Prison Stripes or Candy Stripes?

According to this article, more than 3,000 people die each year of natural causes in US correctional facilities. Of course this is bound to happen with over 7 million people imprisoned in this country and 1/3 of them over 50. This reality has led to a number of hospice programs starting up within correctional facilities. And who better to volunteer at these hospices than prison inmates themselves?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/health/18hospice.html?ref=global-home

Books on hospice : SOC 362.175
Books on prisons/incarceration : SOC 365.973

Shamans! Coming to a hospital near you.

The Nytimes recently published an article on Hmong Shamans and medical care and it reminded me of a great book on Sociology + Health: Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Head to 306.461 F145 for that title and peruse the nearby stacks for more books on transcultural medical care, social medicine and health and sickness from a social standpoint. Watch PBS's film The Split Horn: Life of a Hmong Shaman in America for even more information!

News of note.

source: flickr commons

Wapo has an article about the Quest Institutes "Books Behind Bars" program. Apparently a CD-ROM and paper clip halted the entire program. Books Behind Bars donates prisoner-requested books to Virginia Corrections facilities. The active DC based Quixote Center's Books to Prisoners project can be found here.

Nytimes has an op-ed by social sciences favorite Michael Pollan. He's got something to say about health care reform and it makes me hungry.

Healthy hippies! Sociology August book displays

Make sure to check out Sociology's August book displays when you stop in to MLK this month! Our great hall display focuses on Health Care Reform. Our 2nd floor lobby display highlights the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

Sick: the untold story of America's health care crisis + the people who pay the price - Jonathan Cohn

362.1097 C678

Worried sick: a prescription for health in an overtreated America -
Nortin Hadler
362.1097 H131

Critical: what we can do about the health care crisis - Tom Daschle
362.1042 D229

The road to woodstock - Michael Land
781.6607 L271

1969: Woodstock, the moon, and Manson the turbulent end of the 1960s - Richard Stengel
973.924 N714

The hippie handbook - Chelsea Chain
305.568 C1352

hearing of the week: gulf war illness research

Source: U.S. House of Representatives

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Oversight Subcommittee
will have a hearing on Gulf War Illness Research

May 19 at 10 a.m.
334 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The hearing will include two panels of witness testimony
and the hearing will be available on webcast.

Robert C. Byrd, 91 and the Longest-Serving Senator in History, Hospitalized

Source: United States Senate

Robert C. Byrd the longest-serving senator in history was hospitalized, last Friday.

You can read more about about Senator Byrd on the following news resources:

Sen. Byrd hospitalized with 'minor' infection
Charleston Gazette, May 18, 2009
http://wvgazette.com/ap/ApTopStories/200905180266

Byrd ‘Responding Well’ to Treatment
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003119645
CQ Politics, May 18,2009

Senator Robert C. Byrd United States Senate site
http://byrd.senate.gov/