Best of the week: The statements of a Belgian man believed to be in a coma for 23 years, but recently discovered to be conscious, are poignant, but experts say they may not be his words at all. Read the rest while listening to Metallica's "One".
Rom Houben’s account of his ordeal, repeated in scores of news stories, appears to be delivered with assistance from an aide who helps guide his finger to letters on a flat computer keyboard. Called “facilitated communication,” that technique has been widely discredited, and is not considered scientifically valid.“If facilitated communication is part of this, and it appears to be, then I don’t trust it,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics. “I’m not saying the whole thing is a hoax, but somebody ought to be checking this in greater detail. Any time facilitated communication of any sort is involved, red flags fly.”
Facilitated communication came to prominence in the late 1970s after an Australian teacher reportedly used it to communicate with 12 children rendered speechless by cerebral palsy and other disorders. Over the next two decades, it gained some adherents in patient and medical communities, but failed to produce consistent results in controlled, scientific settings. Researchers said that facilitators were unconsciously or consciously guiding patients’ hands. Multiple professional organizations, including the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the American Academy of Pediatrics, say that facilitated communication is not credible.
Far more credible, however, is emerging research on patients thought to be in vegetative states, but revealed by brain-scanning technology to be at least minimally conscious, and even aware of what is happening around them. These two strains of research have collided in the figure of Houben. In 2006, a full 23 years after a horrific car accident left him paralyzed and apparently unconscious, tests run by the University of Liege’s Coma Science Group showed that Houben’s brain was active, and almost normal. He wasn’t a vegetable, but aware, and trapped silently in the prison of his ruined body.
Houben has since proven able to answer yes-or-no questions with slight movements of his foot. It’s a tremendous accomplishment, and raises the chilling possibility that, as estimated by Coma Science Group leader Steven Laureys in a Monday New York Times story, as many as four in 10 people considered utterly comatose may be misdiagnosed. But the legitimacy of interviews given by Houben and his facilitator to Der Spiegel, and shown on video by the BBC, may not be as certain.
“I believe that he is sentient. They’ve shown that with MRI scans,” said James Randi, a prominent skeptic who during the 1990s investigated the use of facilitated communication for autistic children. But in the video, “You see this woman who’s not only holding his hand, but what she’s doing is directing his fingers and looking directly at the keyboard. She’s pressing down on the keyboard, pressing messages for him. He has nothing to do with it.”
According to Randi, facilitated communication could only be considered credible if the facilitator didn’t look at the keyboard or screen while supporting Houben’s hand, and helped him type messages in response to questions she had not heard, thus ensuring that Houben’s responses are entirely his own. The James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a million-dollar prize to a valid demonstration of facilitated communication, and Randi invited Houben to participate. “Our prize is still there,” he said.
In the Der Spiegel interview, Houben and his facilitator recounted his ordeal. “I would scream, but no sound would come out,” they wrote. “I became the witness to my own suffering, as doctors and nurses tried to speak to me and eventually gave up.” Of the correct diagnosis, they wrote, “I will never forget the day they finally discovered what was wrong — it was my second birth.”
According to Caplan, Houben’s apparent lucidity after spending more than two decades in complete isolation — circumstances known to be psychologically and cognitively damaging — is hard to believe. “You’re going to lie for 23 years in a hospital bed with almost no stimuli, and then sound completely coherent and cogent?” he said. “Something is wrong with that picture. The messages are almost poetic. It sounds too lucid, like someone prepared these things to say. I’m not saying it’s all a fraud, but I want to hear a lot more.” Whatever the final verdict on Houben’s facilitated communication, however, it does not alter the fact of his misdiagnosis. Laureys could not be reached for comment, but said in an Agence France Presse story that “every patient should be tested at least 10 times before they are categorically defined as ‘vegetative.’”
Also: I hate graffiti, so I'm thrilled to see one of these dickbags get busted.The reputed tagger, who was paid $1,000 to be a featured "guest artist" at a self-described graffiti art store was arrested at the downtown store this weekend after authorities found him carrying spray tips for tagging. Jason Williams (32, and still spraying shit on walls), who was on probation and goes by the name REVOK, was appearing Sunday as the guest of honor at the 33rd Graffiti Art Store, said the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The store was exhibiting Montana spray paint, a brand used by taggers.
