Injustice in the U.S. Justice System

posted by JasperC on Jul 20

Story By: by Brian X. Chen

It’s Friday evening, and as usual I’m meeting some friends, John and Rana, for dinner at 6. In a text message John suggests Alborz, a Persian place I’ve never been to, located in Pac Heights, San Francisco. The clock strikes 5:45 as I step into the elevator and launch the app Magic Taxi. I tap the “Book ride” button, and the app says to expect a cab to pick me up at Wired headquarters in about three minutes. It tells me the driver’s name is “Raj S.” and the estimated cost of the fare is $12.

While I wait on the sidewalk for Raj to arrive, I launch the Yelp app to look up the address of Alborz. “1245 Van Ness Ave (between Sutter and Hemlock).” It’s now 5:48, and I look up as a cab pulls in front of me. That really is pretty damn magical, I think to myself.

“Hey, Raj,” I say as I open the car door. He looks mildly disturbed.

“Can you take me to Van Ness and Sutter please?”

“Sure thing, boss,” he says, with just a hint of an Indian accent.

My phone buzzes. Rana texts, saying she’ll be a few minutes late (typical Rana). “No worries,” I type in response.

“So where do you work?” Raj asks.

“Oh, I write for Wired, the technology publication,” I chirp.

“Wired!” he says. “I love Wired! So that means you get to play with a lot of cool gadgets, huh?”

“Sometimes. I mostly cover Apple, actually, so I write lots of stuff about the iPhone. It’s lots of fun — documenting how this technology is impacting us on a big-picture level.”

Raj’s tone of voice changes. “Okay — so bear with me for a second — you’re a good guy to talk to about this.”

I hit the power button on my iPhone to put it to sleep. “Uh huh?”

“So I think it’s incredible that the iPhone has changed everything, and technology has done some pretty amazing things for us. But consider this: It’s making us stupider than ever before.”

I laugh. “Go on.”

“No, really! It’s making us idiotic. We rely on all this technology to tell us where things are, what to eat. We don’t really know how to do anything on our own anymore. We’re becoming antisocial, self-absorbed. We have all these problems that we create for ourselves. Bad reception, expensive phone bills. None of it is real!” He continues, “Now consider this: the Amish are the smartest people on the planet.”

I laugh again, harder. “What?”

Raj goes on to explain that he’s currently working to become an assistant professor in social science at San Francisco State, and for years he’s studied the Amish. At the age of sixteen, Amish teenagers, he says, are given the freedom to leave their community to experience our “modern world” of sex, drugs, alcohol, and high technology. This experience is part of a tradition called “rumspringa,” in which Amish teens can decide whether they wish to be baptized into the Amish church or to abandon the Amish life for our society.

“Ninety-five percent of them go back to their Amish life,” Raj says. “You know why?”

“Well, I think it’s natural to gravitate toward what you’re used to,” I retort.

“Sure, but what they’re used to is a more wholesome lifestyle than what we have,” he says. “These people have real human skills and real knowledge because they rely so little on technology. And they have real connections, real love, and even real problems because they’re not communicating through all these digital barricades.”

The light turns green, and we reach Van Ness and Sutter. On my iPhone, after I punch in a $3 tip for Raj and press the “Pay” button, I hear my receipt printing from the cab’s machine. “Well, hey, I can’t say I agree with you for the most part — and I’d argue with you if we had more time — but what you say about what we lose is pretty intriguing. I just need to think about it some more.”

“The Amish,” Raj repeats. “Really, look into it.”

I thank Raj as I shut the car door behind me. It’s six o’clock sharp, and I greet John inside Alborz. While we wait for Rana, I order a cabernet and reiterate the conversation I had with Raj.

“That’s absurd bullshit,” he says. John, a forty-one-year-old iPhone software developer, has never been gentle with his words. “There are plenty of Amish who use cell phones, so they’re fucking hypocrites.”

I chuckle. “Clearly he’s generalizing, and if the cab ride were thirty minutes longer, the conversation would’ve been less silly. But what we lose — that other side of the coin — is certainly worth pondering on more, isn’t it?”

Indeed, for months following that night I spent hours and hours conversing with friends and technologists about we gain and what we lose in the iPhone future. As a technology news reporter for Wired’s website, every day I write a story about how the iPhone and the technologies it inspires are changing our world. But why stop there? What the iPhone and always-on gadgets can do today is fairly obvious; the far more fascinating question is, going forward, what does it all mean? How will this phenomenon change society and business? What will our world look like in a few years? And perhaps even more importantly, how is this revolution reshaping each of us individually?

I realized the pros are about as fascinating as the cons are disturbing. The iPhone introduced the App Store, an experience in which you can instantly download and use new apps that add to the device’s capabilities. With the tap of a download button, your iPhone can become a flute, a medical device, a high-definition radio, a guitar tuner, a police radio scanner, and 400,000 other “things.” With the iPhone and the App Store, Apple unlocked what I call the anything-anytime-anywhere future, which has far-reaching implications for everything. If we have accessible data everywhere, then the way we learn in classrooms, treat medicine, fight crime, report the news, and do business are all going to have to transform.

