Search Results for: cancer

Back on April 24, 2011, I wrote about the possibility of human immortality. Some of the stuff that was being talked about then was pretty interesting, at least in the abstract. Scientists noted that sea squids and starfish, two asexual species, passed along 100% of their genetic code. In that way their consciousness lives forever even if the vessel of their consciousness (a/k/a body) doesn’t. Which then opens up another can of worms, also an immortal asexual creature since it replaces itself one segment at a time. What, when all is said and done, makes us us? Are we only mental beings who can transfer our selves from vessel to vessel or do we require those vessels to complete us? Later, on December 13, I noted that scientists had prolonged the life span of some C-elegans (a mortal type of worm) to 70 days from 14. If that ratio held for humans we would be talking about 500 year old people. That doesn’t even begin to discuss the research done on the telomerase enzyme. Simply put, take the enzyme away (as nature does over time) and the mice age and die. But, even if it is missing and the mice are closer to mouse heaven than they would prefer, put it back in and the mice revert back to their youthful, healthy, selves. In other words, goodbye aging.

Yeah, those dudes and dudines are getting some serious funding.

Now Jesus Diaz, no relation to his namesake, is reporting that scientists have figured out a way to turn back the clock to when we were 6 day old ….. embryos.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered an efficient and totally safe method to turn adult blood cells “all the way back to the way [they were] when that person was a 6-day-old embryo.” The discovery could be the key to cure the incurable—from heart attacks to severed spinal cord to cancer—and open the door, some day, to eternal youth.

Scientists believe that stem cell therapy could change medicine forever. However, these therapies are impossible to implement on a large scale because you can’t acquire embryonic stem cells without having to use actual human embryos—an extremely controversial undertaking. The alternative has always been to use the stem cells found in umbilical cords—which is why rich people use umbilical cord storage facilities to guarantee future treatments for their kids—or use viruses to reprogram adult cells. These viruses can successfully return adult cells to their stem cell state, but the procedure opens the door to numerous complications as a result of potential DNA mutations. And those mutations could lead to cancer.

But this new method changes everything. To start with, it uses normal adult blood cells from the patient, so there’s not need to keep umbilical cords in storage. It also doesn’t use any virus reprogramming, so it’s completely safe. It’s also very efficient: researchers successfully transformed about 50 to 60 percent of adult blood cells into embryonic stem cells that can then be turn into any type of cell—a heart muscle cell, a bone cell, a nerve cell, anything.

How it works
Described in the August 8 issue of the journal Public Library of Science, the rejuvenating method uses plasmids, DNA molecules that are usually present in bacteria and eukaryotic organisms. These plasmids can replicate themselves independently from the chromosomal DNA, disappearing after they complete their function.

Using electrical pulses, the researchers opened holes in the membrane of blood cells extracted from a patient’s spinal cord. They used these tiny holes to inject plasmids loaded with four genes, programmed to make the cells revert to a primitive state. After the plasmids completed their function, they cultivated the cells with irradiated bone-marrow cells. Seven to 14 days later, the cultivated cells magically turned to embryonic stem cells.

The team is now evaluating the quality of these cells, but the potential to accelerate current and future stem cell treatments like never before is nothing sort of miraculous. By getting rid of all the barriers to entry, medical researchers could experiment at a faster pace. And once new therapies are in place, everyone on the planet would be able to receive self-transplants of embryonic cells to cure diseases, fix spinal cords or eye nerves, and rejuvenate organs by renewing tissues without rejection risks or any other side effect. Hypothetically, if you’re able to perpetually fix any part of your body, there’s no reason you wouldn’t be able to live as long as you wanted.

We are not there yet, of course, but the path is more open and wider than ever. More importantly, this makes the whole political debate about embryonic stem cells absolutely pointless.

Once more, the future is not arriving soon enough.

Oh, I don’t know. It seems to be coming up pretty fast if you ask me. In less than 48 months scientists have gone from some specious contemplation of asexuality as a possible means of human procreation to seeing tangible results that aging is a process which can be controlled and, quite possibly, stopped.

If they succeed that’s gonna mess up a ton of wedding vows, don’t you think?

