Demerol, Michael Jackson & Dr. Conrad Murray-A Young Woman and Fatty Arbuckle June 29, 2009

The Killer?

Much of the speculation making the rounds regarding the death of Michael Jackson involve Demerol and Dr. Conrad Murray. Gossip pages are running amuck.  TMZ cites a Jackson family member as a source, saying that Jackson had a daily demerol shot and had one just prior to his death.  Even some mainstream press organizations are jumping on board.   However, the lawyer for Jackson physician/cardiologist Dr Conrad Murray says his client never gave prescriptions or injections of demerol or oxycontin.  It’s all speculation but there must be some reason that the Jackson family wants a second autopsy. 

I’ve had demerol before, after shoulder surgery.  I could have an injection every 3 hours.  I could set my watch by it.  From the time of the injection, I became very sleepy and quickly was snoozing.  Every time I awoke, it was exactly 3 hours and 1 minute from the time of the injection.  It’s powerful.  Now, I know of someone who suffered from migraine headaches.  Doctors prescribed demerol.  I’ve since found studies that say its not the proper solution due to the high risk of addiction and long term toxicity.  Death happened almost instantaneously.  The amount of demerol found in the system was theraputic but there was a huge toxic level in the liver.  The lab results took a long time.  If the cause of death of Michael Jackson is demorol, my limited experience would say that its from long term use, not a single lethal injection.  If a layman like me is aware of this risk, then one would think a physician would also be aware of such a risk.

On This Date in History:  When anything happens involving a big celebrity like Michael Jackson, the public can’t get enough.  This has been true for as long as there have been performing celebrities in America.  When things went well for actor/director Fatty Arbuckle, they still went bad.  He was a big star.  So, big that he signed a 3 year contract with Warner Brothers for a million dollars in 1921.  Really huge money in those days.  When he signed the deal, he had a party. At that party, a young starlet was found drunk and bleeding in Arbuckle’s room.  He was accused of rape and murder after the woman died of a punctured bladder 3 days later. It was Hollywood’s big scandals and William Randolph Hearst made it into a media circus.  Hearst didn’t care about the facts, he was in the business of selling papers and he made it into one of the first trials “of the century.”  He is quoted as saying that the scandal “sold more newspapers than any event since the sinking of the Lusitania.” 

Mugshot of Fatty

The judge found no evidence of rape but determined that Arbuckle could be tried for manslaughter.  In fact, the whole case isn’t nearly as cut and dried as I had been led to believe.  There are numerous instances of bribes by the prosecutor, false testimony and doctored evidence.  Twice juries were hung 10-2 in favor of Arbuckle with some interesting circumstances. The third trial ended in acquittal but, the prosecutor and newspapers tried Arbuckle in public with wild, unsubstantiated salacious charges and false accusations.  The main witness wasn’t allowed to testify because she was so unreliable.  During the 3rd trial she didn’t even show up as she had been found to be planning to extort money from Arbuckle from the night of the party and besides that, she was too busy on the lecture circuit spreading her tales.  They were inadmissible and unfounded in court but good enough for the stage. 

Women Couldn't keep their hands off Fatty

Though acquitted, Arbuckle’s movies were banned in the US for something that he may not have even done.  On this date in 1933 he was signed by Warner Brothers to make a feature length film.  Perhaps it was too much for the not-so-slender Fatty.  That night he had a heart attack and died. 

Maybe he would have been better off not signing contracts with the Warner Brothers.

Weather Bottom Line:  After a week of August-Like conditions we get a nice break.  We’ve also had a lot of rain.  June official numbers come in at 9.22″ which is less than an inch shy of the all-time June record of 10.11″ set back in 1960.  Wonder if there was a remnant of a tropical cyclone back then.  This year, that was not the case, just a hot and humid pattern that lent itself to storm activity.  That pattern has shifted with a big trof setting up in the east and a semi-staitionary low in the Great Lakes.  That will put us in a northwest flow which is tough to get much rain out of.  It also will drag down dry air.  Look for lows this week in the low 60′s with some folks in the upper 50′s on Tuesday morning after a reinforcing shot of dry air filters through following a cold front quietly sneaking through Monday evening.  The models want to toss out a few showers from time to time during the week but I find that a tough solution considering the relatively dry air.  High temperatures will only be in the low 80′s.  I suppose if we were to get some isolated activity popping up, the best chances wouldn’t get started until late in the week as we warm somewhat and a front to our south tries to move northward a bit.  That would be ahead of the next system that will get ejected eastward across the plains and increase storm chances on Sunday.  Right now, the 4th of July looks pretty good.  Invest 93L is dead in the tropics.

Hurricane Ike Damage Fantastic Photos; Louisville Area Damage; No More Fun Around the Maypole! September 17, 2008

Not So Fun If the Wave Washes The Kid Into The Gulf

Check Out the Background Waves

snoop through this post for some great sources for photos and video; scroll to previous posts for other links

While the above photo is pretty cool, it also shows the stupidity of people.  The waves were breaking over the seawall and it made for a fun time in Galveston before Ike arrived.  But, it is no fun getting washed off the seawall and into an angry ocean. That’s precisely what happened in Corpus Christi.  I have not heard if the young man’s body was ever recovered.  If you look at the LA Times slideshow, you will see one photo of a woman smiling after she terrorized her young child by taking her to the edge of the rough surf.  Nuts.  Check out the photo at the left where some folks were getting rescued before the storm hit….look at the size of the waves crashing on the beach behind them.  That is pretty wild for Galveston which is normally a pretty tranquil beach.  Not exactly a surfer’s paradise.

