Filed under: TMZ Live Former WWE Superstar Eddie Fatu aka Umaga — who died in December — was the victim of a bad combination of drugs, according to the Harris County Medical Examiner in Texas.Dan Morgan, the supervisory forensic investigator for Harris County, blamed … Permalink
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WWE Superstar Death — Vicodin and Valium
Tagged bad-combination, eddie-fatu, medical, superstar-eddie, tmz live, umaga, wwe
I have received multiple e-mails today from people providing helpful links, interesting pictures, and, of course, scathing rebuttals to my post. Hidden within this avalanche of correspondence was one e-mail from a doctor who offered some interesting insights and provided contact information in case I wanted to question him further. Well of course my interest was piqued, so I called him. The first thing I did was to establish that he was indeed an actual doctor (After all on the internet we can pretend to be experts on just about ANYTHING. I actually know of a politician who quit her job yet still pretends that her opinions are on the same level of importance as those of the President. Imagine that.) After only a few minutes of conversation there was no doubt that this person was indeed a physician, and very bright one at that. We talked for quite awhile and when we came to the end of our conversation I asked if he would be willing to write a brief post outlining some of the things that he had mentioned. Here is that post. While I am generally unimpressed by conspiracy theories, I have to say that I find Gryphen’s pictures compelling. Clearly these are two separate children; I haven’t any more idea than anyone else as to why the former governor would perpetrate such a hoax, although her history of erratic behavior I suppose would support almost any explanation. I have had a passing interest in the Trig Palin story ever since Cathy Baldwin-Johnson’s odd, carefully-worded statement concerning Governor Palin’s health was published in the late hours immediately before the 2008 election. The link to the actual text is below: www.latimes.com/media/acrobat/2008-11/43179602.pdf For the most part this is a simple boilerplate statement, but it is remarkable for its lack of a birthdate for Trig – doubt about which was of course the reason for the statement’s release in the first place. From my point of view, however, as a practicing physician, the larger question is whether Governor Palin’s physician was aware of this hoax, and if so, to what level did she participate and if indeed she did, was that participation medically, morally or ethically improper? In its role as the ultimate guarantor of public safety, the State has a vested interest in the ethical and legal behavior of physicians it licenses. In fulfilling that role, each and every state has a state physician licensing board. I believe there is more than enough evidence for the Alaska State Medical Board to investigate Cathy Baldwin-Johnson’s participation in this matter, and to determine if she breached standards set by that Board for physician conduct. They will ask – and she will answer – pointed, unequivocal questions concerning exactly what took place at the birth of Trig Palin, and as a doctor with thirty years’ experience, I can assure you that no physician would ever risk losing her medical license by answering falsely. It would seem to me that the issue hinges around four questions: firstly, did Cathy Baldwin-Johnson advise Sarah Palin to board an airplane for a ten-hour trip at altitude while showing signs of active labor? Although I am not an obstetrician, if she did so, I believe that would clearly constitute malpractice. Secondly, I would ask whether she assisted in falsifying records concerning the birth date of Trig Palin; if so, that is most likely a felony, which would result in a physician’s losing his/her license in all fifty states. Thirdly, I would ask Dr. Baldwin-Johnson to chronicle exactly what took place in the birth of Trig Palin and to explain why Governor Palin felt compelled, as a Vice-Presidential candidate to lie about or obfuscate concerning those circumstances. Fourthly, I would be curious as to what the actual explanation is for the two different children Palin has presented as her son Trig and if Baldwin-Johnson had any prior knowledge or complicity. This sad little charade has nearly unraveled; all that remains of this pathetic tale is the denouement. The Alaska State Medical Board has the opportunity – and the authority – and the responsibility – to open this abscess to the fresh air and bright sunlight that will bring about its cure. There must be numerous physicians in Alaska who are scratching their heads over this whole tale just as I am, now more than ever. The time has come for them to step up the plate, contact their medical licensing board, and demand that these questions be answered once and for all. Update: Somebody just asked why I don’t provide the doctor’s name. Is this really a question that needs to be answered? I did not think so. Scurry back to the “Ocean of Urine” my little friend and report to your queen that once again it did not work.
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A Doctor’s response to my "Tale of Two Babies" post.
