(CNN) by Nicolaus Mills
-- College basketball has a new record holder for most points in a game. Last week, Jack Taylor, a 5-foot, 10-inch guard at Iowa's Grinnell College, scored 138 points to lead Grinnell to a 179-104 blowout win over Faith Baptist Bible College, a nearby Iowa college. In setting his scoring record, Taylor made 52 of 108 shots from the field, including 27 of 71 three-point attempts and shot 7 for 10 from the foul line.
Taylor's coach and teammates were happy to see him go all out. In the 36 minutes he played, Taylor did not have a single assist. Virtually every time he got the ball, he shot it.
Taylor is not the first basketball player to go on such an outsized scoring spree. In the National Basketball Association, the scoring record belongs to the Philadelphia Warriors' Wilt Chamberlain. Fifty years ago, Chamberlain put up 100 points in a March 2, 1962, game against the New York Knicks, who were missing their starting center. Chamberlain, who at 7-foot-1 towered over his opponents, was never much of an outside shooter, but his "Dipper Dunk" was all he needed. He was unstoppable anywhere near the basket.
Taylor's scoring feat is different from that. Chamberlain was playing in a game in which his opponent was outclassed but still in his league. That was not the case in the Grinnell game.
Jack Taylor's scoring binge came against a college that doesn't come close to having his college's resources. What the basketball players at Faith Baptist Bible College must be feeling about losing by 75 points doesn't seem to have entered anyone's head at Grinnell or in the media, which couldn't get enough of Taylor in the days following his scoring feat.
I grew up in the Middle West playing basketball at a prep school that often competed against tiny rural high schools to get ready for our games in an interstate league. When it came to running up the score, there was a code our coaches enforced.
With a big lead, we slowed the game down. We stopped taking long shots that would get our supporters cheering, and with the game in hand, we brought in the second team, and after them, anyone still on the bench.
When we left the gym, we wanted the other team to feel good about having played us. We didn't want their players hanging their heads in embarrassment, especially if we had a game scheduled with them for the following year.
We knew these unspoken rules by 16. How could college players not know as much as we did as teenagers? Maybe it's the times. But I wish that the Grinnell players had had my old coach, who doubled as my math teacher. Coach would have made their ears burn for showing up an opponent as they did.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Obama, Congress, and the fiscal cliff
(CNN) – As negotiations continue over how to thwart the looming crisis known as the fiscal cliff, President Barack Obama will take his case on the road this week, urging Americans to support his push to let tax rates rise on the wealthiest Americans.
The president will tour a manufacturing facility and give remarks in the southeastern Pennsylvania town of Hatfield on Friday, the White House announced Tuesday. The campaign-style trip comes as another example of the president building pressure on Congress through public support, rather than the behind-closed-doors approach used in last summer's debt talks.
Friday's trip will follow a week of meetings with other constituencies. He'll meet with small-business owners from across the country on Tuesday and host an event at the White House on Wednesday with "middle-class Americans who would be impacted" if Congress fails to reach a deficit-reduction agreement by the year's end. Also Wednesday, Obama is scheduled to meet with business leaders. He took part in similar meetings with labor groups and business heads two weeks ago, shortly before he held a meeting with congressional leaders in the White House.
The clock is ticking as Congress and the White House work to hash out a plan that would prevent an enormous amount or "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts from taking place next year. Both sides are stalemated over how to raise revenue as part of a deficit-reduction package. House Republicans call for changes in the tax code - namely the closing of loopholes and limiting of deductions - while Senate Democrats and Obama argue for the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for households making more than $250,000.
While talks are ramping back up after the holiday break, a second meeting between the White House and congressional leaders has yet to be scheduled, though the president did reach out on Saturday to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about their efforts to avert the draconian cuts and tax hikes.
The president will tour a manufacturing facility and give remarks in the southeastern Pennsylvania town of Hatfield on Friday, the White House announced Tuesday. The campaign-style trip comes as another example of the president building pressure on Congress through public support, rather than the behind-closed-doors approach used in last summer's debt talks.
Friday's trip will follow a week of meetings with other constituencies. He'll meet with small-business owners from across the country on Tuesday and host an event at the White House on Wednesday with "middle-class Americans who would be impacted" if Congress fails to reach a deficit-reduction agreement by the year's end. Also Wednesday, Obama is scheduled to meet with business leaders. He took part in similar meetings with labor groups and business heads two weeks ago, shortly before he held a meeting with congressional leaders in the White House.
The clock is ticking as Congress and the White House work to hash out a plan that would prevent an enormous amount or "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts from taking place next year. Both sides are stalemated over how to raise revenue as part of a deficit-reduction package. House Republicans call for changes in the tax code - namely the closing of loopholes and limiting of deductions - while Senate Democrats and Obama argue for the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts for households making more than $250,000.
