Is My County Healthier Than Yours? Why Rankings Matter

Recently the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released its second annual County Health Rankings, a within-state comparison of county health covering each county in every state the United States. Newspapers and TV news programs jumped all over the results — particularly local outlets serving counties that were ranked comparatively lower than their neighbors.

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Jean-Dominique Bauby: A TRIUMPH OF THE SPIRIT

If the 1995 stroke that paralyzed Jean-Dominique Bauby was cruelly premature, at least death had the courtesy to wait until the 45-year-old French journalist finished his last assignment. Less than 72 hours after readers and critics alike hailed as a triumph his memoir of living with locked-in syndrome–a state of virtually total paralysis that leaves the victim, in Bauby’s words, “like a mind in a jar”–the former editor in chief of French Elle magazine died.

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Twilight Sequel New Moon Sets Records at the Box Office

Friday night it was Jimmy Kimmel’s turn to host the young stars of The Twilight Saga: New Moon: Kristen Stewart , Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson The Kimmel audience must have been among the few Twilight Saga fans who didn’t give the shirts off their backs to see the second installment in the planned quartet of movies based on the Stephenie Meyer novels about a teen girl’s love with the proper vampire. With its $72.7 million Friday take — more than its predecessor, last year’s Twilight, earned in its first full weekend — New Moon set a one-day record for the North American box office.

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