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hot Stuff
Tagged actual, alaska, alaska-state, bennyhollywood, child, governor, medical, palin, Sarah Palin, whitehouse
What do we talk about when we talk about snow ? Does it matter? Those are some cute dogs, right? [CLICK THEM.] It matters to the NYT’s Weddings & Celebrations section, though, and thus, matters to Gawker Weddings Expert Phyllis Nefler . In today’s op-ed in the New York Times Thomas ” The World Is Phat ” Friedman implored Americans to join together and become a “generation that renews, refreshes, re-energizes and rebuilds America for the 21st century,” dubbing this utopian cohort “The Regeneration.” Note to Friedman: you may want to skip over the Styles Section this weekend, lest you see the truth that we’re really just The Ski Generation. Perhaps it’s Olympic fever; more likely it’s just the Times relying on ski-related stories in the winter the way they’re all Montauk this and Wainscott that in the summer. Whatever the reason, Styles leads with a story about “the return of the American ski bum,” that Cloudveil-clad archetype, and later reminds us that the couples who ski together surely will be together. [ Ed. Projecting much hmm?!? ] Elizabeth Scott and Kris Barber first met when they worked together at Kansas City investment bank. (Is that like Equities in Dallas ?) It wasn’t until they “were part of a ski house in Breckenridge, Colo. for several winters” that their romance blossomed “through winters of skiing and summers of biking.” And because he didn’t want to get engaged on a pending trip to Europe — “too much of a cliche” — Barber instead went with a completely novel plan: on a hike in the the mountains. Near the ski house, natch. Scott and Barber are well on their way to becoming as badass as Polly Samuels and Andrew McLean , who were featured in Vows in 2005 and are checked up on this weekend. The pair’s love for the sport was such that they were married at “Our Lady of the Snows” chapel in Alta, walking out of the chapel “under an archway of ski poles held aloft by friends, many in ski boots.” McLean is well known in the skiing community for his backcountry prowess—he has skied in areas as far flung as New Zealand and Iran, was featured in the excellent and mindboggling documentary Steep , and keeps a website called StraightChuter.com —while Samuels went from being a prosecutor in the New York DA’s office to working as a lawyer in Park City. Ms. McLean, once a Type A Manhattan girl, is now a Type A mountain girl. In her own way, she is even more extreme than he is. In 2007 while five months pregnant with their first child, Mira, she accompanied him on a hut-to-hut trip in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. In New Zealand in 2006, he went ski mountaineering while she spent a week swimming with dolphins. Now 40, she competes with him in endurance races, including an annual one in which competitors climb up and ski down Sunlight Mountain Resort in Glenwood Springs, Colo. – continuously for 24 hours. “It doesn’t get really interesting until after midnight when you start hallucinating,” she said. They met in a yurt, and he proposed atop Mount Kilimanjaro. Their daughter, who is 2, “already has her own quiver of skis — ones for backcountry, others for resort skiing, all about the lentgh of a baguette.” Her name is Mira, after “a craggy, steep, continuous, daunting alpine face in Alaska.” Maybe you should try out that bunny hill after all. Elsewhere this weekend, a freelance photographer married a videographer who filmed “a whale rescue on ‘Untamed and Uncut’ on Animal Planet” (insert dork jokes here); the daughter of New York Knicks announcer John Andariese married a flight lieutenant in the British Royal Air Force , and I really hope Gus Johnson gave a toast at the wedding; and a raging health care reformer — hey, she likes Nader! — finally agreed to get married so that her fiance could get something a lil stronger than medicinal tea for his kidney stones. Say what you will, she’s got the “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue” thing down pat. That last couple’s story, by the way, included this romantic vignette: Then, in 2004, Mr. Swift returned to Akron for Christmas and encountered Ms. Robbins at a local bar. When she said, “Let’s do a shot later,” he interpreted it as a polite yet definitive blow off. But as last call rolled around, Mr. Swift sidled up to her and said, “How about that shot?” “It was one of those running-through-the-lilies kind of moments,” she said. If that’s running through the lilies then my life is freaking Chariots of Fire. Emily Fong Mitchell and Stephen Samuel Fleming • The wedding was in Maui: +1 • The bride and groom both graduated from Harvard: +7 • The bride received an MBA at Wharton and the groom from Harvard: +9 • “The bride’s maternal grandfather, the late Hiram L. Fong of Hawaii, was the first Asian American elected to the United States Senate, serving from 1959 to 1977”: +2 • The bride’s father is the president of the Maui Medical Group: +1 • The bridegroom’s mother “retired as a French teacher and the chairwoman of the foreign language department at the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School in San Francisco: +1 TOTAL: 21 Erin Elizabeth Kotheimer and Pepijn Marijn Helgers • Those dimples!: +1 • Both the bride and groom work for the State Department, she as “a political advisor at the United States Mission to the United Nations in charge of Security Council matters involving topics like the Horn of Africa, piracy and the impact of armed conflict on women” and he as “a Foreign Service officer in Washington, working on security-related issues regarding the Republic of Georgia”: +9 • The bride graduated magna cum laude from Marymount Manhattan College and received a master’s degree from Columbia: +6 • The groom graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Mexico and received a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins: +4 • The groom was awarded the Bronze Star in April 2009 for service in Iraq: +1 • The bride’s father is the chief of staff at the Commonwealth Health Center in Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands: +1 • The groom’s previous marriage ended in divorce: -1 • The groom’s mom’s name is Wilhelmina Helgers-Dirkx: +1 TOTAL: 22 [ Pretty photo of those ridiculously cute dogs used with permission via Keith Loh . ]
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Scoring Sunday’s Nuptials: Fly High, Snowbirds of Love. Fly High.
Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff
Tagged chairwoman, Christmas, dame dash, gone skiing, medical, reporters report things, romance, security, skiing, united-states, wannabe-warhol, wedding
It’s Valentine’s Day, but what does that mean for the NYT’s Weddings & Celebrations ? And even more importantly: Gawker Weddings Expert Phyllis Nefler ? Nothing but business as usual: a massive hangover, investigative reporting on Facebook, and a Gizmodo writer’s wedding. Here is where there ought to be some sort of halfassed “rant” about Valentine’s Day, or at the very least a contrarian “in praise of” the holiday. You will not find that here. To be honest, I find anyone who is either a) weirdly obsessed with Valentine’s Day — cutting out paper hearts, bringing FAX ME candies to the office, mass-texting everyone with a lil “HAPPY
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Scoring Sunday’s Nuptials, V-Day Edition: The Facebook Wedding Crash Investigation
Posted in Celebrities, Hot Stuff
Tagged announcement, Day, Facebook, friends, Love, medical, office, pajaks, phyllis-nefler, Super Bowl, valentine, weddings, women
It’s Valentine’s Day, but what does that mean for the NYT’s Weddings & Celebrations ? And even more importantly: Gawker Weddings Expert Phyllis Nefler ? Nothing but business as usual: a massive hangover and investigative reporting on Facebook, to boot. ACHTUNG, NEFLER! Here is where there ought to be some sort of halfassed “rant” about Valentine’s Day, or at the very least a contrarian “in praise of” the holiday. You will not find that here. To be honest, I find anyone who is either a) weirdly obsessed with Valentine’s Day — cutting out paper hearts, bringing FAX ME candies to the office, mass-texting everyone with a lil “HAPPY
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Scoring Sunday’s Nuptials, V-Day Editon: The Facebook Wedding Crash Investigation
Filed under: Celebrity Justice In a letter to friends and family, Nancy Kerrigan says the official cause of death for her father — homicide — was “unjustified” and her family plans “to help my brother fight.”The Medical Examiner determined Dan Kerrigan died from cardiac … Permalink
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Nancy Kerrigan: I Will Help My Brother Fight
Tagged bennyhollywood, Brother, Family, father, her-father, kerrigan, medical, medical-examiner, nancy, nancy-kerrigan, official, says-the-official, TMZ
Graphic: thefreshscent.com OK, quick: You’re head of the Department of Corrections. Officers under you misbehave and improperly arrest a medical marijuana patient. What do you do? Lie and cover up for them, if you’re Eldon Vail of the Washington DOC. By Steve Elliott in Toke of the Town The head of the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC), Eldon Vail, seems to put a lot more effort into covering up the lousy job his subordinates are doing, than in actually doing his own job. The Washington DOC, following the example of the not-cool Attorney General Rob McKenna , is already notorious for its extremely hard line against the use of medical marijuana for individuals on probation. Now, newly revealed documents show that Vail and the DOC have been involved in misconduct, cover-ups, and possibly outright law-breaking, reports Lee Rosenberg at the highly recommended Seattle political blog, Horses Ass . Photo: Joel Sanders Lee Rosenberg broke the story at Seattle political blog Horses Ass Kathy Parkins, a medical marijuana patient from Washington who has fibromyalgia, spent some time visiting in Southern California in 2007. She decided to make a trip into Arizona to visit a friend before heading back up to Washington for Thanksgiving. Along the way, on November 14, 2007, she was stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint just after crossing the Arizona state line. Arizona is not a medical marijuana state (it passed a law by voter initiative in 1996, but the law requires federal approval before it takes effect), so Parkins was arrested and faced three marijuana charges after a drug-sniffing dog located less than a quarter-ounce she had in her possession. Parkins didn’t make it home for Thanksgiving. Instead, she spent more than three weeks in an Arizona jail before finally being released in January 2008. She had to return to Arizona several times, and at considerable expense, for court appearances. Parkins was eventually sentenced to probation by an Arizona judge. In order for Parkins to spend her probationary period at home back in Washington, an Interstate Compact was required. These are agreements between states to have someone on probation move from one state’s supervision to another, and I can tell you from personal experience they are a real