Camera Phone - Shown!

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The Dog Days...

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Stomach Brush

A 15-year-old girl showed up in the emergency department at an Auckland hospital after accidentally swallowing her 7-inch toothbrush, according to a case study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

"She was running up some steps with (the) toothbrush in her mouth when she suddenly tripped and fell, pushing most of the brush into her esophagus,'' author Dinesh Lal, a gastroenterologist who treated the girl, wrote in the publication.

"She immediately started choking and her younger brother came to help.

"Part of the toothbrush was still in the mouth, but with apparently a very strong gag reflex she swallowed this down before it could be pulled out.''

The girl told doctors she felt fine, but could feel the toothbrush "churning around in her stomach''.

An X-ray couldn't detect the toothbrush but surgeons were able to spot it lodged in the girl's stomach using a camera lowered down her throat under general anesthetic.

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Describe Yourself In 5 Words...

A legislative candidate from Wisconsin can't use a profane, racially charged phrase to describe herself on the ballot, an election oversight board decided Wednesday.

Ieshuh Griffin, an independent running for a downtown Milwaukee seat in the state Assembly, wants to use the phrase, "NOT the 'whiteman's b----.'"

But the state's Government Accountability Board voted to bar that wording, agreeing with a staff recommendation that it is pejorative and therefore not allowed.

State law allows independent candidates to have five words describing themselves placed after their names on the ballot as long as it's not pejorative, profane, discriminatory or includes an obscene word or phrase.

Griffin, who is black, argued her case to the five white, retired judges on the board that regulates elections. She said the phrase was protected free speech.

"It's a freedom of expression," she said. "It's not racial. It's not a slur."

She convinced three of the judges that the wording should be allowed, but two said it should not. One judge was absent, and Griffin needed four votes to succeed. Griffin said she intends to seek an injunction in federal court.

Board member Thomas Cane, a retired state appeals court judge, said he didn't find the wording to be "particularly offensive."

Griffin said her statement wasn't directed at any one individual but the government as a whole. The b-word was referring to a female dog that rolls over, she said.

"I'm not making a derogatory statement to a group of people or an ethnic group," she told the board. "I'm saying what I am not. Everyone I spoke with, elderly and young, understand my point of view."

The phrase was included on nomination papers Griffin circulated to get the 200 signatures needed to be on the Nov. 2 ballot. Griffin, who described herself as a "30ish" community activist, will still appear as an independent candidate.