Nurse Being Kissed in Iconic Wartime Picture Dies, aged 91

Edith Shain was photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt in Times Square in 1945 being kissed by a sailor
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Reuters in Los Angeles
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 June 2010 15.58 BST

Edith Shain is kissed by an American sailor while thousands jam Times Square, New York,

to celebrate victory over Japan in 1945. Photograph: Alfred Eisenstaedt/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

A nurse who was photographed being kissed in Times Square in New York to celebrate the end of the second world war in 1945 has died, aged 91.

The iconic VJ Day picture of Edith Shain by Alfred Eisenstaedt was published in Life magazine.

The identity of the nurse in the photograph was not known until the late 1970s when Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt to say that she was the woman in the picture. It was taken on 14 August 1945 when she had been working at Doctor's Hospital in New York.

The identity of the sailor who kissed her remains unresolved.

The photograph made its mark on Shain's life, as her subsequent celebrity led to invitations to war-related events such a wreath layings, parades and other memorial ceremonies.

Her son Justin Decker said in a statement: "My mom was always willing take on new challenges, and caring for the world war 2 veterans energised her to take another chance to make a difference."

Shain, who died at her home in Los Angeles on Sunday, leaves three sons, six grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

Irked Prez sends Gen. McChrystal to detention with The Breakfast Club

Looks like Barry O. has been raiding Barry M's wardrobe again...WASHINGTON, DC – Miffed over US General Stanley McChrystal’s harsh criticism of his Afghanistan policies, President Obama today sent the four-star military leader to detention with “The Breakfast Club.”

For the next three Saturdays, the General will be forced to sit in the Shermer High School library in total silence alongside the group’s regular student attendees, described by classmates as “a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.”

To ensure McChrystal’s compliance, the President has canceled his next several Saturday golf games in order to don a wide-collared black shirt and tan sportcoat to oversee the club personally and ensure no hijinks occur.

Advisers close to Obama say he will have them write a 1,000 page essay entitled “Why Bush is STILL to blame for everything that’s going to hell” to keep them occupied and out of trouble during the detention period.

The Sweet Pursuit

Put Down the Diet Soda and Back Away

5/6/2010 9:13:22 AM

by Julie Hanus

For anyone who drinks diet soda or knows someone who does, this is news not to miss: Scientists have discovered that we have taste receptors in our stomach and intestines, according to Science News. In the same way that tastebuds send signals to pump saliva, chew, and swallow, gut taste cells help the body ramp up for digestion.

"When the gut's taste sensors encounter something sweet, they send a 'prepare for fuel' missive that results in cranked-up insulin levels in the blood," the biweekly reports. Insulin signals the body to draw glucose from the blood and store it in the muscles and liver. Except when the sweetener is artificial, the body gets all ready and then there's no energy to harvest.

This is nascent research and more investigation will certainly come. But the discovery could shed light on recent studies that demonstrated a seemingly perplexing association between drinking diet beverages and developing metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

As Science News concludes:

So beware those little white lies. Thousands of years of evolution have yielded a finely tuned digestive machine, one that recognizes incoming energy and knows how to make the most of it. These intricate chains of events evolved during a time when that sweet zing reliably indicated food rich in valuable calories. And for thousands of years, the gut reacted appropriately.

Perhaps that adage "trust your gut" should be accompanied with another edict: "Tell it no lies."

Source: Science News

Click on Picture to Enlarge

The English Language

An oldie, but a goodie.

Let's face it

English is a stupid language.

There is no egg in the eggplant

No ham in the hamburger

And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.

English muffins were not invented in England

French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that

Quicksand takes you down slowly

Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing?

If the plural of tooth is teeth

Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth?

If the teacher taught,

Why didn't the preacher praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What on earth does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!

English was invented by people, not computers
And it reflects the creativity of the human race
(Which of course isn't a race at all)

That is why When the stars are out they are visible
But when the lights are out they are invisible
And why it is that when I wind up my watch - it starts
But when I wind up this poem - it ends.

Deep Breaths

Sunday night, phone rings about 11:45.  Caller ID says it is my 17 year old, Stephanie.  I pick up the phone and say, this better be good.  It was.  She says, through sobs, "Dad, I got in an accident."   

Earlier that evening, a friend of hers called and asked her to bring tortilla chips to school for an end of the school year party they were having.  So, Stephanie takes her brother's Pontiac Grand Am, without asking him, and goes to Wal-Mart.  There she meets her boyfriend, Jeff.  It was stormy and raining very hard that night.  They were coming back home, in separate vehicles, when Stephanie turned right onto Colonial Ave off of W 26^th St.  She lost control of the car and spun out.  This was about ¼ mile from our house.  Water has been known to stand pretty high in that intersection, though the angle of the turn makes it hard to see until you are already in the intersection.