Wanna Live Forever? Become A Noun from NPR on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

I found about 100 stories about human trash doing trashy human stuff. And, for whatever reason, I just found it all too depressing. At some point the strippers and the politicians and the Floridians just get to be too much. Especially the Floridians. They just grind your soul into dust after a while. So, I went looking for something different. Something that would make me smile. But, with me being me, it couldn’t be the usual treacle. No plucky cancer survivor meets favorite ball player. No octogenarian graduates grammar school. No super cripples running back to back marathons and making normal humans look lazy. I toss that one in for my buddy Fred who has cerebral palsy and hates, with a passion you wouldn’t believe, every single super cripple story in the media. Mostly because they make such actions somehow seem to be the norm and then guys like Fred, who needs help getting in and out of his chair, get compared to them relentlessly. Imagine if every black male was compared to President Obama? At some point, usually very quickly, it stops being inspirational and starts becoming confrontational. Goals are those things you have to set for yourself not something that should be nailed to your forehead.

Anyway, I finally found something worth a smile. Marc Hartzman, at Huffington Post, has provided us with a history of presidential pets. And, thankfully, they are a very odd lot.

Like many presidents before him, Barack Obama shares space at the White House with a family dog, Bo. And should Mitt Romney make the move to Pennsylvania Avenue, I’m pretty sure he won’t be packing a dog on the roof of his moving truck. But Rafalca, the Oldenburg Mare co-owned by Mitt’s wife, Ann, might make an appearance.

Pets have roamed the White House grounds as long as presidents have. But in terms of menageries, no leader of the free world can compete with Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president. The star of his four-legged fleet was a pygmy hippopotamus named Billy.

The pet was a gift from tire manufacturer Harvey S. Firestone in 1927. The rare baby hippo was just one of eight of his kind living in America and measured six feet long, stood thirty inches tall, and weighed about 600 pounds. He was described by The New York Times as being “as frisky as a dog.” Billy had been captured in Liberia at one of Firestone’s plants, but once under Coolidge’s care, he spent his days at the much cozier National Zoo.

The hippo was only one of Coolidge’s unusual pets. The Commander in Chief’s collection also included numerous dogs and cats, along with two lion cubs, a bear, Smoky Bob the bobcat, an antelope, a raccoon called Rebecca, and a wallaby. Like many of the animals, the wallaby was a gift, in this case from an American man living in Tasmania. When the president was offered the wallaby in a letter, he hadn’t a clue as to what sort of animal it was. A quick flip-through in the dictionary told him it was a small species of kangaroo and led Coolidge to accept the gift.

Although no other president could boast such a collection of creatures, there have been many others who’ve kept curious pets. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, acquired a badger named Josiah in 1903 after a young girl threw the little beast at the president as his train pulled out of a small Kansas town. Roosevelt kept Josiah and the First Family bottle-fed him until he cut his teeth. Once armed with his own chompers, Josiah nipped at the legs of passersby throughout the White House.

William Taft, our nation’s 27th and heaviest president (tipping the scales at more than 300 pounds) kept a Holstein cow as a pet. The first, named Mooly Wooly provided milk for the First Family. However, Mooly Wooly couldn’t produce enough milk for the large Taft clan. So Wisconsin senator Isaac Stephenson bought the president a new cow, named Pauline Wayne. From 1910-1913, the Taft’s pet cow freely grazed the White House lawn.

Benjamin Harrison, President Number 23, kept a goat named Old Whiskers. Harrison’s grandchildren were big fans of Old Whiskers, as he was often hitched to a cart in order to pull them around the White House lawn. However, the goat may not have had as much fun as the kids. One day, he managed to escape the White House grounds through an open gate and ran toward freedom down Pennsylvania Avenue. The president chased after him, waving his cane and holding onto his top hat. Old Whiskers finally came to a stop. No one was injured, but many were entertained.

Herbert Hoover kept two alligators in the White House and allowed them to occasionally wander about freely. Perhaps he was inspired by John Quincy Adams, who kept only one alligator. Adams’ gator was given to him in 1826 by the Marquis de Lafayette.

While dogs like Bo have held the title of First Pet in the modern era, it would take a cuddly, loyal elephant, giraffe, or rhino to truly be a first.

A cuddly rhino sounds cool.

