Friends. Theyre always there when you need them in the best of times and if theyre really good friends even in the worst. And while this is a concept we can all relate to, it played a very pivotal role in this weeks episode of Greys Anatomy, Beautiful Doom, which centered on best buds Cristina and Meredith. When the chips are down and youre feeling blue, everybody needs a person they can turn to (I totally didnt mean for that to rhyme, but it works so Im keeping it). Sometimes a good dose of friendship is just what the doctor ordered.

While we, as fans, have done our fair share of grieving over Lexie and McSteamys deaths, Meredith and Cristina have yet to do the same. Sure, theyre not exactly in denial about what happened, but they havent really taken the time to cope with all that theyve lost. Instead, theyve moved halfway across the country or completely buried themselves in their work. But tonight everything really starts to hit home.

The episode begins with Meredith overseeing a very complex and potentially dangerous procedure: potty training. Of course, Im referring to Zola (oh the joys of parenting!). But little does she know, her day of difficult tasks is only just beginning. On her way into work, Meredith stumbles upon an accident involving a bicyclist getting pinned underneath a car. Sound familiar? Its almost identical to Lexies fatal accident, except instead of a car, it was an entire plane. The cyclist even looks like Little Grey. So after transporting the patient to the hospital, Meredith dives into this surgery as if it were actually Lexies life on the line. She couldnt save Lexie because they were out in the woods, so she must save this girl now that theres an unlimited amount of medical tools at her disposal. Concerned that this is hitting a little too close to home, Dr. Webber orders Meredith to stop the procedure and wait until the patient is stronger before proceeding.

Meanwhile, Cristina is busy being introduced to the joys of a real winter: finding your car buried under several feet of snow (as a former resident of upstate New York, I can totally feel her pain on this). Anyway, after grabbing a ride into work with Mr. Feeny (or Dr. Thomas, if you prefer), the two of them team up to tackle a complex surgery. But it turns out this procedure holds more than just a womans life on the line it holds Mr. Feenys career as well. Since Cristinas sleeping buddy, Dr. Parker, is still trying to force the elderly doc into retirement, any medical mishap on his part could completely terminate his career something that Cristina is trying at all costs to avoid. To be honest, its refreshing to see her so concerned about someone elses career other than her own. You can really tell Feeny has become her Minnesota BFF and its absolutely adorable.

Needless to say, both Meredith and Cristina have a lot (emotionally) riding on these surgeries. So in a series of split-screen images helping to parallel their stories we watch as these two friends continue to lean on each other for moral support, even while pulling all-nighters with their patients (lets hope they share the same cell phone service provider, otherwise their next monthly bill will be through the roof).

Luckily, both patients pull through their respective procedures with the promise of making full recoveries (yay for good news!). But in a very Greys-type fashion, tragedy is never too far behind. Near the end of Cristinas surgery, Feeny collapses out of nowhere and dies right there on the OR floor. NOT MR. FEENY! Seriously, I screamed that at my television. I guess we shouldve seen this coming what with all the advice and praise he was giving Cristina throughout the episode. He even referred to her as the surgeon of her generation and said that its been an honor to train her. Red flags shouldve gone up right then and there. So just like that, Mr. Feeny is gone from my weekly TV routine and its just as devastating the second time around as it was the first, when Boy Meets World went off the air.

But its a wake up call to Cristina. As the touching words of her mentor echo in her ears (You have greatness within you, Yang. Dont disappoint.), she packs up her things, braves a plane back to Washington, and shows up at Merediths front door for a heartfelt embrace. So its not all bad. Two best friends are reunited and Cristina can now return to her rightful place at Seattle Grace. I only wish Mr. Feeny didnt have to die in the process. Now if youll excuse me, I have to go ugly cry into my pillow.

What did you think of tonights episode? Were you devastated by Mr. Feenys passing? Are you happy to see Cristina back in Seattle? Who do you think made a better bestie: Meredith or Mr. Feeny? Sound off on your dissections of the plot in the comments below!

