimators work, and how problems at St. Vincent's caused a fatal overdose.) This treatment is called Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, or I.M.R.T. The unit St. Vincent's had was made by Varian Medical Systems, a leading supplier of radiation equipment.
"The technique is so precise, we can treat areas that would have been considered much too risky before I.M.R.T., too close to important critical structures," Dr. Anthony M. Berson, St. Vincent's chief radiation oncologist, said in a 2001 news release.
The technology addressed a vexing problem in radiation therapy how to spare healthy cells while killing cancerous ones.
Radiation fights cancer by destroying the genetic material that controls how cells grow and divide. Even under the best of circumstances, though, it carries a risk, much like surgery or chemotherapy.
The most accurate X-ray beams must pass through healthy tissue to penetrate the tumor before exiting the body. Certain body parts and certain people are more sensitive to radiation. According to research by Dr. Eric J. Hall of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University, even accurate I.M.R.T. treatments, when compared with less technically advanced linear accelerators, may nearly double the risk of secondary cancer later in life due to radiation leakage.
When therapeutic errors enter the picture, the risk multiplies. An underdose allows the targeted cancer to grow, while an overdose can burn and cause organ damage.
While most radiation burns are mild, comparable to a sunburn, larger doses can damage the cells lining small blood vessels, depriving the skin and soft tissue of nourishment. The result is a wound that resists healing.
"Not only do you lose the blood vessels, but the tissue becomes chronically inflamed, which can lead to scarring," said Robert Warriner III, chief medical officer of Diversified Clinical Services, the wound care company.
After soft-tissue injury, bone death in the head and jaw is the second most common radiation injury that Diversified Clinical treats.
At their worst, radiation injuries can cause organ failure and death.
Dr. Salvatore M. Caruana, then a head and neck surgeon at St. Vincent's, gave Mr. Jerome-Parks another option: surgery.
"I wanted him to have laser resection," Dr. Caruana, now at New York-Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, said in an interview.
In the end, Mr. Jerome-Parks chose radiation, with chemotherapy.
His wife would later tell friends that she wondered whether St. Vincent's was the best place for him, given that the world-renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering was nearby. But she did not protest. His mind was made up, and there was no time to lose. His cancer was advancing, and smart-beam technology promised to stop it.
A Plan Goes Wrong
On a brisk day in March 2005, Mr. Jerome-Parks prepared for his fifth radiation session at St. Vincent's. The first four had been delivered as prescribed. Now Dr. Berson wanted the plan reworked to give more protection to Mr. Jerome-Parks's teeth.
Radiation can damage saliva glands, and if saliva stops flowing, tooth decay and infections become a significant risk. Coupled with bone weakness from radiation, the simple act of extracting a tooth can lead to destruction of the lower jaw and ultimately its removal, doctors say.
Dr. Edward Golembe, who directs a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn, said he had treated serious radiation injuries to the jaw and called them "a horrible, horrible thing to see."
Tasked with carrying out Dr. Berson's new plan was Nina Kalach, a medical physicist. In the world of radiotherapy, medical physicists play a vital role in patient safety checking the calibration of machines, ensuring that the computer delivers the correct dose to the proper location, as well as assuming other safety tasks.
Creating the best treatment plan takes time. "A few years ago, we had computers that would take overnight to actually come up with a good treatment plan," said Dr. David Pearson, a medical physicist who works with Dr. Feldmeier's radiotherapy team at the University of Toledo. Faster computers have shortened that process.
"But we still need to be able to verify that what the computer has actually come up with is accurate," Dr. Pearson said. "The first time it tries to solve the problem, it may not come up with the best solution, so we tell it, O.K., these are the areas that need to be fixed."
A few months before Mr. Jerome-Parks's treatment, New York State health officials reminded hospitals that I.M.R.T. required a "significant time commitment" on the part of their staffs.
"Staffing levels should be evaluated carefully by each registrant," the state warned, "to ensure that coverage is sufficient to prevent the occurrence of treatment errors and misadministrations."
On the morning of March 14, Ms. Kalach revised Mr. Jerome-Parks's treatment plan using Varian software. Then, with the patient waiting in the wings, a problem arose, state records show.
Shortly after 11 a.m., as Ms. Kalach was trying to save her work, the computer began seizing up, displaying an error message. The hospital would later say that similar system crashes "are not uncommon with the Varian software, and these issues have been communicated to Varian on numerous occasions."
An error message asked Ms. Kalach if she wanted to save her changes before the program aborted. She answered yes. At 12:24 p.m., Dr. Berson approved the new plan.
Meanwhile, two therapists were prepping Mr. Jerome-Parks for his procedure, placing a molded mask over his face to immobilize his head.
Then the room was sealed, with only Mr. Jerome-Parks inside.
At 12:57 p.m. six minutes after yet another computer crash the first of several radioactive beams was turned on.
The next day, there was a second round of radiation.
A friend from church, Paul Bibbo, stopped by the hospital after the second treatment to see how things were going.
Mr. Bibbo did not like what he saw. Walking into a darkened hospital room, he recalled blurting out: " 'My goodness, look at him.' His head and his whole neck were swollen."
Anne Leonard, another friend, saw it, too, on a later visit. "I was shocked because his head was just so blown up," Ms. Leonard said. "He was in the bed, and he was writhing from side to side and moaning."
At a loss for what to do, Ms. Leonard said, "I just stood at the foot of the bed in the dark and prayed."
In a panic, Ms. Jerome-Parks called Tamara Weir-Bryan, a longtime friend from Toronto with nursing experience. Something was not right, she said. Then, as Ms. Weir-Bryan tells it: "She called me again, in agony, 'Please believe me. His face is so blown up. It's dreadful. There is something wrong.' "
At Ms. Jerome-Parks's suggestion, Ms. Weir-Bryan said she called the hospital, identified herself as a nurse and insisted that someone check on Mr. Jerome-Parks. If anything was done, it was not enough.
The next day, the hospital sent a psychiatrist to speak to Ms. Jerome-Parks, according to the hospital. A couple of hours later, her husband received yet another round of radiation.
Overdosed on Radiation
The Times has pieced together this account of what happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks largely from interviews with doctors who had been consulted on the case, six friends who cared for and comforted him, contemporaneous e-mail messages and Internet postings, and previously sealed government records. His wife declined to be interviewed about the case, as did Ms. Kalach, the medical physicist, and representatives of Aptium, Varian and St. Vincent's.
In a statement, the hospital called the case an "unfortunate event" that "occurred as a result of a unique and unanticipated combination of issues."
On the afternoon of March 16, several hours after Mr. Jerome-Parks received his third treatment under the modified plan, Ms. Kalach decided to see if he
was being radiated correctly.
So at 6:29 p.m., she ran a test to verify that the treatment plan was carried out as prescribed. What she saw was horrifying: the multileaf collimator, which was supposed to focus the beam precisely on his tumor, was wide open.
A little more than a half-hour later, she tried again. Same result.
Finally, at 8:15 p.m., Ms. Kalach ran a third test. It was consistent with the first two. A frightful mistake had been made: the patient's entire neck, from the base of his skull to his larynx, had been exposed.
Early the next afternoon, as Mr. Jerome-Parks and his wife were waiting with friends for his fourth modified treatment, Dr. Berson unexpectedly appeared in the hospital room. There was something he had to tell them. For privacy, he took Mr. Jerome-Parks and his wife to a lounge on the 16th floor, where he explained that there would be no more radiation.
Mr. Jerome-Parks had been seriously overdosed, they were told, and because of the mistake, his prognosis was dire.
Stunned and distraught, Ms. Jerome-Parks left the hospital and went to their church, a few blocks away. "She didn't know where else to go," recalled Ms. Leonard, their friend.
The next day, Ms. Jerome-Parks asked two other friends, Nancy Lorence and Linda Giuliano, a social worker, to sit in on a meeting with Dr. Berson and other hospital officials.
During the meeting, the medical team took responsibility for what happened but could only speculate about the patient's fate. They knew the short-term effects of acute radiation toxicity: burned skin, nausea, dry mouth, difficulty swallowing, loss of taste, swelling of the tongue, ear pain and hair loss. Beyond that, it was anyone's guess when the more serious life-threatening symptoms would emerge.
"They were really holding their breath because it was the brain stem and he could end up a paraplegic and on a respirator," Ms. Giuliano said.
Ms. Lorence added: "I don't really think they expected Scott to live more than two months or three months."
The group was told that doctors were already searching for tips on how to manage what promised to be a harrowing journey not only for the patient and his family, but also for the physicians and staff members involved in his care.
The full investigation into why Mr. Jerome-Parks had received seven times his prescribed dose would come later. For now, there was nothing left to say.
As Dr. Berson rose to leave the room, Ms. Lorence noticed that his back was soaked in sweat.
A Warning Goes Unheeded
Rene Jn-Charles remembers where he was and how she looked on that joyful day his wife, Alexandra, the mother of their two young children, in brown jeans and a brown top, standing in front of him at the corner of Lincoln Place and Utica Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.
"Babes," she said. "I have no cancer. I am free."
Her doctor had called with the good news, she said. A seemingly unbearable weight had been lifted. Now after breast surgery and chemotherapy, she faced only radiation, although 28 days of it.
