Ratings are Back!

Ratings for the week of 11/30/09 - 12/4/09

1 - Fox's ratings for the 8:00 hour are based on four nights due to a special program on Tuesday.

2 - CNN's ratings for the 8:00 and 9:00 hours are based on four nights due to special programs that ran on Tuesday.

3 - MSNBC's ratings for the 8:00 and 10:00 hours are based on four nights due to special programs that ran on Tuesday and Friday respectively.

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Thursday's AC360

Anderson Cooper will anchor from San Diego this Thursday night after the discovery of a tunnel from San Diego to Tijuana, Mexico. The tunnel, which was not complete on the US side, is approximately 850 feet long and began under a false floor in a bathroom. Equipped with an elevator to take smugglers down to the tunnel, it was headed towards a US warehouse.Anderson Cooper will have exclusive access to the tunnel, which was apparently intended for human and drug trafficking.AC360° Correspondent, Michael Ware will update on cartel violence which is still happening at a record pace.National Geographic special correspondent Lisa Ling will also provide reports on drug trafficking.


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An ATC Book Review of Sanjay Gupta's "Cheating Death" and a Giveaway!

Life extended through hypothermia, stasis induced through hydrogen sulfide, stories that one might expect to see in a science fiction television show are all new revelations in science that doctors are using to try and blur the line between life and death. In Sanjay Gupta’s new book Cheating Death: The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Lives Against All Odds Gupta explores these new techniques in life saving and also looks into new advances in procedures that today we take for granted. With all these encouraging breakthroughs Gupta also looks at the science behind them and the obstacles they face. While studies show hope and promise in new ways of preserving life long enough for doctors to have the crucial time needed to perform life saving surgeries hospitals are reluctant to implement changes and federal approval is difficult to come by.

With amazing real life stories of people who have defied the odds and accounts from doctors who treated them, Gupta shows that the line between life and death isn’t always clear. He encourages us to not think of death as we’ve been taught in the movies, cut and dry, dead or alive, but rather to see death as a process that could possibly be interrupted, and in some cases, reversed. Through riveting real life accounts of people who have cheated death Gupta shows real life examples of people who have been able to do just that.

The book not only takes us through the medical complexities of cheating death but also looks at it from a more abstract view relating accounts from people who vividly remember their experiences when they were near death and patients whose recoveries cannot medically be explained. He looks not only at the medical explanation for these near death experiences but also the impact culture may have on what these people recall so clearly.

Cheating Death looks at the process of dying from every angle exploring both the clinical and theoretical and providing amazing real life stories that make these ground breaking advances even more astonishing. It is an exciting, thought provoking book that I thoroughly enjoyed and would highly recommend.

In accordance with FTC regulations please note that a free copy of the book was received by ATC from the publisher.

Giveaway time! Hachette Publishing has kindly offered All Things CNN 5 copies of Dr. Gupta's book, Cheating Death, to giveaway to our readers. To win a copy all you need to do is send your name (screen name is ok) to allthingscnn@gmail.com. Entries will be accepted from December 7th through midnight ET on December 12th. 5 winners will be chosen by random drawing and notified by email that they are lucky winners. Winners will have until December 15th to provide us with their name and address, which we will provide to the publisher. In the event that we don't receive their name and address by December 15th another entry will be chosen as a replacement.

Here are the rules:

• Giveaway copies will be sent directly to the winners by the publisher
• Only residents of the U.S. or Canada are eligible to win
• No P.O. Boxes

~ Julie


All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

Your Views on the News, December 3, 2009

Here's your chance to share what you're thinking about CNN and/or your favorite anchors and reporters.

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things CNN and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

The White House State Dinner

CNN'ers didn't have to gate crash the White House State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Two on the invited guests were Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Fareed Zakaria, both were accompanied by their wives. Here are pictures of them arriving at the very elaborate event.

Fareed & Paula Zakaria
Dr.Sanjay & Rebecca Gupta
Sanjay tweeted some pictures of the event including pictures of the menu and program.