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[Photo credit: Kelsey McNeal/ABC]

See more here:
'Grey's Anatomy' Recap: You've Got a Friend in Me

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

CHICAGO (Reuters) - On the day after the 2010 midterm election that swept Republicans into control of the House of Representatives and decreased Democrats' majority in the Senate, senior White House adviser David Axelrod had a message for President Barack Obama.

"I think they just planted the seeds of your re-election," he told his boss.

"The most strident voices had seized control of the Republican Party and you knew that the nominee who would emerge either would come from that Tea Party base or would have to yield to it in order to be the nominee," Axelrod told Reuters.

That nominee ended up being former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Obama's campaign went on to exploit his ties to the conservative wing of his party and outmaneuver him to victory in the November 6 general election.

Axelrod, who left the White House to oversee strategy for the president's 2012 campaign, and fellow Democrats attribute Obama's decisive win on Tuesday to Obama and to a consistent strategy that sidelined Romney in key swing states.

An early and effective effort to define the former private equity executive as unfriendly to the middle class, a superior ground operation to get out the vote, and a deft response to missteps by Romney and his allies helped Obama overcome his own perceived weaknesses in presiding over a slow economic recovery.

"They successfully made this a choice election as opposed to a referendum on the president and the economy," said Michael Feldman, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to Vice President Al Gore. "They also used the critical months between the end of the (Republican) primary and the general election to better define Mitt Romney than the Romney campaign did."

That defining process turned out to be key.

In the spring and summer, Obama's campaign used a massive advertising package to highlight concerns about Romney's tenure as the head of Bain Capital and pounded the multi-millionaire executive for refusing to release several years of his personal tax returns.

The Romney campaign's slow response to that onslaught and failure to neutralize the criticism over his tax returns baffled Obama's Chicago team.

Originally posted here:
Anatomy of a White House win: how Obama outmaneuvered Romney

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

The fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened 414 people this fall was unprecedented -- first, because only people who received a tainted steroid injection were at risk; and, second, because the fungus wasn't known for making people sick, let alone causing a deadly inflammatory disease that's killed 31 people so far.

Health officials on the local, state and federal levels had to work together to trace the cause of the outbreak and get the word out to at-risk patients and their doctors.

"All of that coordination -- the right hand knowing what the left was doing -- has made a big difference in how quick we could come to an understanding of what was going on," said Dr. David Reagan, the chief medical officer in Tennessee, adding that the tainted drugs were recalled eight days after Tennessee physician Dr. April Pettit contacted the state health department about a patient with a suspicious illness.

Here is a timeline of how the outbreak played out:

Early September: The first fungal meningitis patients arrived in emergency rooms around the country in early September, but it took a clinician in Tennessee, Dr. April Pettit, to realize her patient with a mysterious illness was the beginning of a public health crisis. Reagan said she found fungus in the patient's spinal fluid.

The Centers for Disease Control/AP Photo

Sept. 18: Pettit contacted the Tennessee Department of Health, including Dr. Marion Kainer, looking for similar patients. Her call set the investigation into motion, and she noted that the patient had recently received an epidural steroid injection.

Sept. 20: Two days later, the state health department called the CDC to report a fungal infection, noting that the patient had received an epidural steroid injection at the Saint Thomas Outpatient Clinic in August. Although the CDC had not heard about similar cases, it suggested Kainer visit the clinic. The same day, the clinic voluntarily closed. It has not reopened.

Sept. 21: The Tennessee Department of Health narrowed its list of possible causes to tainted steroid injectables from the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Mass., environmental contamination, or mishandling of equipment.

Sept. 24: Several other meningitis cases had been reported, and the Tennessee Department of Health reached out to Massachusetts's Department of health to learn more about NECC.

Visit link:
Anatomy of a Meningitis Outbreak

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

Image credit: KELSEY MCNEAL/ABC

BACK TOGETHER AGAIN Cristina (Sandra Oh) and Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) reunited during a touching hour of Grey's Anatomy.

