Station nightclub fire leaves more victims than just the dead

As the first sentence is delivered in the 2003 nightclub fire which left 100 people dead, it's worth noting that there's even more to the tragedy than the dead victims, whose families finally got their day in court this week. New research indicates that even the survivors, burned or not, continue to experience ongoing suffering as a result of the tragedy.

On February 20, 2003, an 80's hair metal band played a roadhouse bar south of Providence. Part way through the set, the band's manager, Daniel Beichele, set off pyrotechnics which quickly ignited foam packing material surrounding the stage. Within seconds, the foam, mis-used as a sound-deadening device, caused flame to spread throughout the club. Minutes later, the club was engulfed, doorways were jammed, and 100 people were dead or dying.

Research conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Schneider of Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital underscores the impact of the fire on the 330 survivors, and represents the first study on a large group of people surviving a fatal fire.

Burn victims in the study, who averaged 42 days in the hospital, live with a wide range of problems: chronic pain, depression, loss of work, disfigurment. But even those who weren't burned are suffering, Schneider found.

Non-burned survivors scored significantly higher on an index assessing post-traumatic stress, and had slightly higher rates of depression than burn victims. And while their overall quality of life ratings are higher than those who continue to suffer the effects of burns, for the first time a body of research is indicating the need for continued treatment of all survivors of a major fire.

So while relatives of the dead can at last try to achieve some closure, 330 survivors whose stories are glaringly absent from court proceedings and newspaper coverage continue to live with the outcome of this disaster.

Constitutional convention on gay marriage deferred

The Massachusetts Legislature enters into constitutional convention today to debate a ballot initiative on banning gay marriage, but the whole affair is likely to be delayed until at least July due to a pending Supreme Judicial Court decision on the certification of the petition that got the whole thing started. Oh, and also due to the fact that local politicians are loathe to stick their necks out on this one. For them, today is like having that college exam you never studied for cancelled at the last minute.

For ballot proponents, this has got to be a disappointment: every day that the sky doesn't fall on Massachusetts means a few more votes slipping away from their side.

Lesbians smell like straight guys

Following up on similar research on gay men last year, scientists find lesbians' brains react similarly to straight men when exposed to female pheromones:

Heterosexual women found the male and female pheromones about equally pleasant, while straight men and lesbians liked the female pheromone more than the male one. Men and lesbians also found the male hormone more irritating than the female one, while straight women were likelier to be irritated by the female hormone than the male one.

[...]

In heterosexual males, the male hormone was processed in the scent area, but the female hormone was processed in the hypothalamus, which is related to sexual stimulation. In straight women, the sexual area of the brain responded to the male hormone, while the female hormone was perceived by the scent area.

In lesbians, both male and female hormones were processed the same, in the basic odor-processing circuits, Savic and her team reported.

If pro-lifers were serious about preserving life...

...they would take this news very seriously:

American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the U.S. than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.

Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the U.S., which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.

Unfortunately, that would involve tackling tough problems like the roots of poverty and dealing with scary minorities, rather than trying to legislate what women can do with their wombs:

The report, which analyzed data from governments, research institutions and international agencies, found higher newborn death rates among U.S. minorities and disadvantaged groups. For African-Americans, the mortality rate is nearly double that of the U.S. as a whole, with 9.3 deaths per 1,000 births.

WWJD, as they love to say...

News of the weird: Murdoch [heart] Hillary

Drudge super-duper exclusive:

Rupert Murdoch has agreed to host a political fundraiser for Hillary Clinton this summer!

Murdoch's surprise decision to raise money for Clinton in July, on behalf of NEWS CORP., parent company of FOXNEWS and the NEW YORK POST, underlines a dramatic turn of relations between Murdoch and Clinton, who in 1998 coined the phrase “vast rightwing conspiracy” to denounce critics of her husband.

