| Weighing nearly 400 pounds, man walks off half his weight
He wasn't happy with his weight and neither were his doctors. In addition to taking medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol -- his physician warned him that he was on track to become a diabetic. Reality hit in January 2006 at a Pittsburgh Steelers game. Novak had gone to smoke a cigarette. "We were walking back up to our seats, and I started getting winded," says Novak. "I didn't feel right, I started sweating. I didn't think I would make it back up. My heart [was] beating a million times a minute; I thought I was having a heart attack." Novak stood against a cold wall for 20 minutes to catch his breath. Fortunately, he wasn't having a heart attack but he was so frightened that thoughts of his family began to race through his mind. "A lot of things went through my head, about saying goodbye to my kids," says Novak choking back his tears.
Struggling mother grateful for help
Courtney Hightower has had a string of unlucky breaks over the past month. But the Eastover woman says she remains focused on a brighter future for herself and her three children. Hightower, 24, ran into financial difficulties in late December, when her car broke down and she wasn't able to drive to her job at a package delivery company. Her father, visiting for Christmas, managed to repair the 1994 Oldsmobile, but two days after Christmas it was stolen from her home. With mounting household bills and her daughter, Jalyn, facing surgery this month to repair a cleft palate, Hightower turned to the Woodyard Fund to help with her utility bill. She received $269. "I feel like I'm making it," Hightower said. "Put it this way, if I didn't have the kids to live for, I don't know where I'd be." Hightower has three children: Myniqua Hightower, 6; Jalyn Hightower, 5; and Darreun Miller Jr., 4.
REUTEMAN: Severance tax increase a wild card for Ritter
Meg Collins, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, wrote a Jan. 7 letter to legislators that plainly stated the case: "COGA will oppose any efforts to increase severance taxes levied on the industry or the elimination of the . . . tax credit." To say that battle lines are being drawn is probably premature. "I would like to get to a place where we have some consensus on how to go forward," Ritter said last month. Good luck. Business editor Rob Reuteman can be reached at 303-954-5177 or reutemanr@RockyMountainNews.com. .
The Chicken Doves
Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed." There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control - that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again.
|