For individuals, the iPhone is turning humans into always-on, all-knowing beings. Even without medical training, a person with an iPhone can use a first aid app to learn to treat a victim’s injuries in an urgent situation. (In fact, a near-death earthquake victim in Haiti, used a medical iPhone app to treat his wounds and, ultimately, survive.) With the same device he can use a real-time traffic monitoring app to find the quickest route to a destination. Data has become so intimately woven into our lives that it’s enhancing the way we engage with physical reality. Thus, the physical and digital worlds are coalescing to turn us into the all-knowing, always-connected beings we’ve always dreamed of being — and it took just one “phone” to push the industry in this direction.

Further, in the world of business, the benefits for consumers are fairly obvious. The iPhone changed our standards for what we expect from technology, and as a result, businesses are being forced to give us more for our money. We don’t want seven pieces of hardware to perform seven different tasks; we want a single gadget capable of doing anything-anytime-anywhere. Soon, manufacturers will no longer be able to sell single-function gadgets lacking an internet connection because those gadgets will soon be obsolete. Consequently, a large number of companies and industries find themselves threatened because a downloadable app can easily replace nearly any dedicated, single-use product.

But as ideal as it may sound to have anything-anytime-anywhere, the fact that Apple — a company famously obsessed with control — is leading this revolution is particularly concerning. Apple not only controls the manufacturing of the iPhone hardware, but it also oversees everything that appears in its App Store. Apple approves, rejects, or retroactively pulls any apps it pleases. This is comparable to if Microsoft not only sold you Windows but also owned every computer and every store in which it was sold and controlled every developer that wished to sell software for the computer. This sets a troubling precedent of censorship, which can stifle innovation and fosters conformity. As technology becomes more intimately woven into our lives, the implications of this single point of control over our digital experiences are threatening creative freedom.

On top of that we must also consider what we give up as individuals in exchange for the incredible perks of anything-anytime-anywhere. Inevitably, the more we immerse our personal lives into digital media, the more privacy we give up. Businesses making apps have more information about our personal lives than ever before. Also, the application of basic civil rights is not keeping up with the rapid pace of high technology: police officers, for example, have the legal right to snatch our phones and look through all our personal information with “reasonable suspicion.”

Furthermore, after repeatedly sending text messages and e-mails in between checking Facebook and hopping on phone calls, looking in the mirror to ask ourselves, “What is the ‘i’ in iPhone?” is worthwhile; that is, how am I changing as a result of being bombarded with all this data? (I actually found myself asking this question a lot while writing this book as I was holed up in my office in front of a computer for a year.) Are we really getting stupider, like Raj suggests? The answer turns out to be much more complicated than Raj thinks.

Make no mistake: all the aforementioned implications go far above and beyond the iPhone. Everybody is copying Apple’s closed, vertical business model in hopes of replicating the iPhone’s success. Every major smartphone maker has rolled out iPhone clones and app store alternatives of their own, and their fundamentals (i.e., vertical control) are mostly the same. Apple’s influence is even seeping outside the smartphone market. TV makers are already selling web-connected televisions, including app stores, and Ford will soon ship cars with app stores too — all with the common goal of trapping consumers inside their product lines. Thanks to the iPhone, the future of business is looking shockingly vertical. Our products will enable us to do more than they ever have before, as their capabilities will be expandable with the tap of a download button. But there are consequences, such as censorship, digital conformity, and loss of freedom and privacy.

Clearly, because it’s impacting every facet of our lives, the future of anything-anytime-anywhere is unavoidable, making this a terrifyingly beautiful and exciting time to live.

Excerpted from Always On: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future — and Locked Us In by Brian X. Chen. Copyright Brian X. Chen 2011. Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

posted by JasperC on Jul 19

Story By: by Phil Galewitz and Julie Appleby

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talks about insurance with Nick Kaplanis, manager at Frager’s Hardware Store, Washington, D.C.

Today the federal government released proposed rules that will govern how states set up and run new marketplaces where individuals and small businesses can shop for health insurance.

The so-called exchanges are a key element of the health care overhaul law. Sliding subsidies for private insurance on the exchanges will be available for residents who earn up to 400 percent of the poverty level, about $43,560 this year.

Those who qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, will be able to sign up for it through the exchanges. The idea is to make buying coverage like shopping for an airline ticket online.

The proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services runs hundreds of pages. Insurers, consumer advocates and others will have 75 days to comment. Final rules are expected later this year.

Insurers want states to be granted a lot of flexibility in how they design their exchanges, and the companies don’t want to be barred from seats on oversight boards.

Consumer groups, however, would prefer that insurers not be allowed on the boards or, if they are, to make them meet strict conflict-of-interest rules.

Both groups are watching closely to see whether the federal government will require states to choose which insurers can participate — and negotiate with them over prices and other issues — or allow a looser structure in which all insurers that meet the minimum standards under the law can participate.

Exchanges must be up and running by Jan. 1, 2014, although states must prove a year earlier that they will be ready. The federal government will establish exchanges for states that can’t or won’t do so themselves.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her top deputies unveiled the proposed regulations at Frager’s Hardware Store, near where Sebelius lives on Capitol Hill. Frager’s has been in business 90 years and its owners provide health coverage to their 25 full time employees, though they said that’s been getting harder as premiums climb.

Manager Nick Kaplanis on Monday gave no endorsement to the exchanges or the health law in general. His only question to Sebelius was to ask if she could get President Obama to visit next time. She said she would.

