Today at my Episcopal Church in Lillian, Alabama this prayer was offered and I thought it should be shared:
“We pray today for the preservation of our natural environment, especialy the Gulf of Mexico and the lands and waters it touches: Guide those who labor to contain the oil that endangers the creatures of the sea and land; Strenghten those who work to protect them; Have mercy on those whose livelihoods will suffer; Forgive us for our carelessness in using the resources of nature, and give us widsom and reverence so to manage them in the future, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may continue to praise your for your bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen”
It struck me as poignant in these times and reminded me that we all have a duty to protect God’s gifts to us.
Our firm believes that a person who was damaged by the negligence (or worse) of his or her lawyer is entitled to the same quality of justice as a person harmed by the negligence of a truck driver. Based upon this belief we have filed suit and recovered judgments against numerous lawyers over the years. Recently we had an unusual situation develop, a lawyer we sued was elected circuit judge!
Everyone along the Gulf Coast is going to be damaged by the oil pouring from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. There are things those of we can do now to minimize our damage and help prove our claims. First, pick up all debris along the shoreline. Trash is easier to pick up before it is covered in oil. Second, take pictures of your shoreline and grass beds. Take more pictures as conditions change. Nothing proves before and after as well as pictures. Third, make a diary. It will be years before you are compensated and having a diary will help you recall the damages and inconveniences you experienced. Do not worry about having too much in your diary. Record how bad business was over Memorial Day 2010, how you had to alter plans for 4th of July, days weeks and months when your fishing boat, beach house or restaurant was unusable. The only way you can expect to be fully compensated for your loss is if you are proactive.
There is a strong temptation, especially for young females, to get ready for the beach by taking a trip to the tanning salon. That is a very dangerous practice. According to the AP (3/26, Perrone), A World Health Organization analysis showed that the deadliest form of skin cancer increases 75 percent in people who use tanning beds in their teens and 20s. The article quotes Dr. William James, president of the American Academy of Dermatology Association, “What was formerly considered a disease of older men is ballooning in young women, the very target audience and number one customer of the tanning industry,”
As the economy continues to limp along, I am getting more and more calls from workers who say they have been terminated “without cause.” For 99% of those calls, the only thing that I can do is explain to them that they don’t have any legal recourse because Alabama is an “at-will” employment state. (more…)
A nurse in Andrews, Texas, Anne Mitchell, was acquitted last Thursday by a state court jury on felony charges. In the indictment, the State alleged that she had committed the felony of “misuse of official information” by submitting private patient file numbers to the State Medical Board. She claimed that she was trying to let the Board know that a doctor at her hospital was practicing unsafe medicine. (more…)
Where money is taken away from resident care to increase profits, nursing home neglect or abuse occurs and injuries and deaths occur. In more and more, nursing home cases we are seeing related companies often owned by the same owners as of the nursing home, providing either pharmaceutical products, therapy services, management services, consulting services, operation services or lease arrangements which take money from the direct care of residents. There are many ways available to these owners to skim money away from care and direct it to their pockets. (more…)
People who receive the word from their doctor that they have what might be a terminal disease often report that event as a paralyzing experience. The easiest thing to do is put your head in the sand – maybe it’s a bad dream that will go away. But it won’t. At a time like this, thank goodness for the internet. (more…)
If your loved one has been injured in a nursing home and there does not seem to be a reasonable explanation from the nursing home, go to the administrator and request the incident report. Most nursing home policies require that the staff member treating the resident at the time of the incident prepare a statement to describe what happened. For a family member, determining how an incident occurred can be very difficult. The resident often cannot describe or remember how or even if she fell, chocked or suffered burns for example. The family has to rely on the nursing home and its care givers to tell them what happened.
Almost all nursing homes’ policy and procedure manuals require the nursing home to conduct an investigation to determine the cause of an incident. (more…)
Forty years ago there were only two common sexually transmitted diseases among Americans. Today there are 25. Here are six that public health officials are most worried about. AIDS, Chlamydia, Genital herpes/HSV, Genital herpes/HSV, Gonorrhea, Syphilis. http://host.madison.com/article_7bda3a77-9111-5fa6-9aaf-e25962052a5b.html?mode=story
The problem is especially bad among teens where the rate of infection is approaching epidemic proportions. http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/health_med_fit/article_96d0ee57-e3dc-59d7-a5ec-e5cbc5b71ffc.html
We can argue in favor of abstinence but we must teach our young people the danger of unprotected sex.
