No Surprises Here

Sketchy posting schedule for the near future - my father suffered a stroke Sat. night and is currently hospitalized. It was relatively minor as strokes go - some mild weakness and loss of fine motor skills on the right side - but thankfully cognition seems unimpaired.

The biggest problem is aphasia, or loss of speech. It's not so much the inability to speak - extremely frustrating, because Dad is someone who lives to talk - as the loss of control over muscles in the mouth and throat. This causes difficulties in swallowing, with subsequent implications for eating and drinking. Right now nutrition and hydration needs are being handled via an IV, but long-term needs may require a feeding tube (a percutaneous endoscopically placed gastrostomy (PEG) feeding tube, for those of you with a clinical bent).

Anyway, here's a few short tidbits from the daily news.

Obama's aunt can stay in U.S.

President Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt can stay in the United States, a U.S. immigration judge has ruled, ending a more than six-year legal battle over her status.

Onyango, who is the half-sister of the president's late father, applied for political asylum in 2002 due to violence in her native Kenya. She was a legal resident of the United States at the time and had received a Social Security card a year earlier.

Onyango's asylum request was turned down in 2004. She appealed the rejection of her request twice, but was denied each time and ordered to leave the country. Onyango remained in the country illegally until April of 2009, when Judge Shapiro gave her permission to stay in the United States while he considered her case.

Does this really surprise anyone...?


Obama doesn't take questions at Freedom of Press Act signing

President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday expanding the federal government's role in monitoring global freedom of the press.

Obama signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, which requires a greater examination of the status of press freedoms in different countries in the State Department's Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

Among other things, the State Department will now be required to "identify countries in which there were violations of press freedom; determine whether the government authorities of those countries participate in ... or condone the violations; and report the actions such governments have taken to preserve the safety and independence of the media," according to a statement from Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, one of the bill's primary sponsors.

1. The irony is just too delicious.

2. Since when is the U.S. the Freedom of Press Police - especially since it looks like someone who believes it could be lawful to ban books and pamphlets is about to become a Supreme Court justice.

3. This is just another example of obama's ongoing snubs of the press. Makes you wonder why they still show him some love.


Federal official overseeing offshore oil development to retire early

And in a totally unrelated development...

The head of offshore drilling at an Interior Department agency criticized after the Gulf Coast oil spill is retiring earlier than planned, an administration official told CNN on Monday.

Chris Oynes will step down as associate director of the agency's Offshore Minerals Management Program at the end of May, the official said. The program is part of the Minerals Management Service.

"This was Chris Oynes' decision to retire after almost 35 years of public service," the official said. "Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, he approached leadership at MMS and announced he would be retiring on June 30th, and today [Monday,] he told his colleagues that he would be accelerating his retirement."

Ho hum, just another slow news day...