During a later search of Williams' home, deputies found several hundred paint cans, a police badge and a fire extinguisher. They also found a stolen detour sign and digital photos of his graffiti work on his phone. "He's being treated as a celebrity artist when in fact he's breaking the law," said a sheriff's spokesman.
Plus: A man was arrested after police said he left his 5-year-old son in a tractor-trailer while he ducked into an Indianapolis strip club to drink. What is worse for that kid - going into the club or sitting in the trailer?
The 39-year-old was arrested at 1:15 a.m. Tuesday (a school night!) on child neglect and public intoxication charges after calling police to report his truck stolen and his child missing. Police said the man was too drunk to remember where he had parked. They found the boy inside watching cartoons on a television inside the cab. The keys were in the ignition, and the doors were unlocked. And: A man in Taiwan was robbed of more than $2 million in cash that he had just withdrawn from the bank. Because sometimes you need a huge wad on you.
Three masked gunmen robbed the 50-year-old victim in the southern city of Tainan, logging the highest-value robbery in city history with a heist of T$77 million (2.39 million). The gunmen approached the victim, Mr. Tsai, as he drove from the bank to his watch shop nearby. One shot a shop employee in the foot during a scuffle to fight off the gunmen, the agency said. Police are looking for the three men while advising people in the city to be more vigilant.
"We're putting out a notice on public safety, telling citizens that we're ready stand beside them for protection as they use the bank," they said in broken, confusing English. Mostly, they should warn them not to withdraw millions out in cash.
Best picture of the week:
have some smash in the face, lady
Best bonus links:
• Chef Paula Deen Accidentally Hit By Charity Ham - That is pig on pig crime.
• Festival Of Mass Animal Sacrifice Begins In Nepal - If only we could have this festival up on the Sunset Strip. With people.
• The Bloody Bodies Of Polar Bears Rain From The Skies, Because Of You! - Horribly overwrought ad, but on the plus side, it's raining bears!
• Thousands Of Wild Camels Besiege Australian Town - I know there's slang in other parts of the world, but I'd recognize this anywhere. It's the Oz version of the Dinah Shore Classic.
Worst of the week: Highway to Hell.
Toyota plans to replace the gas pedals on 4 million vehicles in the United States because the pedals can get stuck in the floor mats and cause sudden acceleration, a flaw that led to the sixth-largest recall ever in the U.S. Among the cars? The emblem of the self-righteous asshole, the Prius.
Dealers will offer to shorten the length of the gas pedals by three-fourths of an inch beginning in January as a stopgap measure while the company develops replacement pedals. New pedals will be installed by dealers on a rolling basis beginning in April, and some vehicles will get a brake override system as a precaution. The massive recall is the largest in the U.S. for Toyota Motor Corp. The Japanese automaker had earlier told owners to remove the driver's side floor mats to keep the gas pedal from becoming jammed.
Popular vehicles such as the midsize Camry, (somehow) the top-selling car in America, and the best-selling gas-electric hybrid Prius, are among those to be fixed. The recall also includes the Lexus ES350, the vehicle involved a fiery fatal accident in California that focused public attention on the danger. Toyota officials said the floor mats are only sold in the U.S., and the recall would be limited to North America. They would not say how much the repairs would cost, but analysts expected them to be extremely expensive because of the work involved and the manufacturing of new pedals. Toyota also said it would provide newly designed replacement floor mats.
In a separate action, Toyota announced the recall of 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive frame rust. The recall involves 3.8 million vehicles, including the 2007-10 Camry, 2005-10 Avalon, 2004-09 Prius, 2005-10 Tacoma, 2007-10 Tundra, 2007-10 Lexus ES350 and 2006-10 Lexus IS250/350. Toyota also plans to install a brake override system on the Camry, Avalon and Lexus ES350, IS350 and IS250 models. The system will ensure the vehicle will stop if the gas and brakes are applied simultaneously. Toyota plans to make the system standard on new Toyota and Lexus models by the end of 2010.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said 4.26 million vehicles would be covered, including new cars and trucks sold or manufactured since September. The nation's largest cumulative recall occurred in several increments during the past two years and involved 14 million Ford vehicles with faulty cruise-control switches that could cause fires. The largest single recall happened in 1996 involving 7.9 million Ford vehicles that needed new ignition switches.
