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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOuch: Justice Breyer breaks shoulder in bike crash
Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer broke his shoulder in a fall from his bicycle and underwent surgery Saturday morning, according to a court spokeswoman.
The 74-year-old justice was resting comfortably and is expected to be released from Georgetown University Hospital early in the week.
Breyer was riding his bike Friday afternoon near the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, next to the Lincoln Memorial, when he took a fall, according to the statement. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Breyer has had his share of out-of-the-courtroom troubles of late. Last year, he and his wife were robbed at knife-point in their winter vacation home on a Caribbean island. Shortly afterward, their Georgetown home was burglarized.
<snip>
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-justice-breyer-broken-shoulder-20130427,0,7915835.story
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but I doubt I will be so lucky
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Let's just have him retire when he's ready, and hope it's soon.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)He apparently did NOT suffer a head injury.
Thus the hope that he was not wearing a helmet, is not a hope that he would suffer a head injury.
It would demonstrate to the helmet-nannies that one can be in a serious bicycle accident without a helmet on and still be mostly fine. It would put the justice on the side against the helmet-nannies rather than with the helmet-nannies.
But if he WAS wearing a helmet it will just be another example of the helmet supposedly saving him from a head injury.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Strange that you feel so strongly against wearing helmets that you rush into a thread and hijack it just because a bike injury was reported. Very strange. That is some chip on your shoulder.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)a thread about a bicycle accident is sorta about bicycle helmets too, isn't it? Reply #2, written at about the same time as my reply, also was about bicycle helmets, although his was in favor and mine was against.
As I mentioned somewhere else, I tend to ride my bike to work, and other places, two or three times a day, so when it comes to bicycle helmet gestapo, I have some skin in the game (and from my bicycle accidents, I have some skin on the pavement too).
And I am NOT against bicycle helmets. I am NOT the one trying to pass laws forcing other people to live the way I do. I am NOT proposing laws preventing people from buying bicycle helmets. It is not me, that wants to run their life and make their personal decisions (although when I see people wearing helmets I do tend to roll my eyes and think "what a conformist putz" . It is they who want to control my life, because apparently they cannot stand to see somebody who doesn't think the way they do and who makes a decision that they would not make (one that my now almost 80 year old dad made too as he rode his bike to work every day, and one that my now nearly 78 year old mom made as she rode her bike to the store and the library.)
So what the heck, anybody, even Justice Breyer can wear all the helmets they want. Heck, wear two of them just to be doubly safe. I could care less about the helmets. It is the helmet LAWs that I hate.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)bicycle helmets and mandatory helmet laws.
Since the story did not report a head injury, or a helmet, all I said was "I hope he wasn't wearing a helmet" and not "I wish he hadn't been wearing a helmet."
Maybe the fact that the story did not mention a helmet indicates he was NOT wearing one, but the media does not want to admit it.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I don't like seat belt laws either, although I always wear one. Thanks for explaining your reaction, though. I was beginning to think Breyer had done something awful to you.
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Helmets? Not so much. When I used to bike to work in Chicago, one driver deliberately pushed my bike into a line of parked cars. The helmet worked great. The bike? I am still looking for a replacement.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)There are times I would want to wear one and other times I would rather not. I would want to wear one while riding on a busy street in Chicago, for sure. However, I wouldn't want to wear one on a quiet street at a slow period. I'd like to be able to make that choice for myself without being ticketed or bothered by some cop with too much time on his hands.
Seat belts (in cars) are a different matter. I always wear one, no matter what. But having a law requiring people to wear them can open a can of worms, giving cops yet another reason to pull people over and get in their business. A cop can say, "It looked like you weren't wearing your seat belt." WTF? How can they see shit like that? It's usually just a pre-text for them fishing for something else you might be doing wrong. People should wear them, but it should be left up to the individual.
Every time I read about a car accident where the one person not wearing a seat belt is thrown from the car and turns into a vegetable, I think how stupid seat belt laws are.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)I said seat belt laws were stupid.
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)I mean downright M E A N!!!!!!!!
I was raised with if you can't say something nice, shut the f*ck up!
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)to tell other people to "shut the fuck up?"
Since he did not suffer a head injury, nor was a helmet reported, I was NOT saying "I wish he had NOT been wearing a helmet, so he could suffer a head injury"
but, rather, I was saying
"I hope he was not wearing a helmet" so he can show the helmet-nannies that one can be in a fairly serious bicycle accident without wearing a helmet, and still not suffer a serious head injury.
I sorta thought that would be pretty clear considering that no head injury was reported.
It must sound bad though, to people who think that "not wearing a helmet" means "you are dead"
But in about twenty seconds, I am preparing to get on my bicycle and ride to work, without wearing a helmet - like I do every frigging day, and sometimes, like today, three times a day (cursed split shifts).
Glitterati
(3,182 posts)as she "thwacked" me in the back of my head for not mindin' my manners.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Are you sure you wouldn't be happier over at FR?
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)My theory is: If a bicyclist has a bad wreck in which only the bike is involved and the headline reads, "Bicyclist Breaks (arm, collar bone, shoulder) in Crash", he was wearing a helmet.
If the headline reads, "Bicyclist Dies in Crash" he was not.
I hope we can find out.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)only I am hoping your theory is refudiated.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)but I still love the word.
I think it makes a boffo new word, a power word.
If something is refudiated it is not only repudiated or only refuted, it is both refuted and repudiated, or, refudiated for short.
As a word, it is therefore at least as strong as abjure.
kiranon
(1,727 posts)recovery and many years on the bench to come.
LuvNewcastle
(16,820 posts)Bone breaks are terrible for someone his age. Sometimes they never heal properly and can be the source of a lot of pain and suffering. Let's hope Justice Breyer heals up nicely without going through a lot of agony.
I've met him several times. Very un-pretentious. He just holds out his hand and says, "Steve Breyer." I hope he's on the court for a good long while to come.
Breyer is nothing at all like his majesty, Il Massimo Scalia. Once I was asked to give a short speech to a very distinguished group of which Breyer was a part, and he came up to me afterwards to compliment me on it. He didn't have to. I'm nobody to a Justice on the Supreme Court. But he did anyway.
Tx4obama
(36,974 posts)-snip-
"The justice is resting comfortably" and is expected to be released from the hospital within a few days, the announcement said. The justice previously broke his collarbone in an accident in 2011 and sustained broken ribs and a punctured lung in a bicycle mishap in 1993, before he joined the court.
-snip-
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014467702
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)since I have been in about a dozen bicycle accidents myself - without ever breaking a bone - just leaving a little bit of skin on the pavement - ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.