Singer Jimmy Buffett Cancels Concert After Sustaining A Concussion From Stage Fall

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Posted on 28th January 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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After singer Jimmy Buffett fell off a stage during a concert in Sydney, one pundit joked that “maybe he blew out a flipflop,” referring to Buffett’s hit “Margaritaville.” But the accident is no laughing matter.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/gossip/2011/01/jimmy-buffett-fall-out-of-hospital-doing-well.html

Buffett, 64, appeared to just walk off the front of the stage, falling head first into the crowd at the Hordern Pavillion Wednesday. One account said that Buffett had been blinded by a spotlight that a lighting person had put on him, and fell.    

http://www.tmz.com/2011/01/26/jimmy-buffett-fall-stage-australia-video-pictures-margaritaville-welcome/?nci00=webmail

When he fell Buffett’s head hit a piece of metal and then he cracked his head on the venue’s floor. Witnesses said that he had a huge cut on his forehead, and that he was unconscious for five to 10 minutes before paramedics came. That means Buffett sustained a concussion. 

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/01/27/jimmy-buffett-released-hospital-reportedly-cancels-concert/#

At first it appeared that Buffett, or his management, wasn’t taking his concussion very seriously.

On Wednesday his website said, ”As you probably already know, Jimmy had an accident while performing in Sydney last night and was taken to the hospital. The doctors say he is doing well and will be released tomorrow. More info as we get it, and thank you for all of your well-wishes!”

http://www.margaritaville.com/news.html

But the site posted a new update Thursday.

“Jimmy was scheduled to perform at the Auckland Viaduct on Te Wero Island this Saturday night but unfortunately, he will be cancelling the New Zealand show to allow himself time to recover from his injuriesm” the site said. ”Jimmy would like to thank all of his fans for their support, and wants them all to know that he will return.”

Let’s hope he doesn’t return too soon. He needs adequate time to recover from his concussion.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

NFL Pressures Toyota To Change TV Commercial

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Posted on 22nd January 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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The National Football League has successfully pressured Toyota to edit a TV commercial that showed two kids crashing helmet-to-helmet while playing football. I think the NFL, extremely sensitive to negative media coverage about the dangers of concussions, doth protest too much.    

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/sports/football/22toyota.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

The original version of the commercial, which first aired in November, had a mother saying that she was concerned about her son playing football, and when the two youths collided the spot “superimposed crashing sounds and force lines rippling from their heads,” according to The New York Times.

The TV spot, The Times said, cited the fact that Toyota was sharing its own crash research with doctors who are studying football concussions. That didn’t sit well with the NFL, which demanded that Toyota edit the commercial. In the new version, the mother is concerned about her son playing “sports,” rather than just football, and the helmet-to-helmet contact is gone.

If Toyota didn’t change the spot, the NFL threatened to stop the automaker from advertising during games, according to The Times.

The NFL was ready with an answer about its demand that Toyota revamp the commercial. ”We felt it was unfair to single out a particular sport,” an NFL spokesman told The Times. “Concussions aren’t just a football issue.”

No, they aren’t. But they are a hell of a lot bigger issue for football than for other sports. As Time sports reporter Alan Schwarz slyly points out, statisitics from the Nationwide Children’s Hospital  found that high school football players report 100,000 concussions a year. “The second through ninth-ranked sporrts combined reach 110,000.” Schwarz wrote.

 

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

In Doomed Effort, House Votes To Repeal Health Care Reform

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Posted on 20th January 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

The nation’s unemployment rate is still sky-high, and kids are being shot in their schools. So what important matter was the House of Representatives tending to Wednesday? Repealing President Barack Obama’s health-care reform in “a symbolic act,” as The New York Times put it. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/health/policy/20cong.html?_r=1&hp

The new Republican majority in the House was making good on the GOP campaign promise that it would attempt to scuttle Obama’s overhaul of our health-care system. The vote on the repeal was 245 to 189, according to The Times, with three Democrats switching loyalty to vote with all 242 Republicans for the repeal.

This repeal effort is not going to get any traction, and the Republicans know it. Members of the Democratic-controlled Senate say they will not move on the repeal measure, which will basically derail it.

Even if the repeal doesn’t come to fruition, Republicans will make other efforts to hamstring health reform. For example, they have threatened to cut off federal funding needed to carry out reform’s various provisions.

All these GOP efforts are a waste of time, a folly, for our lawmakers in Washington.    

  

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

Reagan’s Sons Clash Over Whether He Had Alzheimer’s While In White House

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Posted on 18th January 2011 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Did President Ronald Reagan show signs of Alzheimer’s disease when he was still in the White House?

That’s the charge that his youngest son, Ron Reagan, makes in his new book, a memoir called “My Father At 100,” which was excerpted in Parade magazine Sunday.

 http://www.parade.com/news/2011/01/16-my-father-the-president.html

“Three years into his first term as president, I felt the first shivers of concern that something beyond mellowing was affecting my father,” Ron Reagan wrote.

He later writes that he also became worried when President Reagan ”floundered his way” through an election debate with Democratic candidate Walter Mondale in 1984. Ron Reagan qualified his remarks in his book by writing, “I don’t want to give the impression that my father was mumbling incoherently during this or any period.”  

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/01/reagan-sons-argue-over-alzheimers-disease/1

Nonetheless, Ron Reagan’s comments in his book sparked an angry response from his older brother Michael Reagan,  

“Ron was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother,” Michael Reagan tweeted, later adding, “My brother seems to want (to) sell out his father to sell books.”

President Reagan went public in 1994 that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and his physicians have said that he developed this type of dementia after he left the presidency. 

In his book Ron Reagan defended his father, despite his allegation that the man appeared to have Alzheimer’s while in office.

“Does this delegitimize his presidency?” Ron Reagan wrote. “Only to the extent that President Kennedy’s Addison’s disease or Lincoln’s clinical depression undermine their’s. Better, it seems to me, to judge our presidents by what they actually accomplish that what hidden factors may be weighing in.”      

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Past Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.