Here is an abolutely fabulous slide show from the Boston Globe (28 photos) some of the photos you have seen before but the clarity of these is just fantastic.  i have reproduced one of the just to the right.  It’s in a thumbnail but you have to open it.  It shows Gilchrist, Texas which is on Bolivar Peninsula a few miles to the east of the Galveston Bay entrance.  You can see that the houses have

Gilchrist, Texas-Wiped Clean

 been wiped clean.  It is obvious from these pictures and the gouges in the land from the water rushing back to sea that these guys got kicked in the teeth by the big storm surge, perhaps not just a rise of water but a rush.  This is why I have said that I suspect that had Ike been about 20 miles farther west and just a little stronger, then it is very likely that Galveston would be facing a huge calamity.  As it was, I am have seen published reports that parts of downtown Galveston (along the Strand) had 6 feet of water and I have been told that is some places it was 12 feet.  That is water coming from the bay side, not the front side of the island with the sea wall. You need to install the HD program but this is a link to some GREAT HD images from Galveston, et al.

Anchorage Area of Louisville

I’m thinking that there must be power issues all up Ike’s path.  From Houston to

Louisville Boat Club

 Dayton, there are about 9 cities that are not being counted in the Nielson ratings because of a lack of data…the power is out so the meters have nothing to read.  The Ohio Valley got it a little more than other areas because, as the storm came through near midday, the winds aloft were howling.  The sun had broken out and we got heating up to the upper 80′s. That allowed the winds aloft to mix down to the surface.  As of Tuesday, a little less than 200,000 customers are without power, most of it residential.  Snow White and I walked about the neighborhood on Monday night and found that people didn’t sit around and wait for someone

Taylorsville Rd-Louisville

else to clean up their area.  They got themselves out and cleared blocked streets and cut

Scottsburg Indiana

 up downed trees on their own.  Pretty remarkable  but good to see self-reliance. I’ve posted some photos of Louisville-area damage via the NWS (more photos) that includes some sunken boats on the river.  On the other hand, we still have reports of stupid fights over boxes of cereal at the store or fighting in gas lines…then there is the fight over a taco at Taco Bell.  The mayor still insists that there is no looting.  Aside from finding a way to eat, the power outage isn’t that much of a big deal.  No TV or no computer. The phone company has my phone working again and our weather is great with lows in the 50′s and highs in the 70′s.  We’ll move to the low to mid 80′s for the weekend and the Ryder Cup but humidity is low and will stay that way.  Snow White made me a peanut butter sandwhich with that stuff that is a mixture of peanut butter and jelly.  I’ve never had it before. I bet I won’t like it but one can’t complain.  Meanwhile, the cats are dining on their Salmon and Tuna.  Nit and Wit are eating better than I am.  Here is a report with aerial video including Valhalla with some of the damage.

On This Date In History: Thomas Morton was an English lawyer who arrived in the Massachusetts Colony in 1625 as part of a number of people who settled about 25 miles from Plymouth near present day Quincy.    The rather stern “Puritan Saints” had landed at Plymouth a few years earlier and thought of New England as a “hideous and desolate wildnerness full of wild beasts and wild men!”  I’m sure that’s what some present day visitors from rural America might think about San Francisco.  But really, I’m not sure what the Puritans expected to find…Ye Olde Malt Shoppe on every corner?  Anyway, Morton wasn’t so dour as he thought the land was “paradise” and that he found the Indians to be “more full of humanity” than the Christians who had gotten there before him…in other words…the Puritan Saints. 

Raising the Maypole

The leader of the group near Quincy left for the milder climate of Virginia and Morton and a dozen cohorts took advantage by throwing out the second in command, releasing the indentured servants and going about exploiting the fruits of their paradise.  They renamed the place Merry Mount and in 1627 reintroduced “revels of merriment after the olde English cutom.”  They put up a maypole and invited the neighboring Indians to join in a days-long  fertility rite with lots of beer flowing, dancing and amenities of erotic nature.    Perhaps not suprisingly, Merry Mount became quite popular with fur traders.  Guess whose business suffered?  The grumpy old puritans, who thought that such mingling with the natives and their “wickedness” would undermine their own resolve which was so rigid that “unseemly laughter” was prohibited, not to mention any sort of revelry.  I guess their resolve wasn’t so resolute as they were afraid others having fun would spoil their grumpiness.  So, in an attempt to revive their own flailing fur trade and make certain that everyone was grumpy, the Puritans sent a group of armed me to Merry Mount and make it not so merry.  They captured Morton and left him on an island.  They put him on a boat back to England to face charges of selling guns and spirits to the Indians but the Mother Country wouldn’t prosecute.  So, in 1629 Morton went back to Merry Mount .

Chopping Down the Maypole

Puritan leaders John Winthrop and John Endicott hailed his return by cutting down his Maypole and on this date in 1630 put Morton in the stocks and seized his property.  Then they exiled him to England and burned down his house.  Again, the English courts refused to prosecute but Morton was thwarted at his attempt to get the charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony revoked.  For some stupid reason, Morton returned to where he was obviously not welcome and was thrown in irons without fire or blankets.  Finally, when they determined that he was “old and crazy” Winthrop had Morton released.  What a great guy.  Morton died in 1646.  The moral to this story is if you want to pursue a life of merriment in the face of great grumpiness, make certain that you and your merry makers are better armed than the grumps.