While talks are ramping back up after the holiday break, a second meeting between the White House and congressional leaders has yet to be scheduled, though the president did reach out on Saturday to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about their efforts to avert the draconian cuts and tax hikes.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Leading cause of accidental death: prescription drugs
(CNN) -- Pete Jackson attended his brother-in-law's funeral along with his daughter, Emily, six years ago. He never dreamed it would be the last day of his daughter's life. "It's so tragic, just not something you would never, ever expect," said Pete Jackson. Instead of going home to the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights after the funeral, Emily Jackson, 18, spent the night with her cousins.
That night, she made a deadly decision. She took an Oxycontin -- a single prescription pill -- that her cousin offered to her while drinking. She went to sleep that night and never woke up. She died of respiratory depression -- she simply stopped breathing.
While taking one pill and dying is rare, dying accidentally after using painkillers inappropriately is common. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one person dies from a drug overdose every 19 minutes. About 37,000 Americans died after accidentally overdosing on legal or illegal drugs in 2009, according to the CDC; about half of those deaths involved prescription painkillers.
Those numbers are significant enough to make prescription drugs the leading cause of accidental death in this county.
"If you asked any guy on the street what the leading cause of accidental death is, they would guess gunshot or car accident," said Tom McLellan, co-founder of the Treatment Research Institute, a nonprofit organization advocating for improvements in substance abuse policies. "They would never imagine it's pharmaceutical opioids (painkillers)."
Emily Jackson and her cousin had done "a bit of drinking" the night she died, Pete Jackson said. But he is sure that had she not taken the Oxycontin, she would still be alive today. "I've never tried to make it sound like Emily is innocent," Jackson said. "What I want people to understand about Emily's tragedy is how easily this can happen, how dangerous these drugs are."
The prescription painkiller Emily Jackson took is a respiratory depressant that slows breathing. That in combination with the alcohol, another respiratory depressant, overwhelmed her brain, which stopped giving her heart and lungs the signal to keep functioning.
"In many ways, you play Russian roulette," said Kathleen Meyers, a senior researcher for the Treatment Research Institute. "You have no idea the (respiratory) consequences of any one group of substances, and then you put all that together and the risks go up exponentially."
It's not just an issue among teenagers. In fact, males in their 40s and 50s who start off with a prescription for back pain and die from an accidental overdose several years later are dying in significant numbers. "Could you imagine, a worker that popped their back, and we started to put them on (pain) medication and three years later they were dead?" Dr. Alex Cahana, the chief of pain medicine at the University of Washington, told CNN. "That's devastating."
The devastation began for Steve Rummler when he got a prescription for nerve pain radiating through his leg and back. It started when he was 28. For the next nine years, the Minneapolis man endured the pain.
It was not until 2005, when Rummler was 37, that a doctor prescribed hydrocodone to address his pain, along with clonazepam, a benzodiazepine and anti-anxiety medication, to relieve his injury-related anxiety. Family members said it was the first time in nearly a decade Rummler felt relief from the life-altering pain he endured.
But that relief was short-lived. In a journal entry, Rummler said of the drugs, "At first they were a lifeline. Now they are a noose around my neck."
It is a common sentiment, and a common scenario, according to Meyers, who says Rummler's case is far too common -- a person genuinely needs opioids but becomes addicted to the relief they provide.
By 2009, Rummler had sunk into dependence and, eventually, into addiction. At the advice of his family, he enrolled in two addiction treatment programs and seemingly had a handle on his addiction. But in July of 2011, just 45 days after completing the final stage of his rehabilitation, Rummler relapsed and died at 43. Like Emily Jackson, Rummler stopped breathing in his sleep.
That night, she made a deadly decision. She took an Oxycontin -- a single prescription pill -- that her cousin offered to her while drinking. She went to sleep that night and never woke up. She died of respiratory depression -- she simply stopped breathing.
While taking one pill and dying is rare, dying accidentally after using painkillers inappropriately is common. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one person dies from a drug overdose every 19 minutes. About 37,000 Americans died after accidentally overdosing on legal or illegal drugs in 2009, according to the CDC; about half of those deaths involved prescription painkillers.
Those numbers are significant enough to make prescription drugs the leading cause of accidental death in this county.
"If you asked any guy on the street what the leading cause of accidental death is, they would guess gunshot or car accident," said Tom McLellan, co-founder of the Treatment Research Institute, a nonprofit organization advocating for improvements in substance abuse policies. "They would never imagine it's pharmaceutical opioids (painkillers)."
Emily Jackson and her cousin had done "a bit of drinking" the night she died, Pete Jackson said. But he is sure that had she not taken the Oxycontin, she would still be alive today. "I've never tried to make it sound like Emily is innocent," Jackson said. "What I want people to understand about Emily's tragedy is how easily this can happen, how dangerous these drugs are."
The prescription painkiller Emily Jackson took is a respiratory depressant that slows breathing. That in combination with the alcohol, another respiratory depressant, overwhelmed her brain, which stopped giving her heart and lungs the signal to keep functioning.
"In many ways, you play Russian roulette," said Kathleen Meyers, a senior researcher for the Treatment Research Institute. "You have no idea the (respiratory) consequences of any one group of substances, and then you put all that together and the risks go up exponentially."
It's not just an issue among teenagers. In fact, males in their 40s and 50s who start off with a prescription for back pain and die from an accidental overdose several years later are dying in significant numbers. "Could you imagine, a worker that popped their back, and we started to put them on (pain) medication and three years later they were dead?" Dr. Alex Cahana, the chief of pain medicine at the University of Washington, told CNN. "That's devastating."
The devastation began for Steve Rummler when he got a prescription for nerve pain radiating through his leg and back. It started when he was 28. For the next nine years, the Minneapolis man endured the pain.
It was not until 2005, when Rummler was 37, that a doctor prescribed hydrocodone to address his pain, along with clonazepam, a benzodiazepine and anti-anxiety medication, to relieve his injury-related anxiety. Family members said it was the first time in nearly a decade Rummler felt relief from the life-altering pain he endured.
But that relief was short-lived. In a journal entry, Rummler said of the drugs, "At first they were a lifeline. Now they are a noose around my neck."
It is a common sentiment, and a common scenario, according to Meyers, who says Rummler's case is far too common -- a person genuinely needs opioids but becomes addicted to the relief they provide.
By 2009, Rummler had sunk into dependence and, eventually, into addiction. At the advice of his family, he enrolled in two addiction treatment programs and seemingly had a handle on his addiction. But in July of 2011, just 45 days after completing the final stage of his rehabilitation, Rummler relapsed and died at 43. Like Emily Jackson, Rummler stopped breathing in his sleep.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Pakistani girl shot for wanting an education
(CNN) -- It began with a ride home from school on Tuesday, October 9.
Gunmen halted the van ferrying Malala Yousufzai through her native Swat Valley, one of the most conservative regions in Pakistan. They demanded that other girls on the vehicle identify her. Malala had faced frequent death threats in the past. Some of the girls pointed her out. At least one gunman opened fire, wounding three girls. Two sustained non-life-threatening injuries, but bullets struck Malala in the head and neck.
Now, a month later, it is nothing short of a miracle that the teen blogger, who fights for the right of girls to get an education, is still alive and even more astounding that she suffered no major brain or nerve damage. In hardly more than four weeks, she has gone from an intensive care unit in Pakistan, showing no signs of consciousness, to walking, writing, reading -- and smiling -- again in a hospital in the United Kingdom. And outside her hospital room, a world sympathetic with her ordeal has transformed her into a global symbol for the fight to allow girls everywhere access to an education.
Malala has encouraged girls and their families to resist the Pakistani Taliban, who pushed girls from classrooms, since she was 11. In January 2009, the militants issued an edict ordering that no school should educate girls. Malala wrote in her online diary about intimidation tactics the Taliban used in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan to coerce girls into not going school.
They included house raids to search for books, and Malala had to hide hers under her bed. "I was scared of being beheaded by the Taliban because of my passion for education," she told CNN last year.
Right after her shooting her family kept a low profile, for fear they could be next. The militants vowed that if Malala survived, they'd go after her again.
"We will certainly kill her," a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said.
The bloodletting sparked outrage inside Pakistan against the radical Islamist group that continues to wield influence in parts of Pakistan. Around the world, the young blogger has become a poster child for a widespread need to permit girls to get an education.
Gunmen halted the van ferrying Malala Yousufzai through her native Swat Valley, one of the most conservative regions in Pakistan. They demanded that other girls on the vehicle identify her. Malala had faced frequent death threats in the past. Some of the girls pointed her out. At least one gunman opened fire, wounding three girls. Two sustained non-life-threatening injuries, but bullets struck Malala in the head and neck.
Now, a month later, it is nothing short of a miracle that the teen blogger, who fights for the right of girls to get an education, is still alive and even more astounding that she suffered no major brain or nerve damage. In hardly more than four weeks, she has gone from an intensive care unit in Pakistan, showing no signs of consciousness, to walking, writing, reading -- and smiling -- again in a hospital in the United Kingdom. And outside her hospital room, a world sympathetic with her ordeal has transformed her into a global symbol for the fight to allow girls everywhere access to an education.