Although something tells me that if our current president made a pet of a wild African animal it might cause some PR difficulties.

Then again, he’s only got one more term anyway so he may as well have fun.

Nine Inch Nails: Closer (Uncensored) (1994) from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

This Saturday night all right thinking Americans will be glued to Nude Hippo dot com or, if you live somewhere there is no internet, to NBC 5.2 (check your local listings). You see, this week marks the 15th Anniversary of Nude Hippo. 15 years of responsible adults doing things that are, for the most part, wildly irresponsible. I, for example, was tattooed by a stranger while being interviewed by a former hockey cheerleader and videotaped by a guy who claims to be either a simple citizen or member of an Eastern European crime syndicate (it depends on which day you catch him). . And not just any tattoo, I have the company logo forever on my ankle. But my little bouts of irresponsibility pale when compared to the fun stuff we’re going to talk about today.

Let’s start with the most egregiously overblown bit of hype going right now; the New Jersey Tanning Scandal. A mom, who looks like an ad for “Fun with Skin cancer,” has been charged with child endangerment and released on $25,000 bond for …. well, nothing really. See, she denies taking the kid into the tanning beds in the salon, the salon owner denies the kid was there and patrons deny the kid ever set foot beyond the waiting area. I understand that the teacher has to report this stuff when kids bring it up but shouldn’t the cops be required to, I don’t know, find out the facts first? Especially since the kid was clearly not burned.

I know, I know, I’m a silly Billy.

Another stunning example of a responsible adult, Octomom! (I’ve alwyas though that name should come with an exclamation mark), is reporting that after years of bad decisions she’s declaring bankruptcy and going to make a porno.

Well, thank God she’s finally doing something responsible.

Speaking of porn, Hustler Magazine just won a lawsuit concerning its publishing of the Nancy Benoit nudes after she was killed by her husband. Since she’d used the photos to promote her career they were not subject to any expectations of privacy. A jury had awarded Benoit’s family $3.5 Mil but that was tossed out.

Now, to ruin porn for you, an 8o year old granny has taken up pole dancing.

“Pole dancing is a special kind of dance,” (80 year old Sun) Fengqin told Reuters. “The dance moves that are done beside the pole are very elegant, especially when a woman dances these moves. It’s very feminine, enchanting and seductive. It’s full of youthful vigor and sexiness.”

Because pole dancing has a strip bar stigma in China, Fengqin kept her desire to learn the sport a secret from her family, but word soon got around, and her family discovered her hidden talents.

Despite her conservative background, Fengqin’s family approved — even her husband, although he was concerned because of a previous back injury she had.

Because of that injury, Fengqin can’t swing around the pole like her fellow, much younger students.

“When I see younger students dancing the moves that involve more technique, I envy them so much,” she admitted to Reuters. “Now, I’m practicing spinning around the pole and I only finished learning going up the pole.”

Fortunately, at least according to Jose De Jesus Miranda, the world’s going to end this June anyway and we won’t have to think about this.

Mark your calendars.

It’s going to be a busy year for end-of-the-world aficionados, now that Jose De Jesus Miranda has weighed in.

The U.S.-based religious leader is penciling in June 30 for the end of days, nudging out Mayan Doomsday enthusiasts who have have earmarked December 21, 2012 for humanity’s last gasp.

“An earthquake is coming,” Miranda proclaimed in an April 25 ministry broadcast.

“It is getting closer and we will see the catastrophes. What you have seen is nothing. What is coming is cities falling.”

But Miranda is bringing his own unique twist to the Apocalypse-faithful. While promising the “complete destruction of the bad seed,” the minister promises that he will emerge as a sort of superhero — with the power to fly and even walk through walls.

Mr. Doomsday, if you will. Or, as his followers call him, ‘Dad’.

What we do know of Miranda is that he was, in fact, born mortal — in Puerto Rico in 1946. By his own account, Miranda was visited by Jesus in 1973 — apparently the Messiah walked up to him and entered his body.

Hence, De Jesus.

From there, his pronouncements have only gotten more interesting.

In 1988, Miranda disclosed that he was actually the Apostle Paul. Not long after that, Miranda took it to the next level, calling himself both Jesus Christ and the Anti-Christ — a one-stop shop for all your Reckoning needs.

