Society

Mary Josephine Ray of New Hampshire claimed the title as the oldest person in the United States after Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles died on Friday.

According to the Gerontology Research Group, which tracks extreme old age, the only person in the world that is known to be older than Ray lives in Japan. Kama Chinen was born on May 10, 1895, just seven days before Ray. As of August 2009, Ray is also considered to be one of the 60 oldest verified people in world history.

When asked what she thought of her long life, Ray said:

"It was so long ago, I don't remember much about it."

What a pitiful week for the once proud United States of America. Hopefully when we look back at this time many years from now, we will see that the parents not allowing their children to listen to a President's address to schoolchildren and Joe Wilson who disrupted Barack Obama as the apex of divisiveness that has torn us apart during this tumultuous decade. At least we had a bright spot as The Beatles' attempt to take out us out of the doldrums with their remastered works and a video game that will attempt to cheer up a country in need of a lift. The Republican party should particularly take heed of John Lennon's song Come Together and stop all the bickering.

Members of the GOP will quickly play the blame game with the Democrats, declaring that it was their party that started it all. Correct me if I am mistaken, but the vocal minority a few years back were correct in their assertion that there would be no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and by entering in such a war it would be a quagmire for our great military. The loss of civil liberties with the passage of the Patriot Act helped take the USA back 200 years. The Bush policy was so bad that even Dick Cheney has been attempting to distance himself from such a pathetic track record.

It has been eight years since the attack on our country on September 11, 2001. President Obama commemorated the 9/11 anniversary saying today at a speech at the

"Eight Septembers have come and gone. Nearly 3,000 days have passed; almost one for each of those taken from us," he said on a cool, rainy day in the Washington area. "But no turning of the season can diminish the pain and the loss of that day. No passage of time and no dark skies can ever dull the meaning of this moment."

The swine flu scare just got a whole lot scarier. As we enter flu season, tensions are high with worries about the potentially deadly H1N1 flu virus that is circling the globe. Now, it is believed that a drug-resistant strain of the flu is spreading amongst humans. The first case the drug-resistant strain of the virus being spread human-to-human is now being reported.

It happened in western North Carolina in July, where two teenage girls at summer camp were diagnosed with the same drug-resistant strain of swine flu. The strain of the flu that they were afflicted with is resistant to Tamiflu, one of two flu medicines that help fight off swine flu once you have it.

Health officials have been closely watching for any sign that the virus is mutating, which would make the drugs ineffective. It now appears that has happened.

This week, Roche Holding AG, the makers of Tamiflu, revealed that it is aware of 13 cases of Tamiflu resistant strains of swine flu around the world. According to the Centers for Diseease Control and Prevention, nine of those thirteen cases are in the United States. Besides the two cases in NC, the rest were all single cases.

Cleveland, while it may liveable and affordable cities to live in, is also one of the most stressful places in the United States to live. Forbes annual rankings of the country's most stressful cities places Cleveland in the #4 spot. Surprisingly, the most stressful city was not New York City, but rather, it was Chicago. NYC came in at number three, behind Los Angeles in second.

Forbes determined the rankings by looking at these key factors: median home price drop, unemployment rate, cost of living, air quality, number of sunny days per year, and population density.

In those categories, Cleveland ranked:

• #10 in median home price drop
• #17 in unemployment rate
• #28 in cost of living
• #18 in air quality
• #4 in sunny days per year
• #9 in population density

The high rankings in the sunny days per year, median home price drop and population density were what really catapulted Cleveland near the top of the list. Cleveland ranked in the top 10 in year-over-year median home price drop, and had just 162 sunny days per year in 2007 and a population density of 1,060 people per square mile. An unemployment rate of 10.1% in June also adds to the city's stress factor.

The top ten most stressful cities of 2009 were:

1 - Chicago, IL

There’s a better than even chance that Dr. Conrad Murray may go to prison for the death of Michael Jackson. He was the physician in attendance at the time of death of the pop icon, and admitted injecting Jackson with the powerful anesthetic propofol in the hours before his death. But does that mean Murray is responsible for the superstar’s demise? Somehow I doubt there will be a groundswell of public or prosecutorial sentiment to pin what is now being called a homicide on Murray … and for good reason.

Like Anna Nicole Smith and Elvis before him, the combination of wealth and celebrity proved Jackson’s undoing. Both fame and fortune were heaped on them — as we continue to do to others — by an adoring and uncritical public in amounts they were ill-equipped to handle. In the end, no one could just say “no” to their unrelenting demands as they attempted to simply escape their brutal realities … if only for eight hours at a time.

More than a homicide, Jackson’s death — along with those of Jimi and Janice — is another case of celebrity “accidental suicide.”

I’ve been stirring memories as I look through memorabilia as I near 50 years of news reporting. I came across two long interviews with Dr. Benjamin Spock from 1967.

Much of it dealt with his anti-war activity. I asked him naturally about the opposition he encountered over his anti-Vietnam positions. But I also asked him, “Did you take much abuse over your Medicare stand?”

I don’t remember the nature of his position but his response reveals even today the bitterness in the fight for health care reform.

His answer:

“Yes, I think that I angered my colleagues and friends at the medical center (University Hospitals) more about that than I did about peace. I think that they think of peace views as rather crazy. But medical, I think a lot of conservative doctors felt (it) was a direct threat to them, going to impair the whole, if not, destroy the whole basis of private practice.”

We have come some way since then but still have a long way to go.

It’s amazing how much you forget of the past. At least I do. The interviews covered 20 single-spaced pages of typewritten questions and mostly answer from Spock. He had the patience and kindness to sit through these long conversations.

James Freeman Clarke once said "A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation." So it is with the so-called debate concerning health care reform. First and foremost, we as a country need to take a step back from the "debate" and allow for more time to really find out what it is the American people want. They need to be surveyed before a bill is presented to Congress not as something that is foisted upon them like a fait accompli. Furthermore, no one can tell me that the United States does not have the money to provide healthcare to all Americans when it continues to waste $12 billion dollars per month on a frivolous "war on terror" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, in spite of the angst exhibited at the town hall meetings across the country it is imperative that all constituents continue to demand they be held. The electronic age has removed what is perhaps the most effective element of politics; confrontation. It is healthy for the country {no pun intended}.

If you didn't hit the $252 Million Mega Million Lottery jackpot don't feel too bad. You will get another crack at it on Friday evening. The multi-state lottery, which Ohio participates in, failed to get claimed yesterday. The jackpot will now grow to a year high of $325 million which amounts to $204 cash option. Virginia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia , Texas, California and Washington participate in the lottery. The odds of matching 5 numbers and the power ball are 175 million-1.

Comedian Sunda Croonquist is being sued by her mother-in-law after making her the punchline of one too many jokes. Ruth Zafrin is accusing her of spreading false, defamatory and racist lies with the in-law jokes that have become a staple of her comedy routines in nightclubs and on TV channels like Comedy Central.

Croonquist is half-black, half-Swedish, grew up Roman Catholic and married into a Jewish family. To her, the in-law jokes seemed to be a natural routine after living through one culture-clash moment after another. She says there was a time when her in-laws would laugh along with everyone else at the black-member-of-a-Jewish family jokes.

She said:

"They played my tape at Passover one year, and they loved it!"

Things changed, however, after Croonquist posted information on her website while promoting upcoming gigs in New Jersey that her in-laws say allowed anyone to figure out their identities. So, they sued in April in US District Court in New Jersey, where they live.

Her in-laws are seeking unspecified damages and demand that Croonquist remove any offensive statements from her website, routines and recordings. She says she would drop any language that her family finds offensive, but refuses to pay any settlement.