Mark_Thompson's Blog

This post has been edited by an administrator

Okay all you don't worry, be happy peeps...here's the latest thing to throw to the side and not worry about...water. :)

The population of the west has exploded at a rate so staggering that water resources are stressed beyond what the region can bare.

Conservation is part of the solution, but it's unlikely that without substantial solutions to supplement conservation along the lines of desalination plants, and the expansion of gray water use, etc. we will not be able to attack this problem effectively and it will grow in magnitude to eclipse the problems we have with fuel.

There is profligate waste of water here and across the west, from Las Vegas to Arizona, don't we need to consider ways to draw down our per capita use of water in the west.

Just a quick thought.

It was some time ago that I blogged about what I had heard from a leading surgeon regarding cell phones and brain tumor growth.

You may recall that I had mentioned being told that while he had no definite results, it was that doctor's opinion that there is a correlation between cell phone use and brain tumors he had seen.

The overwhelming numbers of tumors had occurred on the side of the head to which the person holds the cell phone he told me.

Well, if you read the article from this week's New York Times, below, it is all detailed there:

Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer function 

What do brain surgeons know about cellphone safety that the rest of us don’t?

Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”

Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.

Along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer.

That supposed link has been largely dismissed by many experts, including the American Cancer Society. The theory that cellphones cause brain tumors “defies credulity,” said Dr. Eugene Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, three large epidemiology studies since 2000 have shown no harmful effects. CTIA — the Wireless Association, the leading industry trade group, said in a statement, “The overwhelming majority of studies that have been published in scientific journals around the globe show that wireless phones do not pose a health risk.”

The F.D.A. notes, however, that the average period of phone use in the studies it cites was about three years, so the research doesn’t answer questions about long-term exposures. Critics say many studies are flawed for that reason, and also because they do not distinguish between casual and heavy use.

Cellphones emit non-ionizing radiation, waves of energy that are too weak to break chemical bonds or to set off the DNA damage known to cause cancer. There is no known biological mechanism to explain how non-ionizing radiation might lead to cancer.

But researchers who have raised concerns say that just because science can’t explain the mechanism doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist. Concerns have focused on the heat generated by cellphones and the fact that the radio frequencies are absorbed mostly by the head and neck. In recent studies that suggest a risk, the tumors tend to occur on the same side of the head where the patient typically holds the phone.

Like most research on the subject, the studies are observational, showing only an association between cellphone use and cancer, not a causal relationship. The most important of these studies is called Interphone, a vast research effort in 13 countries, including Canada, Israel and several in Europe.

Some of the research suggests a link between cellphone use and three types of tumors: glioma; cancer of the parotid, a salivary gland near the ear; and acoustic neuroma, a tumor that essentially occurs where the ear meets the brain. All these cancers are rare, so even if cellphone use does increase risk, the risk is still very low.

Last year, The American Journal of Epidemiology published data from Israel finding a 58 percent higher risk of parotid gland tumors among heavy cellphone users. Also last year, a Swedish analysis of 16 studies in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine showed a doubling of risk for acoustic neuroma and glioma after 10 years of heavy cellphone use.

“What we’re seeing is suggestions in epidemiological studies that have looked at people using phones for 10 or more years,” says Louis Slesin, editor of Microwave News, an industry publication that tracks the research. “There are some very disconcerting findings that suggest a problem, although it’s much too early to reach a conclusive view.”

Some doctors say the real concern is not older cellphone users, who began using phones as adults, but children who are beginning to use phones today and face a lifetime of exposure.

“More and more kids are using cellphones,” said Dr. Paul J. Rosch, clinical professor of medicine and psychiatry at New York Medical College. “They may be much more affected. Their brains are growing rapidly, and their skulls are thinner.”

For people who are concerned about any possible risk, a simple solution is to use a headset. Of course, that option isn’t always convenient, and some critics have raised worries about wireless devices like the Bluetooth that essentially place a transmitter in the ear.

The fear is that even if the individual risk of using a cellphone is low, with three billion users worldwide, even a minuscule risk would translate into a major public health concern.

“We cannot say with any certainty that cellphones are either safe or not safe,” Dr. Black said on CNN. “My concern is that with the widespread use of cellphones, the worst scenario would be that we get the definitive study 10 years from now, and we find out there is a correlation.”

well@nytimes.com

Two friends of mine died this week. Cancer took both these relatively young men.

The first is Tom Groener. You do not know the face but perhaps know his voice.   His signature deadpan "hello" and dialogue done with that unmistakable flat everyman quality generally made him a top commercial voiceover actor.

Cut and paste this link and you can hear some of him:

http://vbfile1.voicebank.net/sandboxes/11/Actors%20-%20
Commercial/Tom%20Groener.mp3

Tom, will be missed by all who had the pleasure to both work with him and even be around him in a studio waiting area. He was a great guy who made me smile.

