Saturday, December 24, 2011
Rare Case Of Two-Headed Baby Born Healthy
A rare case of a healthy two-headed baby was witnessed in Brazil this week. According to doctors the two-headed baby is actually a set of conjoined twins who had to share one body due to a rare birth defect.
The twins, born on Monday and named Jesus and Emanuel in honour of the upcoming Christmas holiday, have distinct brains and spinal cords but share internal organs, appearing as a single baby with two heads.
The hospital said the 23-year-old mother only learned that she was pregnant with twins at the time of the delivery, when an ultrasound was performed.
The condition, known as dicephalic parapagus, is extremely rare.
But one set of twins born with the condition in 1990, Americans Abby and Brittany Hensel, have led a relatively normal life in the US state of Minnesota and appeared in a documentary in 2008.
Derrick Rose can learn from LeBron James about what not to grow into
I don’t like LeBron James.
I once did and might again, but right now the Miami Heat superstar reminds me of all the semi-delusional, self-aggrandizing, fan-tailed peacocks I have seen in my sportswriting career, crownless gods strutting in their mighty youth, mirrors held before them by sycophants, strolling blindly off the cliff of wealth and fame to splatter on the rocks of might-have-been.
James is only 26 — he’ll be 27 in a week — and he’s rich beyond belief.
Back in June 2007, an editorial on CNNMoney.com stated: ‘‘Forget whether LeBron James is the next Michael Jordan. The more interesting question is whether he can be the next Warren Buffett.’’
No, it’s not. Never has been. Not to sports fans, anyway.
The only question that interests us is whether this man can win an NBA championship. He hasn’t yet, and he is entering his ninth season. His talent is overarching, but talent is to winning as fine grapes are to the finest wine: You better believe something happens in the cask.
Indeed, considering his potential, James already should be on his way to an NBA dynasty, not serving as the brunt of loser jokes.
Typical: What’s the difference between Saturn and LeBron? Saturn has rings.
And don’t even bring up the fourth-quarter gags.
None of this is totally James’ fault. In fact, it was kind of cool that he colluded with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, moved to Miami and basically showed the NBA that it is, as commissioner David Stern always says, a players’ league.
Perfume of failure
Yet leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers via a cruel TV special called, modestly, ‘‘The Decision’’ was way uncool. Now the ‘‘Three Amigos’’ are sometimes called the ‘‘Three Mi-Egos.’’ The way the Heat was beaten by the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 Finals, losing three consecutive games after opening a 2-1 lead, only added to the perfume of elite failure that wafts from James.
Well, none of this would matter, I suppose, if the Heat wasn’t standing in the way of the Bulls.
It’s not fair to say Derrick Rose is the anti-LeBron — I didn’t like that entrance-test-score messiness at Memphis, for one thing — but he’s close.
Yet the courteous, self-deprecating Rose has won nothing, either. We’re not counting individual honors or high school ball here.
So the battle is on between two young men to see where substance lies. Who wants it?
I have worked many times in the past with famed Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss Jr. The always-upbeat artist has a hard-to-describe kinship with great athletes. Plus, he has done dozens of SI swimsuit shoots, getting major props from everybody from Cheryl Tiegs to Brooklyn Decker.
In the current year-end issue of SI, the photographer talks about his 50-year sports-shooting career, which is, by the way, hotter than ever. Here he is on James:
‘Unimaginable’
‘‘I first photographed LeBron James in 2003, when he was a rookie in Cleveland. He was pretty raw. . . . When I shot him six years later, in 2009, the difference was amazing. He walked in like a king that day, and he took over that room. And not only physically, although he was massive then. He was muscular, charming, articulate, the prince of hoops. He couldn’t have been more of an ambassador for the game.
‘‘Times change, and sadly LeBron became a villain. . . . In July 2010, I got an assignment from Nike to shoot LeBron right after his TV special announcing his move to the Heat. We rented the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, where the Lakers and Clippers used to play, and there were 53 people on my crew, including hair and makeup artists, production people, a stylist. I had $10,000 in Hollywood lighting. It was huge.
‘‘When LeBron arrived, it was if Nelson Mandela had come in. Six or seven blacked-out Escalades pulled up, a convoy.
LeBron had bodyguards and his masseuse. His deejay was already there, blasting. This was for a photo shoot that was going to last an hour, tops.
‘‘This is how crazy it was: I wasn’t even allowed to talk directly to LeBron. There was a liaison, someone from Amare Stoudemire’s family. I would say to him, ‘OK, have LeBron drive right,’ and then he’d turn to LeBron and say, ‘LeBron, go right.’ . . .
‘‘My God, I’ve been around Michael Jordan, but with him nothing even came close to this. Unimaginable.’’
There it is. Massive ego. Zero rings.
Hope D-Rose is paying attention. I’d hate to not like him.
For Muslims celebrating Christmas, it's a holiday, not a holy day
With Christmas comes tradition in the Traband household: A plate of cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. A stocking full of treats for Omar, the family dog. A noble fir decorated with golden garland and keepsake ornaments.
But there is no angel atop the tree.
Sahira Traband feels that would conflict with her family's faith.
They are Muslims.
"The magic of Christmas is the part we celebrate," said Traband, 45. "We didn't get into the whole religious thing."
At a time when the holiday is being pulled in different directions — some people replace "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" so as not to offend, while others campaign to "Keep the Christ in Christmas" — it's not uncommon for Muslims to use the occasion as an entry into American culture, no different from signing up their children for Little League.
Just how many Muslims do observe the holiday is unclear, since it is a personal choice fellow faithful might criticize. But if they were to ask, Muslims might discover they know a family or two who put up trees or send letters to Santa.
That fact may come as an even bigger shock to those outside the community who regard Muslims and their faith as being at odds with Western lifestyles.
"To me, Christmas, unless you're going to go to church, is a pop culture holiday," said Maha Awad, a producer and media consultant who is working with the TLC reality show "All-American Muslim."
Though Jesus is regarded as a prophet in Islam, celebrating Christmas "is not a religious practice," Awad said.
In her San Fernando Valley home, much of the holiday revolves around her 4-year-old daughter, Sarah, who attends an Islamic school on Sundays and is memorizing parts of the Koran. Awad takes her to visit Santa; they put up a tree and decorate the house with lights and stockings.
"Islam is our religion and Christmas is just a fun holiday we partake in," said Awad, whose father is Palestinian and mother Egyptian. Growing up in Los Angeles, "it was absolutely part of assimilating," she said.
Most clerics, however, will argue that followers of Islam should not participate in the Christian holiday, despite its commercialization. A small number of Muslims even go so far as to say that wishing someone a "Merry Christmas" is tantamount to blasphemy.
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Still, many Muslims — as well as Jews, Buddhists and other non-Christians — celebrate the day. The act of putting up some tinsel, said Emil Ali, a Muslim, doesn't conflict with their religious beliefs.
The lawyer, who works at the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., remembers having to defend himself when he was 12 years old and another Muslim boy told him that celebrating Christmas was forbidden. He responded that the Koran doesn't forbid having a tree.
Now some of his more conservative friends jokingly say he's becoming Christian.
"I don't think Christmas is very religious," said Ali, 26, whose mother is from Pakistan and father from Tanzania. "When you're in an American country, you want to blend in and assimilate."
For Ali, sending out holiday cards and decorating his house with lights is just part of being a good neighbor. Not doing it, he said, would be akin to keeping his empty trash cans by the curb.