Last week, John Weintraub, a co-owner of the store, who wasn’t around for Monday’s event, told Kaiser Health News that he was skeptical of the new law. “I am not confident at all that Obamacare will lower my costs,” he said. “It seems like whenever the government does get involved in something like this, it never works out.”

posted by JasperC on Jul 19

(CNN Student News) — May 31, 2011

Download PDF maps related to today’s show:

• Arlington National Cemetery
• Joplin, Missouri
• Texas

Transcript

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Back from the Memorial Day weekend, I’m Carl Azuz and this is CNN Student News! It’s a short week for us. It’s also our last week of the school year, so let’s go ahead and get started.

First Up: Remembering the Fallen

AZUZ: First up, Americans pause to honor service members who gave everything they had. Memorial Day is a tribute to the men and women who lost their lives while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. Ceremonies were held around the country yesterday, President Obama helping lead the ones at Arlington National Cemetery. He laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and later visited Arlington’s Section 60; it’s a site that’s primarily for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

During a speech, the president said the courage, unselfishness and devotion to duty of the servicemen and women who gave their lives is what has sustained the country. President Obama also said that Memorial Day is about the families who have lost loved ones serving in the military. The wife of a fallen service member said she sees Memorial Day as a chance to celebrate her husband’s life.

NICKI BUNTING, WIDOW OF FALLEN SERVICEMAN: I want everyone to realize that these aren’t just graves; they aren’t just numbers. They’re real people, and they had real families. They had wives and husbands and children and parents and siblings and friends. And so, that’s what today is about, just celebrating their life and making sure that everyone knows that these are real people that we’ve lost. And so, when I get to talk about my husband, I love to laugh and smile when I talk about him and really share the great guy he was.

AZUZ: For the past 40 years, the 3rd U.S. Infantry has had a special assignment. They’re the ones who place flags on every gravestone at Arlington Cemetery for Memorial Day. That’s more than 250,000 flags! In this next report, two members share why they consider this responsibility an honor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEANT CHERRY SMITH, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: Now that I’ve actually served and came from Iraq, they paved the way. So, without them, we wouldn’t be here.

STAFF SERGEANT BRADLEY FALLS, AFGHANISTAN WAR VETERAN: It’s especially an honor for us when you’ve been on the other side of it, and now you can come here and you can bring honor to their final resting place. Most of the leaders here are combat vets. They are coming from other units. They’ve deployed before. We all know somebody buried here personally.

SMITH: I thank them. I give thanks all the time for just doing what they did. There’s so many of us that have fear of doing what they did.

FALLS: During our fifteen months, my battalion lost 24 soldiers and our brigade lost, I believe, 44. We have three 173rd members buried here, to include my platoon leader, First Lieutenant Benjamin Hall. I try to visit him on special occasions, you know, his birthday or his passing. I usually sit down for a while and talk to him, let him know how things are going, how life is, and how much I appreciate his sacrifice and his leadership while we had it. He was a great man. Sometimes it’s a bit of a remembrance of good times and bad. You know, you’ve got comrades in arms that have died and you feel for them and you feel for your families, but you try to put that aside to give honor to those that you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Is this legit?

STAN CASE, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Is this legit? More tornadoes strike the U.S. than any other country. This is true. The U.S. averages more than 1,000 recorded tornadoes every year.

Tornado Devastation

AZUZ: We’ve talked about a string of tornadoes hitting across parts of the U.S. recently. One of the deadliest in U.S. history struck Joplin, Missouri. Officials say this massive storm tore a 13-mile path across the city. Recovery efforts are getting started, and the president visited the area over the weekend. Dan Lothian has the details on that trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Before touching down, Air Force One flew over Joplin, Missouri, giving the president an aerial view of the devastation. What took months and years to build was destroyed in a few moments: homes, businesses and anything else in the tornado’s path. On the ground, it was a somber president surveying the breathtaking damage up close. Meeting with officials, survivors, and promising not to abandon this city.

U.S. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: What I’ve been telling every family that I’ve met here is we’re going to be here long after the cameras leave. We are not going to stop until Joplin is fully back on its feet.

LOTHIAN: There is plenty of pain here, but also plenty of hope. Roadways were lined with thousands of people, some waving flags or holding signs with messages like "God bless Joplin." At a memorial service on the campus of Missouri Southern State University, that escaped the tornado’s wrath…

OBAMA: We will be with you every step of the way. We’re not going anywhere.

LOTHIAN: …President Obama thanked the people of Joplin for their courage.

OBAMA: You’ve banded together. You have come to each other’s aid. You’ve demonstrated a simple truth: that amid heartbreak and tragedy, no one is a stranger. Everybody is a brother. Everybody is a sister.

LOTHIAN: Recovering from one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history will not happen overnight, but Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is optimistic about the future.

GOVERNOR JAY NIXON, MISSOURI: Joplin will look different, and more different still in two years and three and five. And as the years pass, the moral of our story will be the same: love thy neighbor. God bless.

LOTHIAN: President Obama also had a message for people across the country, urging them to get involved by supporting organizations such as the Red Cross, which is providing food and shelter for all of the people who have been displaced by the tornado. Dan Lothian, CNN, Joplin, Missouri.

(END VIDEO)

Texas Wildfires

AZUZ: Moving southwest to Texas now, where officials and emergency workers are battling a different kind of natural disaster: wildfires. In fact, this has been one of the worst wildfire seasons in Texas history. Two blazes around the city of Amarillo forced hundreds of people to leave their homes this weekend. They were starting to come back yesterday as firefighters got the majority of those flames under control.

