Bad day for celebrities

[Tuckervill]

Am I the only person on the planet that is tired of the news of both deaths overtaking more important issues facing the world today?

+1. Let it go.

But I remember it was like this when Elvis died, too.

Karen

[Cataboo]

I think it was ibuprofen and it's fairly common that new flus originate in pigs... Pigs can catch human flus and avian flus. humans can normally not catch avian flus, but can catch pig flus. Flu genome is divided into 8 different cassettes that are loaded into the viral capsule... if a cell is infected with multiple flus, you get various different combinations of those cassettes into the capsule... thus making pigs fairly important as an incubator of new strains which possibly combine human & avian genes. And one of the reasons that asia is so important for flus... one of those places in the world where pigs, chickens, and humans still live in close quarters.

But yeah, this flu was fairly harmless. However, no matter how harmless it is... they haven't managed to control it, they don't have a vaccine, blah blah blah... so when the next non-harmless one comes along, hopefully they've learned a bit from this.

[Cataboo]

Well I'm not going to rip anyone apart, but I really don't care and I really do resent the front page of my morning paper taken over by all this.

and the Supreme Court ruling on the middle schooler who was strip searched for tylenol in her panties only got about 3 square inches

Odd... you seem to think that our media actually reports and practices investigative journalism.

reading a newspaper is an exercise in irritation for me, even when Michael Jackson is not on the front page. I tend to try to get my news at various places over the web to try to counteract that.

[Crankin]

I was a little annoyed that the Today show has let the topic monopolize the air this morning. But, it will pass. I still liked his music, despite the weirdness.
There were a few stories about the Antarctica doctor on our local news Wed. night. Apparently she lived here in MA. She had a very interesting life.
Yea, I don't get people "grieving" over celebrities. Things like going and standing outside the deceased's home, lighting candles, bringing flowers for someone you never knew. Of course, a lot of people think I have an unsympathetic attitude toward these things, but I'd say it's more pragmatic. I mean, there's a lot of people I admire, but that's as far as it gets.

[alpinerabbit]

I guess they think they know them. Because they think they know everything about them.

[Zen]

I learned about Jerri Nielsen from reading Jezebel, got the full story on Supreme Court ruling from NPR.

You just have to get your news from a variety of sources.

[Zen]

But yeah, this flu was fairly harmless. However, no matter how harmless it is... they haven't managed to control it, they don't have a vaccine, blah blah blah... so when the next non-harmless one comes along, hopefully they've learned a bit from this.

If this flu is anything like the Spanish influenza virus of 1918 (and I do believe that's the current thinking) it will reemerge in a more virulent form this fall.
But you have to read science news to know that. The general public doesn't go beyond the home page on their computer.

[Cataboo]

I just ride my bike & wait for you ladies to keep me up to date with world news.

[badger]

i think people "grieve" over celebrities because for some they evoke memories, whether they are good or bad.

How many of you have gone to a school dance where they played Michael Jackson and you got to dance with your school crush? Or listening to the Jackson 5 when you were 6 years old and you remember dancing to it with your now-deceased grandfather? it's the memories that are attached to the songs or movies or shows that I think people "mourn". And passing of anyone with exceptional talent is a sad thing, imho. Imagine just what we've been denied when John Lennon died, what we missed and will never know.

[Irulan]

yeah yeah. Except that it's hardly more dangerous than other strains and that it did not come from pigs. I still don't buy it.

Well that was probably worth investigating. What was she doing with Tylenol in her panties??!!

She didn't have any. Being asked to strip down to your panties, pull them open to expose your pelvic are on suspicion of ADVIL, when there was absolutely no reason to indicate that this girl was in possession of drugs ( ie, not a druggie type) is ridiculous and for one am very glad that the SC ruled the way they did, this is taking zero tolerance too far.

Fourth Amendment Victory in Advil Strip Search Case

Jacob Sullum | June 25, 2009, 12:24pm

Today, in an 8-to-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed that Arizona public school officials violated the Fourth Amendment rights of a 13-year-old eighth-grader when they subjected her to a strip search because they thought she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear. David Souter wrote for the majority:

What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana [Redding] was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.

At the same time, unlike the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the Supreme Court said Kerry Wilson, the vice principal who ordered the search, cannot be held personally liable for the violation because the relevant law was not clear enough at the time. "Because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear," Souter wrote, "we hold that the search did violate the Constitution, but because there is reason to question the clarity with which the right was established, the official who ordered the unconstitutional search is entitled to qualified immunity from liability."

As I've said before, this is the best result that reasonably could have been expected, but I am surprised by the size of the majority, especially since it seemed there was a good chance the Court would uphold the search. The lone dissenter was Clarence Thomas, who has always taken a narrow view of minors' constitutional rights in the context of school and looked askance at judicial efforts to constrain administrators' authority.

Notably, the position taken by the majority is less deferential to school officials than the one urged by the Obama administration. As common sense would suggest, the Supreme Court considered it relevant not only that there was no reason to think Savana Redding had pills in her crotch or cleavage but also that the pills in question did not pose a significant threat to students' health or safety:

Wilson knew beforehand that the pills were prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter naproxen, common pain relievers equivalent to two Advil, or one Aleve. He must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, and while just about anything can be taken in quantities that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills.

By contrast, Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler argued that the Court should defer to school officials' judgment about the importance of enforcing their mindless "zero tolerance" policy for drugs and find the strip search unreasonable only because there was insufficient reason to believe it would reveal contraband.

[OakLeaf]

and the Supreme Court ruling on the middle schooler who was strip searched for tylenol in her panties only got about 3 square inches

except that was news from the day before. It got its run at the top of the headlines just because of the titillating subject. There have been more important stories hit the top since then, besides the celebrity deaths.

Brings us back to the other thread... people still say they read the "paper."

[Irulan]

Odd... you seem to think that our media actually reports and practices investigative journalism.

reading a newspaper is an exercise in irritation for me, even when Michael Jackson is not on the front page. I tend to try to get my news at various places over the web to try to counteract that.

Your sources must be interesting if they don't mention a rather significant 4th amendment rights Supreme Court case.

[Cataboo]

Oh, I'd read about that the day before and had half followed this whenever it first made the news last year or so? What I don't get is why the vice principal is not personally liable for the search.

[Irulan]

except that was news from the day before. It got its run at the top of the headlines just because of the titillating subject. There have been more important stories hit the top since then, besides the celebrity deaths.

Brings us back to the other thread... people still say they read the "paper."

Well, it was on the front headline of the Wall Street Journal and my local paper this morning, not yesterday.

I read TWO papers every morning.

[Cataboo]

Excellent, it's sad how many print newspapers are going out of business. I used to read newspapers, but recycling them, the ads, etc got to be a pain, so now there's the internet which lets you hit multiple newspapers. Unfortunately a lot of them just repackage what comes out over the AP wire.

News comes out faster if you read off newspapers websites - it may have been I saw the headlines about the supreme court ruling yesterday morning, and it was about 7 or so last night that the headlines about Michael were all over the internet news sites.