Chicago Woman Arrested for 397th Time; Month After Saying 396 Was It

In a case that speaks to the failures of our mental health servies as well as and drug and alcohol abuse as much as anything else, Shermain Miles was arrested in Chicago for the 397^th time since 1978 in what I’m going to go out on a limb and say is an unofficial record.  Loyal readers, especially those in law enforcement or those who live in East Arkansas or Florida, please feel free to correct me.

 

Shermain Miles, after arrest 397

Miles, who is 52 years old, and probably has about 20 more years to run up the score since most of her crimes seem to be low-level obnoxiousness rather than high level stuff that will have someone shoot her in retribution, was arrested at Edgewater Street in Chicago for different alleged officces, including misdemeanor battery, theft, disorderly conduct and public drinking.  She was held on $10,000 bail.

As quoted in Opposing Views, her Alderman, and also a victim, James CAppleman said, “It’s sad.”  It is.  Illinois obviously doesn’t have a three-strikes law, or a 300-strikes law. 

When she was released on Nov. 18 from the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Miles made her way to the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago and checked in to a second-chance residential home for ex-inmates.

"I’m really not that bad a person," Miles told NBC Chicago after her release in November, adding that the alcohol she was drinking had turned her “into a monster."

Miles had promised that she was permanently done with drugs and alcohol, but the Edgewater business community was not looking forward to her return.

She’s obviously a handful for the police, the neighborhood, and those who run across her.  I’d wager there are mental health issues and court and law enforcement resources could likely be better spent on drug and alcohol rehabilitation or mental health treatment.

Really Good News: Life Expectancy of Newly Diagnosed HIV Patients in North Am. Approaching that of Gen. Population

In really good news, fit for Christmas, the Vancouver Sun reports on a Study by Dr. Julio Montaner that is being published in the journal PLoS One.  The study’s conclusion is that newly diagnosed HIV patients’ in the US and Canada is approaching that of the general population. The study suggests that 20 year-olds diagnosed with HIV today can expect to live into their early 70’s 

 

Canadian Press/AP Photo: Int'l AIDS Conf. Slide

That is a sharp contrast to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when a diagnosis of HIV was a death sentence. People who contracted the disease often died within months or at best a few years, their bodies ravaged by opportunistic infections their demolished immune systems could not quell.

[Montaner] said the longevity gains have been remarkable. In 2000, the average 20-year-old newly diagnosed with HIV could expect to live another 36 years. By 2006, that figure had climbed to 51 years.

"I don't think, in all honesty, that there has been an area of medicine that has undergone (as big a) revolutionary evolution over our lifetime as HIV has," Montaner says.

There are still discrepancies. Those who contract HIV through intravenous drug use still live shorter lives, as do those who contract it through homosexual sex (though they are expected to live longer than drug users) than those who contract it through heterosexual sex.  Though the discrepancies may be due to lifestyle factors not associated with the disease.  These findings are also limited to Canada and the US and not to places where HIV ravages the populations and anti-retroviral drugs are not widely available like India and sub-Saharan Africa.

This is still extremely positive news and a far cry from even the early 2000s when I sat and cared for a friend who was dying of AIDS in a New York hospital.  He had contracted HIV in the 1990s and got AIDS soon after and succumbed to a horrible, wasting death.  Back then, there was the promise of longer life as people watched Magic Johnson live out a seemingly healthy life with the use of anti-retroviral drugs and research marched on.  Our prayers for effective treatment are seemingly answered.  There is still work on a vaccine.  Work we can all hope and pray continues and comes to fruition.

Our prayers and thanks go to Dr. Montaner and those who work with him and in the field for all the work they have done and continue to do. God bless you.

Full Article and photo credit: Vancouver Sun

Meanwhile in Siberia: Very Russian Santa Killed by Co-Workers, Girlfriend, Elements

While children all over the US are perhaps watching the NORAD live feed to see where Santa is in relation to their home, and hoping to get gifts from a fat man coming down a chimney (or for those without a chimney, in through a door), a very Russian Santa story was reported by UPI. A man in Yakutsk, Russia, the city deep in Siberia with the wildest temperature swings on the planet between wildly hot summers and wildly cold winters, was found dead in a Santa costume.

He had been at a business holiday party and puled a knife on two fellow-party goers.  I’ve been to some bad office holiday parties, but never has anyone gotten a knife pulled on them, and never by the guy dressed as Santa.  And, I’ve worked in some rugged places.  But, it’s Russia, so it didn’t end there.

After Bad Santa pulled the knife, two people managed to subdue him and hog-tie him outside.  (This is outside in Siberia in the town with the widest swings in yearly temperature in the world, meaning it is really, really cold there).  His girlfriend then tied her scarf around his mouth to keep him from yelling.  Thanks, honey.  At this point, I have to believe that due to the place and circumstances, exceptional amounts of alcohol were involved.

The girlfriend escorted other guests out of the house (thanks dear), and then went to check on her hog-tied boyfriend who was out in the snow with a scarf tied around his mouth tight enough to keep him from screaming.  He was dead.  Of course he was.  He was left hog-tied, likely drunk, and gagged in the snow in Siberia for long enough to escort guests out of the house at a Russian holiday party.  I’m guessing it lasted longer than five minutes.

UPI reports that “Investigators are still trying to establish a cause of death.”  How about hypothermia, hog-tied drunk by co-workers and gagged by girlfriend in the snow while she politely escorted people out.  Russia, your holiday parties are epic.  This Santa is not on NORAD.  His tracking stopped in Yakutsk.