Dry and windy conditions are spreading the flames, though, and that is what the weather’s been like in Texas for a while now. This video, another wildfire, is from more than a month ago. In total, hundreds of homes have burned; millions of acres of land have been scorched by these wildfires.

Shoutout

MICHELLE WRIGHT, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Today’s Shoutout goes out to Mr. Sommer’s and Ms. Bensfield’s students at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, Illinois! How many launches are left in the NASA space shuttle program? You know what to do! Is it: A) 0, B) 1, C) 2 or D) 3? Start the countdown at three seconds — GO! Atlantis is scheduled to make the next — and last — shuttle launch in July. That’s your answer and that’s your Shoutout!

Endeavour Undocks

AZUZ: Atlantis will be dropping off supplies and spare parts to the international space station. That’s scheduled to be the last shuttle mission. But the current one isn’t over yet. It’s getting close, though. This was the scene on Sunday, when the space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the ISS. It had been connected to the orbiting outpost for more than a week and a half. Now, Endeavour is on its way home. The shuttle is scheduled to land around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday. That’ll wrap up its 16-day mission to space. And once it’s back on the ground, Endeavour will head off into retirement.

Web Promo

AZUZ: We are not retiring, but we are wrapping up the school year this week. Doesn’t mean we’re going anywhere, and neither is CNNStudentNews.com. We’re planning to have special shows on our site all summer long, plus new blog posts. So, make us your home page and check out what we’re up to while you’re on break. You know the address: CNNStudentNews.com!

Before We Go

AZUZ: Before we go, hope you’re not afraid of heights. For example, a pair of intersecting tight ropes over a giant canyon. Apparently the young lady you’re about to see right here has no fear. Or, she just knows it’s all an optical illusion. It’s actually the world’s largest 3D painting. It’s on a street in China. But it looks real enough that some people said they actually felt dizzy when they were standing on top of it. When it comes to this kind of artwork…

Goodbye

AZUZ: …That sounds like the highest of compliments. And it proves that the artist should have no illusions about the quality of his work. I think you see what we mean. Hope you have a great day. For CNN Student News, I’m Carl Azuz.

posted by JasperC on Jul 19

(CNN Student News) — June 1, 2011

Download PDF maps related to today’s show:

• Germany
• Joplin, Missouri

Transcript

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: The start of a new month, the start of a new day of CNN Student News! Hi, I’m Carl Azuz, and I’m delivering your 10 minutes of commercial-free headlines.

First Up: Home Prices Drop

AZUZ: First up, we’re talking about a new low for the price of homes in the United States. During the first quarter — the first three months — of 2011, home prices dropped more than 5 percent from where they were last year. Now, that’s according to a new report that came out yesterday. And the comparison gets even worse when you go back a little farther. The housing market hit its highest point five years ago in 2006. Compared to that — that highest point — prices of homes have dropped almost 33 percent.

Home prices are down; so what? It might not be something that you think about every day, but some of your parents are paying close attention. Home prices affect a lot of other industries — like banks, like construction — so that’s one of the big indicators that experts use to figure out how the U.S. economy is doing. And prices have gone through kind of a double-dip. They went down after that peak in 2006. Then they went back up a little bit around 2009. Some government programs designed to encourage people to buy houses helped with that increase. But now, they’re dropping again. And one expert says it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon.

E. coli Outbreak

AZUZ: Officials in Germany are warning people there not to eat raw cucumbers, leaf lettuce, or tomatoes. The reason: an outbreak of E. coli. That’s a bacteria that can be transmitted through contaminated food or water, especially raw vegetables. Reports have connected at least 16 deaths to the outbreak. Hundreds of other people have gotten sick. German authorities are trying to contain the outbreak. In the meantime, scientists are trying to figure out where it started. They don’t have that answer yet. They think it could be traced back to produce from Spain. Germany buys more Spanish fruits and vegetables than any other country. And the concerns about those foods could cost Spain’s food industry millions of dollars.

Shoutout

STAN CASE, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Time for the Shoutout! What’s the term for when energy travels in particles or waves? If you think you know it, shout it out! Is it: A) Diffusion, B) Sublimation, C) Radiation or D) Circumnavigation? You’ve got three seconds — GO! When energy is transmitted in particles or waves, it’s called radiation. That’s your answer and that’s your Shoutout!

Cell Phones & Cancer

AZUZ: The World Health Organization says that radiation from cell phones could possibly cause cancer. That announcement came after a group of scientists analyzed studies that have been done on cell phone safety. What this means is that the scientists found some evidence of an increase in certain types of cancer for cell phone users. They weren’t able to make any conclusions about other types of cancers. One expert says it’s hard because it can take several decades of exposure to see if there are any consequences. The wireless industry said the announcement does not mean cell phones cause cancer. It pointed out that the scientists didn’t do new research, but just reviewed studies that already existed. This announcement probably will lead to more research on the issue.

Tornado Recovery

AZUZ: Recovery efforts are getting started in Joplin, Missouri, and help is coming from some unexpected places. For example, a group of homeless volunteers from Kentucky. They collected donations for the tornado victims and then drove to Joplin to distribute them. Another unique source of help: an elephant from a circus that was supposed to perform in the area. The show, of course, couldn’t happen. But the animal was able to use its strength to help workers clear heavy debris from some areas. Many residents of Joplin are still coming to grips with the devastation that hit their hometown. Morgan Schutters of affiliate KODE reports on the tornado’s impact on the Joplin High School community.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

MORGAN SCHUTTERS, KODE REPORTER: Katie Wood graduated from Joplin High School just an hour before the tornado hit.