He also tweeted a photo of himself with Steven Spelberg (notice NBC's Brian Williams in the background)and his co-worker at CBS, Katie Couric.
And his last tweet was from inside the dinner tent.On AC360 that night Tom Foreman shared a video of the event, and a few laughs, with substitute anchor Erica Hill.




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What next in Afghanistan?

Monday Michael Ware appeared on The Situation Room and Campbell Brown's program to discuss what needs to happen in order for the US to get out of Afghanistan. He will also be appearing as part of CNN's team covering President Obama's address to the nation tonight.

The Situation Room

(also includes Peter Bergen)

Campbell Brown

From the press release regarding tonight's coverage:

Utilizing its world-wide resources, CNN will provide live, global, multi-platform coverage of President Barack Obama’s address on Afghanistan on Tuesday, Dec. 1. Special coverage of Decision: Afghanistan will begin at 7:30 p.m. ET. Surrounding the President’s address at 8 p.m. ET, CNN lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer, along with Campbell Brown and Anderson Cooper will anchor live coverage from New York. CNN anchors including Christiane Amanpour, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, John King and Fareed Zakaria will offer insight and analysis. Senior political analysts Gloria Borger and David Gergen will provide political perspective, while senior White House correspondent Ed Henry reports live from West Point, the site of President Obama’s address. CNN’s Michael Ware will also be reporting from New York and will offer his foreign affairs expertise. Special coverage will kick off at 7 p.m. with a special edition of CNN Tonight with John Roberts anchoring.

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World AIDS Day 2009

World Aids Day 2009 is December 1, 2009. According to WorldAIDSDay.org, World AIDS Day is an "international day to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS around the world."

CNN's Sara Sidner recently reported on AIDS awareness in Afghanistan and how a radio soap opera is helping.

CNN also reported last week on an UN report on the spread of the disease: U.N. report: New HIV Infections Decreasing

New HIV infections have fallen worldwide by 17 percent over the past eight years, a testament to prevention efforts, according to a U.N. report released Tuesday.

In addition, the number of people living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has increased, and over the last five years, AIDS deaths have declined by 10 percent, thanks to antiretroviral drug therapy and access to lifesaving treatments, said the report by the Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS and World Health Organization.

However, not all the news was good as researchers found evidence that some prevention programs miss the mark because they are not tailored for different populations affected by the epidemic.

Success was seen particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where new infections declined about 15 percent, or some 400,000 people, according to the report.

However, that area remains the region hardest-hit by the virus, accounting for 67 percent of infections worldwide, the report said. "The epidemic continues to have an enormous impact on households, communities, businesses, public services and national economies in the region," it said.

...

Source: CNN.com, November 24, 2009, U.N. report: New HIV Infections Decreasing

Other recent HIV/ AIDS related CNN stories:

Pakistan's HIV cricket team are positive role models

Cricket is the national sport in Pakistan, but what makes the First Positive Cricket Team stand out from all the other Karachi-based clubs is that its members are all HIV positive.

The team was put together a year ago by the Pakistan Society, an NGO working for the rights of people living with HIV. They played -- and won -- their first match in August, and haven't looked back.

Dr. Saleem Azam, president of the Pakistan Society, told CNN, "Every time they play the players have a boost physically, emotionally and psychologically, and they feel a lot better."

...

Source: CNN Internationl, Pakistan's HIV cricket team are positive role models

HIV+ soccer team scores against stigma

Somebody told me about a group of HIV positive ladies in the Epworth Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) clinic in Zimbabwe who had formed a football team and every time they won a match, they would march through the clinic in their football jerseys singing uplifting songs in order to inspire other HIV-infected people like them.

When I heard the story it was hard to believe. Epworth is one of the poorest townships in Zimbabwe. It has a high prevalence of HIV, more than one in four are infected, and yet despite this high number, the stigma against people with HIV is horrendous.

Women especially get the worst of this. They are scorned, shunned, laughed at, kicked out of their house by their landlord, husband (who was the one who infected them in the first place) or their in-laws.

So it was hard for me to imagine these women declaring their status publicly and to do so by playing football -- women in Zimbabwe don't play football.

...

Source: CNN International, HIV+ soccer team scores against stigma

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