Malala has encouraged girls and their families to resist the Pakistani Taliban, who pushed girls from classrooms, since she was 11. In January 2009, the militants issued an edict ordering that no school should educate girls. Malala wrote in her online diary about intimidation tactics the Taliban used in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan to coerce girls into not going school.
They included house raids to search for books, and Malala had to hide hers under her bed. "I was scared of being beheaded by the Taliban because of my passion for education," she told CNN last year.
Right after her shooting her family kept a low profile, for fear they could be next. The militants vowed that if Malala survived, they'd go after her again.
"We will certainly kill her," a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said.
The bloodletting sparked outrage inside Pakistan against the radical Islamist group that continues to wield influence in parts of Pakistan. Around the world, the young blogger has become a poster child for a widespread need to permit girls to get an education.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Obama wins second term
STAR TRIBUNE
WASHINGTON - His lease renewed in trying economic times, President Barack Obama claimed a second term from an incredibly divided electorate and immediately braced for daunting challenges and progress that comes only in fits and starts.
"We have fought our way back and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come," Obama said.
The same voters who gave Obama another four years also elected a divided Congress, re-upping the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans renewed their majority in the House.
It was a sweet victory for Obama, but nothing like the jubilant celebration of four years earlier, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world. This time, Obama ground out his win with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.
The vanquished Republican, Mitt Romney, tried to set a more conciliatory tone on the way off the stage."At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering," Romney said after a campaign filled with it. "Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work."
House Speaker John Boehner spoke of a dual mandate, saying, "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs."
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had a more harsh assessment. "The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.
Obama claimed a commanding electoral mandate — at least 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney — and had a near-sweep of the nine most hotly contested battleground states.
But the close breakdown in the popular vote showed Americans' differences over how best to meet the nation's challenges. With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, the popular vote went 50 percent for Obama to 48.4 percent for Romney, the businessman-turned-politician who had argued that Obama had failed to turn around the economy and said it was time for a new approach keyed to lower taxes and a less intrusive government.
Obama's re-election assured certainty on some fronts: His signature health-care overhaul will endure, as will the Wall Street reforms enacted after the economic meltdown. The drawdown of troops in Afghanistan will continue apace. And with an aging Supreme Court, the president is likely to have at least one more nomination to the high court.
The challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health, 23 million Americans still out of work or in search of better jobs, civil war in Syria, an ominous standoff over Iran's nuclear program, and more.
Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await.
WASHINGTON - His lease renewed in trying economic times, President Barack Obama claimed a second term from an incredibly divided electorate and immediately braced for daunting challenges and progress that comes only in fits and starts.
"We have fought our way back and we know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come," Obama said.
The same voters who gave Obama another four years also elected a divided Congress, re-upping the dynamic that has made it so hard for the president to advance his agenda. Democrats retained control of the Senate; Republicans renewed their majority in the House.
It was a sweet victory for Obama, but nothing like the jubilant celebration of four years earlier, when his hope-and-change election as the nation's first black president captivated the world. This time, Obama ground out his win with a stay-the-course pitch that essentially boiled down to a plea for more time to make things right and a hope that Congress will be more accommodating than in the past.
The vanquished Republican, Mitt Romney, tried to set a more conciliatory tone on the way off the stage."At a time like this, we can't risk partisan bickering," Romney said after a campaign filled with it. "Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people's work."
House Speaker John Boehner spoke of a dual mandate, saying, "If there is a mandate, it is a mandate for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs."
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had a more harsh assessment. "The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term," McConnell said. "They have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together" with a balanced Congress.
Obama claimed a commanding electoral mandate — at least 303 electoral votes to 206 for Romney — and had a near-sweep of the nine most hotly contested battleground states.
But the close breakdown in the popular vote showed Americans' differences over how best to meet the nation's challenges. With more than 90 percent of precincts reporting, the popular vote went 50 percent for Obama to 48.4 percent for Romney, the businessman-turned-politician who had argued that Obama had failed to turn around the economy and said it was time for a new approach keyed to lower taxes and a less intrusive government.
Obama's re-election assured certainty on some fronts: His signature health-care overhaul will endure, as will the Wall Street reforms enacted after the economic meltdown. The drawdown of troops in Afghanistan will continue apace. And with an aging Supreme Court, the president is likely to have at least one more nomination to the high court.
The challenges immediately ahead for the 44th president are all too familiar: an economy still baby-stepping its way toward full health, 23 million Americans still out of work or in search of better jobs, civil war in Syria, an ominous standoff over Iran's nuclear program, and more.
Sharp differences with Republicans in Congress on taxes, spending, deficit reduction, immigration and more await.