bureaucratic pain in the ass. What neither Parkins nor her Arizona probation officer realized was how the Washington DOC was trying to fight its own battle against medical marijuana users and the law passed by Washington’s voters in 1998. When she was allowed to return to Washington, Parkins moved in with a fellow medical marijuana patient named Carla Cole, who had heard about Parkins’ predicament and volunteered to help. Improper Arrest In May 2008, hours after Parkins got an updated medical marijuana authorization from Dr. Bethany Rolfe, Community Corrections Officer (CCO) Jeremy Praven, along with another officer, conducted a “home inspection” at Cole’s West Seattle residence and discovered Cole’s small legal garden of nine cannabis plants. Praven then contacted Seattle Police. When the cops arrived, they determined Cole’s small grow operation was completely legal, apologized to Cole for bothering her, and took no action other than filing a routine report. Then a third Corrections officer, Michael Schemnitzer, arrived at Cole’s residence. “While the CCOs were in my home, one very young man said to me, a retiree in my 60s, and poor Kathy who is visibly pained and stressed, ‘I don’t care about her and I don’t care about her problems and I don’t care about you and I don’t care about your problems,” Cole wrote in a complaint email to the DOC the day after the arrest. Cole’s email complaint continued: Then your guys came back with a new guy who chose to speak to Kathy SO RUDELY and with such contempt I just had to add “Please” to his command for her to descend the stairs. This was in my home, and I naturally feel a right to ask people to behave in a civil way there. Then, he said that because I said “please” he was going to take her in, which he did. I told him his cruelty does not become him and I’m telling you the cruelty of your staff does not become you. To make me feel like I sent my friend to prison because I asked her to be treated with kindness in my home – someone who has committed no real crime at all – is just so mean I’m speechless. After being arrested by Schemnitzer, Parkins spent a week in King County Jail with no charges and no hearing. Her health continued to deteriorate as she tried, unsuccessfully, to get information about her case. All week long, her friend and housemate Cole sent frantic emails to elected officials and DOC employees, trying to find out what has happening. Six days after the arrest, on the evening of May 27, Cole sent emails to several people in the media. The very next day, DOC officials began looking into the situation, and on May 28, Parkins was finally released from custody. DOC Field Administrator Donta Harper admitted in an internal email, obtained by the Cannabis Defense Coalition under a Freedom Of Information request, than the CCOs had no authority to detain Parkins in the first place, because at the time she was still under the supervision of Arizona probation officials. Harper followed up the next day by sending a letter to Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, admitting fault in the arrest. A few days later, after several attempts to follow up with officials in both Arizona and Washington, Parkins discovered a nationwide arrest warrant had been posted for her from Arizona, based upon a denial of the Interstate Compact agreement filled out by Officer Praven. Falsified Paperwork When an Arizona official, in June 2009, read Parkins the paperwork Officer Praven had filled out after her arrest and sent to Arizona, she discovered it contained a number of inaccuracies and outright falsehoods. That same day, the Washington DOC notified Arizona probation officials to cancel the nationwide warrant. They were now rescinding their initial denial of the Interstate Compact, they said; Parkins could now stay in Washington and apply to use medical marijuana while on probation. Despite repeated attempts, Parkins was unable to obtain a copy of the Interstate Compact denial filled out by Officer Praven. She said DOC officials claimed it was lost. She had still never seen the document until a few weeks ago, when CDC obtained the document as part of their information request. And when she finally saw Officer Praven’s paperwork, she realized it contained many falsehoods. Ms. Parkins has no family ties in Washington. She stated that she wanted to live in Washington because of the marijuana laws. Parkins was in fact born and reared in Washington, has two grown children in the state, and a grandchild born while she was in an Arizona courtroom. And she says she never said anything about “wanting to live in Washington because of the marijuana laws.” Ms. Parkins was living with individuals from the Marijuana Growers Association of