POLITICAL JUNKIES

Glad to hear they’ll be doing an autopsy for Prince, as some religions (including Orthodox Judaism) forbid it. It might reveal a cause of death that could help his relatives (as well as millions of others) better manage their future health. It’ll be interesting to see if he had a hidden preexisting condition. (If he had an operable aneurysm, there’d have been no way he’d have survived surgery because replacement of blood lost would have been absolutely necessary for the surgery to have been successful--so it’s likely that he might have known but decided not to repair it, for religious reasons). What medications (other than, I presume, mood-altering and addictive ones) are Jehovah’s Witnesses forbidden to take?

Not sure about the meds. Hope someone might be familiar with that religion. I'm not good in that sort of department as I basically accept most religions if they are structured in such a way that you are tolerant, loving, helpful as best you can be to your fellow travelers on this Earth and do you best to care for the Earth and all its inhabitants, including animals. Many problems are caused by disagreements over religions or politics --- and sometimes it is hard to stay even when things are said.

I also read that Prince had epilepsy as a child and this may have carried over or re-awakened in him as an adult. All told though, I think like many 'artists' he didn't or hoped that much of his life could remain private and I would take it that he would feel that way about illnesses. He often quietly donated money to people but only if they didn't not tell that it was him. I can understand that one.

Maybe I'll look on the Internet about the question of what meds might be forbidden in religions.

Jackie

Very interesting.

We tend to take for granted that otherwise healthy people will recover from illnesses like the flu, pneumonia etc., but I had pneumonia earlier this winter and I have never, ever felt more awful in my life. I can absolutely understand how people do die from it, and the same thing can happen with the flu. Scary!

My Wisconsin cousin just posted the following on Facebook.....the inmates are running the asylum.....

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly repealed his state's equal pay law last week, a decision that will make it harder for victims of wage discrimination to sue for lost earnings and back wages. The law was enacted primarily to address the massive pay gap that exists between male and female workers, which is even bigger in Wisconsin than in other states.

Repealing the law was a no-brainer for state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R), who led the effort because of his belief that pay discrimination is a myth driven by liberal women's groups. Ignoring multiple studies showing that the pay gap exists, Grothman blamed females for prioritizing childrearing and homemaking instead of money, saying, "Money is more important for men."

kayb, Prince's solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at that 2004 RRHOF concert erased all memory of Eric Clapton's solo from my mind.

What a lot of people forget is what a feminist Prince was. Sure, he had his share of pretty eye-candy backup singers (who, however, had pipes to match their looks). But he was the first major rock bandleader to not only treat women musicians with full respect (and launch their subsequent careers--Sheila E., Wendy & Lisa Melvoin, etc.) but continued to employ mostly women in his touring band. Not to mention writing “Manic Monday” expressly for the Bangles and refraining from releasing his original of “Nothing Compares 2 U” as a single, in order to let Sinead O’Connor have the hit version.

Couldn't agree more about Prince's RRHOF and 2007 Super Bowl performances both awesome. I could tell when Prince came on stage at RRHOF because Dhani Harrison just lights up with a big smile. Weren't Prince's lyrics what finally pushed Tipper Gore over the edge into promoting labeling music? I read somewhere online today, that Prince's flu may have evolved into walking pneumonia.

Back on Bernie, I saw Susan Sarandon on Bill Maher's Real Time and she said she wasn't ready to "go there" about voting for HRC because she still firmly believed Bernie would get the nomination. Bill pushed her to answer if she would vote for HRC if she gets the nomination and she said she wouldn't even entertain the idea until he doesn't get the nomination. I really cannot imagine she would not vote for HRC, but she just doesn't want to admit it's over for Bernie. I do admire a lot of what Bernie stands for and the fact that he didn't go third party. I think he has done a lot for "moving" the electorate into really thinking about these economic issues and should work now to move the Party platform. He may be more effective as a senator on these issues and I do hope he will rally the troops for down ballot candidates because they are the people who count. I have no doubt that he will eventually strongly support HRC if for no other reason than to convince his supporters that if they do not vote for HRC, they are voting for Trump. I also admire HRC, even though she is not my ideal candidate, but I am so ready for a woman President and I've always known that she would be the strongest first possibility.