I was at the scene almost before any EMS arrived.  Stephanie was in the car, the airbags were deployed, and the front end of the car was sitting on the ground, the driver-side front tire stuck out at a 45 degree angle.  Parts of the auto body were scattered around the roadway.  There was an SUV sitting just inches beside the car, a dark vehicle with the passenger door mirror folded back.  Stephanie was leaning back in the Pontiac seat and complaining that she couldn't move her neck.  Black SUV guy was looking to see if she hit his car or not.  He wasn't sure, there was so much noise.  The vehicles were so close you could barely fit a hand between them.  What Stephanie seemed to have hit was the curb.  The curb is very high, almost a small wall and as the car spun it hit the curb at an angle and folded the tire in, breaking the driveshaft and the control arms.  The impact was hard enough to deploy the airbags.  The back taillight on the passenger side was broken out.  We assumed this was from when the tail end of the car jolted up into the air and slammed down again.   It was hard to tell because the cars were so close to each other.   

The police wanted to know who I am.  The accident happened right in front of Eduardo's, a bar on the corner of the intersection; they're thinking this is another alcohol related accident.  An ambulance pulled up and Stephanie was put on a body board and taken to St. Vincent's ER.  Gailyn went with her in the ambulance.  I'm ordered to grab Gailyn's purse at home, which is where the insurance cards are, and meet them down at the hospital after I can leave the scene.  After some preliminary talks with the police and speaking to Jeff and his friend, Corey, who were right behind Stephanie, I get the incident notification from the Millcreek Officers.  Instead of letting me tow the vehicle through AAA, a truck from D'Amico Auto Body shows up and takes the car to his place (mandatory practice, he has the township contract to remove accident vehicles on a public roadway) for a mere $95.  That's $47.50/mile.

When I get to the hospital, I find Stephanie has a bump on her forehead where her head hit and broke the windshield.  Her neck is sore and bruised – this is from the airbags.  She put up her arm to protect herself when they went off and ended up karate chopping herself in the neck.  Her ribs and torso are bruised and sore.  Jeff shows up.  He is taking off work on Monday to be near his girlfriend.  Stephanie swears that the car at the intersection was a white SUV not a dark one.  She thinks she hit a white one.  She insists that didn't hit a dark one, for sure, it was white.  But nobody saw a white SUV.  There was none on the scene.  Jeff didn't see one.  Stephanie continues to argue that it was there.  We joke that it was her life flashing before her eyes.  She closes her eyes and just lies there shaking her head.  She thinks she must be losing her mind.

Long story short for treatment, a lot of waiting, preliminary exam, waiting, x-rays, waiting, lab work (they wanted to check for blood in her urine, she said she was having her period, they said they would just ignore that blood, I'm confused – could it be this was really a toxicology screen?), waiting, medication, waiting… they decide to discharge her.  There is no apparent internal damage but she is bruised up and will feel it for a long time.  They are going to give her some narcotics for the pain and instructions to take Ibuprofen regularly to take down the swelling.  Special instructions, they know her neck is sore, but don't wear a neck brace, that will complicate matters by allowing the neck to stiffen up.  It will make her worse.  By Tuesday, Stephanie will be a wearing a borrowed neck brace.  She is like that. 

To the drugstore we go.  The rain is beating down on the metal roof like thunder while we wait for the script to be filled.  Gailyn and I just look at each other – another adventure on our journey together.  But everything in this one will be okay.  Finally we are home at 5:30 AM.  It has been a long night.  I call my boss and tell him that I will be in late to work on Monday.  I quickly explain the situation on his voice mail and go to bed where I stare at the ceiling for an hour where I thank God for my daughter being okay and for having leave that I can take from work. 

Monday, coming up on noon, I'm getting ready to come to work and the insurance company calls.  We're on the phone for 2 hours.  It's too late to come in.  I'll just take CB for the day.  Josh and I go over to D'Amico's to get some stuff out of his car.  I pull a chain saw and an axe out his trunk.  I look at him, what are you, a Lumberjack?  He smiles and shrugs, it's summer, you have to be prepared for anything.  I close up the trunk and do a once over inspection of the car.  On the passenger side, starting at the backdoor and going all the way back to the taillight is a big deep scrape.  Apparently this is why the taillight was broken.  It didn't impact out, it was torn out by something big.  Something that left behind a nice big trace of WHITE PAINT. 
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Working Theory:  She did see a white SUV.  Somebody who didn't want to stick around and answer questions regarding why they were behind the wheel of a vehicle after leaving Eduardo's.
 

Doesn't look so bad from here...

...but $8700 worth of damage under here.