CocaKolla

Tja....  ég held ekki að ég verði nokkurn tíman háð ljósabekkjum, þar sem að ég á í vandræðum með að sitja kyrr lengi.  En mig grunar að suma af þessum ljósabekkja-marþonurum langi bara í smá sól og yl og ég get ekki láð þeim.  Það er gott að láta sér líða vel. 

Húðkrabbi er náttúrulega ekkert grín, en geta sólbekkjadýrkendurnir ekki bara skellt á sig smá sólvörn og legið lon og don í bekknum?    

	Notkun ljósabekkja er fíkn
Ábyrgðarmaður færslu Tilkynna um óviðeigandi tengingu við frétt

Tileinkun Bjarkar hefur vakið athygli útfyrir landsteinana - bæði þá kínversku og íslensku, meira að segja Orlando blöðin skrifuðu stutta frétt um hvernig Björk hristi upp í tónleikagestum. 

Skrítnir tímar í Kína þessa dagana og ég verð að viðurkenna að ég get alveg gert upp við mig hvað tilfinningar ég ber til þessa lands og þjóðarinnar sem þar býr.  Án efa er margt gott fólk í Kína og saga þjóðarinnar margslungin, en það er eitthvað element sem fer ekki vel í minn maga.
Er ekki sagt að við hræðumst það sem við skiljum ekki? 

	Yfirlýsing frá Björk
Ábyrgðarmaður færslu Tilkynna um óviðeigandi tengingu við frétt

Þó að ég sé nú ekki kosningahæf hérna í Ammríkunni hef ég nú mínar skoðanir á stjórnmálum og forsetaframbjóðendum.  Það er bara búið að vera nokkuð spennandi að fylgjast með dansi Hillary og Obama og held ég að margir séu nokkuð hissa á hversu vel Obama stendur sig.

Það verður nú samt að segjast að það er ekki mikð bragð af bandarískri pólitík borið saman við þá íslensku.  Þetta er svoldið eins og nammið, ekki mikið bragð af bandaríska namminu heldur, allt svona frekar "bland" eins og kaninn segir.

En við sjáum hvað setur - verður spennandi að fylgjast með! 

	Obama með naumt forskot
Ábyrgðarmaður færslu Tilkynna um óviðeigandi tengingu við frétt

Áhrifa þessa vonskuveðurs gætir langt út fyrir landsteinana eins og merkja má á vinkonu minni sem situr hér við sundlaugina á stuttbuxum og bol, verulega veðurteppt.  Hún átti flug til Íslands í dag, en þar sem að engar flugvélar hafa komist af landi brott eru engar flugvélar hér til að flytja hana heim.  En það væsir svosem ekkert um okkur í kotinu þannig að þetta er allt í lagi.

	Versta óveðrið í vetur
Ábyrgðarmaður færslu Tilkynna um óviðeigandi tengingu við frétt

Rakst á þetta blogg hérna á ferðum mínum um veraldarvefinn - bloggið vitnaði í grein sem að Garson Romalis skrifaði um störf sín sem læknir sem lagði stund á fóstureyðingar. Ég hafði ekki spáð voðalega mikið í afstöðu mína til fóstureyðinga, en við lesturinn hrökk ég aðeinsn við og það rann upp fyrir mér að ég er mjög "pro choice" eins og það kallast hérna úti.   Mér finnst að konur sem að finna sig í þeirru stöðu að þurfa að íhuga fóstureyðingu eigi að hafa greiðan aðganga að fagfólki og uppfræðslu svo þær geti sjálfar tekið ákvörðun um framhaldið.

Hér er hluti af greininni (má finna í heild sinni hér).   Góð lesning að mínu mati.  

Why I am an abortion doctor

'I can take a woman, in the biggest trouble she has ever experienced in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life'

Garson Romalis, © Garson Romalis  Published: Monday, February 04, 2008

I have been an abortion provider since 1972. Why do I do abortions, and why do I continue to do abortions, despite two murder attempts?

The first time I started to think about abortion was in 1960, when I was in secondyear medical school. I was assigned the case of a young woman who had died of a septic abortion. She had aborted herself using slippery elm bark.

I had never heard of slippery elm. A buddy and I went down to skid row, and without too much difficulty, purchased some slippery elm bark to use as a visual aid in our presentation. Slippery elm is not sterile, and frequently contains spores of the bacteria that cause gas gangrene. It is called slippery elm because, when it gets wet, it feels slippery. This makes it easier to slide slender pieces through the cervix where they absorb water, expand, dilate the cervix, produce infection and induce abortion. The young woman in our case developed an overwhelming infection. At autopsy she had multiple abscesses throughout her body, in her brain, lungs, liver and abdomen.

I have never forgotten that case.

After I graduated from University of British Columbia medical school in 1962, I went to Chicago, where I served my internship and Ob/Gyn residency at Cook County Hospital. At that time, Cook County had about 3,000 beds, and served a mainly indigent population. If you were really sick, or really poor, or both, Cook County was where you went.

The first month of my internship was spent on Ward 41, the septic obstetrics ward. Yes, it's hard to believe now, but in those days, they had one ward dedicated exclusively to septic complications of pregnancy.

About 90% of the patients were there with complications of septic abortion. The ward had about 40 beds, in addition to extra beds which lined the halls. Each day we admitted between 10-30 septic abortion patients. We had about one death a month, usually from septic shock associated with hemorrhage.

I will never forget the 17-year-old girl lying on a stretcher with 6 feet of small bowel protruding from her vagina. She survived.

I will never forget the jaundiced woman in liver and kidney failure, in septic shock, with very severe anemia, whose life we were unable to save.

Today, in Canada and the U.S., septic shock from illegal abortion is virtually never seen. Like smallpox, it is a "disappeared disease."

I had originally been drawn to obstetrics and gynecology because I loved delivering babies. Abortion was illegal when I trained, so I did not learn how to do abortions in my residency, although I had more than my share of experience looking after illegal abortion complications.

In 1972, a couple of years after the law on abortion was liberalized, I began the practise of obstetrics and gynecology, and joined a three-man group in Vancouver. My practice partners and I believed strongly that a woman should be able to decide for herself if and when to have a baby. We were frequently asked to look after women who needed termination of pregnancy. Although I had done virtually no terminations in my training, I soon learned how. I also learned just how much demand there was for abortion services.

Providing abortion services can be quite stressful. Usually, an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is the worst trouble the patient has ever been in in her entire life.

I remember one 18-year-old patient who desperately wanted an abortion, but felt she could not confide in her mother, who was a nurse in another Vancouver area hospital. She impressed on me how important it was that her termination remain a secret from her family. In those years, parental consent was required if the patient was less than 19 years old. I obtained the required second opinion from a colleague, and performed an abortion on her.

About two weeks, later I received a phone call from her mother. She asked me directly "Did you do an abortion on my daughter?" Visions of legal suit passed through my mind as I tried to think of how to answer her question. I decided to answer directly and truthfully. I answered with trepidation, "Yes, I did" and started to make mental preparations to call my lawyer. The mother replied: "Thank you, Doctor. Thank God there are people like you around."

Like many of my colleagues, I had been the subject of antiabortion picketing, particularly in the 1980s. I did not like having my office and home picketed, or nails thrown into my driveway, but viewed these picketers as a nuisance, exercising their right of free speech. Being in Canada, I felt I did not have to worry about my physical security.

I had been a medical doctor for 32 years when I was shot at 7:10 a.m., Nov. 8, 1994. For over half my life, I had been providing obstetrical and gynecological care, including abortions. It is still hard for me to understand how someone could think I should be killed for helping women get safe abortions.

 Framhald hér....