Some say the move by Murdoch reflects approval of her Senate career. Others note his record for picking future national leaders. Last century, he threw over the British conservatism he'd long supported to back longshot Tony Blair

Hawking: Work backwards on cosmology

Trying to figure out the origin of the universe from first principles is problematic because we can't know the starting conditions:

Most cosmologists think, for example, that the universe went through an early burst of rapid expansion, or "inflation". There is some evidence to support the claim, but there's also a problem. Standard inflationary models require a very improbable initial state, one that must have "finely tuned" values that cause inflation to start, then stop in a certain way after a certain time: a complicated prescription whose only justification is to produce a flat universe without any strange topology, and so on - a universe like ours.

(some reactionary theists via robotwisdom)

Who doesn't love gay hooker gossip?

Mmm, trashy:

First, as DailyKos convincingly argues, the true scandal of the Duke Cunningham hooker story is likely the gender of the hookers. There are some very carefully parsed statements regarding Brent Wilkes' Watergate "hospitality suites," such as the claim of the lawyer for Shirlington Limo's Chris Baker that his client was "never in attendance in any party where any women were being used for prostitution purposes."

[...]

Cunningham, who is married with grown children, has admitted to romantic, loving relationships with men, both during his Vietnam military service and as a civilian. That was the remarkable story that this publication reported two years ago, when Elizabeth Birch, the former Human Rights Campaign leader, inadvertently outed Cunningham at a gay rights forum.

Link (via robotwisdom)

Science Friday

A bit of physics geekery for the weekend.

Universe infinitely old, says new theory:

"People have inferred that time began [with the big bang], but there really wasn't any reason for that inference," said Neil Turok, a theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge, "What we are proposing is very radical. It's saying there was time before the big bang."

Under his theory, published today in the journal Science with Paul Steinhardt at Princeton University in New Jersey, the universe must be at least a trillion years old with many big bangs happening before our own. With each bang, the theory predicts that matter keeps on expanding and dissipating into infinite space before another horrendous blast of radiation and matter replenishes it. "I think it is much more likely to be far older than a trillion years though," said Prof Turok. "There doesn't have to be a beginning of time. According to our theory, the universe may be infinitely old and infinitely large."

(via robotwisdom)

I knew it

I had a conversation over the weekend about this, and got the impression someone thought I was crazy to make this point: there's no way the fed can promise they won't raise rates again right now. Now Bernake is denying he ever said it:

"I asked him whether the markets got it right after his congressional testimony and he said, flatly, no," Ms Bartiromo said. She was reporting live from floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the resulting trading roar almost drowned out the rest of her remarks.

She added: "He said he and his Federal Open Market Committee members were basically trying to create some flexibility for the Federal Reserve, saying the Fed may pause but the data will really dictate whether more rate hikes will occur."

Link

Music creeps back into the political arena

History textbooks have left me with a mental picture of 19th century political campaigns that include massive rallies with theme songs, free-flowing beer, catchy slogans and un-amplified public oratory.

Aside from the beer, it's the live music in that mental image which captures my imagination the most. So it's with some interest that I got this email from singer/songwriter Dan Gonzalez:

On June 14, some of Massachusetts' best singer/songwriters (and even one from New York!) will perform to raise money for the Deval Patrick Campaign.

WHEN: Wednesday, June 14, 8-10pm

WHERE: Johnny D's, Davis Square, Somerville (www.johnnyds.com)

WHO: singer/songwriters Dan Gonzalez, Kate Klim, Rebecca Pronsky, and a very special musical guest…

TICKETS: $25 minimum. Tickets can be purchased at:
https://secure.devalpatrick.com/page/concert

There's a lot of evidence that Patrick "gets it", and the use of this kind of original live music in campaigns seems to be on the upswing as a whole. As far as I can tell, he's the only local candidate doing something like this. I think we'll see this happening more often as politicians look for more visceral ways to connect with people.

And after that weird choice of a hair-metal theme song at the local Republican convention, it's easy to see how Democrats can open up a hipness gap with their taste-challenged rivals.