ChiSandy, thanks for fleshing out so much of what I read about JW's and blood transfusions. I mainly was looking for medications they may not allow and nothing came much out of that search, though my overall impression was more of illicit type drugs as well as psychiatric medications. As you so aptly said, along with blood transfusions, I think they have found work-arounds to a lot. I think in part it seemed that it was understood that losing church members over and over to 'easily' treatable problems is not the best thing to let happen.

Was watching Morning Joe and sometimes wonder why I do. He is so 'hail' fellow well met where Trump is concerned. Those around the table it seems to me often concur so as not to incur Joe's disdain and to be invited back on as part of the clique. Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but just my general impression. I think you can present the pro and con without gushing all the time about someone who is a businessperson/entertainer and who will never be a politician. JMHO though.

Jackie

I never really cared for Princes style. I popped my ipod in this morning and am still listening to the 50 songs recorded there out of respect for him and try to understand who he was. I watched the video of "My guitar gently weeps" (WOW) and it gave me a whole new respect for his diverse talent. LOVE that guitar slam at the end. He is loved.

maureen

I used to check TMZ out until I was sickened by how they reported things, like writing about Suri Cruise wearing "whore paint " because the little girl was seen in makeup. It turned my stomach so I stopped reading their website. That said, I watched some clip recently about TMZ and Harvey Levin who runs it, and surprisingly, they are accurate on many stories. They broke the news of Michael Jackson's death, showed the video first of Ray Rice cold-cocking his his fiancé in an elevator, and Beyonce's sister Solange assaulting JayZ in an elevator, among other notable stories. They pay people for the information so opportunists seek out TMZ to make some quick bucks. Much as I don't like it, that's how things often work these days. They claim to be a news network, and tho much of what they report sounds gossipy, there's often an element of truth to their reports. Of course, too much of it is sensationalized.

I feel kind of bad, I wasn't a big fan. My sis called tonight and said she was in mourning. I liked some of his songs but I'm not feeling like I did when Don Henley died. Glad I went to their concert and paid obscene money for great tickets in 2013.

Oh well

Don Henley is very much alive. You meant Glenn Frey, right?

That Prince was found fully dressed, in the elevator of the studio wing of Paisley Park shows he was likely on the way to work on recording--people who OD on recreational drugs are usually found in residential (home or hotel) rooms, in the street, or in or near somewhere they’d been partying hard. And if Prince had OD’ed on Percocet, he didn’t take it to get high--he was notoriously averse to recreational drugs, even to going to doctors. He must have been in excruciating pain from his well-known severe degenerative hip changes. If the tox results show a sufficient level of the drug to have caused death, then I’m willing to bet that the autopsy will reveal something so severely physically wrong that he felt compelled to take what turned out to be a too-large amount of opioid.

I don’t think pneumonia--especially walking pneumonia--could kill that fast--the respiratory distress is much more gradual. MSNBC journalist Tamron Hall was a very close friend of his, and spent three hours talking with him the night before he died and she said she heard no weakness (or any breathiness beyond his usual) in his voice, no wheezing and no coughing. If an infection were the proximate cause, it would have been a very virulent bacterial one, such as MRSA or the Type 2 beta-hemolytic strep that killed Jim Henson. Henson thought he was having the flu, took a taxi to the hospital, walked into the ER on his own and was dead by morning.