And that Reckoning is at the world’s doorstep.

Miranda marshals a plethora of ‘scientific’ evidence to back his claim, much of it revolving around the reversal of Earth’s poles causing “tectonic plates to heat up.”

“For 2012, we are expecting a change on the face of the earth and the destruction of the world will come.”

There’s also some economic oblivion thrown in for good measure — essentially a toppling of world governments prompted by financial meltdowns.

It all makes perfect sense to the ministry’s followers — legions of a not entirely disclosed number in some 130 countries.

“He’s in their heads, he’s inside the heads of those people,” U.S. religion expert Prof. Daniel Alvarez told CNN News in 2007. “De Jesus speaks with a kind of conviction that makes me consider him more like David Koresh or Jim Jones.”

He’s also in downtown Toronto these days. Sort of. Miranda offers a smiling salute from a billboard on Bloor Street West.

The Growing Grace ministry boasts 200 members in Toronto, Calgary, St. Catharines, Montreal and Vancouver.

Alex Poessy, the group’s bishop in Canada, told the National Post, “That day, the body of Jose de Luis de Jesus, who is a human like you and me, his flesh is going to be immortal…. He’s going to be living forever. And that will happen to him, but also his followers.”

Many of those followers get some unlikely ink to show their support for ‘Dad’ — the number 666 prominently emblazoned on their skin.

Don’t worry, Miranda explains, it’s actually a positive symbol.

In fact, Miranda’s followers crunch what might loosely be described as numbers in this statement to Miami New Times:

“Thousands worldwide are marked with the number of His name, 666. The Earth’s rotation has accelerated to a speed of 66,666 mph. All prophecies are fulfilling, even scientific, astronomical and numerological formulae are aligning – all pointing to the year 2012, where the Puerto Rican-born Jose Luis De Jesus (Latitude 66.6°) curiously turns 66.”

But not everyone is sold on this Doomsday prophet. Other religious groups seem more than a little chafed by Miranda’s prognosticaions.

“To put it bluntly,” writes Christian website GotQuestions.org. “Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is a heretic. He is a false messiah who claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

Um, no, the earth is not rotating at 66,666 mph. Were that true we would all be dead already. It would nearly multiply the centrifigal force on everything, crush us all to death and would cause hurricane level winds to be the least of our concerns. Earth does orrbit the Sun, however, at over 67,000 mph. Anyway, let’s just say the man is an idiot and his followers are morons and leave it at that.

Still, each and every one of them are better than Jamie Calloway. She became the first woman arrested sporting a forehead tattoo. Naturally, it says GOD. And, just as naturally, she has a rap sheet longer than God’s resume.

Speaking of rap sheets, one guy who shouldn’t have one but does is Lorenzo Gaspar. He was arrested for using money to buy stuff. No, it wasn’t forged or anything like that, just old. His $50 bill didn’t react to the marker and the clerk called the cops. Any bill made when Carter was president or before suffers the same lack. Eventually they figured that out and let him go.

Not all elected officials are as smart as the cops who went and found out the facts. Nope, in North Carolina they passed a bill making gay marriage illegal so that … wait for it …. Caucasians can breed more.

No, I am really not making this up.

The wife of a North Carolina state senator reportedly told poll workers during early voting Monday that an amendment sponsored by her husband was intended partially to protect the Caucasian race.

Jodie Brunstetter is the wife of state Sen. Peter Brunstetter (R), a supporter of Amendment 1, which would change North Carolina’s Constitution to permit only heterosexual marriage.

According to the alternative Yes! Weekly, writer and campaigner Chad Nance spoke to a pollworker who told him that Jodie Brunstetter said, “The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce.”

I see. So, this bill will now force gay white men to have sex with her and her book club? I can’t wait to see how that gets enforced. And I’m sure the lesbian breeding farm they’re going to set up near Durham will be a real tourist attraction.

Insert Durham Bulls joke here.

In semi-related government news, the DEA is going to get sued and lose lots of money after leaving a kid in a cell for five days with no food or water. Daniel Chong was forced to drink his own urine, he ate his eye glasses and licked up meth that was on the floor while hallucinating. He lost 15 pounds during the ordeal and was just released fro the hospital.