Ms. Jn-Charles had been treated for an aggressive form of breast cancer at a hospital with a very different patient profile from the one selected by Mr. Jerome-Parks. Unlike St. Vincent's, on the edge of Greenwich Village, the Downstate Medical Center's University Hospital of Brooklyn is owned by the state and draws patients from some of Brooklyn's poorer neighborhoods.
Ms. Jn-Charles's treatment plan also called for a linear accelerator. But instead of a multileaf collimator, it used a simpler beam-modifying device called a wedge, a metallic block that acts as a filter.
In the four years before Ms. Jn-Charles began treatment, 21 accidents in New York State were linked to beam-modifying devices, including wedges, records show.
On April 19, 2005, the day Ms. Jn-Charles showed up for her first radiation treatment, state health officials were still so worried about what had happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks that they issued an alert, reminding operators of linear accelerators "of the absolute necessity to verify that the radiation field is of the appropriate size and shape prior to the patient's first treatment."
In legal papers before she died, Ms. Jn-Charles explained how the radiation therapist had told her not to worry. "It's not painful that it's just like an X-ray," she said she was told. "There may be a little reaction to the skin. It may break out a little, and that was basically it."
'A Big Hole in My Chest'
For a while, all seemed well. Then, toward the end of therapy, Ms. Jn-Charles began to develop a sore on her chest. It seemed to get worse by the day. "I noticed skin breaking out," she would later say. "It was peeling. It started small but it quickly increased."
When Ms. Jn-Charles showed up for her 28th and final treatment, the therapist took her to see Dr. Alan Schulsinger, a radiation oncologist. "He just said that they wouldn't give me any radiation today, and he gave me the ointment and stuff and said go home and come back in a couple of days," Ms. Jn-Charles said.
A couple of days later, she returned. "More skin was peeling off, and going down into the flesh," Ms. Jn-Charles said. Once again, she was told to go home and return later.
On June 8, 2005, the hospital called her at home, requesting that she come in because the doctors needed to talk to her. Fourteen days after her last treatment, the hospital decided to look into the possible causes of her injury, hospital records show.
It did not take long. The linear accelerator was missing a vital command to insert the wedge. Without it, the oncology team had been mistakenly scalding Ms. Jn-Charles with three and a half times the prescribed radiation dose during each session.
At the hospital, doctors gave her the bad news, and later sent a letter to her home. "I am writing to offer our deepest apologies once again for the devastating events that occurred," Dr. Richard W. Freeman, chief medical officer, said in the June 17 letter. "There is now a risk of injury to your chest wall, including your skin, muscle, bone and a small portion of lung tissue."
Ms. Jn-Charles had been harmed by a baffling series of missteps, records show.
One therapist mistakenly programmed the computer for "wedge out" rather than "wedge in," as the plan required. Another therapist failed to catch the error. And the physics staff repeatedly failed to notice it during their weekly checks of treatment records.
Even worse, therapists failed to notice that during treatment, their computer screen clearly showed that the wedge was missing. Only weeks earlier, state health officials had sent a notice, reminding hospitals that therapists "must closely monitor" their computer screens.
"The fact that therapists failed to notice 'wedge OUT' on 27 occasions is disturbing," Dr. Tobias Lickerman, director of the city's Radioactive Materials Division, wrote in a report on the incident. The hospital declined to discuss the case.
The overdose resulted in a wound that would not heal. Instead, it grew, despite dozens of sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Doctors tried surgery. The wound would not close. So they operated a second, a third and a fourth time. In one operation, Ms. Jn-Charles's chest wall was reconstructed using muscle from her back and skin from her leg.
"I just had a big hole in my chest," she would say. "You could just see my ribs in there."
She saw herself falling away. "I can't even dress myself, pretty much," she said. "I used to be able to take care of my kids and do stuff for them, and I can't do these things anymore."
Her husband remembers one night when the children heard their mother crying. They came running, frightened, pleading: "Tell me, Daddy, what happened to Mommy? Say she's O.K., she's O.K."
For more than a year, Ms. Jn-Charles was repeatedly hospitalized for pain and lived with the odor of her festering wound. Meanwhile, her cancer returned with a vengeance.
Several months after her wound had finally healed, she died.
No Fail-Safe Mechanism
The investigation into what happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks quickly turned to the Varian software that powered the linear accelerator.
The software required that three essential programming instructions be saved in sequence: first, the quantity or dose of radiation in the beam; then a digital image of the treatment area; and finally, instructions that guide the multileaf collimator.
When the computer kept crashing, Ms. Kalach, the medical physicist, did not realize that her instructions for the collimator had not been saved, state records show. She proceeded as though the problem had been fixed.
"We were just stunned that a company could make technology that could administer that amount of radiation that extreme amount of radiation without some fail-safe mechanism," said Ms. Weir-Bryan, Ms. Jerome-Parks's friend from Toronto. "It's always something we keep harkening back to: How could this happen? What accountability do these companies have to create something safe?"
Even so, there were still opportunities to catch the mistake.
It was customary though not mandatory that the physicist would run a test before the first treatment to make sure that the computer had been programmed correctly. Yet that was not done until after the third overdose.
State officials said they were told that the hospital waited so long to run the test because it was experiencing "a staffing shortage as training was being provided for the medical physicists," according to a confidential internal state memorandum on the accident.
There was still one final chance to intervene before the overdose. All the therapists had to do was watch the computer screen it showed that the collimator was open. But they were not watching the screen, and in fact hospital rules included no specific instructions that they do so. Instead, their eyes were fastened on Mr. Jerome-Parks, out of concern that he might vomit into the mask that stabilized his head. Earlier, he had been given a drug known to produce nausea, to protect his salivary glands.
Government investigators ended up blaming both St. Vincent's, for failing to catch the error, and Varian, for its flawed software.
The hospital said it "acted swiftly and effectively to respond to the event, and worked closely with the equipment manufacturer and the regulatory agencies."
Timothy E. Guertin, Varian's president and chief executive, said in an interview that after the accident, the company warned users to be especially careful when using their equipment, and then distributed new software, with a fail-safe provision, "all over the world."
But the software fix did not arrive in time to help a woman who, several months later, was being radiated for cancer of the larynx. According to F.D.A. records, which did not identify the hospital or the patient, therapists tried to save a file on Varian equipment when "the system's computer screen froze."
The hospital went ahead and radiated the patient, only to discover later that the multileaf collimator had been wide open. The patient received nearly six times her prescribed dose. In this case, the overdose was caught after one treatment and the patient was not injured, according to Mr. Guertin, who declined to identify the hospital.
"The event at the hospital happened before the modification was released," he said.
Mr. Guertin said Varian did 35 million treatments a year, and in 2008 had to file only about 70 reports of potential problems with the Food and Drug Administration.
Accidents and Accountability
Patients who wish to vet New York radiotherapy centers before selecting one cannot do so, because the state will not disclose where or how often medical mistakes occur.
To encourage hospitals to report medical mistakes, the State Legislature with the support of the hospital industry agreed in the 1980s to shield the identity of institutions making those mistakes. The law is so strict that even federal officials who regulate certain forms of radiotherapy cannot, under normal circumstances, have access to those names.
Even with this special protection, the strongest in the country, many radiation accidents go unreported in New York City and around the state. After The Times began asking about radiation accidents, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reminded hospitals in July of their reporting obligation under the law. Studies of radiotherapy accidents, the city pointed out, "appear to be several orders of magnitude higher than what is being reported in New York City, indicating serious underreporting of these events."
The Times collected summaries of radiation accidents that were reported to government regulators, along with some that were not. Those records show that inadequate staffing and training, failing to follow a good quality-assurance plan and software glitches have contributed to mistakes that affected patients of varying ages and ailments.
For example, a 14-year-old girl received double her prescribed dose for 10 treatments because the facility made a faulty calculation and then did not follow its policy to verify the dose. A prostate cancer patient was radiated in the wrong spot on 32 of 38 treatments, while another prostate patient at the same institution received 19 misguided treatments all because the hospital did not test a piece of equipment after repairs.
In March 2007, at Clifton Springs Hospital and Clinic in upstate New York, a 31-year-old vaginal cancer patient was overradiated by more than 80 percent by an inexperienced radiotherapy team, putting her at risk for a fistula formation between the rectum and vagina. Afterward, she received antibiotics and treatments in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
In 2008, at Stony Brook University Medical Center on Long Island, Barbara Valenza-Gorman, 63, received 10 times as much radiation as prescribed in one spot, and one-tenth of her prescribed dose in another. Ms. Valenza-Gorman was too sick to continue her chemotherapy and died of cancer several months later, a family member said. The therapist who made those mistakes was later reprimanded in another case for failing to document treatment properly.
The therapist not only continues to work at the hospital, but has also trained other workers, according to records and hospital employees. A spokeswoman for Stony Brook said privacy laws precluded her from discussing specifics about patient care or employees.
Other therapists have had problems, too.
Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx fired a therapist, Annette Porter, accusing her of three mistakes, including irradiating the wrong patient, according to a government report on June 1, 2007. Ms. Porter retains her license.
"We know nothing about that person zero," said John O'Connell, an associate radiologic technology specialist with the State Bureau of Environmental Radiation Protection, the agency that licenses technologists.
Montefiore declined to comment. Ms. Porter, through her lawyer, denied making the three mistakes.
Fines or license revocations are rarely used to enforce safety rules. Over the previous eight years, despite hundreds of mistakes, the state issued just three fines against radiotherapy centers, the largest of which was $8,000.
Stephen M. Gavitt, who directs the state's radiation division, said if mistakes did not involve violations of state law, fines were not proper. The state does require radiotherapy centers to identify the underlying causes of accidents and make appropriate changes to their quality-assurance programs. And state officials said New York had taken a leadership role in requiring that each facility undergo an external audit by a professional not connected to the institution.
Two years ago, the state warned medical physicists attending a national conference that an over-reliance on computer programs might be leading to mistakes, including patient mix-ups. "You have to be ever-vigilant," Mr. O'Connell said.
The state imposed no punishment for the overdoses of Mr. Jerome-Parks or Ms. Jn-Charles. The city levied fines of $1,000 against St. Vincent's and $1,500 against University Hospital of Brooklyn.
Irreparable Damage
Mr. Jerome-Parks needed powerful pain medicine soon after his overdose.
Yet pain was hardly the worst of it. Apart from barely being able to sleep or swallow, he had to endure incessant hiccupping, vomiting, a feeding tube, a 24-hour stream of drugs and supplements. And apart from all that, he had to confront the hard truth about serious radiation injuries: there is no magic bullet, no drug, no surgery that can fix the problem.
"The cells damaged in that area are not reparable," Ms. Jerome-Parks reported to friends in an e-mail message shortly after the accident. National radiation specialists who were consulted could offer no comfort. Hyperbaric oxygen treatments may have helped slightly, but it was hard to tell.
"He got so much radiation I mean this was, in the order of magnitude, a big mistake," said Dr. Jerome B. Posner, a neurologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering who consulted on the case at the request of the family. "There are no valid treatments."
Though he had been grievously harmed, Mr. Jerome-Parks bore no bitterness or anger.
"You don't really get to know somebody," said Ms. Leonard, the friend from church, "until you see them go through something like this, and he was just a pillar of strength for all of us."
Mr. Jerome-Parks appreciated the irony of his situation: that someone who earned a living solving computer problems would be struck down by one.
He grew closer to his oncologist, Dr. Berson, who had overseen the team that caused his injury. "He and Dr. Berson had very realistically talked about what was going to happen to him," said his father, James Parks.
Ms. Jerome-Parks, who was providing her husband round-the-clock care, refused to surrender. "Prayer is stronger than radiation," she wrote in the subject line of an e-mail message sent to friends. Prayer groups were formed, and Mass was celebrated in his hospital room on their wedding anniversary.
Yet there was no stopping his inevitable slide toward death.
"Gradually, you began to see things happening," said Ms. Weir-Bryan, the friend from Toronto, who helped care for him. "His eyes started to go, his hearing went, his balance."
Ms. Giuliano, another of the couple's friends, believed that Mr. Jerome-Parks knew prayer would not be enough.
"At some point, he had to turn the corner, and he knew he wasn't going to make it," Ms. Giuliano said. "His hope was, 'My death will not be for nothing.' He didn't say it that way, because that would take too much ego, and Scott didn't have that kind of ego, but I think it would be really important to him to know that he didn't die for nothing."
Eventually the couple was offered a financial settlement, though it was not a moment to celebrate because it came at a price: silence. With neither of them working and expenses mounting, they accepted the offer.
"I cried and cried and cried, like I'd lost Scott in another way," Ms. Jerome-Parks wrote in an e-mail message on April 26, 2006. "Gag order required."
Now, the story of what happened to Mr. Jerome-Parks would have to be told by his doctors and the hospital, neither of which were part of the settlement. The identities of those who settled were not revealed.
"He didn't want to throw the hospital under the bus," Ms. Leonard said, "but he wanted to move forward, to see if his treatment could help someone else."
Dr. Caruana, the physician who had recommended surgery over radiation, added: "He said to let people know about it."
Friends say the couple sought and received assurances that his story would be told.
Mr. Jerome-Parks's parents were in Gulfport in February 2007, waiting for their house to be rebuilt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, when they got the news that their son had died.
Afterward, they received a handwritten note from Dr. Berson, who said in part: "I never got to know any patient as well as I knew Scott, and I never bonded with any patient in the same way. Scott was a gentleman who handled his illness with utmost dignity, and with concern not only for himself but also for those around him."
He ended by saying: "I commit to you, and as I promised Scott, everything we learned about the error that caused Scott's injury will be shared across the country, so that nobody else is ever hurt in this way. On a personal level, I will never forget what Scott gave me."
Dr. Berson no longer treats patients, said Dr. Josh Torgovnick, a neurologist who helped care for Mr. Jerome-Parks after the accident. "It drove him to retire," he said, referring to the fatal overdose. The hospital disputes that, saying Dr. Berson still sees patients at the hospital.
Dr. Berson did not respond to several messages seeking an interview about the case. Citing privacy concerns, a spokesman for St. Vincent's, Michael Fagan, said neither the hospital nor Dr. Berson would grant an interview.
In July, Mr. Jerome-Parks's father stood across from the beach in Gulfport where his son's friends had scooped up the sand they sent for his final Christmas.
"He taught us how to die," Mr. Parks said. "He did it gracefully and thoughtfully and took care of everything. Most of us would lose it. He didn't. He just did everything that he had to do, and then he let himself die."
Mr. Parks said he had thought about starting a campaign to make medical mistakes public but he never did. Nothing would ever come of it, he concluded.


text:
what's new
Got both Strings up in the dining area, we like them a lot!
It's been a week since we took our road trip to IKEA, that went by fast. I don't mind the drive, but that may be because Jeremiah lets me sleep for the first couple hrs until I wake up dazed and confused about 3 hrs out. He's a good husband, letting me sleep like that. I returned the favor on the way back of course. We bummed my grandpa's SUV for the trip, which has no working radio or CD player, lucky us. I don't know how we passed the time because we didn't do much talking. You know how when you're first dating, or married, there's always so much to talk about? I guess we're old farts now because we both enjoy the silence.
Anyways, we wanted to get some storage system for the office and decided on a trio of these VIKA ALEX drawer units. They're made to support a table top but I like them freestanding and they store a lot of paper, neatly.
We also bought a pair of ASPVIKs for the living room. I moved the vintage buffet to the bedroom where he is sitting, waiting to either be stripped of the paint on the drawers and stained or totally painted another color. Not sure yet...
I also fell in love with the new STOCKHOLM lamp, I think we can all see the resemblance to this, right? I first saw it here but didn't think it would be available yet. There were only two in store. It's really high quality, sturdy and beautiful. I doubt I'll ever own the $800+ real thing so I'm quite content with this. We also bought some shelves for Israel's bedroom, he's becoming a light weight toy collector so I've got to make more room.
We didn't do too much damage, it wasn't a let's-stock-up-for-the-rest-of-the-year trip.
Oh, and a non IKEA item I recently purchased, this cute little German made play stove top. I need to find a better ledge for it but it seems to be the right height on the living room table. He is already pretending to feed me soup from his ladle and turns the knobs. He's by far the best thing I have!
Other Stories
18 comments:
love the eames wood chair in the living room. jealous!ReplyDelete
for your next trip to ikea - we also have that play stove top, and for ages, I put it on top of a Bekvam stool. we put non-slip grip on the edges, and it also functions as a sink step stool and also a small table/chair when my youngest wants to have a snack with me in the kitchen, and now it's used by my oldest at his art table. it's served many purposes in our household!ReplyDelete
for a little while, i also set up that stove in the kitchen by clearing out one of the low cabinets and storing that plus a bunch of toys and empty containers for my son to use when he was small. then i could keep an eye on him while i was cooking. i love that stove!
- AnonymousFebruary 10, 2011
That mushroom bowl! What is it called? A friend has one and I absolutely adore it. But he has no idea where it came from and when I look on the bottom, I don't see any markings.ReplyDelete
Love the little stove. Great when they get cooking early on. Mine love to cook raw chickpeas and coffee beans.ReplyDelete
Love your place, look so calm and relax, and all the things you bought are very, very nice, and your son is so cute those little legs cute, cute : ), my son love to help me make breakfast he think he is a chef : ) . Oh and the strings look perfect.ReplyDelete
I'm looking forward to your posting anytime! Thanks for this your news. I'm interested in a string furniture this time specially. It seems I can get in my country too. Are you set up at dining room?ReplyDelete
like you´r blog,ReplyDelete
have a nice day!
oh the string (& everything else) looks great!ReplyDelete
gorgeous home. and that mini stove is the topper. so chic for the little one. love it!ReplyDelete
ah the string. I've wanted it for so long, but our current rental doesn't let us nail (or screw) anything into the wall. Guess I'll just have to pony up the cash and then hold onto it lovingly until the time is right. Love the Finel mushrooms. I have a big bowl and a handled pot that I just love!!ReplyDelete
ikea can be dangerous! looks like you left with some smart purchases though - i love that lamp!ReplyDelete
Very cool. Love your sense of style.ReplyDelete
I love your Ikea buys ! I considered both the Aspvik and the Alex cabinets at one time for my hall, but ended up going with something else completely. I still wish though I had enough room for either (or both) of them - they're probably my favourite furniture from the Big Blue & Yellow.ReplyDelete
Aaahh, the Stokholm lamp. I saw it in the shop last week and the AJ connection immediately hit me as well :-) Like you, I'll never be able to afford the orginal (it sells for a crazy 700 eur around here), but I might just get this Ikea version for my office area... Luckily, there's an Ikea just around the corner from where my Mum lives - which definitely makes the decision process easier!