The Toyota recall came about after a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three of his family members near San Diego. The Lexus accelerated to more than 120 mph, struck a sport utility vehicle, bounced off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames. In a frantic 911 call, a family member said the accelerator was stuck. Investigators determined that a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckage was slightly longer than the mat that belonged in the vehicle, and it could have snared or covered the gas pedal. The government has attributed at least five deaths and two injuries to floor mat-related acceleration in the Toyota vehicles. Regulators have received reports of more than 100 other incidents.
A Massachusetts safety consultant who has investigated the Toyota cases has found more than 2,000 incidents with 16 deaths and 243 injuries potentially tied to gas pedals. Toyota and the government said dealers will shorten the length of the accelerator pedal and in some cases remove foam beneath carpeting to increase space between the pedal and floor. Owners of the ES350, the Camry and the Avalon will get first notification because the vehicles are believed to be at the most risk.
Also: The prostitute at the center of Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's sex scandal claims in a new book that she slept with him on the understanding he would help her set up a countryside inn but she got "nothing" in return. Ahhh, there's nothing better than taking advantage of a whore.
Patrizia D'Addario, whose memoir went on sale, writes she feels betrayed and has been frightened by strange threats, including the ransacking of her home, since she revealed this year that she had taped-recorded her purported bedroom encounter with Berlusconi. The conservative leader has said he has never paid for sex and is the victim of someone seeking to create a scandal. But D'Addario says she gave Berlusconi her body hoping he would help her open a countryside inn in southern Italy. What is he, a proprietor or a government official? In the book she documents how her efforts to open the hotel had been stymied over the years by Italy's bureaucracy.
Veronica Lario, his wife, said last spring she is divorcing Berlusconi for what she called his infatuation with attractive young women.
"(Berlusconi) didn't pay me. It wasn't money he had to give me, he promised me something else," D'Addario writes in the book. "I gave him my body, he (gave me) nothing." Stupid prostitute.
And: A 22-year-old South Los Angeles man who posed as a Vibe magazine photographer is being investigated in connection with at least four sexual assaults of young women, whom he allegedly told he would hire as underwear models, police said.
The crimes began in early October and took place within a one-mile radius of the subway station near 7th Street and Grand Avenue, which is the best place to commit sex crimes. Keith Nichols, a security guard who has lived in (all the hot spots like) Compton, Hawthorne and South Los Angeles, told his victims that they could become models for Vibe. But before they could get hired, Nichols said he had to measure them for "custom-fitted underwear," according to police. Custom fit more than by size?
At least four women submitted to the examination, in which he allegedly used a measuring tape to carry out the ruse. He then touched "their most intimate body parts," and they never got called back about the modeling work. Strangely, that sounds like the events and outcome of most amateur modeling shoots.
Vernon said the women were measured in public areas out of the view of passersby. Nichols touched the women’s bare breasts and groins with his hands but apparently did not take photographs, at least in the cases involving the four victims. In two cases, Nichols met his victims on the light-rail line between Long Beach and Los Angeles. Those two women, in turn, each had a roommate who they referred to Nichols. Damn, they must have not liked those roommates to send them into that trap.
Worst picture of the week:
lookin' good, shitbag
Worst bonus links:• Baylor's Griner Becomes 7th Woman To Dunk - Wow, the 7th woman to dunk in a college game! Tell me something else no one cares about!
• Adam Lambert Not Sorry For Simulating Oral Sex At AMAs / Adam Lambert: Male Keyboardist Didn't Mind That I Kissed Him / ABC's `Good Morning America' Cancels Lambert - Easy, girl...you're trying way too hard.
• Police: Ky. Census Worker Killed Himself - At least, that's what new polling and data suggests.
• Kangaroo Tries To Drown Dog, Attacks Owner - Nothing worse than a marsupial with a grudge.
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