Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Shades of ‘Rocky,’ NBA cancels first 2 weeks of season, and vision problems follow 'stealth recall' of contact lenses

Image: Dewey Bozella is scheduled to make his professional boxing debut Oct. 15.

                    Good Morning Humboldt County!

Help yourself to a cup of steaming coffee and pull up a chair and relax for a bit. I’ve got an eclectic mix of stories for your viewing pleasure today. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Exonerated of murder, boxer makes his debut at 52

The television crew had him up at dawn doing the Rocky fandango, dashing up the 72 stone steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and dancing around in triumph like another over-the-hill, underdog pugilist who had made it big.

Cliché or not, it is hard not to imagine the familiar trumpet score along with the thwock, thwock, thwock of fists on punching bags as Dewey Bozella trains for one of the least likely boxing matches in history.

After 26 years in New York State prisons, and two years after he was exonerated of murder, Mr. Bozella will make his professional boxing debut on Saturday in Los Angeles, at age 52, on the undercard of the light-heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins. (A mere 46 himself, Mr. Hopkins became the oldest fighter to win a major world championship this May.)

Atlanta Hawks v Chicago Bulls - Game Two

Some very good games lost to lockout. Thanks a lot, guys.

With the cancellation of the first two weeks of the season, 100 NBA games went down the drain.

Hang an asterisk on this season — these are games commissioner David Stern said are gone. He said there is no chance of making them up. But what games are we now going to miss?

How about a great opening-night doubleheader — the Chicago Bulls heading into Dallas on the night the Mavericks raised the banner. Then a battle of generations as the Oklahoma City Thunder faced the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers’ second game was to have Chris Paul come in and test Kobe Bryant. Not any more. How about the Miami Heat vs. the New York Knicks? Gone. The Orlando Magic taking on the Heat? Gone.The Bulls start their annual circus trip Nov. 13 — when the circus comes to the United Center and the Bulls are kicked out of the arena for weeks. Which means that if the owners and players figure this out in the next couple weeks and the season starts Nov. 15, the Bulls will be on the road for the first chunk of it.

The more likely scenario is that more games will get canceled and the entire trip will get wiped out. The league is going to do it in two-week increments — it’s more painful for fans that way. And this is going to be a lot more painful before it ends. - Kurt Helin Oct 11, 2011, 9:23 AM EDT.

Torn corneas, vision problems follow 'stealth recall' of contact lenses

Amid growing reports of eye problems ranging from blurry vision to torn corneas, federal health officials are threatening to issue a public warning about recalled contact lenses manufactured by CooperVision Inc. and sold widely at stores such as Costco, Wal-Mart and LensCrafters.

The Fairport, N.Y., firm has yet to heed a request from the federal Food and Drug Administration to broaden notification of problems with certain lots of its Avaira Toric contact lenses, which were recalled quietly in August because of unidentified “residue.” “Absent prompt and adequate communication by CooperVision, the FDA may independently share its concerns about Avaira Toric contact lenses,” FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said in an e-mail.

But for at least a dozen consumers who indicated to msnbc.com they have suffered impaired vision, excruciating pain or landed in emergency rooms after wearing the contacts launched in April and recalled in August, such notice is long overdue. “It is very frustrating that they’re not more vocal about it and that the FDA hasn’t warned more people,” said Mellisa Cotton, 40, of Atlanta, who said she suffered two corneal abrasions this summer after wearing Avaira Toric contact lenses.

Time to walk on down the road…

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