I'm dreaming of strings shelfs.. someday..:)ReplyDelete
so perfect, your pictures are amazing. love the white in the LV room, so beautiful and the little guy w/the stove...awww i luv men that cook ;)ReplyDelete
the string shelves look so great. love them. also, where did you get that little stove?! perfect.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 13, 2011
Wow, the lil' boy's stove is awesomeness and I'm wondering where you got that. And is this a new sofa? I coulda sworn I saw 'lighter' version in previous pics (I got your website from AT). And please also tell me where you get the coffee table. I'm in love with your place. You've made such a beautiful home. :)ReplyDelete
that stove is so cool! and I love the highchair! where did you get it?ReplyDelete
Thank you for your comments, I love hearing from you!
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In my preceding post, which happens to be the first part of this post – 2017 YEAR OF THE FIRE ROOSTER FENG SHUI FORECAST BASED ON THE BAZI, FLYING STAR, AND 24 MOUNTAIN STARS FORMULA: A BALANCED CHART BUT A CONFLICTING YEAR (PART 1) -I talked about what the year's Bazi has in store for us. There I talked about how power will play an important role for all of us this year, and how it is quite likely that there is a manmade catastrophe that will happen on the 2nd half of the year. This is quite bothersome on my part because in the previous years, the analysis on the charts has been almost accurate. This started with the Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) to the Nepal Earthquake, and lastly to the financial instability that we are experiencing at the moment. And so if the analysis of the chart is correct again, what may happen may be something big and will be most likely in a political sense.
At any rate, allow me to share with you now the analysis base on the Flying Star Formula and 24 Mountain Stars Formula.
This means that the ruling star of the year is a good star or positive star or White Star. This is quite auspicious because this will in some way temper the challenging Bazi chart (Paht Chee chart) of the year, especially at the beginning to the year. As mentioned the beginning of the year may prove to be quite difficult for people who wants or have some projects to take off, but also towards the 2nd half of the year shows a lot of conflicts on the chart that it may affect a lot of us either personally and professionally and even financially. Although, technically the year proves to have a lot of money making opportunities but this may be hindered by year's conflicting energies. For those who have a very good center in their houses or office will prove to be more successful. This also means the China might become more powerful this year.
This star brings luck to your endeavors. It helps ensure your success. This year the White Victory Star also ensures that people whose bedroom or office is in the center will have wondrous victory luck.
Feng Shui Enhancers:
Put in your bedroom / office or carry or wear one of the following images – Victory Banner, Lung – Ta or Wind Horse, Kuan Kong, or Vajrapani Ruel or Surangama Mantra Amulet.
Note: That if the center of your house or office is a stockroom or washroom /comfort room/ rest room this is really bad and you should try to avoid using that room.
This star is a very good star. It gives you abundance and to some a 'bottomless' pocket filled with money. This star is not just about money wealth but this is also for over – all abundance.
Feng Shui Enhancers:
Faux gold Coins or Bars or Ingots should be place on this sector. Wear an image of a Wealth Deity like the Maitreya Buddha, Kuan Kong, Bodhisattva Earth Store (Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha) or Sun Wukong.
24 Mountains:
This year the Three Killings also found its way to the EAST, Unlike the Tai Suey or the Five Yellow Star, which we must avoid, the 3 – Killings is something that we must confront. Meaning, the best way to deal with it is to face the Three Killings and not turn our back against it. If the 3 Killings is not confronted then it can wreak three kinds of misfortunes to a person. The three misfortunes are accident, financial loss, and illness.
So a good way of dealing with the Three Killings is to place the image of the Three Celestial Guardians or images of three different Buddha, Bodhisattva, Deity or Immortal in the East section of the room, house, office, and building. Those who are staying in the East section of their house, office, building, or room must wear an image of the Three Celestial Guardians or images of three different Buddhas or Bodhisattvas or Deities or Immortals.
The Three Celestial Guardians are the Fu Dog, Chi Lin (also spelled as Qi Lin or Chilin or Chi Lin) and Piyao (also spelled or called Pi Yao, Pi Xiu, Pixiu).
Technically speaking, this is neither a good or bad star. The power of this star is to let you reap whatever you sow. This star basically multiplies whatever karma you accumulate. If you do more good things you'll have more good luck in the future, but if you continue to do a lot of bad things, you multiply your negative karma as well.
Feng Shui Cure:
Two years ago, I didn't put any enhancer or cure recommendations because I want people to be more conscious about what they do. However, a reader told me that there are times that we simply, without intending to be bad, create some things that earn us negative karma. For this I highly recommend either the image of the Medicine Buddha or the symbolic script of the mantra OM AH HUM or OM HANU PASHA BARA HE YE SOHA both of which are on the WISH FULFILLING AND BUDDHA'S BLESSING MANTRA PENDANT. For those who don't have the Wish Fulfilling and Buddha's Blessing Mantra Pendant, you can simply chant the mantras mentioned above or wear the Surangama Mantra Amulet or Vajrapani Ruel.
24 Mountain Stars:
However, the SouthEast has the Yearly Killing Star.
If your bedroom or office is in the SouthEast of the building or house, I suggest that you put a Prayer Wheel. And if the entrance of your house or office is in the Southeast or if the entrance is in the Southeast, I strongly suggest that you carry or wear a Prayer Wheel or wear an image of a Bodhisattva such as Kuan Yin Bodhisattva or Earth Store Bodhisattva made of gold.
Nevertheless, you also have the Small Auspicious Star and this should prove to be a small luck that may make a difference by counteracting the negative effects of the Yearly Killing Star, especially if coupled with an image of Bodhisattva made of gold worn as a pendant.
Feng Shui practitioners all know that this is the most dreadful star amongst all the 4 bad flying stars. In fact, sometimes it doesn't matter whether you're lucky base on your Bazi chart, if you are afflicted with this you are going to face a very challenging year. This year, the Wu Wang is ever more dreadful because it lands on the South sector, maybe not as dreadful as when it landed in the Northeast on 2016 but still it is more dreadful than usual. That is because the South is ruled by the fire element, which produces earth thus making the Wu Wang, an earth element even stronger or powerful. So the effects may be doubled. If you stay (office, room) in this sector or if your house faces this sector or if you are born in the year of the Horse, it's IMPERATIVE that you deal with this star. If you are on a budget and there is only one thing that you can deal with this year, deal with this. I cannot stress enough the importance of dealing with this.
The 5 – Yellow Star is the worst of all negative stars! It's the most dreaded star. It is said to bring 5 different kinds of misfortunes!
And as mentioned this year the Wu Wang is much stronger.
Feng Shui Cure:
AGAIN! AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE MOVE OUT FROM THIS SECTION OR DON'T USE THIS SECTION. If that is not possible, you can also use the Five Element Pagoda (5 – Element Pagoda), and the Kalachakra made of gold. But I only recommended this as a secondary option. There is going to be a slight difference on how you use the Five Element Pagoda. First, make sure you are using a new one, take away the old ones and get a new one. Make sure also that it is something that can be opened (please see image below). Inside the top opening, instead of putting a soil, put a crystal. In that case you will still have use an earth element but with a very positive chi. Then at the bottom opening, you have to put three to five powerful amulets or mantras or sutras. I strongly recommend the following:
- Vajrapani Ruel
- Heart Sutra Amulet
- Surangama Mantra Amulet
- Medicine Buddha Sutra Amulet
- Lama Atisha Amulet
- Diamond Cutter Sutra Amulet
- Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva Kuan Yin Sutra Amulet
- Four Dharmakaya Relic Mantras Amulet
- Illness Suppression Amulet
Please note that you should have at least have 2 of the first three suggestions.
For people who stays in this section of the house or building and if you can't move out of this sector, it is very important that you wear either the Kalachakra (gold, jade or clear quartz) and the Five Element Pagoda (strictly in gold) and also carry with you at least 3 of the mentions amulets that has to be placed inside the Five Element Pagoda. Furthermore, people born in the year of the Horse should also ensure that they wear either the Five Element Pagoda (gold) and the Kalachakra (gold, crystal quartz, jade) and carry the above-mentioned amulets. The logic of this advice will be explained on the forecast for the Horse.
Admittedly, the 5 – Element Pagoda and the Kalachakra pendants can be hard to find, especially you need to wear them in gold. For the Kalachakra pendant you can search the web to look for one, there are some online stores that sell them in gold or clear quartz or jade. It might be a little pricey though. For the Five – Element Pagoda gold pendant, unfortunately, I have been searching the web where to get this but I can only find two sources. One is thru Lillian Too's online store.
The other one is through a private seller. I only have praises for the one sold online in Feng Shui Megamall of Lillian Too, but the only draw back is that it can be quite pricey (relatively speaking) and with the tax and shipping fee involved, it's price is almost doubled.