The second friend of mine who died suddenly after a year struggling with cancer is Glen Gerberg.

Glen was a weather forecaster in Denver Colorado for years and had the quietest, easy going temperament, even as the world around him was coming to pieces.

I knew Glen and spent time with him at meteorology conferences (which I used to attend more regularly years ago) and we grew to be pretty good friends.

In fact, I saw Glen for dinner here in Los Angeles three months ago and got the word over the weekend that he had only weeks to live. I was stunned of course.

When I called him up he sounded fine. He was lucid and focused on his daughter's high school graduation. We spoke of her future at Berkeley and beyond and only made a broad brushed reference to his health.

He was dead the next day.

I guess all the cliches and hackneyed expressions are true about living for today and telling the people you love that you love them. But in the end, isn't all of that dwarfed by the reality of loss associated with talented, good people who were cheated out of some of the great days of their lives?

If you and I had a business and it was run as poorly as the deadbeats we have sent to Washington are running the business of our country we would have a quick meeting and agree to throw them out on their backsides....and it's not specific to either political party.

$ 9 , 3 5 9 , 9 2 7 , 9 7 6 , 8 8 6 . 5 6 is the national debt as of this writing and for those who cannot get accustomed to choking down sick numbers, that's a 9 TRILLION dollar number.

The dirty secret is that sick number is not even the real deficit. It is a Treasury Dept put your best foot forward number that conceals the REAL DEFICIT. Yes, the real budget deficit....the debts we are going to have to pay long after these jerks who are living high on the tax payer hog leave their cush gigs in D.C. is a much higher number.

Call it the IMPLIED NATIONAL DEBT if you prefer. It's the true liability of the United States of America. That is, not only the Treasury bills, notes and bonds we sell to finance our annual deficit and past deficits. But all the promises we've made to make payments in the future...you know, Medicare and Social Security, etc.

That's how you get a ridiculous $55 trillion national debt.

Even with a war that has us hemorrhaging money (and, by the way, running up bills for the treatment of an entire generation of war torn soldiers with head traumas that will cause massive debilitating problems and expensive therapy for decades to come), the war is NOT the biggest weight on this country's economic future. The biggest problem is health care costs that are spiraling so quickly they will turn this once great nation into back of the parade carcass of what it once was.

Ask of your candidates what they plan to do about this. Usually you can get the best info on their websites because in this superficial culture the debates are increasingly about things like gays marrying and gun control.

Unless you are charging gays 40 billion per marriage and each gun owner 2 billion per gun they own, those issues ain't gonna protect us from being ground into dust by the death star of debt.

Let's get focused on the right stuff and get out of this mess.

I don't get it...is this election really getting hijacked once again by someone's (in this case Obama's) remark about something that doesn't really have to do with soaring fuel prices, foreign policy that has lost it's way and a disintegrating economy?

It must be easier to focus once again on whether or not a candidate "shares our values" based on one comment, rather than whether or not a candidate has a notion about how to get us out of this colossal jam we find ourselves in.

Of course it's important to find a candidate that shares your values, but haven't these people all survived the rigorous tests of patriotism and basic values to get this far. Hey, they all share our values.

Get your checklist out and check off God and country. Now let's turn the attention elsewhere. We have to start focusing on things that are a bit deeper than the little sound bites that the cable networks can hang a whole day's programming on.

We are a better electorate than that and we can do better than to focus on whether or not someone's just like us. You know, a bible reading, tequila drinkin', target shooter who on the weekends will have time to concentrate on the considerable problems of this country.

Is this great nation sagging toward the third world...????

Have you noticed? Slowly we are losing laps to the other industrial nations of the world.

The U.S is being battered by a world economy that cannot value our dollar like it used to (in fact many economists suggest t it's only a matter of time before the dollar will lose to the Euro as the standard trade currency worldwide) and even the quality of life in this nation is beginning to suffer.

Our roads, bridges and communications infrastructures have deteriorated to the point that lives are dramatically effected, even ended, by our inability to maintain these basic elements of life.

As great as our technologies may seem, across the Atlantic through Europe and in Asia as well there are examples of REAL technological advantages.

Many of these problems are not so much of our own making in the sense that they are the result of aging institutions and ways of thinking that create their own batch of problems. But it is our responsibility to maintain and improve this place we live.

It would be nice if we could give ourselves a cold slap in the face and begin to address the actual problems of this nation instead of blindly defaulting to sloganism or getting distracted by how personable or angelic our politicians are or are not.

The problem is that we ARE the coolest place in the world in many ways. We WERE the prettiest girl at the dance for a long time. The other kids on the international playground want to be like us in terms of a lot of cultural elements. I think we feel that. But everything else is lagging behind and even that envied culture/image that we export will evaporate if things don't change.

We ARE a great country that was once among the greatest countries but now we have to hustle and regain a lot of ground just to secure a decent future don't you think?

