Autopsy results on two OU students shows heroin, alcohol cause of deaths

By Jim Phillips
Athens NEWS Senior Writer
July 21, 2008
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Autopsy reports released Friday confirmed that two college students found dead in an Athens apartment bathtub in May died from a drug/alcohol overdose.

The autopsy reports on Hocking College student Christopher A. Theil and his girlfriend, Ohio University student Kelly P. Armbruster, lists the cause of death for each as “acute heroin and alcohol intoxication.” Both were 22 years old.

In the autopsy findings, the Montgomery County Coroner’s office also noted that both of the bodies displayed “severe pulmonary edema” (fluid in the lungs), and that drug paraphernalia was found at the scene of their death.

Authorities were called to the Riverpark Towers apartment complex early on the morning of May 3, by a 911 call from Theil’s mother, who was visiting for OU Moms Weekend.

She told the dispatcher that she had just “pulled my son and his girlfriend out of the bathtub,” and that both appeared to be dead.

Both Theil and Armbruster were from the Columbus area, Theil from Dublin and Armbruster from Powell, and both had attended the same high school.

Toxicology reports found that Theil had apparently consumed marijuana, Xanax (a prescription anti-anxiety drug), alcohol and opiates before his death.

The drug screen on Armbruster turned up alcohol, marijuana metabolytes, benzodiazepenes (anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax) and opiates, according to the report. The heroin reference in the autopsy report evidently relates to the opiates listed in the drug screen.

Early on, authorities apparently ruled out any foul play in the couple’s death, and suggested that drugs were probably the cause.

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Tell Me Again, Why Is Obama Being Popular With Our Allies a Bad Thing?

By Arianna Huffington
HuffingtonPost.com
July 21, 2008
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I understand why John McCain’s campaign is desperately looking for negatives in Obama’s overseas trip, claiming “people in Missouri” aren’t “going to like seeing tens of thousands of Europeans screaming” for Obama. But why have so many in the media internalized this claptrap? People like Gloria Borger, who said on CNN that Obama doesn’t “want to be seen having too many adoring people after him in Europe,” and the Baltimore Sun‘s Paul West, who warned: “European adulation for Obama will make him the continent’s poodle.” Of course, at no point does the McCain campaign or anyone in the media point out what, exactly, is the danger to America if our closest allies actually, you know, don’t hate us…

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Columbus weatherman predicts heavy urine for Pittsburgh area

Incredible photos of China as it prepares for the 2008 Olympics

From Boston.com…
(All photos by AFP/Reuters/AP… 24 photos in total, definitely worth a closer look)

Rabbi discovers ancient biblical secret?

By Gary Stern
LoHud.com
July 21, 2008
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The tradition-bound Western image of a he-man, masculine God may already be thousands of years out of date, says a Westchester rabbi who believes he has unlocked the secret to God’s name and androgynous nature.

Rabbi Mark Sameth contends in a soon-to-be-published article that the four-letter Hebrew name for God – held by Jewish tradition to be unpronounceable since the year 70 – should actually be read in reverse. When the four letters are flipped, he says, the new name makes the sounds of the Hebrew words for “he” and “she.”

God thus becomes a dual-gendered deity, bringing together all the male and female energy in the universe, the yin and the yang that have divided the sexes from Adam and Eve to Homer and Marge.

“This is the kind of God I believe in, the kind of God that makes sense to me, in a language that speaks very, very deeply to human aspirations and striving,” Sameth said. “How could God be male and not female?”

[…]

His article “Who is He? He is She: The Secret Four-Letter Name of God” will appear in the summer issue of the CCAR Journal, published by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, an association of Reform rabbis.

Sameth’s theory is not as outlandish as it might seem to the uninitiated. For one thing, Jewish mystical traditions have long found levels of meaning in the Hebrew Bible beyond those that come from a literal or metaphorical reading. For another, there is a deep tradition in Jewish prayer and thinking, particularly among the so-called mystics, of seeking to reconcile the male and female elements in the universe.

Sameth’s article includes this: “What the mystics called ‘the secret of one’ is the inner unification of the sometimes competing, sometimes complementing masculine and feminine energies that reside within each of us, regardless whether we are male or female.”

The notion that God is what Sameth calls a “hermaphroditic deity” could energize the growing movement in many religious traditions to present God in gender-neutral terms, particularly in Scripture.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, a revered scholar among liberal Jews who has written extensively on Jewish mysticism and spirituality, called Sameth’s article “delicious, thought-provoking and wise.” Kushner is among a small group of scholars and friends with whom Sameth has shared his article in recent weeks.

“I think most people assume the God of the Hebrew Bible is masculine, but Mark, through some sound and clever research, suggests that God may have always been androgynous,” Kushner said. “This can affect the way we consider holiness and the divine, and invites us to reconsider our own gender identities, which is kind of a bombshell.”

The Hebrew name of God that is known as the Tetragrammaton – the four letters Yud-Hay-Vov-Hay – appears 6,823 times in the Hebrew Bible. Since early Hebrew script included no vowels, the pronunciation of the name was known by those who heard it.

According to Sameth’s footnotes, the name was said only by priests after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the name was no longer said and the pronunciation lost.

Jewish tradition has long held that the name was too sacred to articulate. Jews have generally used Adonai, “the Lord,” in place of the Tetragrammaton. Various Christian groups have pronounced the name as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah.”

Sameth has no intention of speaking the “reversed” name of God that he has uncovered, preferring to focus on its meaning.

“I still won’t pronounce it, intentionally, as God’s name,” he said. “I’m not suggesting that anyone pronounce the name.”

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Justice is a dish breast served cold…

From the BBC News
July 21, 2008
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A US appeal court has thrown out a $550,000 fine against CBS for screening Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during 2004’s Super Bowl.

Three judges ruled the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) watchdog “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in levying the fine.

Some 90 million viewers saw a fleeting glimpse of the singer’s breast during a performance at half-time.

About 542,000 complaints were received by broadcaster CBS.

Jackson was performing alongside Justin Timberlake when the incident happened.

As he sang the line “gonna have you naked by the end of this song”, he reached for Jackson’s bra…

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