Paralysis

In good times, Japan does not need political leadership. The civil service makes everything work. But Japan is in economic crisis, trying to get out of recession and regain prosperity so Japanese can buy imports and mute American criticism. Japan is facing a run by world money managers from a weak dollar into a stronger yen, making Japanese products expensive to export. Unless action is taken and confidence regained, Japan's recovery will halt. For that, the Japanese do need a government.

Last September, Van Brooks walked for the first time in eight years. A wobbly video, recorded on a smartphone and posted on Facebook, shows the lower body of an undeterrable young man. Legs violently shaking as he refuses to accept his initial diagnosis, Brooks clings to a walker while his weight is supported by a harness attached to the ceiling. Wearing white tube socks and a pair of Converse All Stars, Brooks slowly takes a small step forward. His left foot quivers as he strains to straighten it and complete the step.

American League umpire Steve Palermo, recovering from a gunshot wound in the back suffered while helping two robbery victims, is experiencing "some degree of leg immobility," his doctor said yesterday.Palermo underwent surgery at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on Sunday, and the American League announced earlier in the week that there was no indication Palermo was suffering any paralysis from the wound.But in a statement late yesterday, the American League said that diagnostic studies "have now confirmed that injury to the nerve controlling his leg function did occur, and that some degree of leg immobility exists at this time."

A former National Football League running back whose three-year career ended after a helmet-to-helmet hit in a training camp scrimmage with the Washington Redskins three seasons ago has filed suit in federal court in Baltimore, claiming that he is being shortchanged on his disability payments. Eric Shelton, who said he was forced to retire with what was diagnosed as stenosis of the spine, or a narrowing of the spinal column, is seeking more than $18,000 a month — the highest disability payment allowed under the current collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.

"Just do it!": Words of wisdom from Nike Shoes.* Tuesday night, city school board president Joseph L. Smith opened a hearing on the system's proposed school-based management plan with a warning."I want to remind you that the board has not taken final action on anything," he told an audience of about 75 parents, teachers and staff persons sprinkled about the vast auditorium at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. "The board has received the plan but it has not accepted it."A short while later, Smith repeated himself.

IT'S BEEN THREE years since I have danced. Three years since I have broken a sweat at the gym. Three years since I have run and jumped with my kids. Fact is, it's been three years since I have walked. On Feb. 12, 1997, I awakened in the early morning with strange shooting sensations in my legs. I had had the flu for about week but had no idea that this seemingly ordinary bug would put me in a wheelchair, possibly for the rest of my life. Six hours later, knife-like bolts of pain shot their way up my legs to my waist, permanently relaxing my muscles as the paralysis stopped short of the need for a ventilator.

MOSCOW -- President Boris N. Yeltsin, in a detailed new account yesterday of the violent uprising against him in October, says he met with paralysis and face-to-face insubordination among army officers and elite combat troops before they finally moved to recapture the Russian White House."

An experimental drug given to paralyzed patients within 72 hours of their injury appears to help many regain the use of their legs and arms, bringing renewed hope to people who previously had little.A 34-patient study, conducted at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, produced such encouraging results that the chief investigator, Dr. Fred H. Geisler, spoke yesterday of a new era in which paralysis can be considered a treatable rather than an incurable disease.Standing next to two men who recovered the ability to walk after auto accidents left them paralyzed from the neck down, Dr. Geisler said at a news briefing that the study was too small to prove conclusively that the drug works.

PARIS HAS COME TO A HALT and France to paralysis in a brutal confrontation between the 1990s and the 1960s, the new right and old left, the future and the past. In the interest of European monetary union, a strong French economy and a healthy Europe, President Jacques Chirac should prevail in this struggle. He may not.The French people, having elected Mr. Chirac in May, don't much like him. He campaigned promising lower taxes and more jobs only to see the priority, once in office, for higher taxes, reduced health benefits and cutbacks of cushy perquisites for public sector workers.

In the four years since she first heard of West Nile virus, Cecilia Warren never imagined that it could trigger a paralyzing illness similar to polio. That was before she watched her father, a vigorous Crofton retiree who went to sleep four weeks ago feeling vaguely ill, lose the ability to move his arms and legs or even breathe on his own. "Talk about a completely random act," she said near Gerald Warren's room at Johns Hopkins Hospital, reflecting on how a single mosquito, buzzing around an average neighborhood, could do this to anyone - much less to a man who was never bothered by anything worse than a hernia.

