Violent storm in Charlotte N.C.

Tornados, high wind, raging rain, what would you be doing at this time if this was going around you? You would be running and hiding as well as you could. A huge storm hit Charlotte, North Carolina today with having many injured, roofs pulled off buildings and power off for 11,000 people as off 9:30 tonight. How this deals with the media you might also be asking? Well because of this many will see it on the news and realize the help that the people in Chalotte need. Anything damaging like this that reaches the news, effects people. They feel the need to help out in any way shape or form. Knowing that hopefully others would help out in the same way for them. Without the influence of media, like television or newspapers how would disasters like this be known to the rest of the world.

This being very recent information for Sunday MSN didn't have to much covering it. Although I still found this informaiton very interesting to blog about. It goes to show that people will always help out when others are in need. Just like here in Valley City, many worked their butts off to save the town from being completely flooded. We worked as a team to make sure things were as good as they could be and just put faith in everything else. This article just made me realize how amazing things work out.

SUPER BOWL XLIV

Well that's it the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bown against the Indianapolis Colts. Being, well me, I don't watch the Super Bowl that much, I just watch for the family fun, and togetherness. While looking on-line about the Super Bowl, the writers headline was "Who DAT? It's the Super Bowl champ Saints." and when reading this I was appalled at the headline, what professional news writer would actually put "Who DAT?" in the headline. I'm an English major and I find this very appauling.

Although one thing I did love was watching the commercials, which I became a fan of the Dorrito's ones this year. Not only do they keep our attention during the break from the game, but for most of them I laughed quite a bit. There are the expect ones like E-Trade, Bud Light, and Budweiser, but who saw they many Denny's commercials coming?! Although not very traditional, they certainly pulled it off, I just love chickens, and who doesn't love Denny's? :) My absolute favorite commercial this year was the trailor for the new Alice in Wonderland, I have been waiting over a year to even see this trailor let alone see the movie. It looks amazing, and I'm in love with Johnny Depp.

Enough of my ranting and raving, onto things that really matter. How does a commercial make it into the Super Bowl line up? Well first off Super Bowl 1, the cost of a 30 second commercial in 1967 was $42,500 on CBS and $37,500 on NBC. With this year CBS is asking for about $2.6 million dollars, just for a 30 second commercial. Nothing has been said for sure on what they have paid yet this year, but in 2006 they paid$2.5 million on ABC, which had 77,900,000 viewers that year.

New Information on Radiation Treatments

Cancer, a word that many have become more and more scared of over the years. I have dealt with this with this mysterious word. It was one of the most life changing things I have been through, but lucky enough for me I did not need very much radiation. It still was very worry-some that something could happen, and I wouldn’t be ok afterwards. Fortunately I have been cancer free for 2 years, with no complications or no more radiation treatments.

These people in the story on the MSNBC site were not as lucky, and unfortunately, for them there interaction was fatal. Scott Jerome –Parks had tongue cancer and underwent radiation treatments in New York City hospital, unnoticed by the radiation techs there happened to be a computer error when that sent radiation blasts using a linear accelerator to his brain stem and neck. Not only did he endure this treatment once, but also three times in three consecutive days. This lead Scott to have a fatal radiation overdose, which entailed him becoming deaf, losing some of his sight, lost ability to swallow, burned, loss of teeth, ulcers in his mouth and throat, nauseated, and finally unable to breath. Scott’s last wish to figure out what exactly was happening with the radiation that was causing such problems.

This did not just happened once; this also happened with Alexandra Jn-Charles a breast cancer patient taking treatments at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. She underwent 27 days of overdosed radiation; each time was three times the dose prescribed. The linear accelerator with a missing filter burned a whole through her chest, leaving a vast hole so painful she almost considered suicide.

Of course there are many cases of cancer that need radiation and everything works out fine, but they do not know of the harm that could happen or if technology goes wrong. In the MSNBC report the NY Times researched many of the flaws of the technology that could happen, like software failing, faulty programming, poor safety procedures, and insufficient training of staff. There is only an estimated guess on how many cases go wrong, they are using under reported and some states don’t require they be reported at all.

These are just some cases that have been swept under the rug, a Philadelphia hospital gave the radiation dose to more than 90 patients. In 2005, a Florida hospital disclosed 77 brain cancer patients that received more than 50 % more radiation than prescribed because the linear accelerator was programmed incorrectly for a year.

So after really reading into this report I think people should know of all the harmful things that could happen with dealing with radiation treatment, no ifs, ans, or buts. It can work very well for most, but there those cases that can happen incorrectly. Everyone should be informed equally of the chances that something could become harmful. Trying to research male practices on cancer radiation treatment, not much came up, it seems like everywhere they are just hiding the negative of what radiation can do. Maybe they are doing this to frighten cancer patient, or something. I believe that everyone should be well aware of the conflicts.