It was undoubtedly by exactly perfect design, but Cristina uttered the most poignant line of Greys Anatomys ninth season so far in the last few seconds of last nights episode -- a line that sums up everything thats happened so far: Everyones dead, she said to Meredith without much fanfare, as the two best friends -- separated by half a country for five episodes -- embraced for the first time this fall.

The line was so simple and so fitting because, well, its true: Everyone has, indeed, died. Lexie. Sloan. And after last nights rather wrenching episode, titled Beautiful Doom, Dr. Feeny -- the old-man friend of Cristinas whose real name was Dr. Thomas -- also dropped dead, God bless his crusty, old soul. (Although the character death maybe isnt allllll bad for the actor who played him, William Daniels, since he may be getting his old gig back as Feeny on the recently announced Boy Meets World sequel spin-off that Disney has in the works.) All I have to say about all this continued theme of death is: We get it, Greys Anatomy powers! Youve got the power to kill people! No one is safe! Life is fragile! We should be scared! And all that jazz! But geez, its be nice if you stopped killing people. Death is exhausting, and there are really not many more tears to shed at Seattle Grace.

And maybe all the death has been a way to thin out the ranks on the over-populated show some. But Dr. Feeny was a new addition this season, so killing him, clearly -- as evidenced by the voiceover from him as his dead body was wheeled through the hospitals hallway -- wasnt to make room for other characters to have space to breath. It was to teach Cristina Yang to be a better person, which sorely needed to happen. (And will probably need to happen yet againand again.)

Truly, we can all take something away from the words he offered to Cristina Yang: Breathe, Dr. Yang, the voiceover from him near the end of the episode said, giving advice to the typically high-struck and unfriendly Cristina. Dont be crass. Youre skulking. Women of your generation are graceless. Its an affront to nature. Mediocre surgeons will see you and feel themselves wilting in your shadow. Do not shrink to console them. Do not look for friends here. You wont find them. None of these people have the capacity to understand you. They never will. If youre lucky, one day, when youre old and shriveled like me, youll find a young doctor with little regard for anything but their craft, and youll train them like I trained you. Until then, read a good book. You have greatness in you, Yang. Dont disappoint.

His death, however sad, was not unexpected. First off, he was really old. And actually, not long before Dr. Feeny dropped dead in the OR with Cristina, I had already thought he was dead once during the episode. Remember that scene when Cristina happened upon Feeny sun-bathing on a bench outside the hospital? I could have sworn he was dead then -- he looked it. But thankfully, Greys decided to pull his plug much more dramatically, with him literally keeling over mid-surgery. Cristinas sex friend Dr. Parker tried CPR on the immediately stiff man, while Yang had to finish her surgery. Also thankfully, considering everything, Yang was successful in her surgery. If it hadnt gone well, it might have sent me over the edge to have Feeny and the patient die minutes from each other.

NEXT: Meredith learns some lessons, too...

Read the original:
'Grey's Anatomy' recap: The Ballad of Meredith and Cristina

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Boston (CNN) -- Before Republicans went looking for answers Tuesday night, some of them went looking for the remote.

When it became clear about midnight that President Barack Obama was safely on the way to re-election, a handful of cranky and inebriated Republican donors wandered about Romney's election night headquarters, angrily demanding that the giant television screens inside the ballroom be switched from CNN to Fox News, where Republican strategist Karl Rove was making frantic, face-saving pronouncements about how Ohio was not yet lost.

Romney's 'all' proved not enough

Rove was wrong, of course.

But the signs of desperation inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on Tuesday night were symptomatic of a Republican Party now standing at a crossroads, with not much track in sight.

New term, familiar challenges for Obama

How did Romney lose a race that seemed so tantalizingly within reach just one week ago?

"We were this close," one of Romney's most senior advisers sighed after watching the Republican nominee concede. "This close."

Little support from young, minorities

See more here:
The anatomy of Romney's defeat

Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith