National Geographic explored the ways that an extremely crowded country copes with rising sea levels in the May, 2011 issue. Stunning story about Bangladesh loaded with daunting statistics, including incredible photography.
Rick Santorum exudes an unbelievable hypocrisy over abortion. You can read the article here. Basically, Mr. Santorum has it in mind to use the law to prohibit a medical procedure his wife had to go through in order to save her life. As the piece makes clear, in October of 1996, Karen Santorum underwent an abortion in the 19th week of pregnancy in order to save her life from an infected fetus. She had a 105 degree temperature. She would have died without the procedue. Santorum would make that option illegal. Basically, his position seems to be that sacrificing his wife for the fetus would be his choice now. This overlooks the fact that had they not done the procedure, the fetus would not have survived, either. He would have lost both. Sacrifices to his conscience, which seems incapable of the kind of triage humans must make all the time. Well and good, some people just can’t go there. But this man is running for president. He intends that his personal inability to cope be made a national policy of denying anyone the choice of coping. [More . . . ]
Much to my surprise, I recently was diagnosed with melanoma. Fortunately, I was suspicious of a skin spot, and showed it to a dermatologist. He shrugged and said, "probably not," but cut it off for a biopsy. A week later he called and told me to see a surgeon ASAP. I now am scheduled for minor surgery and further biopsy. The prognosis is, "Don't worry about it." Then a friend from high school shared this video with me, and told me that he's been inspired by my post to see a dermatologist to check out his spots. What you don't know can kill you. Had I ignored the spot, I might have lived another decade before it killed me. I knew a fellow who had a mole burned off, a couple of times, before someone bothered to biopsy it. By then, they gave him 6 months. But he was an athletic individual who wouldn't quit, and lived five years. But those last couple of years were hardly living, in terms of quality of life.
I had never before seen a video that so clearly demonstrated the terrible power of the recent tsunami. As I watched, I kept wondering how many people were caught up in these scenes
Listen to the first two minutes and you'll be hooked on his main story: He held his breath for 17 minutes.