The blizzard of 2009 brought two feet of snow and greatly impacted business activity throughout the Baltimore area, especially retailers hoping to attract shoppers in the days leading up to Christmas. Most of Baltimore relies primarily on surface transportation options such as cars and buses. Unfortunately, cars and buses alike are often rendered useless when it snows, which was the case when the snow started falling. Meanwhile, the light rail and subway systems continued to operate on schedule.

As Conor Finch lay on the field Monday evening, convulsing, I kept asking myself when the sport of lacrosse is going to do something about the growing number of concussions. Ask any player these days, from the youth leagues to the professional teams, and everybody seems to have had one. They are as common as tattoos, almost as synonymous with lacrosse as faceoffs and body checks. It's getting scary. Worse yet, most of the sport's governing bodies appear to be ignoring the issue. It will continue that way until the inevitable happens, when a player suffers paralysis or, worse yet, death.

We Americans are a generous people. However, we have made a practice of overextending that generosity through ever-increasing federal borrowing, while passing on unfathomable financial burdens to our children and to generations yet to be born. The official debt of the U.S. government is now reaching the $9 trillion mark. However, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States, says that the way in which the federal government measures its liabilities grossly understates the nation's obligations and has created a dilemma that, in his words, could bankrupt the nation.

"Moral paralysis" is a term that has been used to describe the inaction of France, England and other European democracies in the 1930s, as they watched Adolf Hitler build up the military forces that he later used to attack them. It is a term that may be painfully relevant to our own times. Back in the 1930s, the governments of the democratic countries knew what Hitler was doing - and they knew that they had enough military superiority at that point to stop his military buildup in its tracks.

An outbreak of polio in recent weeks in the southern African nation of Namibia, which had been free of the disease for a decade, is highly unusual because the disease is striking and killing adults, according to the World Health Organization. The fast-moving outbreak has killed seven Namibians and paralyzed 33 more, and panicked citizens have deluged hospitals seeking immunization against polio. But there was very little vaccine in the country - only enough for routine vaccination of infants - so supplies quickly ran out and people were turned away.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Shiite political leaders agreed on a new nominee for prime minister yesterday, raising hopes for an imminent end to the two-month stalemate that has paralyzed Iraqi politics. The United Iraqi Alliance announced that it had chosen Jawad al-Maliki as its candidate to head the next government. He would replace incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose refusal to relinquish the post had emerged as the biggest obstacle to the formation of a new government. Sunni and Kurdish political leaders who had strenuously opposed al-Jaafari's candidacy indicated that they would accept al-Maliki, meaning that the first posts in the government could be filled when the Iraqi parliament meets today.

CLEVELAND - All that Ravens fans want from their new quarterback, Elvis Grbac, is a jazzed-up passing attack and a bit more excitement on offense. Oh, and another Super Bowl championship. Anything short of an NFL title might be considered a failure, with Grbac taking the blame. Hearing that, Grbac laughs while sitting on the sofa in the family room of his Victorian-style house in Chagrin Falls, an area of lakes and waterfalls in a southeastern suburb outside Cleveland. "I haven't spent a lot of time in Baltimore, but it's a place that is pretty hungry," he said.

Can Bell's palsy cause blurred vision?Bell's Palsy, a weakness or paralysis of the muscles on one side of the face, affects one in 60 to 70 people. The cause is unknown but is thought to involve an inflammation of the facial nerve. Although some people experience warning symptoms of pain behind the ear for one or two days preceding the weakness, the onset is usually abrupt with symptoms peaking within 48 hours.Weakness and drooping muscles create an expressionless appearance to the affected side of the face, along with a loss of taste on one side of the tongue.

PHILADELPHIA -- The young grandson of a friend of mine was kidnapped two weeks ago in Baghdad on the way home from school. After several harrowing days, the boy was returned following payment of a hefty ransom. The family fled Baghdad. In the power vacuum that has followed December's elections, such criminality has become commonplace in Baghdad, along with the bombs and sectarian murders that dominate headlines. Nearly four months after the vote, Iraq's politicians are unable to agree on a prime minister or form a government, leaving the country adrift.

Dr. John McDonald wore a satisfied expression as a 21-year-old patient, paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident, walked on a slow-moving treadmill. It wasn't walking as most people know it. Without electrodes firing his weakened muscles, his legs would barely move. Without two therapists physically placing one foot in front of the other, he would likely stumble. And without a body sling suspended from above, he would surely fall. To McDonald, recruited earlier this year to head a spinal-cord injury program at Baltimore's Kennedy Krieger Institute, there is nothing futile about exercising limbs that can barely move on their own. The 43-year-old neurologist says his work with the late actor Christopher Reeve demonstrated that exercise might hold the key to something scientists long considered impossible - reactivating neural pathways that have been silent for years.