I was sitting next to a brain surgeon the other night and he told me something that could potentially be kind of important so I want to share it with you, my web and Fox11 family.

How am I sitting next to a brain surgeon? Well, l should tell you that I was playing poker, an activity that I do not really recommend if you have an addictive personality or tend not to be able to budget both time and money...unless of course you have unlimited time and money :)

Still, with that caveat, I would tell you that at the poker table I meet some of the coolest people from all around the world, with backgrounds that are as varied as the human DNA.

I should also quickly add that the I play in legal games, at card clubs like Hollywood Park or Commerce Casino here in California.

So as I sat there the other night, my cell phone went off and I quickly put it to my ear to answer and have a brief conversation. After I hung up, the guy next to me told me something that I wanted to tell you.

He told me that he's a brain surgeon who opens up people's heads all the time to treat and remove brain tumors. He went on to tell me that while he has no "clinical evidence", as in a published study that shows direct correlation, his personal experience is overwhelming in indicating the following: Tumors over the last decade show up on the corresponding side of the head that a person favors in holding the cell phone. If they hold it up to their right ear, that's usually where the tumor shows up.

I asked him why he cannot go on record with this and he explained it's simply anecdotal evidence. It's what HE and many of his colleagues have noticed. There's no real proof. But he feels strongly that there is a relationship between holding the phone to your head and increasing the likelihood of cancer growth.

How about the Bluetooth headsets? He didn't like those either. He feels the hard line headsets are the only way to go.

If he's right, I'm glad I could pass it on to you.

Maybe all those hours and money down the drain yielded some information that might help you and me both.

Now, if someone would tell me how to just get calls from people I want to hear from....    ;)

I guess it just makes sense...or does it?

You have to know that here at Fox11 and My Network 13 the doors are all security coded with special ID cards to gain entry.

I still remember when we went from the coded doors to the special ID card or "prox card" entry systems.  I hated it because, while it makes sense to have these entry cards, it is one more thing for me to lose.  Oh, and believe me, I lose the card and find the card with excruciating regularity.

Do you ever lose stuff like that?    I mean, I lose parking tickets after entering malls and tickets from valet attendants so frequently that I have often thought I should seek hypnosis to try to establish some mental system to hang on to them, and I've tried every system I can.

Now my inability to hang onto tickets and receipts meets the necessity of having an entry card here at Fox11.

Friends, I  have lost my prox card for good....cannot recover it....cannot find it.  Yes, I did that thing which you do, going without it for one or two weeks hoping it will turn up...it didn't.

So today I broke down and asked for another prox entry card.  I got my new photo taken for the card and I was on my way.

 Oh, but there's one more thing..IT'S FIFTEEN DOLLARS! 

Hey that may not matter to you (or even me come to think of it)  but after all the years of service to the company, couldn't they let the 15 bucks slide?  I mean gimme one freebie??   Knock me down one stinkin' card for nothin'??  Uh, the answer is no.  15 scoots baby...no money, no entry!! 

 When you see me penniless on the street you will know how I got there.   My bad habit of losing cards meets an ugly end here at Fox 11...I'm gonna go broke....15 bucks at a time.

I'm still jet laggin' after a trip to Prague in the Czech Republic   I also attended the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the town of Karlovy Vary about an hour and a half from Prague.   It' was exhausting trying to convince all those people that I was a big producer from Hollywood!!   :)

Actually this town of Karlovy Vary is where the most recent James Bond film was shot (CASINO ROYALE).    The town is famous for it's mineral  spas and healing waters and looks like a well scrubbed Monte Carlo or something.

 Anyway, it was a fascinating trip to the Czech Republic, a place plagued by religious war and political strife through history...bloodshed and upheaval alongside intense beauty and rich positive moments for mankind.

Beethoven's major sponsor ( a rich royal dude) lived in Prague and Beethoven dedicated two symphonies to him, one of them is the Fifth Symphony (y'know the one with the famous da-da-dadum at the beginning).

 Anyway, it's great to be back in L.A. for the summer season this year and to some more frequent blogging in the days ahead! 

 

 

Dorothy and Jillian and the whole Good Day L.A crew behind the scenes are like a family that welcomes me in as a relative who rolls through once a year or so.

Jillian did not announce she was going to make it her last week until halfway through the first show on which I was filling in. She had mentioned to me in a commercial break prior that she had decided to to pull up stakes a week early (my words, not hers) I guess originally Jillian was going to continue for another week but must have felt as though it was time to put her feet up and go home for the final lap of pregnancy!

She was in such good humor and so positive...I don't know how she did it ...

And how does any first time pregnant woman put up the advice that is never ending. Geez, I was just there three days and she was being told everything from what she's gonna feel to what she should expect and do as a parent.

That must just come with the territory!

Good luck Jill and pregnant gals everywhere!