The DEA has apologized.

Well, that’s okay then. Never mind.

But the most irresponsible people we meet today are from … drum roll please …. Sarasota Florida. A couple of drunken grandparents tied their grandkid’s toy car to the back of their SUV and took her for rides on the highway.

Wow, Florida, drunk and child abuse all in one article.

Two drunken grandparents were arrested for using their vehicle to pull their 7-year-old granddaughter in a toy car, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said.

Belinda and Paul Berloni were arrested on Sunday after a deputy in a marked patrol car saw the SUV pulling a “small plastic hot wheels car” along an access road, authorities said. The vehicle was going about five to 10 miles per hour, the probable cause affidavit said.

The girl was wearing a bathing suit with no protective gear, authorities said. The toy car was attached to the SUV with two dog leashes tied to the trailer hitch, the affidavit said.

Paul Berloni, 49, smelled of alcohol and his eyes were bloodshot and watery, the affidavit said. When asked for his driver’s license, he said it had been revoked for 10 years for a DUI. He also told authorities he had two or three drinks, authorities said. He later said it was more but wasn’t specific, the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni, 47, was in the cargo area with the rear hatch open cheering the little girl on, the affidavit said. She was also intoxicated and said she had a few drinks, authorities said.

She “also stated that she understood that it was dangerous to drag a child behind the vehicle but stated they were just having fun and had been doing it all day,” the affidavit said.

Belinda Berloni’s son, who is the girl’s father, arrived and was upset with his mother. He also said that he believed they had a drinking problem that may have affected their decision making, the affidavit said.

“The defendant and co-defendant failed to provide adequate supervision for the child and put the child in a situation that could have easily resulted in great bodily harm, permanent disfigurement and even death,” the affidavit said.

Paul Berloni refused to take a field sobriety test and was being held on $7,500 bond on Monday, a jail official said. He faces charges that include a fourth DUI offense, driving with a suspended license and cruelty toward a child. Belinda Berloni was released from jail Monday on supervised release and faces a child cruelty charge.

Well, what the heck is everyone going on about? At least she was wearing a bathing suit.

After all they was just funnin’, folks should just leave them alone.

For the sake of the kid, I’m glad folks didn’t just leave them alone.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Before I mount my usual wild eyed screed against whatever caught my minimal attention, I thought I’d mention something nice. A young lady named Corina Jane was diagnosed with cancer. “HEY MR. HAPPY THOUGHT …..” Relax. She’s fine. In fact she’s so fine that she’s been selected to represent the Chicago Rush at the Arena Bowl. That is some serious amount of fine.. And, ladies, you can knock it down a notch too. She’s hopelessly devoted to her boy toy. All she needs is for all of you to click on her name and help her get the fan votes she’ll need to go to Louisiana and represent the Windy City. You can handle that task. Since we are on the topic of hot women and Chicago sports I feel it is only fair to take a quick glance at what has been happening at the Cell.You see there is this wonderful statue of Louis Aprecio outside the park. He is smiling. He is bent forward. His right hand cupped to grasp the ball. Said hand is at the perfect height to also grasp a woman’s breast. So, every home game, hundreds of women, some en flagrante some not, pop their breasts into Louis’ outstretched hand and get their picture taken. in case that wasn’t clear enough for you the Sun Times ran a pic.

BOO YAH!

Enough of that, let’s talk about criminals. Swedish police arrested a man for stealing a beer truck. They were able to arrest him because he was so drunk when he stole the truck he forgot to close the back of it and they just followed the trail of broken bottles all the way to his house. He has since pleaded guilty to all charges.

Police in Gainsvile Florida may have heard the ultimate excuse for why a criminal fled the scene of a crime. He had to run because he had the runs.

Police in Florida said a man told them he fled the scene of an accident and went to a Walmart because he “had the runs.”

Gainesville police said Barnard Cato III was arrested Tuesday and charged with driving under the influence, hit and run and a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident involving injury after he struck another occupied vehicle and a few newspaper boxes around 7:15 a.m. Tuesday and left the scene, The Gainesville Sun reported Thursday.

Police found Cato a few minutes later at a Walmart, where he told officers he did not realize he had hit the other vehicle and he “pulled into the next stop. … I had the runs, I had to go,” he said.