Washington. Neither Cole nor Parkins has any idea how Officer Praven came up with this claim. No such organization exists, according to everyone else involved. ‘Open Hostility’ To Medical Marijuana Law So what we’re left with is this: On May 21, 2008, CCOs Jeremy Praven and Michael Schemnitzer improperly arrested Parkins; Praven then filed a report with both falsehoods and intentionally misleading statements, attempting to have her sent back to Arizona, a state where she has no family and has never lived. Parkins still held out hope that once her doctor filed the necessary paperwork, she’d be allowed to use medical pot. But only July 23, 2008, two months after her arrest, the DOC denied her request to use the medicine that she’d been legally using for years before they had her improperly arrested. Lee Rosenberg sums it up best at Horses Ass : The entire situation had become surreal. A person who broke a law in Arizona — for something that’s completely legal here [in Washington] — was now being harassed for engaging in that legal activity, despite the fact that even the officials in Arizona seemed indifferent to her medical marijuana use while she was back in Washington… At this point, it’s clear that the DOC was denying medical marijuana use based on an open hostility towards the voter-approved law… Cole demanded the CCOs involved in Parkins’ arrest be reprimanded for their behavior during and after the bust. After several failed attempts, she sent a letter directly to the head of the Washington DOC, Eldon Vail. This past May a recent tenant and friendly acquaintance who, like me, is authorized in Washington to use marijuana medicinally, was visited here by your Community Corrections Officers. The friend, [Kathy Parkins] is on an interstate compact probation from Arizona, which she thought was also a medical marijuana state, but isn’t. She was roughly and unfairly removed from my home to the county jail downtown where she spent a truly miserable week with no contact from you whatsoever. The paperwork was filled with inaccuracies, and further moves by her CCO, Jeremy Praven in West Seattle, seem also to be filled with fabrications and are utterly unworthy of any decent government. The Cover-Up Photo: The Associated Press Eldon Vail “leads” the WA DOC by lying and covering up the misdeeds of his subordinates When Vail finally responded — nearly three months later, on February 20, 2009 — the DOC was still refusing to release the falsified document to Parkins, and, as revealed by Rosenberg’s investigative reporting, Vail attempted to cover up what his officer had done : A review of jail records and discussion with staff indicates that Ms. Merry-Perkins [sic] was booked into King County Jail without any appearance of physical injury. Through a review of her field file, discussion with the assigned CCO and the unit supervisor, there is no evidence to support your statements that the CCOs inaccurately filled out paperwork or fabricated her supervision paperwork from Arizona. Ten months later, in December 2009, due to the CDC’s information request, the document the DOC had been trying to hide finally came to light — and it proves that Vail lied to cover up for the actions of CCO Jeremy Praven. Parkins was finally authorized, in January 2009, to use medical marijuana while on probation — one of only two patients in the state allowed to do so. ……. Documents Available for Public Inspection The Cannabis Defense Coalition has uploaded for public inspection all the documents obtained from the Department of Corrections. The complete PDF files are rather large — 45 megabytes for installment one, 23 megs for installment two, and 19 megs for installment three. The documents are also split into smaller files for easier download. All of the PDF files are searchable.
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WA Corrections Head Covers Up For Misbehaving Anti-Pot Officers
Filed under: Celebrity Justice Nancy Kerrigan’s father’s death has been ruled a homicide — this according to the the Middlesex Chief Medical Examiner.According to the findings, Daniel Kerrigan died from cardiac dysrythmia after suffering a neck injury during a physical … Permalink
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Death of Nancy Kerrigan’s Dad – Homicide
Filed under: Celebrity Justice , Michael Jackson Dr. Conrad Murray is a “danger to the public” — according to the medical board that licensed him to practice medicine in California.The Medical Board of California was shut down today by the judge in Murray’s involuntary manslaughter case. The Board … Permalink
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Med Board Goes After Murray with a Vengeance
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