Are Two Heads Better Than One?

See this tiny two-headed turtle?

He makes me think of our little friend, Gus… And so I wonder how he is doing as he heads back to gangland, Los Angeles.

(Tee hee -- get it? ... as he "heads" back to Los Angeles!)

Thanks to Yahoo News, and the story from the Associated Press.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_fe_st/two_headed_turtle

And I hope that Roxane appreciates the story.

Stolen Body Parts? Transplanted?

Just when I thought I could not be shocked anymore, this story pops up and shatters my brain. It just makes me shake my head in wonder and awe. Professor Jason was right on the money with his "contract issue" research on Organ Donation.

North Texan files suit over transplanted tissue

Consumers Are Unsettled by Reports of Stolen Transplant Tissue

by Jan Jarvis, Staff Writer, Ft. Worth Star Telegram 09/25/2007

When Jim Livingston received a call from his doctor to tell him that a bone implanted in his neck to relieve disk pain had been recalled, Livingston almost thought it was a joke. However, investigations have increasingly revealed that Livingston and others like him are carrying bones and tissue taken illegally from cadavers. Livingston has filed a lawsuit against parties that supplied the allegedly stolen bone.

* * *

"How can you sell parts out of a body, just like parts from a stolen car?" he said.

New York authorities investigating the case believe Biomedical Tissue Services owner Michael Mastromarino started by striking deals with funeral directors to remove body parts from corpses without notifying their families or screening for disease. Then, in a secret room in a Brooklyn funeral home, he removed bones, tendons and heart valves, according to a spokesman for the Kings County district attorney's office in New York. The charges include a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Mastromarino is accused of doctoring death certificates and forging consent forms, according to the Kings County district attorney's office. Then, investigators believe, he replaced the bones with PVC pipe and sewed the incision so it would not be noticed at the funeral.

From there, the body parts were shipped to processing firms across the country. Once sterilized, they were implanted in patients from early 2004 to September 2005.

Click here to read the entire article.

Again, I am bowled over. What next?

Do you use quote marks in the wrong place?

Blogger `exposes' Annoying Quote Abuse

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer

Friday, September 21, 2007

(09-21) 15:49 PDT NEW YORK, (AP) –

Ms. Noveck writes:

Isn't it "funny" how something can "really annoy" you for ages and then you discover via "the Internet" that the same thing "really annoys" thousands of "other people," too? The blight that Bethany Keeley exposes on her "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks ( ) is of a benign sort, of course, nothing like global warming or endangered wildlife.

But it bothers people mightily just the same, as this 24-year-old grad student and language-lover has discovered from the hundreds, occasionally thousands of visitors she gets daily. And nary a day goes by when she doesn't receive a bunch of e-mails with photographic evidence of quote abuse, misuse or overuse.

Click here to continue reading this story.**

Click here to go straight to the blogger’s blog.

** Apologies for sending you to the SFGATE link.

This is one blog entry that I hope my students will note well.

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/21/entertainment/e114200D30.DTL

Account for Every Penny ... Or Else ...

When the lawyer prepares a settlement for the client, a good practice is to account for every single penny in the statement.

If the settlement documents do NOT show where the money went, then the lawyer might be subject to scrutiny.

Or worse. Jail.

http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/shackled_fen_phen_lawyers_seek_release_judge_says_no

This New Yorker will Never Forget the loss of a friend

My blog entry will be brief today.

Our family lost a good friend that day.

He was a cop. He ran back in to help but never came out.

So sorry, Joey... we'll pray for you and the family ...

And our friends and family from the Big Apple remember ... each in their own way ...

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-911sixthanniversary-gallery,0,7674010.photogallery