Officers said Cato had a “strong odor of alcohol emanating from his breath and clothing” and his eyes were “bloodshot and watery.”

Cato declined to submit to a breathalyzer test.

Speaking of drunks, let’s move no to drunks with guns. They are always the most fun. Cops in Idaho arrested a man in Utah for forcing a victim to moonwalk at gunpoint.

A 30-year-old Idaho resident was charged with felony assault when he took his love of dance a step too far and allegedly forced another man to perform Michael Jackson’s always-tricky moonwalk routine at gunpoint.

According to a report in the Coeur d’Alene Press, sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home of John Ernest Cross on Monday after being informed he was using drugs and had ordered another man to make with the moves made famous by the late King of Pop — or else.

On Tuesday, Cross’ bail was set at $20,000, and he was ordered not to contact the other man.

NOW! ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!

Or not.

Also on the west coast, cops in Washington State arrested a burglar who called the victims and offered to trade some of the stuff he stole for the stuff he’d left behind. Like his ID. Even though he told them not to call the cops, they did so anyway said the police who made the arrest. Well, they did arrest him after they stopped laughing at him.

The one thing that stands out in the police report is that they mention, three times, how polite he was.

On the east coast crooks have a better sense of how things work. Cops in NY are looking for a hooker who, allegedly, drugged a diamond merchant and stole $500,000 worth of sparklers. So, if you know a hooker named Erika Cooper, 34, aka Bianca Williams in New York, she’s buying the next round.

Back on the west coast, a woman is suing McDonald’s for forcing her into prostitution, giving a whole new meaning to being Supersized. She claims they were complicit with her husband running a prostitution ring out of his Nevada franchise. But not his L.A. one. Oddly enough this is not the only McDonald’s related story involving a prostitute. Cops in Oklahoma are investigating the disappearance of an internet hooker who went missing at a local Mickey D’s after she showed up there to fulfill an online contract.

I may have to rethink my usual aversion to McDonald’s.

Or not.

Cops in Indianapolis are doing their level best to keep the world safe. They arrested a 6 year terrorist who threatened his principal.

Police in a small Indiana town hauled a six-year-old from his elementary school and charged him with battery and intimidation after he kicked and threatened a principal, police said on Wednesday.

The incident followed one earlier in April where police handcuffed a 6-year-old girl who was screaming and crying and had injured a principal and damaged property at an elementary school in Milledgeville, Georgia. She was not charged.

The Indiana student, who had been suspended from school recently for biting and hitting a staff member, was arrested April 18 at Hendricks Elementary School in Shelbyville, which is about 30 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

“This was not an isolated incident,” Shelbyville Police Lieutenant Michael Turner said.

School officials called police, reporting that the student, who was not identified, had kicked Principal Patrick Lumbley and told him and Assistant Principal Jessica Poe that he was going to kill them, a Shelbyville police report said.

The student was yelling and screaming and lying on the floor of Poe’s office when police arrived, the report said.

Poe led the student to a police car where an officer placed him in the back seat, buckled him in and drove him to the police department, the report said. He was not handcuffed.

Turner said he hoped the filing of juvenile charges would help get the child needed help.

“Putting him into the system can open up avenues perhaps the parents don’t have,” Turner said.

Really? The only way this college graduate and leader of children can come up with to get this kid the obvious help he needs is to have him arrested? Have things gotten that bad in Cornville?

If so that’s the kind of thing that would lead people to become activists. Especially anti-violence pro-education activists. And that strong, pacifist based stance would then lead them to slash tires and terrorize a city.

Wait? What?

Off to Philly we go.

A neighborhood activist who spoke out about the vandalizing of dozens of cars near his home now has been arrested in the case, police say.

At a press conference Wednesday evening, police said Toledo had been arrested and charged with two counts of felony mischief, 47 counts of criminal mischief, false reports and other related offenses.

Police say they questioned Toledo extensively on April 16, the same day the most recent vandalism was reported on Aldine and Teesdale Streets as a dozen or so more cars were targeted.

Toledo has spoken to NBC10 several times since coverage of tire slashings in the area of the 4000 block of Aldine Street and surrounding roads began to surface in February. The vandalism dates back even further than that, according to neighbors.