I also asked my Feng Shui teacher about other alternatives for the cure against the Wu Wang, and as of now it remains to be the 5 – Element Pagoda or (secondary) the Kalachakra and nothing else.
But I'm glad that a reader from Davao has since then provided me a 5 – Element Pagoda and Kalachakra with superb craftsmanship, unlike my previous jeweler, she has also proven to be quite professional and trustworthy. Her Five Element Pagoda pendant and Kalachakra pendant both fashioned in gold which is quite important for the purpose of protection is as good as that of the ones found online but with half or only 1/5 (for the Kalachakra) of the price.
It is worth noting again that for this year the Five – Element Pagoda should include some powerful mantra or sutra amulets and instead of soil put some crystals. For those who will need to wear the Five – Element Pagoda pendant it has to be in gold and carry 3 of the mentioned powerful mantra or sutra amulets above.
It is also important to get these cures early not only because they may be quite difficult to find but also because the energies of 2017 can be felt as early as January of the western calendar.
24 Mountain Stars:
The good news for the people who stays in the South is that unlike last year with the Northeast, this year the South is flank by two small auspicious stars. If you are aptly protected from the strong Five Yellow Star, these small auspicious stars should prove to be quite useful. For people who stays in the South and for Horse born people, it is important to protect yourself from the Wu Wang then enhance this star by wearing the semi – precious stone citrine and victory banner or an image of a Buddha or Bodhisattva pendant made in gold.
The star brings hostility and loss through robbery, theft, or even manipulation. Next to the Five Yellow Star or Wu Wang, this is one of the most dreaded stars. This year people born in the sign of the Sheep and Monkey are affected by this star and those who stays in the Southwest are also side afflicted with the dreaded #5 Flying Star also known as Five Yellow Star. But more on that on the succeeding post. This year because of it's side affliction with the Five Yellow Star or Wu Wang, the Violent Star is made stronger also.
Feng Shui Cure:
Since this is one most the more serious star that we have to take care of, it's important that people whose houses are facing Southwest or simply staying in the Southwest side of their house or office should have the following: Vajrapani Ruel and 5 – Element Pagoda or Kalachakra.
24 Mountain Stars:
While the Southwest is also affected by the Small Auspicious Star, it is also unfortunately side afflicted by the Wu Wang (of the Flying Star Formula) and the Yi Duo. To help counter the negative effect of this star, it is important that you put a Surangama Mantra Amulet or a Traditional Sutra Amulet on this sector. For those who stay on the Southwest, it is important for you to protect yourself from the Yi Duo by wearing a Surangama Mantra Amulet.
The Flying Star #3 also known, as the Argumentative Star is a star that causes relationship problem, numerous bickering, litigation problems, quarrels and problems/conflicts with people in authority. If not controlled and suppressed, this star will bring about tremendous problems with your family and officemates or business partners. It can also cause a lot of unnecessary legal issues. This star has to be suppressed.
Feng Shui Cure:
The best cures for this star are either the Ksitigarbha Fireball or the Nine – Ring Sword of Kuan Kong. The image of Kuan Kong is also a very good cure for this star. People affected by this star can wear or carry an image of the cures. The Maitreya Buddha also known as the Happy Fat Buddha is also a great help. These are what I normally recommend. But lately I noticed that another great cure for this are the Surangama Mantra Amulet and Kuan Yin with Heart Sutra Pendant. However, for this year, it is highly recommended because of the Fire Element of the Rooster, which resides in the West, might make this star a little stronger than usual. So instead of simply using the Ksitigarbha Fireball, it might help to have Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva (Earth Store Bodhisattva) himself. You can place His image on this sector or for those people whose office or bedroom is in this sector should wear the image of Earth Store Bodhisattva pendant made of gold.
24 Mountain Stars:
This year the Three Killings also found its way to the EAST which is the opposition position of the West, thus making it facing the Three Killing. Unlike the Tai Suey or the Five Yellow Star, which we must avoid, the 3 – Killings is something that we must confront. Meaning, the best way to deal with it is to face the Three Killings and not turn our back against it. If the 3 Killings is not confronted then it can wreak three kinds of misfortunes to a person. The three misfortunes are accident, financial loss, and illness.
So a good way of dealing with the Three Killings is to place the image of the Three Celestial Guardians or images of three different Buddha, Bodhisattva, Deity or Immortal in the East section of the room, house, office, and building. Those who are staying in the East section of their house, office, building, or room must wear an image of the Three Celestial Guardians or images of three different Buddhas or Bodhisattvas or Deities or Immortals.
The Three Celestial Guardians are the Fu Dog, Chi Lin (also spelled as Qi Lin or Chilin or Chi Lin) and Piyao (also spelled or called Pi Yao, Pi Xiu, Pixiu).
However, it should be noted that this year, the Tai Suey God is in the West. It has to be noted that Tai Suey is not part of the Flying Star or 24 Mountain Star but we need to always take this into consideration because offending the Tai Suey will create a lot of bad luck.
The Taoists, where most of how we do Feng Shui originated, believes that a certain God called Tai Suey or Tai Sui or Grand Duke in English rules a year. This year 2017, Tai Sui of the year is General Tang Jie (唐杰). However, you have to understand a little about Taoist Gods for you to be able to understand why we have to be careful in dealing with the Tai Suey.
Taoist Gods are like humans with supernatural powers. They have magical and godly powers but they may also have human temperament and they also have characters and personalities. Meaning, they can get angry with our acts, they can be disturbed and get angry with us and thus render a punishment to us, or maybe the simple act of them getting irritated with us might create some misfortune. However, they can also be appease and happy with us and render us some good blessings, or again, the simple act of the Tai Suey getting happy with us will create some good fortune.
To help ensure that Tai Suey is happy with us always carry an image of the Pi Yao or Pi Xiu. This celestial animal will help appease the Grand Duke or Tai Suey. Another image that can help manage the Tai Suey God is to carry, display or wear an image of the Wind Horse or Lung Ta. People born in the year of the Roosters and Rabbits are directly affected by the Tai Suey God (also spelled as Tai Sui, Tai Sue) regardless of where there room is, also affected are the Horse and Rat, and they should have the Piyao. Also, if your door faces Weast, or if your bedroom and office is in the West you should also put the image of the Piyao. People who are occupying the West also should wear or carry the image of the Piyao. Also one of the best protections for the Tai Suey is an image of the Goddess of the North Star or Dou Mu Yuan Jun, thus having her image is also highly advisable.
As the name implies, this star causes illness and to some extent it can be fatal or terminal. This star also causes some accidents that may make you invalid for a long time if not permanently. Everybody who stays in this sector is affected.
Feng Shui Cure:
To counter the effects of this star, it is important that one constantly recite the Sutra of the Medicine Buddha and the Medicine Buddha Mantra (TADYATHA OM BHEKANDZYE BHEKANDZYE MAHA BHEKANDZYE RADZA SAMUGATE SOHA). Secondary cure for this displaying a Wu Lou (also spelled as Wulou) or Holy Gourd and putting it at the Northwest of the house.
Last year my Guru Lama has come up with a special Illness Suppression Amulet and that is he has combined three of the most powerful anti – illness and anti – accident mantras, which he has consecrated under the Tooth Relic of Shakyamuni Buddha and included some powerful Dharma Pills.
I shall write about the Dharma Pills in my succeeding post. But basically a Dharma Pill is a special small object that is made of second-class relics of high lamas and is highly consecrated. Please note consecration is better than simply blessing it.
The mantras that are included in this Illness Suppression Amulet are the Medicine Buddha Mantra printed in a blue paper, Namgyalma Mantra and White Umbrella Goddess Mantra printed on a white paper, and Amitayus Mantra printed on a red paper. Aside from wearing this, this should definitely be in the Northwest sector of the house or office. For this year, my Guru Lama has made an enhanced 'version' of this amulet. I still don't have it but will see it soon.
24 Mountain Stars:
The Illness Star in this sector is further strengthened by the Yin Chia Xing star of the 24 Mountain Stars; this is a star that will definitely make the Illness Star stronger. To help counter this star, it is quite important for one to have the Traditional Sutra Amulet on this sector. If you stay in this sector also it is important to have a Traditional Sutra Amulet (small size) in your body or a Vajrapani Ruel or a Surangama Mantra Amulet.
The good news is that this sector also has two Golden Deity stars of the 24 Mountain Stars formula. This is one of the most auspicious stars one can have, and it should help to counter the effects of the Illness Star and the Yin Chia Xing. To activate this star, it will be very well to invite a golden image of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva or a Deity or Taoist God. However, my suggestion is since Earth Store Bodhisattva is an image that plays a very important role this year.
This star helps set the 'tone' of the year for people whose office, or room is in the North side of the house or building. Meaning, if you continuously do more good the more blessed you're going to be. This also means that if you're Chinese Animal Zodiac is not so good, you will have help from Heaven (Buddha, Bodhisattvas, Deities, Immortals, or Saints). This also means that you'll be lucky enough to have people who will help you achieve your goal.
Feng Shui Enhancers:
In your room or office put some crystal ball or 6 White Jade tied with a red string. People who are staying in this sector and people born in the year of the Rat will do well if they invite an image of a Buddha or Bodhisattva or Deity or Immortal by wearing their image as a pendant. I personally suggest one of the following: Kuan Kong, Avalokitesvara aka Kuan Yin, Maitreya Buddha aka Happy Fat Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, Medicine Buddha, Yellow Dzambhala, Green Tara and Earth Store Bodhisattva.
The #6 Flying Star is a star ruled by the metal element and North is ruled by the water element. If it is the other way around their relationship would have been on a productive cycle, however, at this state they are on a exhaustive cycle, so it means it may weaken this star, so it is quite important to enhance this star by putting any of the above recommendations that is made of metal.
The good news this sector is further strengthened by the Big Auspicious star. However, there is also the Annual Conflict star, which may dampen the effects of the good star. You can remedy this by placing a Vajrapani Ruel or a Traditional Sutra Amulet on this sector of the house or building or bedroom or office.
If the Northeast was the worst sector in 2016, it is now one of the best sectors despite of a presence of a strong negative star from the 24 Mountain Star formulas.
Romance luck is heightened if your room is on this side of the house. For single people, you might have the possibility of finding love. For partnered people, you might find your love getting more 'fragrant'. However, for married couple the effect might be two fold. First, you might find yourself loving each other more deeply, but there might also be the possibility of a third party getting involved. It is also called Scholastic Star because it also has a good effect on the scholastic pursuits of a person. Meaning, students may become more studious, and professionals might find that it's easier to understand documents.
Feng Shui Enhancer:
For single person you can put a Rose Quartz Mandarin Ducks on your bedside. For married couple, you can hang the Double Happiness on your headboard. To safeguard yourself from a third party, tie an Amethyst Geode with Red String on the foot of your bed or ask your partner to wear a gold image of Kuan Kong. You can also use the power of Green Tara to ensure that this star works for the positive only. For those single people hoping to find love, you can also wear a Surangama Mantra Amulet or gold Kuan Yin Bodhisattva (also called or spelled as Avalokitesvara, Kannon, Guan Yin, Guan Shi Yin, Kuan Shi Yin) pendant.
While this sector also has the Robbery star, a star that has to be taken seriously because robbery here doesn't only mean physical / material robbery but also as well as ideas, businesses, or more importantly the greater possibility of having a third party for those who are married or attached who stays in this sector. For those who are in business this may means losing some business opportunities. Nevertheless, it is quite to remedy this, one simply has to put a Vajrapani Ruel or a Traditional Sutra Amulet in the said sector of their office and/or house.
But the good news is that this sector also houses two very auspicious stars, and that is the Big Auspicious star that will surely bring a lot of good things, but also it has the Earth Seal, and this star is one of the most besotted star. For this year, where one needs strong power to really be able to tap into once wealth luck the Earth Seal will show that it gives you a boost of power. However, like in any other years where the Earth Seal appears, this is a star that needs to be activated. One can do this by putting more crystals, especially Citrine on this sector. Also one very powerful way, if this sector is not a bedroom or bathroom or a toilet, putting an image of the Earth Store Bodhisattva (also known as Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva) made of metal is a very powerful image to use to boost the full potential of the Earth Seal.
To better understand what's in store for this 2017 Year of the Fire Rooster please read the other posts about it:
- 2017 Year of the Fire Rooster Feng Shui Forecast Base on Bazi, Flying Star, and 24 Mountain Stars Formula: A Balanced Chart But Conflicting Year (Part 1)
- 2017 Year of the Fire Rooster Feng Shui Forecast Base on Bazi Chart, Flying Stars Formula, and 24 Mountain Stars Formula: A Balance Chart But A Conflicting Year! (Part 2)
- 2017 Year of the Fire Rooster Feng Shui Forecast for the 12 Chinese Animal Zodiac Signs (Chinese Horoscope)!
For comments, suggestions and questions please email firstname.lastname@example.com


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A Week Spent in Polluted Air Can Increase Risk; Potentially Large Impact on Public Health
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Laura J. Martin, MD
Feb. 14, 2012 -- A new study shows that as little as a week in a place with high levels of air pollution raises the risk of heart attack.
The additional risk is slight compared with classic heart attack risk factors like high blood pressure, smoking, or diabetes. But researchers say it's significant because many people are exposed to air pollution, and heart disease is the leading cause of death in industrialized countries.
"Thus, an improvement in air quality could have a significant effect on public health," researcher Hazrije Mustafic, MD, MPH, of the University of Paris Descartes, and colleagues write in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Air Pollution Linked to Heart Attacks
Researchers say the potentially dangerous effects of high air pollution on health have been suspected for many years. But this is the first study to show even short-term exposure to air pollution is enough to increase the near-term risk of heart attack.
In their study, researchers analyzed the results of 34 studies on the association between short-term exposure to air pollution (up to seven days) and the subsequent risk of heart attack.
The air pollutants included in the review were ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter.
The results showed all major air pollutants, with the exception of ozone, were associated with a slight increase in heart attack risk.
Researchers say there are several possible explanations for the association between air pollution and heart attack.
For example, previous studies have shown that exposure to air pollution increases inflammation, which is linked to heart attack risk.
In addition, research has shown that exposure to air pollution may increase the heart rate and may make the blood more likely to form potentially dangerous clots.
Healthy Heart Resources
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©2012 WebMD, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


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Videos | May 24, 2013
Cosmic Swirly Straws Feed Galaxy
Created with the help of supercomputers, this simulation shows the formation of a massive galaxy during the first 2 billion years of the universe. Hydrogen gas is gray, young stars appear blue, and older stars are red. The simulation reveals that gas flows into galaxies along filaments akin to cosmic bendy, or swirly, straws.


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Pope Gregory XIV (1535-1591)
Pope Gregory XIV, born Nicolo Sfondrati, reversed the bull of Pope Sixtus V, Effraenatum, under which an abortion at any time of gestation can be punished by excommunication. He supported the Aristotelian distinction between an "animated" and "unanimated" fetus, making abortion of an unanimated fetus punishable by lesser means. This decision contributed to the historical debates within the Roman Catholic Church on when a fetus has a soul, and when abortion was punishable by excommunication.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Religion, Reproduction
Eclipse of Reason (1987)
Eclipse of Reason is a 1987 anti-abortion documentary film directed, filmed, and narrated by Bernard Nathanson, an obstetrician in the US. American Portrait Films released the film in 1987 featuring Nathanson's commentary and footage of an abortion of a four-month-old fetus. The film also featured the testimony of women who had suffered following similar procedures. In Eclipse of Reason, Nathanson equates the fetus to a person, likening abortion procedures to murder and arguing for the illegalization of abortion.
Format: Articles
Pope Pius IX (1792-1878)
Pope Pius IX, born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, marked his contribution to the abortion debate by removing the distinction between an "animated" and "unanimated" fetus from Catholic doctrine, and established the edict that a human should be protected starting from the moment of conception onward. This proclamation made abortion at any time of gestation punishable by excommunication. Pope Pius IX's decision became Canon Law of the Catholic Church.
Format: Articles
Subject: People, Religion, Reproduction
"Misericordia et Misera" Section 12 (2016) by Pope Francis of the Catholic Church
Misericordia et Misera (Mercy with Misery) was a letter written by Pope Francis and published in Rome, Italy, on 20 November 2016. Through the letter, Pope Francis gives priests the ability to grant forgiveness for abortion. Before Pope Francis's letter, priests had some ability to grant forgiveness for the Catholic sin of abortion, but bishops had to grant that ability to the priests individually. Prior to the letter, the official rules of the Catholic Church did not state that priests could forgive abortion-related sins.
Format: Articles
Subject: Publications, Religion


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MPs raise concerns over new tax powers in Budget
Plans to allow the tax authority to settle unpaid demands by taking money from people's bank accounts have been criticised by a group of MPs.
The Treasury Committee says it is very concerned because tax officials have a history of making mistakes.
Chancellor George Osborne unveiled the plan at this year's Budget.
But in a wide-ranging report, the committee did welcome another Budget plan - to allow greater flexibility on how pension savings can be used.
In the Budget, Mr Osborne outlined plans for new powers for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to recover tax debts from anyone who owes more than £1,000 in tax or in tax credits.
This would allow the tax authority to seize the tax owed directly from debtors' bank accounts.
HMRC Performance
But the committee said the plan was problematic owing to HMRC's performance in the past when it has failed to accurately calculate tax bills.
"People should pay the right amount of tax. But HMRC does not always ask for the right amount," said committee chairman Andrew Tyrie.
"Some taxpayers may find money taken from their accounts that later should be paid back. That would be unacceptable."
He said the committee also had "deep reservations" about changes to tax policy that would require upfront payment of any disputed tax associated with tax avoidance schemes.
"Retrospection should be considered only in wholly exceptional circumstances. The latest measure would have to be justified on those grounds," Mr Tyrie said.
"Retrospection puts policy on a slippery path to arbitrary taxation, discouraging investment and innovation and creating the scope for great unfairness."
Committee member Mark Garnier, a Conservative MP, said at the moment HMRC needed a court order to be able to seize money from accounts.
The committee is concerned that the current system of checks and balances could be upset.
"What we worry about is... that essentially HMRC will be acting as judge and jury," Mr Garnier told the BBC.
HMRC recently explained how the system will work.
It will only target those who have long-term debts and have received at least four demands for payment and will ensure that at least £5,000 is left in total across all debtor's accounts, including savings accounts, after the unpaid tax is seized.
HMRC will freeze the amount owed in accounts for 14 days to allow time for a debtor to pay before the money is seized.
The Low Incomes Tax Reform Group has called on HMRC to give more concrete assurances about the right to appeal against any seizure.
But the ACCA accountancy body, which after the Budget described the plans as "seriously draconian", now calls them "less fearsome than first thought" after more detail was published.
"On paper, the safeguards look relatively robust, and the reality is it is unlikely that anyone will be left penniless," said Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the ACCA..
The plans are now going through a consultation process. If approved by Parliament, they will take effect in 2015-16.
The Treasury committee also called for pensions and savings to be taxed in the same way.
The most eye-catching measure in Mr Osborne's Budget was a plan that effectively abolishes the requirement for some people to buy an annuity - a retirement income for life.
From next year millions of people reaching retirement age will be able to spend their pension pot in any way they want, including cashing in their pension savings in one, taxed, lump sum. Temporary rules are in place in the meantime.
The committee said that all of the witnesses it heard from welcomed the "greater flexibility and choice" that the reforms proposed.
However, it said the guidance that was being promised ahead of retirement should be clear and at least offer an opportunity of face-to-face help.
The changes are likely to lead to the creation of a variety of new financial products for retirees, and the committee said these must be sold responsibly.
"Following the financial crisis, and the mis-selling scandals, the reputation of the industry is under scrutiny," said Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the committee.
He added that it would be a "great prize" were the tax treatment of pensions and savings treated in the same way.
The chancellor announced an extension to the amount that could be saved in an tax-free Individual Savings Account (Isa) from 1 July 2014 to up to £15,000 either as cash or shares.


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Throw Your Own Hollywood-Inspired Oscar Party! Here's How!
You've seen all the movies, you've picked all the winners, and you're taking bets for who's going to wear what. Now, the only thing left is a few friends and a cocktail shaker! We consulted a super Mixologist — plus a few of the hottest venues in NYC — for creative cocktails you can serve during the Academy Awards on Sunday Mar. 7.
Charlotte Voisey, an Mixologist for spirits company William Grant and Sons, has created three sexy cocktails, based on this year's best flicks! Grab a bottle of Stolichnaya, and whip up a batch of drinks based on best picture nominations Avatar and A Serious Man. Rooting for George Clooney in Up In The Air? Try Charlotte's super fancy recipe for a very different take on champagne!
Or, maybe you don't care about the movies, and just like to look at all the pretty celebrities! Try the Celeb-U-Bot from New York City hotspot 1Oak. Don't care about the movies or the celebs? You can still have an Oscar party! Whip up a batch of Hurt Locker shots from Manhattan restaurant Southern Hospitality … and you'll be hurting the next day! Check out all the recipes below!
1 oz Stolichnaya
½ kiwi fruit
½ oz Bols Blue Curacao,
½ oz fresh lemon juice
½ oz simple syrup
Muddle kiwi, add other ingredients and shake well
Serve over ice in a rocks glass
Garnish with a starfruit slice
Up in the Air
1 oz Stoli Elit
1 brown sugar cube
2 dashes angostura bitters
4 oz champagne
Build in a flute
A Serious Man (Based on the classic Stolichnaya Mule)
1 ½ oz Stolichnaya
4 oz ginger beer
Build ingredients over ice in a tall glass
Squeeze and drop in half a lime
Hurt Locker shots from NYC restaurant Southern Hospitality
Jack daniels
Sour mix
Splash of Sprite
Celeb_U_Bot cocktail from NYC's 1OAK
2 ½ parts SVEDKA Clementine
½ part lemon juice
½ part simple syrup [ or 1 tsp of sugar ]
Topped with soda water


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You can conveniently check the status of any Brussels Airlines-operated flight to/from Brussels.
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Winnipeg is the capital city of the province of Manitoba and is the seventh largest municipality in Canada. The city is named after nearby Lake Winnipeg and is situated at the crossing of the rivers Assiniboine and Red, often referred to as The Forks.
Nowadays, The Forks is known as a shopping and entertainment district and one of the favourite places in Winnipeg. Spot local artisan creations, enjoy regional cuisine or just relax by the riverside. Other attraction highlights include the Assiniboine Park, the Manitoba Museum and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, known for its unique design and one of the most important landmarks of the city.
The area of Winnipeg used to be a gathering place for aboriginal people for many centuries. Up until today, you can still see their heritage in this multicultural and folklore city. Winnipeg's history is celebrated every summer during many festivals with Folklorama being the most important and the world's largest multicultural festival.
If you wish to enjoy the beautiful and still wild nature surrounding Winnipeg, there are many directions to go to. For a one day getaway you can head to Fort Whyte Alive, a 259 hectares area with several lakes, grassy parklands and bog boardwalks. It's the perfect place for a canoe or kayak trip or for a long walk to watch and spot bison herds.


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One of the Institute's primary objectives is to encourage the interdisciplinary study of hate. As one means of accomplishing this goal, we are collecting and making available on our site syllabi from faculty on courses that are related to hate studies. We aim to provide a wide array of hate studies related educational resources in order to aid others who may be interested in designing a hate studies course. If you are interested in submitting your syllabus, please e-mail it to firstname.lastname@example.com. If you know someone who teaches a related class, please forward this web page to him or her and request that he or she submit their syllabus for posting.
- Hate in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Dr. Jennifer Schlegel, Kutztown University, Spring 2006
- Hate Studies in Business
Gonzaga Business Faculty, Spring 2010
- Communicative and Social Cognitive Foundations of Hate
Dr. Michael S. Waltman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Criminal Justice
- Hate Crimes
Dr. Ben Fleury-Steiner
- Hate Crime and Extremism
Prof. Brian Levin, CSU, San Bernardino, Winter 2006
- Hate Crimes
William C. Smith, Davis College, Fall 2009
- Hate Crime
Valerie Jenness, Fall 2004
- Hate Crime - General Education
Phyllis Gerstenfeld, J.D., Ph.D., CSU Stanislaus, Fall 2005
- Hate Crimes and Enforcement
Dr. Gregg Etter Sr., University of Mississippi, Spring 2006
- Racialization of Muslims: From the "Old World" to the "New World Order" Prof. Hadi Khoshneviss, Doctoral Candidate, University of South Florida, Fall 2019
- Antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Racism
Dr. H. Freidenreich, Temple University, Spring 2005
- Why We Hate
Prof. Matthew Hoffman, Fall 2009
Interdisciplinary Studies
- Current Issues in the Law: Hate Crimes
Prof. Bern Haggerty, Winter 2010
Political Science
- Politics of Difference: Ethnicity/Race, Class, Gender and Sexualities
Dr. V. Spike Peterson, Univ. of Arizona, Spring 2006
- Politics of Extremism
Dr. Arnold Leder, Texas State University
- Politics of Hate and Psychology of Prejudice, Discrimination and Hate
Dr. Paul Kriese & Dr. Randall Osborne, Indiana University East/Texas State, Spring 2010
- Psychology of Discrimination
Prof. Alexandra Corning, Fall 2003
- Psychology of Hate
Toni L. Bisconti, Ph.D., Fall 2005
- Psychology of Prejudice
Pamela L. Gist, Ph.D., Mount Saint Mary's College, Spr. 2007
- Psychology of Tolerance, Social Justice and Hate Crimes
Dr. Sharon L. Williams, Western New England College
- I, Too, Sing America: Talking about Racism and Other Difficult Topics
Charles Behling, Winter 2007
- Stereotyping and Prejudice Across Cultures
Prof. Nyla Branscombe, University of Kansas, Spring 2007
- Violence Against Women
Dr. Karol Dean, Spring 2007
Public Policy
- Prejudice and Discrimination: Psychological Bases and Policy Implications
Prof. Jack Glaser, UC Berkeley, Spring 2006
- Prejudice and Discrimination
Prof. Jack Glaser, UC Berkeley, Fall 2006
Social Work
- Human Behavior and the Social Environment
Eunice Matthews-Armstead, Ph.D., LCSW, Eastern Connecticut State University, Fall 2005
- Organizational, Community and Societal Structures and Processes
Jose A. Tapia, Univ. of Michigan, Fall 2006
- Bias Crimes
Dr. Randy Blazak, Portland State University, Winter 2005
- Race and Ethnic Relations (Graduate)
Prof. Dwaine E. Plaza
- Social Inequality
Dr. Mark Edwards, Summer 2004
- Sociology of Prejudice and Hate (Graduate)
Jack Levin, Winter 2001
- Sociology of Prejudice and Violence
Jack Levin, Winter 2004
- Sociology of Prejudice and Violence (Graduate)
Jack Levin, Fall 2003
- Why People Hate: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Gonzaga Faculty, Spring 2010
- Ethics of Power and Racism
Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, Catholic Theological Union
Women's and Gender Studies
- Our Culture of Violence: Aspects of Gender, Sexuality, Race and Religion
Ann Sheperdson, University of Vermont
- Power, Privilege and Gender
Prof. Tamara Berg, WSU Fall 2003
Teaching a Class
- Resources for Teaching about the White Supremacist Movement
Collected by Abby L. Ferber
- Teaching a General Education Class - This link is to an article about the challenges and solutions of teaching a general education course on hate crimes written by Phyllis Gerstenfeld.


