The "margin" thing is weird, because I bet he does great in the electoral college, but the overall popular vote may still be close-ish. All information gleaned from pulleditoutofmyass.com.

Remember the pizza guy who bear-hugged Obama yesterday? Yep, that turned into controversy too.

WINGNUTS FURIOUS: OBAMA HUGGED A WHITE GUY

Scott Van Duzer, the charming beefy pizzeria owner who gave Presidident Barack Obama a big ol’ bear hug the other day, says that he has been targeted for retribution by angry Republicans who are boycotting his Fort Pierce, Florida, restaurant. He was also the target of a brief war on Yelp, between negative and positive reviews, most of which came, of course, from “reviewers” who have probably never even been to Florida for chrissakes and what is WITH people anyway?

Van Duzer, a Republican who voted for Obama in 2008, rode his bicycle over 1000 miles from Florida to Washington DC earlier this year to raise money for a charity he founded to promote blood donations in St. Lucie County, Florida. Obama scheduled the campaign visit in part because of Van Duzer’s civic-mindedness. The president-hugging pizza man says that, in the wake of his moment on Youtube,

“People are saying a lot of bad things and boycotting my restaurant…There’s no middle line anymore, and that’s exactly what’s wrong with our country right now.”

Apparently conservatives are really mad at this guy because he's a Republican.

Heaven forbid you can be gracious when the President of our fucking country comes by to thank you for your good works.

Heaven forbid.

Did I mention I have been tense lately?

Fight the power, pizza guy. Fight it with your hugs.

The main treatment for compression fractures of the spine is to inject bone cement to stabilize the fracture. This reduces the pain in most patients, including my mother. The Mayo Clinic did a double-blind study in which half the patients had a sham procedure with no cement. Both groups saw similar improvements in pain and movement. So either you have a huge placebo effect going on, or local anesthesia, sedation or being poked with a needle will reduce pain from compression fractures.

I wonder how much pain reduction in these cases is attributable to the feeling of relief and being cared for that comes from someone listening to you, taking your pain seriously, and trying to help you. Especially in a culture where doctors spend on average 7 minutes with a patient, dismissing most of what they say as irrelevant, listening only for symptoms, and prescribing the same medicine they prescribe every time they hear those symptoms, which half the time doesn't work or has bad side effects. I know I've lost a lot of my faith in doctors over the last 20 years. I have chronic problems I'm not even bothering to go to a doctor with anymore, because I don't believe they'll even find anything wrong, much less be able to help. If I thought acupuncture or "Chinese medicine" or a dancing voodoo priestess could help my right ear, I'd be there with my wallet out. Because the doctor told me there was nothing wrong with it.So my symptoms... what? don't exist? I don't know. But it still hurts.

I wonder how much pain reduction in these cases is attributable to the feeling of relief and being cared for that comes from someone listening to you, taking your pain seriously, and trying to help you.

No small amount, likely. Just think of how much better you feel when people actually listen and take you and your experience in your body seriously. I'm not saying it takes the place of actual medicine but it can reduce stress.

It's why chicken soup actually helps a cold -- it really helps if someone makes it for you, because you feel cared for.

Man, I love Charlie Pierce. Here's a long piece he did for Esquire: Life Under Romneycare.