“I hope the cops get them before the neighbors find out who it is because something bad is going to happen,” Toledo said after some cars were vandalized in mid-March. “My wife said ‘somebody is watching us, watching the cops’ because when they’re here nothing happens.”

Now police say that it was Toledo who was causing sleepless nights for neighbors concerned that their cars would be vandalized while they slept. A town watch was formed and police even offered a big reward for an arrest in the case.

All along, Toledo, who lives on Aldine Street, was there speaking out against the vandalism.

“This will be the last time that you’re going to get my car because you will get caught,” Toledo told NBC10 after just his tires were slashed on March 20. “The $10,000 reward, I don’t want the money, all I want is their hands so I can smash them so they can never do it again.”

It’s unclear if Toledo is responsible for all the area vandalism but police do believe he at least committed some of the tire slashings on Teesdale, Aldine and Erdrick Streets, McGinnis said.

NBC10 also spoke exclusively with Toledo’s mother, who reacted strongly to her son’s arrest.

“I think he’s being set up,” she said. “He doesn’t go around slashing tires. He’s got better things to do in life — he’s got a life!”

The local town watch program Toledo claimed to be a part of held a meeting at 7 p.m. at Frankford and Aldine. In spite of Toledo’s claims, the town watch says he was never a member of their organization.

Philadelphia Police urged neighbors who feel betrayed by Toledo to not take matters into their own hands.

“Let the justice system take care of Mr. Toledo,” said Capt. Frank Bachmayer. “We don’t want any type of retaliation.”

Which is why they are making it real easy to get his home address and directions.

Oy.

Oh well, the world may not be any safer, even with the arrests listed above, but at least they keep me gainfully employed.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Those of you who stop by here regularly know that I have a lot of fun at the expense of stupid people. Usually, hilarious though they may be, they are only a danger to themselves and their immediate surroundings. Like the lady from Michigan who was so excited by being able to send a text message that she fell off a pier and into Lake Michigan. She was kept afloat by a savvy teen and her hubby until the Coast Guard arrived and, once they stopped laughing, rescued her. Or maybe you’re thrilled by the residents of Simi Valley, California who have passed a law forcing porn stars to wear condoms when they shoot, as it were, their films. They did this becasue L.A. had already passsed a similar law and they were worried that porn stars would flee the City of Angels and flock to their bucolic home and spoil it with an AIDS epidemic. Obviously, as you all can imagine, adult entertainers want nothing more than to catch a fatal disease and die a wasting death. Why it’s more fun than Yahtzee.

However, if you DO want to die a wasting death but find that having sex with random strangers on videotape really isn’t your cup of tea, then you can thank your local deity for Snooki and her “Let’s all catch skin cancer together” U.S. tour. She has a wonderful variety of aids, as it were, to help you embrace a horrible, and very public, form of cancer. Make sure to get there early so you can get your picture taken with her too.

Still, each of those idiocies are limited in their scope and impact. Racism is not. And it’s been rearing its ugly head under many guises ranging from “social awareness” to “political astuteness.”

Those new monikers aren’t fooling anyone. Racism is racism. And what it is is proof that the person espousing it is afraid. Afraid of things that go bump in the night. Afraid of anyone who looks or acts different than them.

I have no idea what it would be like to live in soul crushing fear of the real world around me and, if you don’t mind, I have no intention of finding out. I have learned to like people from all walks of life. That comes from the fact that I always have taken the time to get to know each person. It’s hard to hate “__________ people” when one of them has made you a glorious breakfast or shared a family moment with you.

When you can no longer maintain the “evil group” as an entity and it becomes a tangible reality of a person, racism dies. That is why racists want to separate themselves from humanity. They don’t build their compounds or gated communities to purify their race or maintain their culture, they build them to hide from the world like the scared little creatures they are.

Which is their loss. But, lately, they have been sneaking back into and polluting the world around us. And that has led a man named David Pilgrim to open the most astonishing museum ever. The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

The objects displayed in Michigan’s newest museum range from the ordinary, such as simple ashtrays and fishing lures, to the grotesque — a full-size replica of a lynching tree. But all are united by a common theme: They are steeped in racism so intense that it makes visitors cringe.

