Friday, March 28, 2008

Madeline Neumann, 11-Year-Old With Treatable Diabetes, Dies After Parents Pick Prayer Over Docs. WESTON, Wis. — Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor. An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said. She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney. The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors. She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently. "We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering." Her daughter _ who hadn't seen a doctor since she got some shots as a 3-year-old, according to Vergin _ had no fever and there was warmth in her body, she said. The girl's father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body. Family members elsewhere called authorities to seek help for the girl. "My sister-in-law, she's very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors ...," the girl's aunt told a sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon in a call from California. "And she called my mother-in-law today ... and she explained to us that she believes her daughter's in a coma now and she's relying on faith." The dispatcher got more information from the caller and asked whether an ambulance should be sent. "Please," the woman replied. "I mean, she's refusing. She's going to fight it. ... We've been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now." The aunt called back with more information on the family's location, emergency logs show. Family friends also made a 911 call from the home. Police and paramedics arrived within minutes and immediately called for an ambulance that took her to a hospital. But less than an hour after authorities reached the home, Madeline _ a bright student who left public school for home schooling this semester _ was declared dead. She is survived by her parents and three older siblings. "We are remaining strong for our children," Leilani Neumann said. "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time." The Neumanns said they moved from California to a modern, middle-class home in woodsy Weston, just outside Wassau in central Wisconsin, about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway. Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do." [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 10:51:52 AM    comment []

University Of Chicago: Obama Was A Professor. A recent Clinton campaign research document charged that Barack Obama was falsely claiming to be a professor: Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, "Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter." In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not. [Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04] Today, the University of Chicago released the following statement: The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as "Senior Lecturer." From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 9:59:13 AM    comment []

It's the Deregulation, Stupid. Democrats from Carter to Clinton helped roll back the government's regulatory power, but as the economic crisis deepens, "regulation" is no longer such a dirty word. [MotherJones.com] 9:26:36 AM    comment []

U.K. Admits Breaching Human Rights Convention Over Detainee’s Death. The government is to admit “substantive breaches” of the European Convention on Human Rights over the death and torture of Iraqi civilians in the custody of British soldiers, Des Browne, the defence secretary, revealed yesterday. The admission, which could cost the Ministry of Defence millions of pounds in compensation, relates to the death of Baha Mousa, [...] [CommonDreams.org » Headlines07] 9:23:40 AM    comment []

Greg Mitchell: Exclusive: 'NYT' This Sunday Probes 'The End of Republican America'. The cover story of this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine asks the provocative question: "The End of Republican America?" The photo below it shows a red, inflatable elephant - collapsed and leaking air. "Karl Rove had a plan to realign American politics for generations. Now GOP leaders are struggling to prevent another 1964," reads the rest of the cover tag. The article was penned by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, who also writes for Rolling Stone. Ken Mehlman, the former party chairman, says in the massive piece, "What is concerning is that we lost ground in every one of the highest-growth demographics" in 2006. "If there are Republicans out there who think that 2006 was a year that could be changed by a few votes in a few districts," he adds, "they need to wake up." Much of the article examines the plight of Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who is in charge of turning around the GOP's fortunes. But the article notes, "In their intimacy with the numbers, many Republican operatives now worry that crucial segments of the electorate are slipping away from them." For example, "Republicans had traditionally won the votes of independents; in 2006, they lost them by 18 percent....Suburban voters, long a Republican constituency, favored Democrats in 2006 for the first time since 1992." Says longtime GOP candidate/consultant Rich Bond: "Tom was dealt an almost unwinnable hand." Many more Republicans than Democrats are stepping down this year, making it almost impossible for the GOP to make gains, the article relates. The influential Cook Political Report offers an even worse assessment, projecting that 12 of the 14 seats most likely to change hands now belong to Republicans. But Cole sees fully 75 seats in play and feels John McCain at top of ticket will help in many. "Cole's strategy is not complicated," Wallace-Wells observes, "but it does contain an essential difficulty: at a moment when Washington is deeply unpopular, he wants his candidates to run as insurgents, but voters still identify Republcians with that they don't like about Washington." But Cole promises to define Nancy Pelosi as THE face of the Democrats as a party too liberal - too "San Francisco" - for the country. And the writer also notes: "The perversity of Cole's position is that the consummate party man has arrived at precisely the moment when the party is eroding beneath him. The problem is the money." The Democratic party has built an 8-1 advantage over the GOP's main apparatus. Comments House minority leader John Boehner on the party's fundraising: "It stinks." * Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. It feature a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, and Glenn Greenwald, among others. [The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com] 8:37:20 AM    comment []

Developer sues for $12B in 9/11 costs. The developer of the World Trade Center in New York is seeking $12.3 billion in damages from the airlines and other companies associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks, his spokesman said Thursday. [CNN.com] 8:13:47 AM    comment []