Here’s an important development in the 2012 race to replace retiring Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl: Gabrielle Giffords can now speak, or at least lip sync and “verbalize” words. She is making progress. She is progressive. She delights progressives with her progress. So will Giffords hurry up and get in shape so she can run for Senate? Because that’s what this whole thing is all about, right, the horse race? People are waiting, and they need to know that Giffords is still able to deliver speeches and walk and be attractive. “A longtime friend who has been helping her through her rehabilitation videotaped her mouthing the words to ‘Happy Birthday to You.’” Yeah, that’s not good enough. You’ve got to give the bundlers some red meat so they can fundraise.
In long days that begin with breakfast at 7, Ms. Giffords, 40, has beaten one of her nurses at tic-tac-toe
Very senatorial.
Aides conduct bedside briefings for her, telling her about the events unfolding in Egypt, for instance, and the decision by Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, not to run for re-election next year.
“We tell her everything that’s going on,” Ms. Carusone said.
Woah woah woah, don’t let her get too informed. That’s not senatorial. Keep her completely ignorant of her surroundings. That’s what senators do. [NYT]
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More than one member of the U.S. Senate (The World's Greatest Deliberative Body) would be crying for a rematch at tic-tac-toe after the nurse mopped the floor with them.
Tea Partiers would use the loss as an example of the undue burden placed upon the players by the contraints of the game, for instance being confined to "Xs" and "Os" and having to use pre-existing designated spaces for them rather than the God-given right to draw new squares.
Has Bible Spice put the crosshairs back up, targeting the Arizona Senate race?
Don't retreat–RELOAD! God, I hate her.
Yeah, like this gets her off the hook. (She still has hookworms though.)
I want Gabby to do an interview and totally blame ShrillBilly …call her out by name & say it's 90% her fault that she has a hole in her head. That would be SWEEEEEEEEET!
Especially considering Gabby had the prequel for it on MSNBC wherein she said she felt targeted. I would think that would be the end of the Wicked Witch of the North.
Would it be possible to have her to actually conduct the interview with the Snowbilly Grifter, but have a Terminator-like targeting device mounted in her cranial aperture that keeps flashing a laser site in that twat's vacant face?
Never kwy retweet!
She's waiting to survey the field, to see if formalizing her purchase of the home for Bristol is worth it.
PALIN HAS THE AZ 2012.
I honestly wonder if Caribou Barbie ever considered what Rep. Giffords would say when she regained her speech. She barely made any effort to bridge the gulf that exists between her nutty faction and the an entire continent of sanity and now this totally innocent victim of her demagoguery will be able to righteously take her to task.
Highly unlikely. Since Bible Spice's main concern seemed to be deflecting responsibility for the terrorist act.
To her minions, she's a bigger victim than Gabby Giffords.
Pretty sure Palin will rely on being able to dismiss her as a "retard" and call it a day.
Bristol had heard about Kyl's retirement ahead of the announcement, which is why she moved on down to Arizona, to fun for the Senate. She doesn't know about that pesky age requirement in the Constitution.
She has it on good authority from the Wasilla Jr. High math department that she will be 25 by 2012, or 2015, or whenever the election is.
Hey Mom, what's a Constantuition?
Rules are for non-Palins.
BREAKING NEWS: Faux Noise reports that Bristol Palin is supported by 115% of Arizona voters, in the upcoming Senate race.
So where did the Giffords is Toast quote come from? What's with the picture period?
That screen capture makes me feel like crying. No snark.
Asshole, Trent Humphries. Tea Party, (right wing Republican).
Wait, what? Trent Humphries said "Giffords is Toast" recently? Really? 'Cause, that's funny snark, right?
Tell me you're joking. For the love of god, tell me he didn't say this.
If you look closely at the screen cap, it's from March 25, so probably last year. I don't think he's said anything about Giffords since the shooting.
Huzzah! You go Gabby,
Wuz she lip syncing I am Woman?
Even if she never gets better than she is today Gabrielle Giffords would still be light years ahead of potential opponents in the Sharron Elaine Angle /Xtine O'Donnell mold.
She will get better. It takes a long time and requires a lot of work. My wife nearly died from her brain injury in 2004 (car accident) and she is back kicking ass. Different but still kicking ass.
With the revelation that Rep. Giffords is re-learning speech by mouthing the words to song lyrics, why not join me in shipping Gabby my collection of old Joe Cocker, Captain Beefhart and Yoko Ono records? Anything we can do to help this brave American recover will be well worth the cost of sipping and handling.
How about Tom Waits songs? She may not always make objective sense, but the mood setting will be fantastic.
The cost of "sipping and handling?" What bar do you drink at, and pls save me a seat.
I drink at the lounge in the Adult Bookstore Hotel, on Sahara in Las Vegas.
Joe Cocker, Captain Beefhart and Yoko Ono?
Gaahh! If you're going to start from scratch, go high-class. I'll send her my Maria Callas and Cecilia Bartoli CDs.
OK, she'll be speaking mostly in Italian, but she'll sound fantastico.
So 270,000 Americans have died in their (or other's) homes since 2001 from guns.
Hurray for gun rights! We should let our guns vote like corporations!
Fun fact: guns bought for "home defense" are much more likely to kill someone who lives in that home than an intruder, either by accident or because of a crime of passion. In fact, the majority of the (few) people who are killed by burglars are killed by their own guns.
It's my God-given right to shoot myself in the crotch in defense of my home.
You know, the Constition doesn't say "guns," it says "arms." Doesn't this mean everything, from dirks, cutlasses, lances and halberds, to trebuchets and onagers, on up to bombards, howitzers, and cruise missiles?
The National Machete Association agrees with you wholeheartedly.
And yet secret government agents invaded my headquarters and prevented me from launching my orbital death ray.
It may need some work yet
In Japan swords are registered, and you can get arrested for having an unregistered one. Really.
A trebuchet with a rotted cattle carcass is perfect for home defense.
And when rotted cattle carcasses are outlawed…
They will outlaw rotting carcasses over my dea…oh never mind…
im pretty sure Original Intent was just muskets and rocks and sticks
But what about the "board with a nail in it?"
Well, they had rifles, so not quite. On the other hand, they weren't magazine fed or semi-automatic, so 6 people would be alive today, and 17 unwounded, if we applied Original Intent here to the same degree Scalia likes to apply it to whether or not something is torture.
didnt i say muskets? they were smoove bored bakkk den, so technically not "rifles" per se.
Guns are speech.
Bullets are "second amendment votes." Or "second amendment vetoes." One a them things, bullets water the tree of liberty with the speech of patriots, and such, also. All of them.
Giffords needs daily briefings like she needs a hole in her head.
I’m so ashamed.
Get well Senator.
That was really very good, and Grumpe, no kidding, I bet she'd laugh at it.
I've been wanting to make "Like he/she needs a hole in the head" jokes forever, but held my tongue. Thanks for breaking the ice.
Already well ahead of the mental capacity of Jim Bunning.
"Capt. Mark E. Kelly, put the congresswoman on the phone to talk to his twin brother and fellow astronaut, Scott, who is aboard the International Space Station."
He has a twin brother who is also an astronaut? What, does he have a goatee and glasses? We sure he's not an EVIL twin??
Seriously, though, here's to Gabby and her family.
She'll be moving up to playing Hangman with the nurse soon. And then Paper Football (very clever!).
Yeah tic-tac-toe isn't exactly brain surgery.
She is already light years past the combined IQ of all Faux News shouting heads.
And the Senators from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Arizona, Utah,and South Carolina as a group.
Meaning she's reached a state in her rehabilitiation that neurologists and neuro-scientists refer to as the "Milli Vanilli" stage.
Next she'll probably go through the so called "Avril Lavigne" stage, where she will be able to speak with the aid of an auto-tune.
If that goes well she'll move on to the so-called Bob Dylan stage, where she will be able to speak without the aid of electronic gadgets, but what she says will definitely sound better than how she says it.
And finally, if her recovery exceeds all expectations she'll make a full recovery, or whay neurologists refer to as going full "Robert Plant."
I just hope she skips right past the Stephen Hawking stage. What'd he say?
You don't come out very often, but when you do, it's worth the wait.
I'm hoping she gives a big "fuck you" to Sarah Palin.
That doesn't require speech, only a working middle finger.
During Ms. Giffords surgery, there was some discussion about using some brains from somewhere else to fill some of the missing parts.
The doctor went to the Brain Store, and noticed that Democrat brains were $50 a pound, but Tea Party brains were $2,400.00 a pound. The doctor was confused.
In reply, the shopkeeper said "Do you know how many Tea Tards it takes to get a pound of brains?"
Heyhooo! – I'm being Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson – good one.
Can you tell me who's brain I used?
Abby, someone.
Abby someone?
Abby Normal.
Senator, you have constituent meetings every fifteen minutes between 8:30 and Noon. You don't need to regain consciousness until your 1:00.
There's a job opening in Egypt she might be qualified for.
I got nothin'. I'm just happy to hear it. News of a Congresswoman who got shot in the head learning to speak again is what counts as good news these days.
I really hope that her first public appearance involves her cursing out everything from the shooter to gun laws to Republicans to Sarah Palin to the media and back again. Just full-on cussing and yelling and damning them all to hell. I know it probably wouldn't be good politically, but damn, I'd pay to see it.
A polite but sharply worded put-down would be more satisfying. Something with the tone of "bless their hearts," but not so Southern.
Yeah, I'm thinking a full-on Bill Hicks type rant would be perfect.
We all know she could already outdo most in a Constitution read-off…
The powerful irony of her running for AZ Senate is very appealing. But you couldn't blame her she wanted a few years out of the public eye.
There have been a lot of sitting, or I should say, doddering senators, with less awareness and verbal ability than Giffords is now reported to have.
The Distinguished Gentleman from West Virginia only has one eye! The Distinguished Gentleman from West Virginia only has one way!
Always did like the Bloodhound gang.
Strom Thurmond on his best/least malevolent-senile-and-unconscious day, for example.
Godspeed, Mrs. Giffords, to you and your family. Our hearts are with you!
Ms. Giffords, 40, has beaten one of her nurses at tic-tac-toe
How old was the nurse? How did Giffords feel about being treated by a nurse who loses at tic-tac-toe? C'mon, MSM, we need details!
She's already of GWB in the IQ department and would surely make a better president.
In long days that begin with breakfast at 7, Ms. Giffords, 40, has beaten one of her nurses at tic-tac-toe
And people still insist there is no healthcare crisis. Don't you stop losing/winning tic tac toe after age 7?
Recovery from severe head injury is painfully slow, and seldom "complete." It's simultaneously encouraging and heartbreaking to read updates on Giffords' progress–she's doing so much better than expected, and the steps are so small–but she's making them, at least. A month and some days in, it sounds like she's doing great. With brain trauma, "great" can still be awful, though.
My heart goes out to her family and staff–the truly horrifying thing about injury to the brain is that even with the best recoveries, there's almost always some degree of personality change / cognitive deficit, and while the person you know and love has survived the trauma, that person is also, in very real ways, gone forever (I know more about this than I wish I did; as I've said before, my first wife suffered severe head trauma in a 1995 accident). It's far too early to be making any predictions about Giffords' ultimate chances for recovery; so much depends on the random weirdness of where and how the brain tissue was damaged, and there's just so many unpredictable variables.
I'm glad we have a doktor here. Every serious news organization needs a medical expert.
That would be a PhD in Rhetoric & Composition, not an MD.
I can read. I can read anything you've got. Took a minor in busting up old chiffarobes, too.
Dreamboat
Thanks for that. I have finally resolved to sit down and polish up that suicide note I had set aside.
Heh…I guess there's just something about the combination of a Monday and thinking about head injuries that makes me a ray of sunshine.
On the up side, Oliver Sachs points out that the brain can manage some incredible work-arounds, so, yes, there's no reason to assume an awful outcome, either. The really frustrating thing at this point is that ANY prediction is incredibly tenuous.
No I know, you're comments were quite welcome. They were just so contrary to the typical retard/buttsechs dialectic that for a moment my disorientation caused me to become concerned that I had suffered a stroke.
I'm still waiting for Oliver Sachs to touch on the subject of sexuality btw. 'Cuz I'm thinking that dude is a freak. I mean who wants to read about the fucking periodic table? I want to know why people bone other people, and moreover I would like insights as to how to control their brains so as to make me more desirable to teh hott ones. Somehow Craigslist doesn't seem to be the answer I was hoping for.
I think you want Mary Roach, not Ollie, then. Poor guy has face blindness, plus, he's English, so no sex for him, please.
Is she able to watch movies? I'd be very pleased to learn that she's taken a fancy to Kill Bill.
Speak? Can't she just Tweet?
She's recovered to the point her tweets would be more intelligible than Cantor's or Palin's.
