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Here's a connection you may not have made in the past.  Doctors and guns. But a new survey of North Carolina doctors has found that many are concerned about the increasing number of requests they are receiving to assess their patients’ competency to carry concealed weapons. In particular, a majority of physicians who responded to the survey said they were worried about the potential ethical consequences in the doctor-patient relationship if they participated in the concealed-weapon permit process, according to newswise.com. “This is not a small problem,” the Web site quotes Dr. Adam Goldstein, corresponding author of the study and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. “More than 20 percent of the physicians we surveyed have been asked to sign competency permits for concealed weapons, and a majority of them do not feel they can adequately assess the physical or mental competence of their patients to ...

Did you know where you live may predict how long you live? According to Jathan Sadowski at slate.com, referencing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation study, “Just a few metro stops can mean the difference between an extra five to ten years added to your lifespan.  “Where we live, learn, work and play can have a greater impact on our health than we realize.” We all know that the richer you are, the more likely it is you will live longer, and conversely, the poorer you are, sadly, also predicts longevity.  Sadowski gives as an example two parts of New Orleans, the French Quarter, where more poor people live, and the "much more gentrified Lower Garden District a few miles away." The average lifespan of someone who lives in the French Quarter?  You won't believe this.  It's 55 years. Our national average lifespan just rose to 78.2 years!  But if you live near highway 610, or the Fairgrounds, you'll live till your 80s. Even more shocking, the study shows...

I wasn’t going to jump on the bandwagon, but here goes, anyway. What is it with Spitzer and Weiner? Having been the victim of sexual assault at a young age, perhaps I’m just sensitive to this.  And though the participants were all willing, and of age, there was still an assault.  On our trust, our innocence, our belief, yes, naïvete maybe, that politicians basically were like the rest of us – if not honest, at least moral, beings.  But what hurts is seeing Weiner on the streets, happily shaking hands and showing not the least bit of remorse.  Or worse, Spitzer on Leno talking grandly about how yes, it was “incredibly painful” (for whom?), and he committed an egregious mistake, but acting somehow like we’re supposed to applaud him now for his courage in running again. Or thank him. Say what?  When exactly did it become okay to trample on your marriage (and the wives who are staying with them!), forget about the law, even though you’re sup...

Now that more information about Adam Lanza and the Newtown massacre are about to hit the airwaves, how much do we really need to know? Make that, want to know. That he fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes, according to NBC News?  That he fired 154 of those bullets from his assault rifle and just one (to kill himself) from a handgun? And big surprise, that he had a certificate from, or was a member of, the National Rifle Association?  All these facts came out today at a press conference held by the chief prosecutor investigating the slaughter. So, does this make any of us feel better?  We sort of knew the main outline from all the newscasts.  This is just shedding a little more light (if there is any light to Adam Lanza).  We also learned just last week that he had a seven-foot spreadsheet of all the mass killings of recent years. But does this help us make any more sense of this horrific crime?  Not for me.  We always knew this kid w...

It's those with mental illness. According to Nicholas Bakalar, " people with mental illness may be at sharply increased risk of dying by homicide, a new study has found." Bakalar reported that, "after controlling for age, education level, income and other factors, they found that   people with mental illness were almost five times as likely to be a victim of murder as a person without a psychiatric diagnosis ." Substance abusers, for obvious reasons, were among those most likely to be victims of homicide -- 9 times the risk of the average population. Those with personality disorders were next, at triple the risk of the general population, while depressed people had 2 1/2 times the risk, and those with anxiety or schizophrenia had about twice the risk, Bakalar noted. It's been talked and talked about how our mental health system needs shoring up, if not rebuilding. But what's one of the first programs to be slashed when the budget-cutters come out? ...

Saddest city in the U.S.?  A Gallup poll just named Michigan, mostly because of all the troubles plaguing Detroit.  Violent crime spreading virally, home prices at the bottom of the bucket, decreasing by 35%, according to a story at forbes.com.  And people just plain sick and tired of being poor, cold, and without hope for the future. On Tuesday, Kurt Badenhausen writes, the city was in danger of being taken over by the state. The happiest city?  You probably guessed it.  Hawaii.  Who couldn't beat depression with warm breezes, surf and sun?  (Although when I went there years ago on a vacation, I had five days out of seven of rain. Still, I managed to get sun poisoning on the one day I could go to the beach!  And on top of it all, I'd reluctantly agreed to see a former boyfriend, who was stationed there. Not my favorite vacation.) http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2013/02/21/detroit-tops-2013-list-of-americas-m...

A new study as reported by The New York Times today has found that, though "playing the games can and does stir hostile urges and mildly aggressive behaviors" the good news -- I think -- is that it's not totally clear if that is the case.  It's quite possible that those who like to play violent video games self-select themselves. In other words, as The Times noted, young people who tend towards violent tendencies just might be the ones most likely to play the bloodiest games.  A psychologist quoted in the story, however, said that the violent behavior of people like Adam Lanza, the Newtown murderer, could only partly be attributed to video games. “None of these extreme acts, like a school shooting, occurs because of only one risk factor; there are many factors, including feeling socially isolated, being bullied, and so on,” Craig A. Anderson, a psychologist at Iowa State University, told The Times. A statistic I found very revealing was that "the proliferat...