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Heidelberg University Hospital
Specialist field: Oncological surgery
Prof. Dr. Markus W. Büchler
Im Neuenheimer Feld 110
69120 Heidelberg
Tel. +49 (0) 6221 566 202
International Office:
Im Neuenheimer Feld 672
69120 Heidelberg
Simone Bornschlegl
Tel. + 49 (0) 6221 56 6243
Professor Markus W. Büchler
Managing Director of the Department of Surgery at Heidelberg University Hospital and Director of the European Pancreas Centre
The European Pancreas Centre in Heidelberg is among the leading centres in the world for the treatment of pancreatic disease. Under the stewardship of Professor Büchler, the European Pancreas Centre is able to offer the very highest level of treatment thanks to its highly qualified staff and state-of-the-art equipment.
Every year, we treat more than 2,500 patients and perform more than 600 surgical procedures on the pancreas.
The goal of the centre is to provide you with our know-how and the benefit of our long years of experience in interdisciplinary collaboration here in Heidelberg, all under one roof. A large team of specialist physicians assures you of comprehensive care and the best possible treatment outcomes. All departments are located within close proximity of each other so that team members are able to discuss and coordinate not only diagnosis, surgery and conservative treatment but also nutritional advice and counselling – in the best interests of the patient:
The centre's intensive involvement in research means that it is always at the forefront of medical knowledge. Our European Pancreas Centre is part of an international network of similar institutes, through which we stay informed about innovations and new developments in the field of pancreatic diseases throughout the world. Our patients are first to benefit from the latest therapeutic discoveries.
Together with the National Centre for Tumour Diseases (NCT) at Heidelberg University Hospital, the European Pancreas Centre runs a large number of clinical trials in which the latest drugs are used to treat pancreatic tumours.
In addition to those patients who come to the centre directly, we also provide care for patients referred to us from all over the world via internet and telephone consultation. The number of online enquiries, telephone consultations and second opinions that we process is rising continually: every month, we receive around 500 phone calls and emails. Around 20 per cent of enquiries come from outside Germany. In total, we process approximately 4,500 external contacts per year.
Specialist areas of treatment:
The centre is committed to providing you with the best possible treatment and assuring all patients of as pleasant a stay as possible at Heidelberg University Hospital.
두 가지 유용한 조합(브라우저 확대/축소):
확대: +
축소: +
다음 아이콘을 클릭하여 브라우저 공급자에서 기타 도움말을 받으십시오:


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They're predicting Hurricane Ike will turn north once the high pressure zone in the upper atmosphere weakens, when happens is what'll affect where Ike strikes. We'll probably know more Wednesday afternoon or evening. In the meanwhile, I've seen comments on blogs like SciGuy's about people pretty far inland planning on evacuating, and making reservations in hotels much further inland.
I don't know all these early-evac folks' stories, maybe some of them have elderly family members, or a family member dependent on machines for livng (had my son lived, he would have needed power for daily peritoneal dialysis). But I saw a few commenters writing they would probably evacuate because they didn't want to be without power with a toddler — one lived NW of Houston!, while the other lived further south than I do, and I'd evacuate from where she lived.
On the flip side, there were a few coastal commenters wondering if they should evacuate…um YES!
As for me, although I'm nervous about the four trees surrounding my house, I'll probably ride it out just to avoid another panic-induced mass exodus. However, if the evacuation goes much smoother with the new Contraflow plan, and Ike makes a sharp turn north to threaten Houston, AND becomes a category 4, I might do a last minute evacuation. But no way would I prevent people south of me, that are in more danger, from escaping as long as they leave in their allotted priority timeslot. I got into a comment-argument with someone in the NW part of Houston defending their right to evacuate anytime they wanted, the coastal folks be damned — she didn't exactly say that, but AFAIK she might as well had said it exactly like that! It reminds me of the scene in Titanic where they locked the gates preventing the below-decks from escaping.
Meanwhile, I started freezing water bottles to build up thermal mass, and have cool potable water. I'll check NHC's 5-day forecast right before hubby leaves for work, and if they have Ike shifting north towards my area, I'll take hubby to work so I can fill up both tanks on the truck, and see if the supplies have started flying off the shelves yet.


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Emails aren't received in Yahoo Mail
Not getting the emails you expect is frustrating. Use these steps to identify if there's an issue with your account or the sender's account that's preventing the messages from arriving.
Check if your account has any errors
Sign in to your Yahoo Mail account on a computer and send yourself an email.
- If you get an error - address that to fix the issue.
- If you don't get an error - your account is working as expected.
Check your account settings
These settings can prevent email from getting to your Inbox:
- Reply-to address - Make sure your reply-to address is blank.
- Blocked address - The sender may have been blocked by mistake.
- Spam folder - Check your spam folder to see if the email was incorrectly marked.
- Email filters - Check your filters to see if the email could've arrived in another folder.
Have the sender check their account
If you didn't find anything wrong with your account, then the issue is on the sender's side.
- Make sure they entered your full email address correctly.
- Suggest they contact their email provider for further assistance.


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Baymule wrote:I have a 8 year old gelding from a kill pen. Chestnut, chrome on all 4 legs, blaze, 13 hands, fantastic kid horse. Friendly, follow you anywhere, great little horse. He was skinny, but roly-poly now, easy keeper. Cost $800 and worth every penny.
There are some real nice horses that go to slaughter that don't deserve to be there. I support horse slaughter because some horses are just crazy or dangerous, sick, crippled or whatever. But some just don't belong there.
there is some good ones that that end up in a kill pen BUT I think most that end up there is there for a reason. I was at Ozark Mule Days this past week end and saw a nice-good mule that was a rescue from a kill pen when he was , if I understood them right, 2 yrs. old and now I think they said he is 9. so yes he was a good young mule that ended up in a kill pen but as for and older mule that's been rode and used if it end up in a kill pen I bet more times than not he has a real problem of some kind. Horses may be a little different being there is more of them, more good ones may end up there. I have also seen a bunch that needed to be there that never went because some tender heated person would not send them there. Mater of fact I saw a couple mules this week end that I told the guy I was with if they were mine they would be taking a one way trip on the ''kill wagon''. A few years ago I had a big nice mare she rode good and could turn on a dime but every few days she had to buck a couple times and some times if you got close to her she would run backwards to try to kick you and some times when you went to get in the saddle she would try to kick at you. Well she did it one times to many and I sent a very pretty ,well built , young mare on that one way trip I call the ''Kill Wagon'' I think it is a great way to get rid of out laws, yes some good ones will end up there and some out laws never will get what they need but it beats shooting them and feeding them to the coyotes. just my 2 cents I know not every one agrees.


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In Conversation with Katherena Vermette
Katherena Vermette is a Métis writer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her collection of poetry, North End Love Songs, won the 2013 Governor General's Award for Poetry, and her debut novel The Break has won numerous awards and was a Canada Reads 2017 finalist. Most recently, she won the 2017 Canadian Screen Award for her documentary This River.


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Pompeii declared in state of emergency
The Italian government has declared Pompeii, the Roman town destroyed once by the eruption of Vesuvius and now again by 250 years of crappy excavation/looting/tourist hoards, in a state of emergency.
Archaeologists and art historians have long complained about the poor upkeep of Pompeii, dogged by lack of investment, mismanagement, litter and looting. Bogus tour guides, illegal parking attendants and stray dogs also plague visitors. […]
The "state of emergency", which the government said would last for a year, allows for extra funds and special measures to be taken to protect the site.
"Every year at least 150 square metres of fresco and plaster work are lost for lack of maintenance," Antonio Irlando, a regional councillor responsible for artistic heritage, told the newspaper.
"The same goes for stones: at least 3,000 pieces every year end up disintegrating," he said.
A third of the town is still underground, lucky bugger. Had it been excavated it would be as hosed as the rest of the site, and it can't be excavated because it is currently covered by garbage from Naples, currently mired in a refuse crisis.
I've been reading a book about Pompeii over the past week, a lovely glossy book with all the latest finds and gorgeous pictures. It's amazing how often they describe something that was excavated years ago and now only exists in some Grand Tour watercolors and journals, or described in 100-year-old books.
Here's an example to chill your bones. To the left is a painting of a wall fresco of Venus from when it was found in the House of the Vestal Virgins in the 18th century. On the right is what is left of that wall fresco today.
Like a kick in the groin, ain't it?
Don't even get me started on that bastard Charles III, Bourbon king of Naples and Spain, who brutally mined the site for his personal collection after its rediscovery in 1748, even going so far as to knock down frescoed walls that were not deemed good enough to steal for his personal museum.
Pompeii has been looted pretty much non-stop since that day, and earlier by locals who knew where it was. Even as I type someone is tunneling in with a chisel and stripping entire walls of frescoes off to sell to art dealer pieces of shit like Giacomo Medici and Bob Hecht, may they rot in jail for seculum seculorum amen.
Here's hoping the extra money this state of emergency declaration brings with it will help stem the tide of destruction. I can't say I'm hugely optimistic at this point.
(For more on the neato photomontage above, visit Pompeii – A Different Perspective.)