She should aim lower at first, say Grassley's level.
Wish I could give you extra p for that.
In fairness, there is some dispute as to the meaning of her latest outburst, which sounded something like, " I hoaps thay give that coksuker a rusty niddle, et takes 'm thray hurs to die an he rotsinhell furever!" or something like that… Still too soon?
Given that the Senate usually has an hour of "Morning Business" at 2 pm, Giffords eating breakfast at 7 am seems like a bit of un-Senatorial over-achievement.
Winning at tic-tac-toe is a senatorial sign of over-achieving as well.
And Senator John McCain has a hard time making any 'morning business' without a suitcase of pharmaceuticals.
If I'm in a hospital and I have a nurse who is older than 6 who looses at tic-tac-toe, I want a new nurse.
Breitbart: "Liberal Nurse Takes Dive to Make Giffords Look Good! Buy More Guns!!!"
I want to know who "got to" that nurse.
Needz moar ACORN!
It's not brain surgery; it's not even rocket science.
Or Rocket Surgery
well this is a nurse in Texas after all, probably the brightest one there!
Wake me when she starts showing at least some basic understanding of the Nimzo-Indian Defense.
"videotaped her mouthing the words to ‘Happy Birthday to You.’"
Copyright lawsuit in 3… 2…
Mildred & Patty Hill can eat shit.
Huh…John McCain just flings poo at his nurse.
I have no snark on ths at all, I am thrilled to hear of each and every "milestone" and stil furious that this country has , essentially, no gun laws whatsovever.
We have a number of gun laws, such as the Law of the Jungle, the Law of Supply and Demand, and the all-important Newton's Laws of Motion. Inertia is a big fuckin' deal.
I'm absolutely certain that you're not alone, seeing as the lion's share of the guns in Ciudad Juárez happened to come from this side of the border, justforinstance. Of course, US America's response is to keep supplying narcoterrorists with weapons while deporting all the refugees from that de facto civil war. Some War on Terror and also Drugs!
Also, the wingers like to claim that this proves that more gun stores means less crime, because that's the obvious meaning of this fact, not that America's lax gun laws make us even further complicit in the war zone down there that we were just on the strength of our love of drugs.
Because of a little problem called "disinhibition" in the brain injured, Gabby will likely swear like a trooper before you get "When in the course of human events" from her. While my younger son was recovering from a similar wound, he would often let out a resounding "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" no matter who was in the room. True, he WAS a trooper, but the staff and one of his many visitors were aware of disinhibition and weren't bothered.
I second Dr. Zoom's statements about brain injury recovery. There's a "new normal" ahead for Gabby and while we all believe she'd be a better Senator now than most Republicans, the reality will likely be that we're all just happy she's alive and with her family. That's wonderful all by itself, believe me.
A million fists for you, sir. In a good way.
Well said.
Here's a hug, Gabby…
Remember how Sophia Petrillo could say just about anything and get away with it because she had a stroke? Gabby, now is your moment to say what you *really* think of Sarah Palin or just about anyone else.
Go Gabby! Have caviar on your toast if you wish.
No snark but what happened to her has a lot of similarities to what happened to James Brady. His outcome wasn't quite so great even though he too far exceeded the expectations of his doctors. All this is to say our ability to treat and heal even severe trauma is nothing short of miraculous. Unfortunately, we are less interested in stopping violence before it happens. Good luck to Ms. Giffords and her family.
This week: winning at tic-tac-toe.
Next week: mentoring Boehner on the rudiments of basic logic.
Two weeks from now: dressing herself.
Baby steps.
Lip-syncing, eh?
If she doesn't make it back into the House or Senate, she can always try out for American Idol.
When I consider the questionable decisions I made tracking down ass back in the day, I think some face blindness might have helped considerably.
THEY CAN TAKE MY ROTTING CARCASS WHEN THEY PRY IT OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDS.
No, we did in fact have early rifles back then- it's just because other technological shortcomings they were difficult to maintain and reload effectively, and were largely limited to specialized "sharpshooter" units while smooth-bore muskets remained standard issue.
It was actually the skirmishing tactics employed by the Continental Army during the Revolution- favoring aimed shots against targets of opportunity, as opposed to massed fire from formation, that made early muzzle-loaded rifles viable weapons, despite the difficulty of reloading.
The more you know! About early American firearms!
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