Another possibility that includes both an OD and pneumonia? I know, because it happened to me but we nipped it in the bud. Back in 1985 we took a getaway weekend at a Lake Geneva, WI. It was the tail end of allergy season. I had a terrible cold (or I thought it was) but because I wasn’t running a fever, we went anyway. I brought along a humidifier, nasal spray, and an OTC Primatene Mist inhaler (I had been diagnosed two years earlier with asthma but didn’t believe it, because I never had any further attacks; I’d long since exhausted the sample prescription inhalers and let the Rx expire). I also was on Desyrel for postpartum depression and Xanax for anxiety--6mg/day (a large dose) and due to the PPD anorexia, weighed about 112 soaking wet. First night, I tossed and turned. Nasal spray was like squirting at a brick wall. The Sudafed was also keeping me awake. Finally was able to breathe a bit through my nose and fell back asleep, only to wake up with a coughing fit from postnasal drip and a constant unrelenting throat tickle. I was pretty sleep-deprived to begin with, so I poured a shot from the bottle of Jack Daniel’s Bob had brought along (no minibar in the room). It quieted the tickle, but now I found I could hardly breathe even through my mouth. The Primatene Mist didn’t even make a dent. Bob called 911, who said we could get to the hospital faster than an EMT could get to us, and to keep feeding me sips of strong black coffee. When we got to the ER, I had maybe 10% lung function--I had to take 3 rounds of nebulizer treatment as well as oxygen. The ER doc said no one factor alone would have caused that--but since I already had a respiratory infection and was on a high dose of Xanax (1 mg. 6X a day), the Xanax and the whiskey were central nervous system depressants that made it that much tougher to breathe. Half an hour longer and I could have asphyxiated. (Turned out my cold was pneumonia, once the sputum culture came back)

Now, mind you, I had Bob--a doctor himself--the 911 operator, and an ER 15 min.away. Picture Prince, alone overnight at Paisley Park, having had some sort of respiratory infection and by all accounts a hip so degenerated it affected his choice of shoes (flats instead of his trademark heels) and movement. He had cancelled two shows in Atlanta (citing the “flu”), did a third (seemingly fine) and then, en route home to Minneapolis, collapsed in his private plane, which made an emergency landing in Moline, IL, where he was treated in an ER but but signed himself out when it became apparent that because a private room was unavailable and he’d have had to stay in the ER (likely publicly) till a bed opened up. He seemed fine at a party he threw for fans this past Sat. night. But a neighbor saw him shakily riding a bicycle at a nearby strip mall Tuesday, and then sitting on the sidewalk looking pale. She approached with a cellphone--and he asked her not to take a picture and that he was okay and didn’t need to call anyone. She respected his privacy, put the phone away, and left. There is a blurry photo circulating of him leaving the neighborhood Walgreen’s on Wed. I’d venture a guess that if he did die of a Percocet OD, it was because he took it for his hip pain and it combined with his respiratory infection, suppressing respirations to the point he couldn’t breathe. He died alone in that elevator before he could call for help. His staffers no doubt had been expecting him to come to the studio that morning, and when he hadn’t shown up and he didn’t answer his call, they went looking for him.

Sandy, wow, what an experience regarding your 1985 getaway. So glad you sought timely medical intervention.

Regarding Cyril Wecht, I have an aversion to these "fillers" as I consider them, so prevalent in the 24 hour news cycle that exists. People want to hear anything attached to Prince, so news shows and networks bring in all these "supposers", so-called experts who suppose this or that may have happened. It's all conjecture and a waste of time. But it fills air space and keeps people tuned in. I feel that way about the Susan Sarandon types they use as filler to dissect the current political goings-on. I most often don't care what a celebrity's opinion is, especially when it's kind of out there.

Regarding Prince, I often think of famous people of his caliber surrounded by a posse of people. It seems unusual to me that he was all alone, especially since he was having medical issues.

Great link Hydranne....thanks!

My sister does a lot of work with gathering and analyzing statistics for PP and other international agencies. Facts definitely show the value of PP, in the area of abortion and women's health.....access to information and services results in fewer abortions and better health management of women. I find it hard to wrap my head around people who can't accept that.

All of the above poste about PP.

Jackie