If you are at all squeamish about snakes don't click to embiggen the photo. It's a larger grey snake eating a smaller snake. Found at the Willamette River, Corvallis. June 27, 2009.
Budget cuts proposed by our state legislature may affect the disabled who can still live independently.
One of the most distressing proposed reductions is to the program that serves seniors and people with disabilities who live at home. With a proposed reduction of nearly $19 million in state funds to the in-home program, the cut reduces the monthly hours of help in the areas of housekeeping, shopping, transportation, medication management and meal preparation. On average, this amounts to a 40 percent reduction in the number of hours of help that people will receive through this service. We are putting people at risk if they try to live at home without adequate support services. We will see many people move to 24 hour care setting because they can not live safely at home with a 40 percent cut to their in-home help. Corvallis-Gazette Times Link
Here's to Blogging Against Disablism Day (BADD)....
I wish I could write something clever about being disabled(like lets call it alter-abled!!1!), but honestly, I am too damn tired. It's barely 9:00 pm and I'm ready to crash. For me the hard part about having an invisible disability like mine and others is lack of energy. I'm just a sleepyhead. Well anyway, I was taking Sera the dog on a walk this morning and my knee gave out completely and I landed on all fours on a sidewalk. I ended up with scraped knees and elbow but it jarred my knees and shoulder so hard thatI'm just throbing in pain right now. I think I will have a bowl and climb into bed with "The Stone Diaries"...but before I do... I need to acknowledge that it took me years for me to accept my disability. It was hidden from my work life as I didn't want my syndrome to interfere with work. I strive to walk as "normal" as possible so I dont look so bow-legged and all my problems are internal, (joints, connective tissue, spine) , my migraines are not visible, nor IBS. You can notice an oddity when looking at my fingernails..I am missing some... A lot of people ask me if I chew my nails, which I don't.Today I accept Nail-Patella Syndrome as a gift Despite the pain..now I can totally empathize with other alter-abled.
I would estimate about 100-125 people at this rally today in Corvallis. Seemed like a pretty strange crowd. I heard things like "We're extremists!!!." One woman asked me from which group I was from because I was taking pictures. I replied I was just a citizen with a camera..which was the truth.
A Spanish pathologist who specialized in a human strain of mad cow disease died Saturday, and officials suspect the disease played a role in his death, officials said.
The doctor was head of the anatomy pathology section at the University Hospital Principe de Asturias in Alcala de Henares, outside of Madrid, according to the Madrid regional government's health office. He died Saturday night, at the hospital where he worked, officials said. The doctor's name was not released at the request of his family. CNN Link
Officials are not sure if he contracted the disease from his medical work. Pretty bizarre! Remember don't eat t-bone steaks or burgers.
Would you like your McBSE with fries...?
More Mad Cow News
Tennessee Department of Health investigates death from rare disease. Tricities.com Link
Current prion research focuses on normal prion protein and its altered, dangerous state which causes CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) and BSE(bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Eureka Alert
Fifth mad cow disease death in human from Spain. Google News Link
OMSweetJesus..I luv this video...Being the owner of a Jack Russel Terrier/Whippet/Boxer dog I can vouch these dogs are very amusing. Ballon Juice is now going on my blogroll, now that blogrolling works again.