KATIE WOOD, JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI: Even looking at it, it’s still really hard to believe it.

SCHUTTERS: Now, she’s singing the national anthem at a memorial service for her classmates and the community.

WOOD: It’s so hard singing it right in front of my school that just blew away.

SCHUTTERS: But Joplin High School sophomore Chanci McGowen still has the rest of her high school career ahead of her, as she looks at what is left in shambles.

CHANCI MCGOWEN, JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE: It’s indescribable. It’s horrible, just devastating to see all the destruction of my school, my home.

SCHUTTERS: McGowen is one of many students who lost both.

MCGOWEN: It was heartbreaking. My whole neighborhood is gone, but everyone’s OK.

SCHUTTERS: It was a somber afternoon as they gathered outside the school. A moment of silence honoring military and tornado victims. Eight people in the Joplin R-8 School District are confirmed dead: seven students and one staff member.

WOOD: Wondering who is still alive and who’s not.

SCHUTTERS: Superintendent Dr. CJ Huff said last Friday, when he got word, his world stopped. Sorrow for the lost and relief for the living.

CJ HUFF, SUPERINTENDENT, JOPLIN R-8 SCHOOL DISTRICT: As a result of your diligence and unwavering fortitude in the face of insurmountable challenges, 100 percent of our family are accounted for.

SCHUTTERS: Summer classes will begin as scheduled in less than three weeks, on June 13th.

(END VIDEO)

I.D. Me

MICHELLE WRIGHT, CNN STUDENT NEWS: See if you can I.D. Me! I’m a famous landmark visited by millions every year. I’m located in Arizona. I was formed by the Colorado River. I’m the Grand Canyon, a huge rock formation that’s a mile deep.

All Work, No Play

AZUZ: The Grand Canyon’s a major vacation destination. The nearly 5 million people who go there every year prove that. But would the Canyon get even more visitors if American workers took as much vacation as employees in other countries? That’s what we’re talking about. When it comes to time off, the U.S. is not number one. Karin Caifa looks at some of the reasons why.

(BEGIN VIDEO)

KARIN CAIFA, CNN CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON, D.C.: Days at the beach, trips you’ll remember for a lifetime. That’s what summer is all about, right? Not for most American workers, who lag behind international counterparts in the vacation time given and the time taken. According to a survey by Expedia, workers in Great Britain got an average of 28 days’ vacation last year. In France: 37. Here in the U.S.: 18. And they only used 14.

So, what’s holding Americans back? With the economy still recovering, some workers are just happy to have a job to go to every day. And with staffing pared to bare bones during the recession, they’d rather be at their desks than on a guilt trip.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: We feel that we’re letting our colleagues down. We’re afraid of the work that’s waiting for us when we get back from vacation. And that guilt will make us not take the days off that we really need.

CAIFA: There are also the lingering financial concerns. A recent survey from CareerBuilder found one in four workers simply can’t afford a getaway this year. Twelve percent say they can afford it but won’t go. And only one in three said they felt more comfortable taking a vacation this summer than they did last year.

(END VIDEO)

Driving Knowledge

AZUZ: Sticking with the idea of hitting the road, it turns out about 37 million American drivers shouldn’t! According to a new survey, one out of every five people in the United States would fail a driving test if they had to take one today. And what’s even more strange: that’s an improvement! Last year, 38 million people — one million more — would have failed. This survey asked drivers from all 50 states 20 questions about basic driving knowledge. What do you do when you’re approaching a yellow light? What’s a safe following distance? Things like that. The concern is that not knowing the rules leads to dangerous driving habits.

Daily E-mail

AZUZ: Teachers, we know a lot of you get our daily e-mail. As you get ready to head off for the summer, you don’t need to unsubscribe. The email is not gonna come out every day. We’ll only send you something when we have something to say, like when one of our special summer shows goes up at CNNStudentNews.com. So stay subscribed; we will not spam you, we promise!

Before We Go

AZUZ: Before we go, we’re checking out a barnyard brawl. Boom! Only problem is, this isn’t the barnyard. It’s somebody’s back yard! A flock of sheep showed up in a California neighborhood, and they didn’t want to go anywhere. Police surrounded the feisty flock and eventually had to call in animal control. It’s not like you could ask the sheep to leave nicely. I mean, you might try, but you know they wouldn’t go for it.

Goodbye

AZUZ: Those guys just look like they have baaaaad attitudes. Or maybe they were hoping not to get noticed so they could pull the wool over everyone’s eyes. That would have been shear genius. It’s always fun to see sheep on the lamb. But now that the whole thing’s over, I bet they felt sheepish about causing such a problem. They are known to have bleat-ing hearts. You can tell the year’s winding up, because we’re getting awfully punchy. For CNN Student News, I’m Carl Azuz.

posted by JasperC on Jul 19

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a study that flies in the face of common sense, sicker patients turned out to fare worse under the care of seasoned doctors than when newcomers to medicine looked after them.

According to findings in the American Journal of Medicine, patients whose doctors had practiced for at least 20 years stayed longer in the hospital and were more likely to die compared to those whose doctors got their medical license in the past five years.