That’s the idea behind the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which says it has amassed the nation’s largest public collection of artifacts spanning the segregation era, from Reconstruction until the civil rights movement, and beyond.

The museum in a gleaming new exhibit hall at Ferris State University “is all about teaching, not a shrine to racism,” said David Pilgrim, the founder and curator who started building the collection as a teenager.

Pilgrim, who is black, makes no apologies for the provocative exhibits. The goal of the $1.3 million gallery, he explained, is “to get people to think deeply.”

The displays are startling. The n-word is prevalent throughout, and many items portray black men as lazy, violent or inarticulate. Black women are shown as kerchief-wearing mammies, sexually charged Jezebels or other stereotypes.

The shocking images exact an emotional cost.

“There’s parts in that room — the main room — where it’s quite gut-wrenching,” said Nancy Mettlach, a student conduct specialist at Ferris. “And the thought that was going through my mind was: `How can one human being do this to another human being?'”

Pilgrim, a former sociology professor at Ferris State, started the collection in the 1970s in Alabama. Along the way, he “spent more time in antique and flea markets than the people who work there.” His quest for more examples was boundless.

“At some point, the collecting becomes the thing,” he said. “It became the way I relaxed.” He spent most of his free time and money on acquisitions.

In 1996, Pilgrim donated his 2,000-piece collection to the school after concluding that it “needed a real home.”

The collection spent the next 15 years housed in a single room and could be seen only by appointment. Thanks to the financial support of the university and donors — notably from the charitable arm of Detroit utility DTE Energy — Pilgrim’s collection now has a permanent home, which will have a grand opening ceremony April 26. Admission is free.

Today, the school has 9,000 pieces that depict African-Americans in stereotypical ways and, in some cases, glorify violence against them.

Not all of the museum’s holdings are on display, but the 3,500-square-foot space in the lower level of the university library is packed with items that demonstrate how racist ideas and anti-black images dominated American culture for decades.

Visitors can forget about touring the exhibits and retiring untroubled to a cafe or gift shop. Some leave angry or offended. Most feel a kind of “reflective sadness,” Pilgrim said.

But that’s not enough. If the museum “stayed at that, then we failed,” he said. “The only real value of the museum has ever been to really engage people in a dialogue.”

So Pilgrim designed the tour to give visitors a last stop in a “room of dialogue,” where they’re encouraged to discuss what they’ve seen and how the objects might be used to promote tolerance and social justice.

Some of the objects in the museum are a century old. Others were made as recently as this year.

Ferris State sophomore Nehemiah Israel was particularly troubled by a series of items about President Barack Obama.

One T-shirt on display reads: “Any White Guy 2012.” Another shirt that says “Obama ’08” is accompanied by a cartoon monkey holding a banana. A mouse pad shows robe-wearing Ku Klux Klan members chasing an Obama caricature above the words, “Run Obama Run.”

“I was like, `Wow. People still think this. This is crazy,'” Israel said.

One of the first rooms in the museum features a full-size replica of a tree with a lynching noose hanging from it. Several feet away, a television screen shows a video of racist images through the years.

The location of the museum — in the shadow of university founder Woodbridge Ferris’ statue — also catches some by surprise. The mostly white college town of Big Rapids is 150 miles from Detroit, the state’s largest predominantly black city.

Ferris, who later served as Michigan governor and as a U.S. senator, founded the school more than a century ago. He once said Americans should work to provide an “education for all children, all men and all women.”

Pilgrim, who is also Ferris State’s vice president for diversity and inclusion, initially considered giving his collection to a historically black college, but he wanted to be “near it enough to make sure it was taken care of.”

Most of the objects “are anti-black caricatures, everyday objects or they are segregationist memorabilia,” he said. Because they represent a cruel, inflammatory past, they “should either be in a garbage can or a museum.”

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Follow Mike Householder on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mikehouseholder

Online:

Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia: www.ferris.edu/jimcrow

I’m glad he put it where he did. If it was in an all black college it could be ignored easier by the media. Now it can’t be passed over as “black people talking about black stuff.” Ferris University is very diverse and easily accessible. Hopefully this can get a real conversation started.

And then, one day, we can all look back on it and wonder what the hell people were thinking.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.