The results highlight “issues that we have as a medical profession in keeping up to date” with the latest medical knowledge, said Dr. Niteesh Choudhry of Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the new study. It is “a quality of care problem that has been recognized for five to 10 years,” he told Reuters Health.

Dr. William Southern and colleagues looked at records of more than 6,500 patients who’d been hospitalized between 2002 and 2004 at New York City’s Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Montefiore is a teaching hospital where patients are first seen by a junior doctor who randomly assigns them to one of the hospital’s six medical teams. Each team has a medical student, recent medical school graduates, and at the top, a senior doctor known as the attending physician.

Over the course of the study, there were 59 different attending physicians. The researchers divided them up based on how long they were practicing: five years or less, six to 10 years, 11 to 20 years, or more than 20 years.

Because the researchers thought doctors might behave differently with their own long-time patients, they confined the study to cases in which patient and doctor had never met before.

In comparing the most and least experienced doctors, researchers saw the most-experienced group had more patients die in the hospital.

At first glance, compared to patients with the newest doctors, those with the most experienced physicians had more than a 70 percent increase in their odds of dying in the hospital and a 50 percent increase in their odds of dying within 30 days.

However, when the researchers took into account how sick the patients were, they found that only the sicker patients — those with complicated medical problems — were at higher risk in the hands of the more experienced doctors.

Southern’s group also found that while the doctor’s experience played a role in how long patients stayed in the hospital, it also mattered how many hospitalized patients he or she was taking care of.

When doctors weren’t very busy, they kept patients in the hospital for roughly the same average time no matter how many years of experience they had. But when they did have a lot of patients to see in the hospital, those with more than 20 years of experience kept patients there about half a day longer than their peers who’d been practicing for less than five years.

Previous research has found similar results across a variety of physician specialties. Earlier studies have also shown that physicians with more time in practice are less likely to adhere to practice guidelines.

“It’s not quite as simple to say that as you get further away from training, your quality gets worse,” cautioned Choudhry.

The problem, he said, is not with the capability of the more experienced doctors, but rather, their familiarity with more current guidelines and practices. The results suggest the need to rethink the way doctors are continually educated in the years after completing their certification, he added.

The authors suggest that physicians with more than 20 years in practice be required to recertify periodically. Most of the older doctors in the current study are presently exempt from having to take recertification tests, they say.

Most doctors do participate in “continuing medical education” programs after they finish their training. But much of it is passive, consisting mostly of attending lectures and reading articles by medical researchers. While these are important ways of learning new findings, said Choudhry, it would be better to develop educational programs that would actively engage the more experienced physicians.

Dr. Steven Weinberger, executive vice president and CEO of the American College of Physicians, cautioned that it is premature to make drastic changes based on the results of the study, which only looked at small numbers of attending physicians. He also came up with several alternative explanations for the findings.

For instance, the fact that patients were in a teaching hospital might have contributed to the different rates of death, since more experienced doctors might give the doctors-in-training more autonomy. And the different lengths of time patients stayed in the hospital could reflect a cultural difference in today’s younger physicians, who are taught to focus on reducing hospital stays.

Despite his concerns about the study, Weinberger agreed, “It is important for physicians to stay as current as possible.”

SOURCE: bit.ly/pvz5xz American Journal of Medicine, online July 11, 2011.

posted by JasperC on Jul 18

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cheaper generic drugs will continue to hold down costs for the U.S. government, insurers and patients enrolled in the federal prescription drug benefit, according to a report released on Friday.

Researchers said eight of the ten most commonly prescribed drug classes covered by the program known as Medicare Part D have fallen to an average daily cost of therapy of $1 in December 2010 from $1.50 in January 2006.

This trend toward cheaper generic drugs, as brand-name patents expire, is expected to continue through 2015, said the study by Murray Aitken of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics and Ernst Berndt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study forecast the average cost of therapy to fall to 65 cents a day by the end of 2015, or 57 percent lower than it was in January 2006.

The findings could temper some of the concern over the growing costs of Part D that subsidizes medicines for seniors and disabled Medicare patients who pay some of the costs through insurance plans and out of pocket.

Part D went into effect in 2006 after being created under 2003 legislation passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush. It has been criticized for being insufficiently funded, a costly drag on the healthcare system and a contributor to the national debt.

Companies such as Aetna Inc, CVS Caremark Corp and Humana Inc sell the Part D plans, but are overseen by the Centers on Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Last year, 34.5 million Americans were enrolled in Part D plans, receiving an average of $1,789 in benefits, according to a report issued in May by the Medicare Trustees.

The trustees said almost $62 billion was spent on Part D prescription drug benefits in 2010 and projected that this year’s spending will reach $67 billion, growing to almost $157 billion by 2020 as the aging U.S. population sees more and more people enroll.

But the authors of Friday’s study said that may be overstating the costs.

“The general conclusion we draw is that cost declines observed in the first five years of Medicare Part D can be expected to continue,” the researchers wrote.

“The 2006-2015 decade is one of steadily decreasing average daily cost of therapy.”

Berndt, a co-author, said CMS has fairly consistently over-projected future prescription drug costs.

“(It) doesn’t properly take into account reasonably predictable patent protection expirations,” he told reporters on a conference call.

posted by JasperC on Jul 18

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Nearly every prescription written to treat Parkinson’s psychosis — a common psychiatric side effect of Parkinson’s disease — is for medications that have not been shown to improve the condition, a new study finds.

The study also found that about three of every 10 prescriptions are for drugs that can actually harm patients.

“For ninety-eight percent of prescriptions there is no clear proof that they improve psychosis symptoms in Parkinson patients, other than clinician experience,” said Dr. Daniel Weintraub, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a physician at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Just one drug, clozapine, is known to improve psychotic symptoms in Parkinson’s patients, but only two percent of prescriptions are for clozapine, Weintraub and his colleagues report in the Archives of Neurology.

Parkinson’s disease affects nerve cells in the brain that help control muscle movement. As many as six of every 10 people with the condition develop Parkinson’s psychosis at some point in their lives. It includes hallucinations and sometimes delusional thinking. One of the major contributors is thought to be the drugs used to treat the physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

The researchers tallied up the prescriptions for about 2,500 patients who were treated for Parkinson’s psychosis at Veterans Affairs facilities in 2008.

About half of the patients received medication for their psychosis. Two thirds of prescriptions were for quetiapine, which goes by the brand name Seroquel. It’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat schizophrenia, which is another type of psychosis.

“Quetiapine became such a dominant medication,” Weintraub said, yet “none of the efficacy studies show that it’s beneficial” for Parkinson’s psychosis.

In four studies, quetiapine didn’t worsen patients’ muscle problems but it also didn’t help their psychosis, said Dr. Joseph Friedman, the director of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at NeuroHealth, a medical center in Rhode Island.

Still, Friedman and Weintraub support the use quetiapine, and prescribe it to their own patients.

“It’s a peculiar sort of thing, because we pride ourselves on using evidenced-based medicine,” Friedman, who was not involved in this study, told Reuters Health. But doctors have found, in their own personal — and unscientific — experience, that quetiapine appears safe and useful in patients with Parkinson’s psychosis, he added.

Doctors often order medications that are tested and approved for a condition other than the one they are treating, a practice called “off-label prescribing.” It lets physicians treat diseases for which there might not be a formally approved drug.

Of concern to Friedman was the finding that the second most popularly prescribed drug was risperidone, another schizophrenia medication that is marketed as Risperdal.

About 17 of every 100 patients treated with a drug for Parkinson’s psychosis received risperidone.

Risperidone and another drug, olanzipine, are thought to worsen the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Olanzipine, whose brand name is Zyprexa, was prescribed 11 out of every 100 times.

Use of these two drugs shows “ignorance” on the part of physicians who prescribe them without keeping up to date on new studies about their safety, Friedman said of the results.

He encouraged doctors to learn more about the drugs. “The patients shouldn’t be asked to read the literature.”

Clozapine, the one drug with good results in clinical studies, was “grossly underutilized,” Friedman said. It was used for just two of every 100 prescriptions.

The reason clozapine is rarely used, explained Weintraub, is that it requires regular blood testing to monitor for a serious but rare side effect. “It makes it somewhat impractical and a burden to the patients,” Weintraub said.

He said the best approach to treating psychosis is to first try and limit, if possible, the Parkinson’s medications that might be contributing to the hallucinations or delusions. If that fails, Weintraub then turns to quetiapine or clozapine for treatment.

He said medications should be used very cautiously for patients who also have dementia, because there is an association between anti-psychotic drugs and an increased risk of early death among people who have Parkinson’s and dementia.

His study, which was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, found that of the Parkinson’s patients who were treated for psychosis, nearly a third had dementia and more than half of those patients were prescribed an anti-psychotic drug.

Physicians should keep in mind the potential complications of the drugs among Parkinson’s patients with dementia, Weintraub said. “Medications should be used only when necessary and not indefinitely.”

SOURCE: bit.ly/mR5cA4 Archives of Neurology, July, 2011.

posted by JasperC on Jul 18

Despite the fact that there are various kinds of hemorrhoid treatment, often holistic treatment possibilities work for hemorrhoid treatment every bit as well or better than traditional treatment approaches which include surgical treatment. If you have been attempting to learn about what holistic hemorrhoid treatment treatment possibilities are in existence for hemorrhoids then Make sure youead through the entire content of information. You’re sure to acquire some suggestions as to what’s accessible to you for hemorrhoid treatment.

Seeing as you’re viewing this information, you’re most likely affected by hemorrhoids at present and needing a hemorrhoid treatment. Should you be hoping to get prompt relief of the redness and itching you may try out a hemorrhoid treatment known as witch hazel. Witch hazel ought to help by numbing the painful region. An individual can usually get witch hazel at a store or get it over the internet. Also, you can find a couple of lotions which use witch hazel as the principal ingredient for their hemorrhoid treatment

The sitz bath is actually a very widely known sort hemorrhoid treatment. This process can both deliver prompt relief and if you’ll repeat it on a daily routine can usually reduce your hemorrhoids. Fill a tub with acceptably warm water. Add some salt, in particular epsom salt. To destroy harmful microorganisms, which could be aggravating the irritation and trigger infection, add some antiseptic. It is best to wash the painful location.

Horse Chestnut has for centuries been renowned as an all-natural remedy for hemorrhoids. In specific it’s known to heal any medical conditions concerned with blood clotting. This treatment method is commonly ingested in a tea however be careful not to take it in case you are allergic to it. An additional especially old hemorrhoid treatment home remedy is Butcher’s Broom. This treatment method has been well-known as a hemorrhoid treatment home remedy for any medical conditions concerned with weakened veins. Commonly you’d drink Butcher’s Broom in a tea.

posted by JasperC on Jul 18

In the event that you believe that you are afflicted by hemorrhoids you’re most likely trying to figure out what your most suitable hemorrhoid treatment solutions are. As you may guessed, you have a variety of hemorrhoid treatment choices . If you are afflicted by hemorrhoids that are not especially critical you can chances are, get them treated with any number of many various hemorrhoid treatment herbal remedies. In contrast, if you are afflicted by critical hemorrhoids, that’s, thrombosed hemorrhoids and-or hemorrhoids that have begun to bleed you really should give consideration to a surgical procedure as a hemorrhoid treatment option.

Not all hemorrhoid treatment surgical operation choices are the same. In reality a wide range of of them are quite uncomfortablel.Besides they may take a long while to heal. Luckily, many of the more contemporary variations generally are not as painful, although they are just as successful as a alternative to remedy hemorrhoids. If you are interested in a surgical procedure as a hemorrhoid treatment then you are most likely trying to figure out what variations of a surgical procedure are available to you. This content article was put into writing to offer you a description of the several variations of a surgical procedure that you can benefit from to remedy hemorrhoids.

Rubber Band Ligation is a frequently selected type of hemorrhoid a surgical procedure . A tiny rubber band somewhere around 1 mm across is forced onto the root base of the hemorrhoid by a special type of tool . The rubber band chokes off the the flow of blood to the hemorrhoid. In just about a week the hemorrhoid shrinks up and falls off ultimately causing a scar.

Laser surgical procedures is yet another operation for the removal of hemorrhoids. A special kind of laser device is fired right in to the hemorrhoid. Subsequently the hemorrhoid is essentially burnt off of the outside of the anus . This surgery is normally done without having to be admitted to the hospital. On top of that the standard disadvantages of a surgical procedure in particular bleeding are minimized since the the wound is cauterized during the process.

A Stapled Hemmorhoidectomy is a pretty well-known type of hemorrhoid surgical operation . This type of surgery operation halts hemorrhoids from bleeding which in turn alleviates a lot of the pressure made by the clotted blood. This procedure is usually practiced on prolapsed hemorrhoids but it works pretty well for any type of bleeding hemorrhoid. This strategy will involve stapling the hemorrhoid with a specially designed circular staple.

There exists a type of hemorrhoid treatment that entails discovering followed by stitching up all of the blood vessels which are furnishing blood to the hemorrhoid. Whenever the blood flow is constrained the hemorrhoid shrinks up. Inside of about a week or so it just vanishes. This surgery treatment, recognized as Hemorrhoidal Artery Ligation Operation or HAL is gaining popularity seeing that it is pretty painless.

posted by JasperC on Jul 18

Thrombosed hemorrhoids are in a nutshell, hemorrhoids where in the problematic arteries embody clotted blood. The meaning of thrombosis is: the occurrence of a blood clot within a artery. This matter stops blood flow through the artery, in that way restricting the oxygen supply . In the case when a thrombosed hemorrhoid encounters excessive pressure it’s going to explode. If it does, the anus will begin bleeding and here the hemorroid becomes a bleeding hemorrhoid.

In certain cases you can determine if you’ve gotten thrombosed hemorrhoids and every so often you can’t. If you discover a bluish swelling on the exterior of your anus it is doubtless a thrombosed hemorrhoid. every so often you can press it and realize that it is hard. Commonly thrombosed hemorroids bring about discomfort as well as itching.
Don’t assume all hemorrhoids,this includes thrombosed hemorrhoids are right on your anus. In actual fact Thrombosed hemorrhoids can occur within your rectum. Internal hemorrhoids are a whole lot more problematic to diagnose considering they tend not to induce discomfort and/or itching. Moreover you can not see them.

Regardless of whether you have internal or external hemorroids, you have to get them healed right away. Thrombosed hemorrhoids occasionally end up as bleeding hemorrhoids which in turn may get infected which may, , lead to blood poisoning which can be life-threatening. Though external hemorrhoids are typically rather debilitating, bleeding hemorrhoids which are internal are substantially more dangerous. An external infection is fairly simple to heal. An internal infection is far more difficult to notice and consequently more difficult to heal.

Just a little bit investigation on the Internet for hemorrhoid treatment alternatives will likely reveal a variety of diverse varieties of hemorrhoid treatment approaches. For more critical situations you may wish to consider surgical removal. In most scenarios however, your body system can heal the precondition itself with Just a little of help from you. Hygiene, a well balanced diet and physical activity are one of the most efficient hemorrhoid treatment approaches readily available to heal your hemorrhoids and to help prevent long term hemorrhoids. Make certain to keep your rear-end nice and clean as that is a hemorrhoid treatment . Use topical antiseptics on it frequently Eat lots of fiber, specially fruits and green veggies because they have numerous vitamins in them. Walk three or four miles everyday or persue a sport that requires strenuous physical activity. Drink lots of fluids but steer clear of alcohol. You’ll be able to apply creams and ointments to your anus to help relieve the discomfort and itching connected to them. Just understand that these are temporary relief as opposed to being long term hemorrhoid treatment solutions. Not even surgical removal is a hemorrhoid treatment that can permanently cure hemorroids. The only way you can certainly cure hemorrhoids is by changing your life style.